In this episode of Next Up Nation, Tiffany Youngren interviews an experienced podcaster, Monique Idemudia, who shares their insights on how to create a successful show. They discuss the importance of niching down, building an engaged community, and creating quality content that provides value to your audience. And step-by-step instructions for achieving certain results in the next 30 days.

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Find Monique Idemudia at Dragon Digital Marketing

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Disruptive Podcasting

Hey there, I'm Tiffany Youngren host of next up

nation where we help podcasters and youtubers with vision become

preeminent thought leaders in their industries. You are about

to have the incredible opportunity to listen as we dig

into the why, who and what of a podcaster show. Then at the end,

we're gonna identify one powerful how one action that she

can take for results in the next 30 days. Let's welcome Monique

Idemudia, a host of Dragon Digital Marketing Podcast.

Monique, welcome.

Hi, thank you so much for having me, Tiffany.

I'm so excited to be here.

Oh, I'm excited to have you as well. I'm

i like i said i was listening to your show beforehand. So I'm

really excited to dig in. And just a little bit about Monique

Dragon Digital Marketing Podcast has released 49 episodes from

March 13 of 2020 until the day of this recording, which is June

22 2021. Monique is the founder like with other marketing agency

with the same name as the podcast, Dragon digital

marketing, and it's an agency for small businesses based in

St. Petersburg, Florida. She is a bright, execution driven

consultant, public speaker and educator. So Monique, tell me

why did you start Dragon Digital Marketing podcast?

Yeah, I wanted. So I'm an inbound

marketer, I'm all about content and publishing that content,

distributing it online, and providing as much value as I

possibly can for my audience. And I don't do any, you know,

cold outreach, or cold calling advertising and any of that

stuff. So in the pandemic, everybody was sitting at home,

were locked down. And I was saving a lot of time, I didn't

have to, you know, commute anymore. I ordered everything,

literally every little thing online. I have barely had to

leave the house for anything. And I had so much extra time

when podcasting was just you know, it's a growing industry

was blowing up in popularity. So I was like, let me start a

podcast for my digital marketing agency and get into podcasting.

And I haven't regretted it ever since.

That's so I mean, is it? Is it something

that you just did? Because you loved or did you have some kind

of outcome that you wanted out of it? Were you inspired by

something?

Yes. So I just have a lot to talk about, I have

so much content, it helps me to repurpose my content, it helps

me to network and get to know more people, I get to interview

great people, I get to be on guests and other people's

podcasts. Like Like I'm a next up nation right now. I get to

learn so much myself and build my online presence and you know,

have another channels so to speak, that I can use to market

myself and promote my agency and just be seen as a thought leader

and get out there build awareness, where people can

discover me, so there's so so so many benefits of being a

podcaster and having a podcast, and it gives me more content, it

helps me with my SEO, it helps me with so many things. The

benefits of having a podcast for any business are just yeah,

almost endless. So it just made sense. It just clicked. I guess

it was a time issue that I had inserted it even earlier than

that. But I've always liked listening to podcasts myself. I

knew kind of like the landscape and what was out there. I knew

the other marketing podcasts, the most popular ones, and most

of them are for marketers, so I wanted to, you know, put a

different take on it and make one that's actually for business

owners and not for marketers.

Oh, I love it. You know, I always I always say

that podcasting is a content marketers dream. You know, How

many years did we spend working with our clients? You know, we

started as a, you know, web we, we develop websites, and then we

robot blog posts, repurpose them into social media and into email

campaigns. And it was always a matter of when I would talk to

new clients or potential clients. They're just like, I

don't know what we would write about. And of course, we're

like, oh, well, there are these, you know, this idea and this

idea. But with podcasting, it just creates itself. It's like

it is just you don't have to come. The editorial calendar is

so much easy. Like I just feel it before we even help people

with podcasts. We that's how we did it was without a podcast.

And then when we started incorporating the podcast, I was

like, Oh my gosh, this is so much easier. So I love that you

does it sounds like you're kind of in that same space where you

like to organically bring in, you know, attention for your

clients through through content. And so how was that transition?

Did you have that same experience where it was just

exciting to have that content practically write itself?

Yes, absolutely. Um, a lot of the

times the guests already include topics that they want to talk

about in their pitches that they send to you. So you can just

pick your favorite topic that you haven't talked about yet, or

you would just, you know like to cover next from the list that

they give you. And everything just falls into place. You can

have different episodes, episode formats, too. So when I am an

expert on the same topic, we can make it more of like a natural

conversation. And it's like 50/50, I talk 50% of the time,

my guest talks 50% of the time, and it's just a conversation.

Whereas when I'm not an expert myself on the topic, I just take

a step back, and I just ask the questions, and let the person

talk the entire time and get enlightened myself and learn

something new. and benefit from it just as my audience would.

And then I take the transcripts from every episode. So it gives

me a blog post essentially, and more a test content that I can

just put all the way down to tweets, basically, I can just

put like one quote or take one sentence or two sentences of it,

make a tweet out of it, make a social media post out of it for

LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. So it's really, really versatile

the amount of content that I can create from it. And then I also

always record the video and make it like a video cast as well.

And I upload the video version on YouTube. I also embed it on

my website, I create a show notes page for each of my

episodes, where I put you know, everything that was mentioned,

sometimes people mention handy tools that they like, resources,

other websites, statistics, whatever it may be. And I have

the s how notes page. And I also always put a summary there. So

people don't have to take notes, they have like a little

checklists, or actionable tips, exercises, whatever it may be

everything that has been talked about. So people can really take

action on it. And they don't just feel hyped up, I want to

make it as helpful as I possibly can. And all of that gives me so

much content, the video gives me more content. Even and I can

take you know, little video snippets from it that I can also

share on social. I use it for my email newsletter campaigns a lot

too. So I use the insights that we've been talking about in one

of my episodes and make it an email newsletter. And yes, this

is so many different things. Yeah, do with the content, it's

really great.

Well, good for you for really optimizing that a

lot of times I'm having this conversation. And I'm always

like, if you don't do anything else, like have a blog post, and

I have to say when I looked at your blog, it is the poster

child of what I think an excellent show notes is I really

enjoyed being able to scroll to the bottom and you have you

know, like a list of these are the 10 things that you should do

based on what we just heard. And in addition to the story format,

because I feel like you know, some of us are like, give me

just the bullets and some people like that story. And so they

want to hear it. And I feel like you do a really good job of

combining that. So very good. And before we talked before we

spoke, you had said that what you want from your show is brand

awareness, authority and thought leadership. Um, in fact, I think

in one of your episodes you coined, what was it? There's

like a acronym, there's eta, or what was the Oh, yes, yeah. See,

expertise, authority and trust? Yes. Excellent. Why do you think

that that's so important.

Um, it just helps people to get to know you

better. And, you know, people do business with people. So it's

not about you know, the brand name or the company name, but we

always want to know who's the person who's the face behind

that logo, or behind that, you know, company name behind that

brand. So we want to get to know the person. And it's important,

not just that the person, you know, is real and authentic and

sympathetic to us. But you also need to know that they're

trustworthy. Are they actually an expert on what they claim to

be an expert in? So is there any proof of their expertise? Do

they have any content out there that backs it up? Is there

social proof? You know, does that person have any media

appearances, online presence, all those kinds of things. And

that is just like a prerequisite to make people trust you.

Because it's an online world, most people don't get the

opportunity to meet you in real life in person. So that's all if

they have if they perform a Google search for you, you know

what comes up when they do that. So you need to build trust

digitally, so to speak, and content marketing is the way to

do it. And if you're really really good at it, you become an

authority in your field over time. So you're not just

trustworthy and you're not just you know, an expert, but you're

also an authority and like the go to resource. What's your

website look like? Are you like a content hub of all different

things like blog posts podcast episodes videos, other

collaboration, conference talks, speeches that you given, and all

the different media that you've been featured in. And people can

see that and you're a trusted resource that your you know, the

people in your audience come to, to learn to, you know, just get

value, get their questions answered, get their problem

solved, and just, you know, find help. And that's what you want

to achieve. And that helps you in almost any regard than the

acronym eat, or EA T, actually comes from the SEO space,

because that's what Google wants to see, when they rank a website

on top of the search results. They don't want to you know,

leave their own users, Google's users to spammy shady websites,

where people claim things that are not proven and you know,

give, I don't know, phony advice, or whatever. We're

whatever it might be to us people or get their money, scam,

dumb, so many different things, websites that are not secure

websites that load slowly, all those kinds of things. So they

want to make sure that only the best of the best pages rank and

ETS a huge factor in that. And you own you can only prove it

over time. And that's why it's so important. Yeah.

Well, and so let's kind of move on to to like

who it is that you serve you what you just said, I'm a mat

use, you know, you mentioned that your small business owners

like that's who your primary audience is. And I like on

behalf of small business owners, that sounded overwhelming.

Honestly, like, there's a lot of stuff out there. But I'm sure

that you're I mean, I've listened to you and I've seen

your website, like there's an approach to it to build on to

the different pieces, but just getting it out there. And

really, the first thing comes down to who you're speaking to,

I you know, you're so good at target audiences. So I'm

imagining that you probably have it pretty pinned down to what

kind of small businesses that you work with, can you share

that a little bit.

Um, so our agency dragon digital marketing

is for small businesses, and everything is designed for small

businesses. Small businesses is basically every business that

has less than 200 employees. And we target businesses that really

want to grow, they really want to grow and scale, they don't

want to be small anymore. And small doesn't mean you know,

adding a lot of people and adding a lot of employees, you

can be even a one person business and generate millions

of dollars every year and be really successful. So the size

is up, you know, comes also down to the revenue. And that's

business owners who really believe in marketing and believe

in being inbound and providing value and creating content and

attracting people to them organically because they trust

and their products and services. They know that they're superior.

And their challenge is to let the world know and make people

see how amazing it is that they do. And yeah, basically attract

people to them organically grow their online presence. And they

don't believe in growing solely through, you know, being

intrusive, advertising, cold, emailing cold, LinkedIn, direct

messaging, cold calling all of all of those methods. They don't

want to be seen as that because it doesn't fit their philosophy

and their brand and what they want to do. So that's, that's

who we focus on in a nutshell. most business owners are not

younger people, they're older, they're like in the boomer

generation, they're not really technical. So they're easily

overwhelmed by technical stuff. And there's a lot of technical

stuff in digital marketing. So yeah, that's what that's what we

help people with basically.

Yeah. Okay. Well, and I know you mentioned

in there about, you know, that them having trouble being sent

you seen as being a challenge. So in your words, what problem

do you solve for the people who are specifically listening to

your show? And I'm, I mean, and let's just clarify to are the

people listening to your show? are you imagining that's the

same audience that you work with for your business?

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's the goal. So that's

what all of our content serves to. There might be other like,

if you imagine your target audience and you imagine like

this, like this target like this bull's eye, the content is

created for the center point for for the perfect ideal target

customer, but automatically, you're going to attract people

in the circles around that person. So there might be the

you know, one or one or a couple of marketers listening to or

other people or people from other countries because we focus

on solely the United States market at this point but our

target audience our core target audience, our ideal customers,

as well. So it's all tailored to them. And the basic problem that

we help people solve is to be seen by the right people and say

the right things to the right people, and be at the right

places. Where are the people that you want to reach, hang out

and create content that basically solves their problems,

answers their questions, handles their objections, and just

educates them and inspires them, informs them about what they

need to know some people are not even problem aware yet. So

you'd have to start from the very basics. So the basics, as

you've already said, is to define the target audience and

to create by your personas, that is the very first step before

you can do anything you need to know. Okay, who are the people

who I want to reach in the first place? What do they like? What

do they don't like that much? Where do they hang out? what

purpose do they hang out in certain places for and then you

decide, okay, in order to reach my goals, I have to be on social

media platforms XYZ, I have to create XYZ content, and just

reverse engineer it that way. And really, really serve those

people. And that's how you become successful. And that's

what we help clients to do in the digital and online world.

Love it. Love it.

One thing that you said on your podcast was

that you want to help people continue the conversation, their

ideal clients having already and just continue that conversation

with what they're saying. I thought that was really

Exactly you want to join the conversation

already going on back your customers head. Yeah,

right. Exactly. And really, it's funny,

because podcasting is exactly the same way we call it, you

know, in marketing, you know, I've done a lot of, you know,

avatars, you know, before, after grids, you know, transformation

statements. But with podcasting, a lot of times I found that

marketers skip that. And it's like, and we call the audience

promise. So like, if someone listens to your show over the

course of a year, what transformation Do you expect

that they'll have, even if they never work for you work with

you. And so it's really interesting to hear. And it's

nice when we're doing a show that's congruent with what we do

for a living, because it's easy, right? You're already on track.

To do that you don't have to create this whole other persona,

you don't have to create this whole new transformation. It's

really a continuation of it. So I think it seems like that's

what your show is and how you've approached it. So you've been

podcasting for over a year? What have you been getting feedback?

Specifically, I want to know, have you had ways to evaluate

your content? And really looked at? Is it resonating? Have you

made adjustment based on that feedback?

Yes. So obviously, I look at the stats,

and I see correlations of what topics people like the most and

which episodes are the most listened to and the most

downloaded. And when you know which ones do not get as many

listens, and as many downloads. And Funny enough, copywriting is

my number one most popular topic. So whenever I publish

something about copywriting, people just like it a lot. And a

lot of people struggle with writing. And you know, making it

beginner friendly. For people who are not industry experts

like themselves, we tend to use, you know, jargon and just

technical terms, because that's how we speak on a day to day

basis. But a lot of people struggle with breaking it down.

And there's this quote from Albert Einstein that basically

says, If you can't explain it for a little child, you don't

even understand it yourself. So that's a key point that we do to

really, really break it down into simple terms. And there is

a concept, there's a structure that each and every episode

follows. So whenever I have an expert on my show about a simple

about a certain topic, it starts with a quick question, what is

blank? Why is blank important? Why should small business owners

even care about implementing it? And then we start with, you

know, with some myths, basically, it's not just for

large businesses, you do not need a million dollar marketing

budget to realize it. There's small and simple steps that you

can take today that are already going to make a huge difference,

because your chances are you competitors are not doing that

already. Because they're paralyzed themselves and they

believe you know, all of the mess and false false beliefs

that are around there or they just have analysis paralysis,

and they're overwhelmed with the technical stuff. They don't know

who to ask or who to hire. They maybe had bad experiences before

because they just wanted to work with somebody in Fiverr and

realized that's maybe not the quality of work that they need,

and then it goes into the How to part. And that is actionable

steps, step one, this is what you have to do first step two,

this is what you have to do next, and so on and so forth.

And it basically becomes a list. And that's the list that you've

talked about that I always put in the show notes that people

can see at a glance, and execute, and there's always it

has to be action packed. It can't just be you know, bla bla

bla bla bla, two people are talking and then you don't know

what the takeaway is that make it very, very clear what the

takeaway is, I have people you know, include exercises, or

specific action steps that they can take, I offer help a lot of

the times I have a template, or a value added guide, or a

checklist or whatever myself that I offer, that will be my

lead magnet for the episode then. So every single episode

offers a lead magnet as well, that they can download directly

on the show notes page for free, and then join my email list. And

that's what I do. And then in the end, I give the guests a

chance to talk about themselves and talk about you know, their

business, promote their new book, or course or whatever it

may be. So they got a couple, they got got a couple of minutes

that they can do it in the end. But that's not the main focus of

the episodes. And none of the episodes really focus on the

person and their background story and what the name of their

dog is. And nobody really talks about. So we get to the meat and

potatoes right away. There is always a teaser, which is

basically a compilation of highlights throughout the

episode that I put in the very beginning even before the intro,

so people just know what to expect. And they listen to the

entire episode. And you know, they don't waste the first two,

three minutes with hearing the intro music and and Hi, my name

is Monique Idemudia. I'm your host and you're listening to

episode number da-da-da and this is the dragon digital marketing,

podcast and flow. You know, that's just boring people people

have short attention spans so give them some value in the

very, very beginning. And that's kind of the recipe that I

follow, I get some really good feedback from it. Because it's

really for people to learn. And it's not for, you know, people

to get all hyped up about what's possible. And then they still

don't take any action on it. So I want people to take action on

it. And I make it as easy as possible for people to take

action on it. A lot of the episodes have a summary in the

end as well where put everything in a nutshell again and sum it

all up if it's been a whole lot, and it's been a really long,

comprehensive episode. So there's really no excuse. And

that's the transformation process. I take a person from a

novice at any given topic, and I make them educated enough and

dangerous enough so to speak. So they can do it themselves on a

very basic level, they can implement some stuff themselves,

they can give it to somebody on their team. And they have enough

knowledge to know what to look for when hiring a consultant or

a digital marketing agency to do it for them. And it's no longer

just this mystery for them, they get the basics. And each episode

is also about just one specific topic. So we talk about just

video marketing, or press release marketing or buyer

persona marketing, or you know, podcast marketing, whatever it

may be in one episode, and we do not jump, you know, from topic

to topic within the same episode. So it's really, um,

yeah, basically categorize for the different channels so people

can know what to expect when they're looking to implement a

certain thing in their business. And they really know what they

get. So yeah, you basically scroll through the episode

titles, and you instantly know what you're going to get. It's

not clickbait, it's not, you know, a mysterious title that

you not really know. So you can jump in and they're all

evergreen. So if you want to learn about a topic that I've

published a couple of months ago, you can see that from the

episode title, and it's still gonna be really, really relevant

for you. And you do not have to, you know, worry about just that

just the latest episode that have been released matter or

something like that. So it's really a long term resource that

I building there.

Yeah, that's great. So that kind of leads me

to another question is with so many so many marketing podcast

because you said it yourself? Like, it seems like most I mean,

it's probably not I don't know if it's true, but it to a

marketer, it seems like it's mostly marketing podcasts that

are available. What is your unique value proposition?

Yeah, my unit in a nutshell, my unique value

proposition is that it's a podcast for small business

owners and not for marketers, and I teach small business

owners do digital marketing strategies and tactics that they

can implement in their own small business and they can do it

themselves. And I break it down, I make it very, very simple. And

I don't confuse them with jargon or technical terms, and I give

them actionable steps. And it's very concise, and there's

basically no fluff about it.

Okay and so as you have you gotten feedback,

like directly on your show from listeners, or has it mostly been

looking at the data?

Oh, both both. Yeah, sometimes I get messages

on social media, or just comment underneath my content that

people really liked it and it's helped them out and they learn

something. Sometimes people reply to my newsletter, which I

also always really, really like. That's also a tip that I can

give you don't use like a no reply email, or any generic

email that people can't respond to. But really encourage a

conversation and, you know, allow people to give you

feedback. So yeah, I get there are some times when I just meet

people on a networking event, and they're like, Hey, I tuned

into your podcast, I really liked it. So yeah. And the rest

is from stats. I would say, though, that it's more from

actual people. And I also care more about the advice that I get

from people directly, then from the podcasting stats, just

because the stats are not as advanced when it comes to

podcasting, yet, you can't see you know, as many things as your

website, website analytics, or other analytics, tools, social

media, analytics, etc, give you it's very, very basic as of now.

Yeah.

Unless you unless you do some really

advanced tricks in the background and eBuy it's

unreliable. So what I'm, I have to ask to your really good about

your call to action? What has been your capture rate? Like?

How many leads Would you say that you get from your call to

action? Which is your buyer persona worksheet? Right? Isn't

that right? Is that you,

um, most of the time, most of the time,

because it's so fundamental, and everything builds on knowing

your audience. And most of the time, it's our free buyer

persona template that I use as a lead magnet. But there's other

lead magnets too, depending on the topic, there is a free email

marketing campaign planning calendar, there's an SEO

checklist. For branding related topics, I have a free brand new

course called brand story, how you can basically build a brand

and tell your story and your stories, what makes your brand

unique, and how you stand out from your competitors. So

there's a there's a bunch of things, um, the podcast is

actually, the, if you look at it, from a surface level, the

least effective lead generation mechanism that I have in my

business, it's still a good one, and I'll continue to pursue it.

But there's definitely so if you're doing if you're trying to

do a podcast just for lead generation, and don't do it if

that's your main goal. But there's so so many other

benefits from it. The main benefits from podcasting is not

lead generation, it's really building your online presence,

the content that you get from it, the content marketing

benefits, and the networking benefits that you get from all

of the people that you need, and that you get in touch with.

Because if you had a conversation, and you sat down

with a person for an hour, it's not like those, you know, empty

connections that you just have sitting around their LinkedIn,

but you don't really know the person, you're not really

connected, you haven't ever, you know, really connected. Anyways.

So that's what podcasting opens a lot of doors for you, it makes

your platform more interesting for a lot of people, when you

can create that win win situation, and they get

something out of it, which is, you know, more exposure for

them. Maybe it's a backlink for their SEO, just though, you

know, mention them online, whatever it may be. So that's

what podcasting is the most powerful for, for lead

generation, it is still effective. But there's other

things that you'd probably rather want to do if that's your

main goal

well, and money to let me just, I just

want to kind of back up to like, what I'm trying to do right now

is establish like a baseline of like, these are the things that

you're doing so that when we move into the next part, I'm not

making assumptions, because I know there are like a million

things that you're doing and you're just getting so much out

of it. But they're always indicators. And one of the cool

things is I've done a lot of these hot seats, and I'm able to

see some trends. And so by understanding the lead side of

it, sometimes I mean, I've literally had podcasters come on

and they're getting leads like crazy, I mean hand over fist.

And I've one thing that I found too is that when we treat our

podcasts like a landing page, it's amazing because Then it's

just a matter of like, is that the format? Is it that, you

know, they're not listening to it as far in as our call to

action is, you know, and then is our call to action? The

headline, you know, I know you had a writer on recently, and

that's what they said, you know, we spend more time on our

headline than on the content. And so it's really helpful for

me to ask all these questions. I, I, you know, there are

personally I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm with you. It's like

relationships, the number one thing, there is nothing that I

get out of podcasting that I value and cherish more than the

people I meet on the show. And the people who reach out after

the show, I mean, there if I didn't get anything else I that

would be enough for me, you know? So I 1,000% agree with?

Absolutely, yeah, me too. I agree. And then

networking and relationship benefits are the base one.

Everything is basically what you make it you know, how you how

you design it from the get go and what you want out of it, and

then you can use it for whatever you want to use it. It's more

like, you know, reinforcing certain things. And making

people feel better that they've made the right decision, because

it's another it's another point where I can showcase my

expertise on and it just, you know, help people to feel

better. And to just be reassured, so to speak. Hello.

That's what I think it helps with the most it's really 80.

Yeah. But again, yeah, depends on the podcast. You're right.

That's awesome. Okay, so and I know

you've we've talked about your blog, and you've got a really

amazing social media strategy. And have you joined any online

groups or forums that were created, like for businesses who

are trying to, to, you know, get better at marketing or just

entrepreneurial sites in general? And just answer

questions and kind of be there as a Have you kind of engaged in

anything like that to get known. And eventually, I know, none of

us want to be salesy on the group. So we're, you know,

providing so I and I know your approach. So I'm assuming you're

the same way, but have you gone in and, and done much of that to

become more of a presence and make people more aware of your

brand? Right? Yeah,

absolutely. Absolutely. I'm in a couple of

groups. I'm in a bunch of groups on LinkedIn. I'm also a member

of the C suite network, which is a network for entrepreneurs and

business owners basically see C level executives to network and

to help each other out, answer each other's questions, you find

content collaboration, there, everything you need, basically.

And my approach is not to be salesy, obviously, but all I

have to do is basically get people to follow me and to

connect with me, because if they do that, they'll see my content.

And I post daily on every network that I'm on. So content

is really everything if you're an inbound marketer, and you

don't focus on outbound marketing, and then I'm

automatically on their radar. And I can automatically stay top

of mind with my content, and they'll see the value in it,

they see the knowledge and I have the expertise that I can

bring to the table. And then over time, it can be weeks, it

can be months for some for some people, but they make that

connection in their head themselves. And they come to

that realization themselves. I don't have to brag about myself,

because nobody, you know, likes doing that, and telling people

Oh, I'm so great, I've won this. And that award, I've achieved

this in that it's so much better and more effective if they can

see for themselves. And in their own pace that is so important

too. So they can stop me if they want to. There's enough content

out there for that. But they can also let it you know, flow as

well. And whenever it will be it will be and you're still cycle

gets a lot longer if you do that strategy. But the quality of all

of your interactions, and what you build your business on, and

your brand is just so much better. And it's more pleasant,

and it's just more positive and all the feedback that you get

and all the interactions. So that's how I approach it.

Basically, I help people out and answer their question. And all

of those groups, I try to provide as much value as I

possibly can. And then I say, hey, let's connect on LinkedIn.

And most of the people the vast majority of the people obviously

say yes, because who has, you know, something against

connecting with somebody on LinkedIn? And then that's how

everything starts. A fan. LinkedIn is also because I'm in

b2b. It's a very, very important channel for me personally for

you, it might be something else. But um, so yeah, so that's how I

approach it.

Yeah, LinkedIn is great. That's, well, that's

good. That's so good. And so when you invite people onto your

show as a guest How do you determine who you want? Like? Do

you just put a call out there? Or do you? Do you like have a

list of people? And then you reach out to them? How, what is

your approach? Just?

Yeah, sure. So that is all inbound to all the

people reach out to me, I get so many different pitches every

single day on social by email, then there are those agencies

out there that are podcasting agencies, basically. And they're

pitching their clients to me as guests. And I just look through

the pitches. And if it's a good pitch, I have all the

information that I need to already get their bio on the

page with their expert in some topic suggestions, social media

links, links to episodes that they've been a guest on before.

So I can like really check them out and see what what kind of

value they can add, if they're, you know, a good fit. And that's

how I decide and then I'll just basically reply, hi, I think

you're a great fit. Here's my schedule. With scheduling link,

you can grab the time. And that's it, basically. So it's

really, really simple. There's no back and forth or whatever. A

lot of people have a podcast, one sheet, which is like a

resume with their most important information that also includes a

headshot of them. So it has that for my episode thumbnails as

well. So you already have everything that you need right

off the bat, basically, there's also those matchmaking platforms

like PatMatch and matchmaker.fm , where you can find guests, I

had profiles created there. And the beginning when I just

started my podcast, I have deactivated them now, because

it's been so much like I'm getting so much that I don't

even have to, you know, actively look for guests anymore. So

yeah, so podcasting is really blowing up right now. And it's

on its way to become a billion dollar industry. So if you're

looking to start a podcast, you do not have to worry about you

know, finding no guests anymore. I will not gonna be one of your

problems is going to be the least of your problem.

And I have to say like, and I and I say this

all the time, but it seems like overnight, it went from 550,000

to 2 million over 2 million podcasts. And, you know, three

out of every five quits. So there's that too. But even with

that, when when the pandemic, you know, I was podcasting. In

fact, I wrote a book based on interviews before podcasting was

a thing. And then when podcast came out, I'm like, I love

interviewing people, like I love putting them on a platform, and

you know, like extracting how genius they're like, it's my

favorite thing. And so I just did a marketing podcast for

small business owners, called chat and grow. And it was just

so much fun. And then I started another one, because someone had

given me the idea of, you know, interviewing people who are in

my ideal audience. And so I was meeting clients and

collaborators and, and also screening out people I didn't

want to work, and things like that. And, and but I still is

doing content marketing, as I was, as I had started to do from

the beginning. And then when the pandemic came, I had multiple

coaches and mentors just be like, yeah, you should go show

people how you're doing this, because you're similar to what

you're doing. It's like, you know, multiplying the content, I

had a system and VA is and all these things, and they're like,

you should show people how to do that. And, um, but it just

seemed like, right at that point where everybody got into it, it

seemed like everybody was podcasting. Everybody was giving

people advice on podcasting, even if they had just gotten

into it. Like it was their first podcast. And, you know, in the

first two months, they had 100,000 people, did they have

sales? No, did they know any of the people? No. So I was always

one of those. Like, if you're not building relationships, it's

just not worth it to, you know, right. And so I just, I kind of

almost was like, why did I decide to, you know, go,

podcasting. I liked it so much better when I wasn't a pot, you

know, like I was just podcasting for myself. But what I love is

right now, I feel like there's a new transformation happening.

And there's a lot more interest, kind of more away from the

commercialization of it and away from, you know, at first,

everybody wanted the first 100,000 500,000 downloads that

it took to make 20 bucks a month, you know, I mean, and it

was like, I like that's not why I podcast, I can't help you, you

know. And so that way, I'm podcasting. And so, but now,

like what you're talking about where people are starting to

come back to I just want to be on everybody's show. I just want

to get out there and do it. They're valuing, getting help to

do it and things like that. So I feel like there's more of a true

podcasting culture, formulating then in the big, you know,

explosion that happened early on, have you do you? I mean, I

know you got into it right about at that March point. And I don't

want to get too in the weeds because I want to make sure to

keep my promise to you. But just real briefly, like do you have

you seen anything like that or have you As a culture shift

again in this industry, yes, absolutely

the good will survive is to say what

everything. So a lot of people get into something because they

want to hop on a trend. They want to make quick money, they

want to make a quick buck. They're just, you know, I'll

live for the hype or whatever. But they're not serious about

it. They don't love podcasting as a medium. They don't want to,

you know, genuinely build relationships and do it for the

love of it. So they'll either not be successful in the long

run, or they'll just give up. I've heard what's the statistic

again, like most podcasts, don't even have their first 10

episodes or whatever. So right most people wait. Yeah.

It's called pod fade. And yes, yeah. I

remember at 550,000 podcasts pod fade happen at seven episodes.

Seven. Yeah, right. I know, under 10. It's

crazy.

Just now told me it's 12. But I think that

that's because it became more popular to release more in the

beginning. Like for myself, I'm like, okay, so pod fades at 12.

We launched this with 12 episodes, and honestly, our

first 12 episodes of next step nation was what we had until

just recently, because we've been, like testing, I always

say, like, My show is the testing ground. And so, but even

with that, you know, now we have like, 30 episodes that we're

gonna, like, push out in the next couple months, but you

know, it definitely is a thing. I'm just glad that it's, it's

coming back around. And ultimately, as an industry, the

content is what needs to matter. I feel like, you know, the why.

And our approach to it creates that, like, it's a it's a

indicator of the heart behind it. But ultimately, at the end

of the day, what listeners care about is do I want to listen to

the content. So anyway, so again, I don't absolutely I

could talk about that all day, cuz I'm guessing, but I, you

know, let's kind of I just, I have kind of these bullet

questions for you. And then we can kind of move into this next

part. So I'm just gonna ask you a few questions, just to kind of

clarify a few things. Um, so I got an idea of who your guests

are that you bring on. And usually they're specialists just

to clarify, is that right? Like they're people who are experts

in your in the realm? what i what i say it's like, you share

an audience, but you don't directly compete with each

other.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So I invite subject matter

experts on the top they sent my episode is about each episode is

on one specific topic. And then I asked them the right

questions. And I asked them really simple questions. So they

don't even get to, you know, get going on their high level, but

they're really keeping it really simple. And I yeah, I basically,

I'm the moderator, I make sure that it really stays. Yeah,

small business owners should be able to comprehend it, and get

actionable takeaways from it and not be overwhelmed. That is the

worst case scenario that I want to avoid at all costs to have

people more confused. Yeah, will Wellman paralyze Them before

they were listening?

Yeah, for sure. That's why I'm not allowed

to talk about SEO, because I feel like I want I want my

listeners to be able to hear what I'm saying. But if I start

talking about SEO, lookout, it's not going to be fun for anybody

to have an assistant I'd be like, Okay, can you just could

you listen to me for like five minutes, I want to talk to you

about this really great tool for like, it was about metadata or

something. And she's just like, fine. It's just like, get to go

off about the solution that I found. So yeah, yeah, I feel

you. So I think it's really good that you keep it approachable,

and can you know, consumable by your audience? And so just real

quick, do you? Do you pick the topics? Or do you filter through

the guests and decide who what the topics will be based on the

experts that are coming to you?

That's upon sometimes people recommend

really amazing topics, for example, the press release

marketing episode that I population that you enjoyed very

much. My guest, Mickey Kennedy, he basically proposed a topic to

me and I was like, Oh, great. Yeah, let's talk about that. And

sometimes it's me who proposes a topic. So it really it really

depends on how the right decision suggestions are. And

it's also very subjective. You know, maybe I've already

published an episode. You know, the week prior to that about the

same topic that I don't need to talk about that again, but if

they're an expert, and they're super knowledgeable, I'm happy

to still have them on the show and just talk about something

else. So it really it really depends. Yeah.

Okay, awesome. And, um, so also, I want to kind

of just real quickly ask you about your audience. If you

don't mind. Like, I have three parts to this. What is your

audience like? What is the size of your audience, as you would

estimate it based on the crappy statistics that were provided

with and that could include you know, your website gets this

much your YouTube gets this much your podcast gets about this

many downloads, what platform gets the most. And what gets

them there? What have you found a few picks one way, what has

been the most effective way to get them there?

As the way website, I would say is my is

definitely my vote most valuable digital asset, because it's the

main driver of revenue, and there's everything on there. So

the website bundles, all of the content that I created that I

put out there, then social media is really important for me,

which is LinkedIn, and then my email list. So those are

definitely the top three. And then after that, it's my blog,

and my podcast, and my online course. Um, yeah,

so what is your audience size, would you

say?

It's about a million people and about 10,000

people are in the very core of it 10 to 10,000, businesses are

at the very core bit better, like the very ideal clients,

which means really small businesses with over

proportionally high revenue. So they got the budget to spend,

and they can do the most things. And they just need a strategy

and plan of action that is tailored to them, not a cookie

cutter template of a whatever standard funnel that you can buy

out there, but really want to work with me as a consultant.

And I can analyze the situation recommend what's best for them.

And we can implement it without, you know, having to Penny pinch,

so to speak. And so when you did they have experience with

marketing, and they feel that inbound philosophy, they believe

in the philosophy of doing business by being human and

personal will and providing value, and they're not even

interested in going down that old school route? So that is

really important to Well,

let me clarify, how many downloads Do

you get per month, let's say or within the first seven days,

however you measure it? And how like, how many visits? Do you

have your website's? Like, how big is your literal audience?

Like people listening and watching you?

Yeah, the podcast is around 1000. The

whack The website is around five 6000. Okay. And social media all

combined is maybe like 7000. Awesome, awesome. So it's not

super large. But it's very targeted. That's,

that's actually really, really good.

You know, a lot of times, you know, I, you know, in

podcasting, it's so funny for being an industry where the

statistics are so unreliable, they're always changing the

metrics to they're like, Oh, you have to find out, like, how many

listens you get in the first seven days, then it's the first

then it's the first 30 days, then it's back to the first

seven days. I mean, if you talk to 10, podcasters, they've had

advice all across the spectrum. And I do and I always say, like,

at the end of the day, we just have to look at trends, you

know, because a download, if you really look at it, you have you

really don't know what that is, like it could be they listen to,

you know, it's different. I don't know, there's just so many

different variables. So

I love to see how long people are exactly

listening. And when you have the biggest jump off and like, as

you can do with your video analytics, basically, for your

podcasts,

well, and you can use analytic tools to do

that, and put those special, you know, attribution links in there

and things like that. Which, if it were further, we're all

guinea pigs right now. So even that I feel like Well, I mean,

we could, you know, hire somebody to do that. But let's

just focus on producing it and watching trends. So I and I, and

I do believe we're getting right into that space of the big boys

understanding how to do it internally, because I feel like

that's what the market demands isn't. You know, I mean, the

awesome, brilliant geeky people who can do that, I think will go

out and and hustle that but I think the rest of us are just

gonna be like, no big boys. You guys are just gonna figure this

out. Like, this is why we don't do free hosting, you know, so,

and I and I do think there it's so much improved. So I'll say

yes. And it's improving really fast already.

So there's already so many more things that you can measure

right now. Versus like, even six months ago. So Exactly. It's

definitely improving. That's true.

Well, and I'm on Lipson, and it's actually

getting pretty, I never thought that would happen. Like I've

been with Lipson since day one. And I'm like, Wow, this looks

like one of the original websites of the world of the

internet. And, um, but they have it in kind of beta where you can

opt to go over to their new platform, and it's really

pretty, so I will I will just give them a little shout out

that they're doing a great job there. But um, so would you

consider You're just going to ask me like, four more questions

would you want is would you consider your show profitable?

If someone asked you that question? Well, I guess I just

did. But

yeah, it's a it's a tough ROI to measure, I

would say yes. But I can't pinpoint it down to a specific

value like this is how much it costs me to produce an episode.

And this is what every episode on average, returns to me in

revenue or in profit. But it's really one more element of my

online presence that I can use as like an anchor point to

delight and nurture my audience, basically. And they turn to

clients over time, and it's more content, and I repurpose it

across all the other channels that I'm using, basically. So

it's definitely profitable. It's benefiting me on so many levels.

So again, I would say yes, but it's not a numbers value. It's

just very qualitatively Yeah.

Well, it's a marketing play. Like I always

try to tell people, you know, just like you would hire a

marketing company, it's it's evaluating ROI like that. I

mean, I will say, I mean, we do have ways to, to profit without

hurting the content, things like that. But it's also just

legitimate as a free standing marketing play for sure. So do

you do all the production and the promotion yourself? Or do

you delegate,

I do sell myself and I delegate some of

it. So social media marketing, I delegate most of it. I'm the

scheduling and evaluating which guests I want on the show, I do

all of it myself, I look at all of the people myself, and I look

at their, you know, social profiles and online presences.

And then I determine if they're a good fit or not. I'm editing,

cutting and stuff like that. It depends. I still do a lot myself

though, with editing style that I just like, and I'm more happy

when I so whenever I have time, and I can free up time I

leverage marketing automation a lot in my business. Yeah. So

when I came free,

it's a great assistant, don't you think?

person you know, and if and if that assistant messes up? It's

my fault. Yeah, it helps me when I hire humans, because I'm like,

oh, was that my fault? Wait, no, was it? Yeah. Right. Was I

supposed to Yeah. So you know, it's really uh, you know,

manager helper. Also, I love it. I love it that you do

automation, too. I'm such an automation geek. That's the

other thing I shouldn't probably talk about too much. So you do

some of the editing and the cutting and things like that. Or

sometimes you delegate it, whoever you're writing.

Um, that is almost all outsourced or

delegated, or I have a lot of guest bloggers and guest

contributors people that reach out to me, and I have a look at

their content. And sometimes, you know, it's super low

quality. And then I tell them, it's not a good fit for lack.

And sometimes it's really amazing. And I also work with a

lot of agencies when it comes to that. So there's a lot of like,

blog, blogger, outreach agencies and content marketing agencies

that are writing really, really great research articles with

great sources and you know, everything and I can literally

almost just copy and paste it and put it on my blog and their

client gets a backlink. And I have fresh content, and we're

all happy. But I also do some blogging myself, okay, started

doing all of the blogging myself, when I launched a blog,

I have written all of the articles, but now it's like, mix

and match. And I love also that I get to focus on the things

that I love doing the most. So yeah, other other people can do

the writing. And I really love the podcasting and filming

videos more than more than writing. Yeah, content creation.

Well, and before this interview, I had

asked you if you would rather focus on preeminence or profit,

because I feel like I want to make sure that when we're

talking about it, we're optimizing our time. But I

always talk about both because it's hard to get one without the

other. Right. And so, um, and this really cuts into exactly

why I feel like profit is so important, because if you can't

delegate it, it is unsustainable. It just is like,

I don't care how much we love podcasting. It's fun until it's

not fun anymore. And if we have too many of those things, that

it's not our highest and best use, or it's just not our zone

of genius. I mean, some of the things I do definitely not my

highest issues, but I love it. So it just gives, it's like I'm

sitting watching TV with my husband, and I get to do that

part of my work, you know. And so I think that that keeps it

sustainable. It makes it so that pod fade is less likely if

you're able to delegate those things. So I think that that's

really why

you should do what you love in your own

business. That's why we have created that freedom for

ourselves. And if you choose to do something yourself, it should

always be because you want to do it. And not because you have no

other option and you can't outsource it, and you have to do

it yourself. So that's how it always should be. And my best

tip for that is always create a process, create a standard

operating procedure SLP that you share with people. And it makes

it really easy for you to train people to teach people and to

just find assistants who can do it for you. And it's really

clear and it's standardized. And you can ensure that you still

have the quality of your content. In short, if you choose

not to do something yourself, that's really really important.

Exactly. In fact, one of the first 12 I the

first 12 episodes of next up nation I called my masterclass

because we interviewed just the top in the industry, I feel like

we covered just about every topic, you would need to really

build a great podcast and one of the people we interviewed was

Nathan Hersh and he has a company called outsource school,

he's he started free up, which is a very well known VA hiring

company. But now he's got this out, he calls it outsource

school, but it they it's full of slps. So it's got SLP for

writing for social media for sales for like every department

that a business so and they're always asking like, Okay, guys,

what do you need next? And, and I could not agree more, in fact,

he even had, and so I, and it goes back to like, go listen to

that, not you, you know, like gold is anybody who wants help

with that, like, it sounds like you've got it going on. But a

lot of times, I feel like business owners are intimidated

by that, because we've all had experiences that scar a little

bit. Because we're like trying to run our business and we hire

somebody, and we're not really putting as much thought or

energy into it. And those SRP is really, you have to give people

the tools that they need to be successful. It's funny, because

I say the same thing about websites, I say that every page

is like an employee, and it needs a goal and a way to do it.

And humans think about how much more important that is, you

know, cuz that's a person who wants to succeed. And, and if

you have a willing person, and they're not succeeding, it's us.

And as business owners, it's hard, you know, so it's not

anything against the business owner, like they're a bad

person. Although a lot of times, that's how people come out

feeling is like they failed at it. And so I think slps are like

the life raft. No, it's like, if you did nothing else, just get

yourself some recipes. And what I The reason I thought of

Nathan's interview, he really puts it well about how the more

detailed you are, the less expensive it is. And a lot of

times podcasts are a side gig, right? So people are running a

business, and then Oh, I love a podcast, and I want a podcast

well, and they don't really have a lot of vision for profit or

what they're doing. But they're having fun to get listeners.

And, and ultimately, they're going to need to like I always

say it's like, if you don't delegate, you know, you're in

trouble. And, and like Nathan saying, he goes through the

three different levels of hiring and how, basically, it comes

down to how detailed are you, if you're not very detailed, you

need to be ready to pay a lot because that person has to do

the thinking. And everybody's doing the thinking, but it's

just a more strategic hire, it's not somebody who's just gonna,

like do the tasks. And a lot of times podcasters are such

control freaks, that you better just write down the stuff and

be, you know, pay less, because you want to done a specific way

yourself

to do that and to execute your task

consciously, and make the effort to write down every single step,

no matter how little that step might be. Because for the other

person, it's not just a logical no brainer, that that's how you

do that. And that's how you get from this to that. But you have

to write it out and put it in writing, and really treat your

business like a franchise, the more detailed the better have

processes for everything. And that's how you grow in scale.

That's so important. Because Yeah, that's what scaling is.

Basically you want to remove yourself, from the day to day

work of your business more and more, and work on your business

more than in your business. And really, you are the one who

strategizes and navigates the ship, so to speak words going

and people need direction and things have to work even if

you're not there. I think that a lot of businesses would

collapse. In Two, three, four weeks, and that would be it. All

of their clients will be unhappy and things would just you know,

end up in chaos. So you don't want that to happen. That's why

it's So important. Yeah,

absolutely, absolutely. And, um, let's see,

I think that that was about it. Um, as you saw, I was taking

notes throughout the whole thing. So if it looks like I was

distracted, I was really documenting as I went, because,

you know, this next part is coming. So one of the things

that you again, kind of going back to what we said at the

beginning, the thing is that you can envision from your show your

your, you know, what you want to get out of it, is the brand

awareness, the authority and the thought leadership. If you were

to pick something that was between you and achieving that,

what would that thing be? In your question? I think I'm on

track pretty much. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Um, and but

you I'm, I mean, I'm guessing you're here because you want to

grow your audience. So is that true? Exactly. And okay, one

other thing. Okay. Now, I keep saying one more question. But

one thing you mentioned on the forum, because we do have a form

that people fill out before they come on the show, is that you

mentioned that you wanted to grow your audience, and optimize

based on the changes that Apple recently made? Are you referring

to the subscription model?

Oh, yes, absolutely. So that's a new goal

now to also get more subscribers on the podcast. I feel like the

listeners that I'm getting right now are my audience members, who

I just I just tell them, basically, Hey, I just published

a new episode, it's about XYZ go ahead and check it out. And then

they do, but it's not really you know, people who stumble upon

the podcast, because you know, if your list is, if your podcast

is not trending, or in the top 100 list or whatever, from

Apple, it's really, really hard for people to discover you show

in the first place. So I want to get more subscribers. So my avid

listeners, my subscribers are subscribed, and that's how they

always get notified. And then I also want to focus on you know,

having more visibility within podcasting apps or platforms

that more people can actually discover the show. So okay,

that's like a, like a new goal of mine. I think it's gonna be

really, really important in the future, otherwise, Apple

wouldn't have launched the feature and having subscribers

on your on your podcast will be just as important as having, you

know, a certain amount of subscribers on social media. So

you want to keep an eye on that. And yes, I'm, I'm taking it

seriously. And I will incorporate more calls to action

to do that in the future. In my episodes, too.

It's funny if Apple or Google make a move,

we're all like, okay, or Spotify? Oh, yeah, we're like,

okay, Oh, here we go. Everybody. Look alive. Yes. That's awesome.

Okay, so if it's okay with you, we're gonna go ahead and move

into the kind of my take on it and continue the discussion. But

I want to just want to talk more about first we're going to talk

about the things that I see that you're doing well, which is

they're abundant. So anything that I have to say is just going

to be about tweaking something that you're already doing and

barely even that the first part will be, like I said, what I

feel like you're doing well. The second part will be

opportunities that I see. And not in any kind of priority, but

just like in general like observations. And then the last

thing I'll share is like if there was one thing that you

could do that I could see that you could grow in the next 30

days, that would that would be it. So I just want to clarify

too now. We talked about preeminence. We talked about

getting listeners. So would you say you're really looking in

general for listeners? Or do you specifically want Apple

subscribers?

Both and I hope that my subscribers will

also not just subscribe, but also listen regularly.

Yeah, okay, but if you could pick one, like

if you had to focus on one thing,

then I pick listeners.

Yeah, okay. Okay, cool. Love it. Let me just

make one more note. So subscriber part. And you can see

like clarifying that just helped me know, like, would that have

anything to do with it if I were the boss of the world and gave

you one thing, but since that's not the priority, it really is

just generally getting more listeners. We'll just focus on

that for now. But okay, so it drives your permission to

transition into this next phase.

Honestly, Yeah! So excited I love getting

feedback and I'm you know, always open to get feedback and

get a you know, also implement from other people's tips. I love

I used to being in the role of the one giving all the tips. So

I love to receive the advice and I'm really excited. I know that

you're a true expert on it. Oh, I'm ready.

I'm excited. I love like i said i love it. And

this is more fun when I'm kind of a fan of Already of what

you're doing, which I am, you know, I was a high school

cheerleading coach. And when I jumped in and started coaching,

I love these girls, but they were the worst cheerleaders

ever. My pastor who was also one of our best friends, he was a

basketball referee. And when I took the position as the head

high school cheerleading coach, he was like, oh that's cool. And

I told him, he was just like, Oh, my gosh, they're so

terrible. And I'm like, you're the pastor, like, what the heck

are you even supposed to say that, you know, but they were,

they were just miserably terrible. And within about 90

days, they became awesome. But the things that I was telling

them in the first, you know, months, was a lot different than

what I was telling them six months down the road, you know,

six months down the road, they actually ended up competing by

the end of the year, which was our goal was that they wanted to

be competition ready. And so while we were preparing for

competition, the conversation was just completely different. I

wasn't teaching them how to cheer. I was teaching them how

to move their arm just a little bit perfectly, you know, more

precisely, I should say. So I feel like that's where we're at.

I feel like that you just you're already a pro, you know exactly

what you're doing. And so anything I observe is just going

to be I think you're already doing it. Well, it just this is

something that I am seeing that you're probably won't even come

as a surprise to you. Excuse me. So as I move into that, I always

want to start with the four Ps of preeminence. I feel like

these are the four things that are really important actually is

important for preeminence and to have a sustainable show, but

also a growing show. Number one is to know your purpose, which

we talked about in the beginning, your why why did you

start it? What are you hoping to accomplish? Know Your people

really dial in on your messaging, which your proact you

teach people about that? optimize the promotion of your

show, which honestly, I don't think there's one thing I'm

gonna have to say that you could do better at that. I think your

repurposing remarketing is just spot on. And then fourth,

earning proceeds or profit to help pay for delegating. So

those are the four things that I think I always try to have that

framework in mind when we go through this. So I really feel

like number one, you're amazing at the at the blog post and the

website. You know, I agree with you, it's the greatest asset

anyone's going to find it's the top way people find your show,

you know, when they're looking on Apple for podcasts? Yeah,

there's there's some other things we have to do optimize,

optimize it. However, everybody's on Google looking up

topics, right? So they're looking up, do press releases

matter anymore, you know, and boom, there's your interview.

And there's, you know, that's exposure, and then it's just a

matter of how do we convert that into your top priority. And then

number two is you and back to the blog, again, the fact that

you have clear takeaways, notes, actionable steps, it's one thing

to talk about having actionable steps. It's another thing to say

like just go look at the show notes, I've got a list, you

don't have to take notes, I feel like there's a there's a video

that I watch regularly about real estate investing. And I

love it. And he's super smart. And he just like drops bonds all

the time, like I'm just constantly, but I can just sit

and listen to him. Because I know that I can go back to this

website and grab the show notes. And I feel like yours is

formatted so much like that, that it's just brilliant. And so

it's consistent with the goal that you want to accomplish with

your show. You also have a great call to action that makes sense.

I'm always telling people you know, as a podcaster. Everybody

wants to build this authority and trust and have people know

that they know their stuff. But if they don't have a next step

for those people, once that happens, like assume that it's

going to work, you know, like you want to build authority,

okay, you're building it. So now what and so having that next

step or call to action, a lot of people are held back because

they feel like it's too salesy, but it's actually the opposite.

I feel like it's too selfish not to, and you have a really good

one, it feels natural, it feels like I mean, honestly, the the

audience is number one and knowing your audience, I feel

like any other step, it's you know, does it matter? Like if

you don't know who you're talking to you, how do you build

great content? How do you send good emails, you know, so, but

on the other hand, you have listeners who have been

listening and so they're like, yeah, I already did that one. So

what else you got for me, you know, um, and then I love your

format. And I'm probably calling it the wrong thing, but I always

call it a cold open where there's just content from the

middle that just gets plopped at the beginning. I love that,

because it really gives it gets to the meat of it before they

even start listening. And you do all this work to drive people to

your show. And then if you don't grab them in that first little

bit of time, you're shooting yourself in the foot. And I

think that you did a really good job of that. And even beyond the

cold open, it doesn't drag on, it really does a good job of

just like moving on. And then I love your outro, too, I thought

your outro was really good, as well. So great format, you know,

your audience, you repurpose your content like a pro, because

you are a pro. And then Okay, so this is another thing, this is

such a pet peeve of mine, and I am so sorry to like, I love my

guests so much. And I am so proud of them. Like, I think

they're brilliant. But so often, I'll say what is your web

address, and they'll give me apple or they'll give me

Spotify, or they'll give me and it's like, just give me your web

address. Like, if you don't have your podcast on, then, you know,

put it on there and then give it to me. But I just feel like it

needs to be people are going from one platform to another. It

just needs to not be freaky, like anything we can do to

remove those barriers, the better. And so I love I love

that you do that you also have in your descriptions I saw on

Spotify, you have a link right in the first part, which I think

is brilliant. Also I and we're going to be releasing an episode

with Mark Kumar. And he, he makes bank like he profits so

much. In fact, he was on I'm just like, I don't even know,

Why are my show like, seriously. I mean, I had ideas for him

because like, I don't really care because I already make

money at it. I'm like, Okay, great. But that's how you can

grow your audience. So I don't know what else to say. But, but

that's one thing he does, it's so everything he says to do when

it comes to profit, I've already started changing how I do

things. So when we were talking about our podcast, being this

whole conversion rate optimization exercise, I feel

like having that link in the first paragraph, I think was

just spot on. So good job on that. Um, so any feedback or

feelings about that, or?

Yeah, I agree with you and everything so far.

And I do all of that, um, purposefully. Yeah. So it's not

an accident.

Yeah, sure. Awesome. Awesome. I, you know,

as a mark marketer to marketers, though, don't you feel like

sometimes people don't notice, like, just like things just,

like, I just want to acknowledge you like, very good job, I see

what you're doing. You're doing it really, really well. I have a

lot of respect for how you podcast and how you formulate

you also just get to the point to you're really good at that on

your show. In fact, um, do you so you must have an outline. And

you kind of mentioned it earlier, where typically your

your questions are formatted in a really specific way. And so

it's answered in a really specific way as well, yes,

I don't want to waste any person's time I

want them to get value, I want it to be value packed. And I

want to not just get straight to the point, but have the entire

episode be about the point. The whole point.

Yeah. Okay. And so let me just talk about

just some areas that in again, this may fit within what you're

doing, it may not, but it's just things I observed that maybe I

just want to bring up that I feel like could potentially be

opportunities. Number one is, so the call to action, I just think

is brilliant. There's an episode that we do in the first 12 in

the masterclass series for next step nation with Tom Schwab. And

he is like the premier guest marketer. So he is all about the

guests coming on the show. And he trains and as a host, I

thought this was brilliant and really helpful. His people go

into shows, and they get leads. So they go on the show, and

people sign up for their stuff. And I thought, wow, as a guest,

you know, maybe our expectations as well should be higher, if

they can do it as guests, right. And so it just made me think

that one of the things that he does that he swears by, and he's

been doing this for a long time, is that he's got he, they

actually have three levels of calls to action. They have the

easy like the free, and then the, the it's just like a

funnel. So then it's like the next step, like the not very

expensive thing. And then they've got they're like, hey,

if you actually want to work with me, this is you don't have

to go through my funnel. This is how you just like work with me.

For myself, I've translated that into two, because I feel like

three's a lot as a host, especially because our listeners

hear all this stuff over and over again. But having that free

gift, especially for new listeners is really valuable.

Because you know, you know, you know all the reasons and we

talked about on the show all the time. But the other thing is

having that third level step because then again going back to

that thought that or the second level or even mixing it up, but

having those two steps because people have been listening to

you for a long time because that's what you want. You want

loyal listeners, right? You just don't want people randomly

listening. And so you want them to feel like, you know, you've

been listening a long time. This is how you just like you, you

email this email. And that's how you I'm the one that you get or

you go to this website, you fill out this form, I'm the one that

you meet with or you know, or whatever your processes are,

this is the person that you meet with. And that having those two

levels, I think, is is really helpful. The other is to

consider having your called and again, I hate even talking about

messing up with your format, because I, I love it. But I also

with the as an optimization specialist, I'm always thinking

like, Okay, so how can we kind of play with it? And maybe not

change it a ton, but maybe find a way to softly do a call to

action? Not at the end of the show? Or do your your main call

to action at the end of the show? Where, in fact, I had one

guest where he said, Yeah, I do my call to act. In fact, it's

the same one. It's Mark Kumar, I'm pretty sure he's the one who

said this. So like I said, anything he says about

converting is like gold to me, but and he he will go he'll be

talking about something and then he'll just drop it like, Oh,

yeah, you know, this. And by the way, if this is something you

need help with, and I It feels weird as a host to kind of, and

I asked him that I'm like, Well, isn't that weird? Because like,

you're talking to this person, and then you just oh, by the

way, you know, here's this car salesman that's trying to sell a

car in the meantime, and he's like, No, it doesn't. I get

sales all the time, was like, okay, so but it's always that.

He said, it's always at a spot where it's natural. It's just,

but anyway, just there are a lot of ways to do it. And you're

trying it out for sure. Yes. And because I

know, some people have those heartbreaks where it's like,

just completely interrupted in the episode like a commercial

break when you're watching TV, and they have this pre recorded

insert that they just put in there. That is Yeah, so salesy

and promotional. almost feels like an ad and you're just in

your head, turning your ears off, basically. And you're,

yeah, you're just waiting, or you're skipping and the player

you like, fast forward 15 seconds, please.

And I need to, I need to revisit this with them

too. Because I don't know. Like, I wonder if it would work as

well. And I'm actually testing with my show with this whole

series is, you know, right now we have it towards the

beginning, but just messing around with like, as you're

listening or as we I have a I have a creative assistant that

that's the person who pulls cool content, like it's like, oh,

that was interesting. And so whether it's her myself, just

listening for that break was like, Oh, this would be a great

spot to put that little insert where it is an insert, and it's

huge. It's huge. You saying something like, you know, now

might be a good time, just to let you know that this is how I

help people. This is you know, how you get a hold of me. And

then if this is your first time to the show, don't even worry

about it. I got some free for you. Like I have a gift for you

just to say thank you or something like that. So it's

like genuinely from you. It's genuinely what your the message

you're trying to be. But we're more obvious about it instead of

hoping that they assume the right thing. Does that make

sense? Yeah, definitely makes sense. Yeah. And then going back

to the subscribers, and we've we're testing this right now

too. But with the call to action being earlier, I really like

having the last call to action to be to subscribe, like a high.

Wasn't that awesome? Because you're still here? I'm assuming

you like the show.

Right?

It's it's a good time to go press subscribe.

Much more sense than given beginning

before you even know.

Yeah

like it because you know, you just

started listening. So

yeah, and then hopefully, they listened to the

next episode as well. And then they get that call to action

again. And so then that way, it's soft still. And it's a, you

know, joining their conversation. But it again, if

they're trusting you, they're wanting to know these things. So

it's not like you're trying to push anything on them. Right.

Um, and then the third thing is guest management. This is

actually something I feel like, it's my, like, it's my

superpower. I love it. In fact, I only recently started, like,

you approached me as well, and I get pitched all the time from

people. So we do have a process for our guests. Once you're in,

it's like, I care so much about my guests. So I just want them

treated awesome. I want them to get great value. I want it to be

everything they hope it is and then to get great promotion

afterwards. But getting in is harder. It's kind of like the In

fact, I'm really quick to cancel if, like if someone doesn't show

up, unless they're like, dude, I'm so sorry. But if they're

like, Oh, well, I you know, My car broke, you know, like, not

my car broke down because I would totally be cool with that.

But like, Oh, you know, Oh, I forgot that. I'm kinda like

okay, well, sorry, did work. You know, because it really I just

feel like you're taking somebody's spot like this is you

know, like, we put so much into it as hosts, like we put so much

into preparing, you know, research promotion, all of it.

And, and I want to until I don't. And then I'm like,

nevermind, like this is all about the relationships. I feel

bad now. And and I have to say, I get over it quick to like I

had one person that just didn't show up was like, Oh, I forgot

about it. No, I thought it was a different time. And I'm like,

how could you have like, you've got my emails, you know, like,

there's a Google version. There's like everything.

Oh, yeah, the reminders, all of that. So you

should take.

And I have, I mean, I've screwed up. So I get

it, that stuff happens. But at the end of the day, I don't like

all that part. Like I don't like all the I love screening, like I

have to be the one to screen it sounds like we're similar like

that, like, No, they're not coming on the show, unless I

personally have looked at it was like, Okay, I read everybody's

answers. I'm like, Okay, this is gonna be so much fun, you know,

um, but I just feel like if there was a way to make it more

streamlined for you, maybe, then you could open up the

floodgates, but they're gonna self fall off. You know what I

mean? Like, for example, like, and I haven't gone through your

process, but do you have a form that you use? or anything? No,

I don't have a form, I really eliminate all the

friction. Um, I think it just makes it easier if they provide

all of the information that I need anyways, as a host, right?

They're in their pitch. And most of the pitches are professional

pitches from you know, agencies, or people that are really

experienced with being a guest on podcast, I don't even have a

need for form anymore. I have it all in their email, or in their

podcast, one sheet.

Well, and it depends on what do you use the

form for? So if I was using the form just for information, I

probably wouldn't use it. Because you're right, like the

pitches have all of that in it? I mean, there are things I want

to know. But most of what I ask, are qualifying questions.

They're like, is this a good fit for my show? Because even

though, on paper, they are like in, you've had great show, so I

know, but it's just it eliminates it, you're able to

open it up to more people, but yet filter it before it gets to

you. So you don't even have to look at it. You know, yes, maybe

some of the information is repeated from there one sheet,

but it shows that they're committed to being on your show,

like it shows commitment, it shows, you know, it's formatted

in a way that it's self sifting, you know, have you ever had

problems with like, once you have someone coming on your show

that or has it just all been smooth, like, smooth, that's so

awesome,

those people just they have, they're already

experts, and they have an online presence. They know how

important it is. That's why they're interested. And being a

guest on my podcast in the first place, they get the importance.

And there's just a lot of proof out there that they absolutely

know what they're talking about. And they're subject matter

experts, and I do not have to worry about them not being able

to answer any of my questions. And I see that really quickly.

So I don't do a whole lot of research on them. I just

basically scroll through their social profiles and their

websites for like, a couple of minutes, like under five

minutes, sometimes even. And I get a really, really good

understanding of who they are, and what I can expect. So yeah,

I guess it depends on, you know, your show, and what kind of show

you have, if you don't have a show like that, where you have,

you know, experts on, you might want to screen people more. And

yeah, everybody should do whatever makes sense for them.

Well, and we're really strategic about our

guests, too. So like, it's more than just topical in it. And I

don't even just mean next step nation like, in when, when I

help when I do consulting for other, we actually have a tool

that does the guest management that we you know, share with our

podcasters. But you know, a lot of times the people who come on

our show, we want a relationship beyond that. So we're either

looking for collaboration or something, not that it happens

usually happens naturally, or it doesn't happen. But even if it

happens naturally, if there's not some sort of really

deliberate, this is how we see this playing out. Because this

is the type of people that we're working with, you know, that

really comes more into the monetization and the optimizing

the relationships kind of things, which is why I you know,

it's not going to end up on my one thing list, but I just would

say like, of the things that I observed. I think that I'm just

kind of putting, I think you could get so much out of your

guests as far as like afterwards and then also reduce some of

the, you know, the longer you do this, the more I don't know, the

more you're going to I don't know, maybe you're different

than I am, but I've just like after a while I'm like no, I

just want to make sure you know, and I go

that's perfectly fine. Everybody has

their own systems. Yeah. just sent that I've also been really

lucky with the reliability. in general. They're all

professional people. They show up on time. Very rarely has it

happened that somebody forgot or didn't show up. Yeah, really?

Yeah. Most of them do. And they're prepared. And yeah, what

else? I wanted to say something else, and I forgot about it now.

Um, it's just yeah, it's just really reliable. It's really

smooth. I never really ran into a lot of issues ever with any

guests.

Yeah, well, and I have to say to my guests

have all been awesome. So I don't have any issues. But I

also will say that when I first started doing this, like you,

I'm automated. So I just, I feel like that's my assistant to

like, do the intake. And then by the time I'm meeting with my

guest, it's just kind of spoon fed. And I've been able to kind

of open it up to more people, so And also, yeah, anyway. And then

if I come up with somebody that I invite, they automatically go

into that system, and then they get the same kind of thing. So

anyway, before we Yeah, like, I feel like too, that's probably

not a priority. But you know, down the road as you have like,

a million listeners, and you know, you're only having famous

people on your show, that might be something that work, you

could do, okay, so an

I'm really particular about, I want to have

the people on my show that are able to provide the most value

to my target audience. It's all about my audience. So it's not

about having, you know, celebrities, or the most famous

people on my show, but I want people that can break things

down in the way that I want them to. And I know it helps my

audience members out the best. And there's not this, you know,

huge gap between them, because how can a small business owner

relate to a person who has built an eight figure business or

whatever, you know, they live in entirely new and totally

different worlds. So I really want to invite people who can

provide the most value, and I'm not, you know, chasing guests

based on that. That's also a criteria where I know, they're

probably not a good fit for my show, if their entire pitches

about, Oh, I got 50,000 followers, and they're and I

got, you know, I got this and that, and it's all about some,

you know, some meaningless stats about how many followers they

got, they got other things they've achieved, but it's not

what shows me, hey, that's how I can provide value to your

audience. You know, it's all Me, me, me and achievements that

don't tell me that you can provide a lot of value to my

audience. Exactly.

Well, and I think that there's a lot to be

said, For that I, you know, definitely, I always feel like

content is king. So if anything hurts the content, whether it's

monetization, or how we're bringing guests on, it's out

like it has to really, you know, sometimes we'll use a different

strategy just to shake it up. So start pouring. But it has to

still achieve that audience promise, like I was telling you

about earlier. And, you know, I know when we're doing our

strategy, we, and when I'm coaching, same thing is that,

you know, having like a 5% of the time having a rock star,

what I call a rock star on our show, I love doing that, because

I feel like people, a lot of times limit themselves. And

mindset is usually what holds business business owners back.

And people who have achieved like, there already were, you

know, we all aspire to be like you said, you know, you want

people who wants to be able to see themselves having that kind

of revenue. And so when we see these people who've achieved

these amazing things, it's I think it's nice, just to kind of

bring us out of our own space, it kind of takes it from looking

really closely at the paper to kind of sitting back and going

Yes, this is Yeah, this is what every once in a while. Yeah,

exactly, exactly. But I agree with you. That well, and just to

kind of on the other side of it, like I'm like you like if they

tell me they have 50,000 followers, maybe I care just

because but probably not. Because usually, I don't like

that as a metric. I like, like how many people engage with you

based on what you put out there that that's impressive to me.

Um, and, you know, yes, we've had people with a lot of

followers, bestselling books. And I will tell you, those

episodes do really, really well. You know, they get listened to

by more people, we get exposed to more people that wouldn't

have found us otherwise. But it is never, I'm going to them

going. You are the type of person who would inspire the

people that we're talking to what do you think, you know, if

we teamed up so I agree with you wholeheartedly, right. So with

that, so we talked about some areas of opportunity, which is

so helpful, because then it gives me a sense of a better

sense of like, where you're wanting To go, what kinds of

things fit in better with what you're trying to do. At the end

of the day, if you were to just make one change that I feel

would would really help you get more listeners, it's definitely

something that you have to tweak and kind of play around with.

But I do think it's just that how to structure the call to

action. But having that, because your show is shorter, it's very

to the point, I think that having a subscribe now at the

end of the show would be really effective. Again, you want more

listeners. So when it comes to that, I would just say that. I

mean, again, I don't know what I was thinking. I just think,

again, this, like, Wow, my number one advice has nothing to

do with getting more listeners. However, it does have everything

to do with getting loyal listeners, you know. So as

you're building kind of your tribe, per se, it's really like

they're there. Okay, now you've got them, you know, they're on

your email list, or they have a closer relationship with you,

then they're referring, right, what's the number two way that

people find shows is through referrals? So if you've got

these people who are close, they're like, Yeah, I was

listening to her show. And then I, you know, I got this free

download. I think it really helped you, you know, did you

know that since I found my target audience that now this is

where I'm at? Or Oh, I heard this on this other show. So

you've got beyond just like more listeners, you've gotten that

loyal listener base that will the referrals are the I feel

like the most valuable listeners you're gonna get. So you just

really get those golden listener. So I would say that

that would be the thing that I would play with is just getting

them for deeper into becoming a loyal listener helpful. Yeah,

definitely. Okay. Good, good. Well, is there anything else

that you wanted to add when it comes to what we just talked

about, like growing your listener base? The observations,

anything like that? think I've shared everything. Okay.

Awesome. Well, and too, as you're listening to this show,

be sure to go check out dragon Digital Marketing podcast, you

can look it up on your favorite podcasting platform or go to

dragon dash digital dash marketing, com hit podcast, and

Monique, is there anywhere else that people can find you or

anything else you want everybody to know?

The best way is the website. Because there

you can find all of the content, the podcast of lack the free

branding course. All other resources, the free downloads

and cheat sheets, checklists, templates, all of that I have on

there that you can grab. And there you can also find all the

social links on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and on

YouTube. And that's also the best way to reach out. So yeah,

I love that website. And has everything you need on there.

Well, I have to say, you know, I, when I when

I do my research, because I promise two things. One, I

promise, an actionable step that you can take that will help you

get more listeners, but then also that I'm prepared. And in

doing so I usually will listen to bits and pieces of a lot of

episodes. And then I'll listen to a bulk of one episode. And we

talked about it beforehand, the press release episode you had

and the person was that you interviewed. What was his name?

Mickey Kennedy. Yeah, yeah. Awesome, obviously. I mean, he

he does press releases for what, like a third of the shark tank

of the people who end up on Shark Tank and yeah, I he just

was so, so helpful. And we talked about beforehand how

before the internet press releases was really how I got

out there. And it hasn't changed. Like it's just so

powerful. And it's a it's a great way to get out there. So I

highly recommend that episode. The other one that I listened to

a bit was, it was a writer who's also a poet like at night. He's

a poet and I just thought that was so fascinating. Like, that's

somebody who really likes to write. So I would say like you

definitely have great guests, I highly recommend the show.

Monique, is there anything else you'd like to add before we

I am good. So yeah, thank you so much. For