Podcasting is an excellent way to grow the relationship you have with prospects and customers, but how does that translate to business growth? In this episode of The Growth Pod, Isabella Sanchez Castaneda shares how podcasting can grow your brand.

Specifically, Isabella shares:

• How to grow your revenue through podcasting.
• The #1 most important thing when launching a podcast.
• Key mistakes to avoid when hosting a podcast.

Mentioned in This Episode:

About Isabella:

Isabella Sanchez Castañeda is an award-winning podcast strategist and producer for expert personal brands. Isabella is the CEO and founder of Isa Media Inc, a digital marketing agency focused on helping you grow your visibility and revenue through podcasting. Combining her background in journalism, dedication to marketing, and years in podcasting, Isabella is here to help you know exactly what to say in your next podcast episode.

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About Angela

Angela Frank is a fractional CMO with a decade-long track record of generating multimillion-dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of The Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs.

Her new book Your Marketing Ecosystem: How Brands Can Market Less and Sell More helps business owners, founders, and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies.

Angela is the host of The Growth Pod podcast, where she shares actionable tips to help you build a profitable brand you love.

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Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast, we have Isabella Sanchez Castaneda, an award winning podcast strategist and producer for expert personal brands.

Isabella is the CEO and founder of Issa Media Incorporated, a digital marketing agency focused on helping you grow your visibility and revenue through podcasting.

Combining her background in journalism, dedication to marketing, and years in podcasting, Isabella is here to help you know exactly what to say in your next podcast episode. Isabella, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am excited for our chat.

Today.

You're going to share why every entrepreneur should have a podcast. Something that I think we're both very passionate about.

But before we get started, can you share a little bit about why you're so passionate about this topic?

Absolutely.

So I really have grown to love podcasting, not just because of the benefits that it can have for the business, but really for the benefits it can have for the host. And oftentimes people are resistant to starting their podcast because they're like, who wants to listen to me? Who cares about what I have to say?

Or they think they'll be judged or just a lot of different fears. And so I love and am committed to watching hosts evolve that thought and evolve into, hey, I actually have something really important to share.

I can bring people together through my words, through what I say.

And so just having started originally it was, you know, a cool medium, a great marketing opportunity, but over time, it's really become a confidence tool. And just watching that evolution is so amazing.

I love that. I think that it's so fun, just like for me, who's pretty new to podcasting, to see that experience.

And I love that from your perspective as somebody not only who has a podcast, but you've helped so many other entrepreneurs with their podcasts. I love your perspective there.

And I'm curious, what are some of the benefits that you've seen with the entrepreneurs that you've helped when hosting a podcast?

Yes. So aside from that confidence piece, it really does help you become a better communicator.

It really does help you get that confidence up in terms of what you're saying. But what a lot of business owners care about is what is it going to do for the business itself.

And in basically every industry, a podcast helps build trust. It helps build people's ability to see you as the expert they want to invest in. Because there's so much credibility in a long format.

The listener right now can tell whether or not I believe what I'm saying. They can interpret from not even a conscious place, but from a subconscious bodily place, whether they think I'm a liar or not.

And that is easier to do with audio, with video, when you are able to hear someone go up and down in their voice and talk for a While in a 30 second clip, it's more challenging to do.

I recently learned this actually from a hostage negotiator that the people who go in undercover usually try to limit what they say to like 15, 20 seconds, maybe 30 seconds, because it's easy to lie in short bursts, but it's really hard to lie in long form. And so with reels, with stories, people aren't necessarily lying, but it's harder to know if the person is being authentic.

But when you have that wider range and that longer format, it's easier to say, oh, that person is really an expert, I'm going to go with them instead of the person that doesn't have that medium available.

I think it's so interesting how you compare a longer form podcast to the short form media.

And I think that even like you said, they might not be lying in the short form, but a lot of short form has to be so attention grabbing, it's almost performative. Right. Where when you sit down in a longer form, it's more like you're talking to somebody, somebody one on one.

Either you are in an interview like we are now, or you're talking, you know, one on one as the solo host to the guest and it creates that relationship. So I think that's so interesting. How you compare those two, in your opinion is guesting.

So being a guest on podcasts like you are now as powerful as hosting and why do you think that or why do you not think that?

So I definitely think it's more powerful than not entering into podcasting at all. So a lot of times folks are wondering if they even like this medium, if they're even interested.

And guesting is a great first place to go because you get to test do you like talking about it in a audio first format? Maybe it has video on top and going into depth about your topic. Or it might help you discover that no, you don't.

And you prefer blogging or you prefer writing longer newsletters and you get to discover that before and maybe investing in an extensive microphone and software and a producer and everything on your own when it comes time to yes, I like the podcasting medium, you decide that it's for you, that it's really going to help you communicate better. Great. Then I would say the best strategy is to have your own show and then Guest on other people's.

Because podcast listeners like to listen to other podcasts.

So if you're on someone's show and you say, hey, I have a show, those folks are more likely to go check out that show than they are to go join your email list or sign up for Instagram or follow you on Instagram right away, since it's a different medium. So the winning combination is having both guesting and your own show. But if you have to choose not doing it at all or doing it, guesting is amazing.

I love how you're using guesting as a way to get an entrepreneur in the podcasting space and kind of dip their toes in the water to see if they like it. But I also love what you were saying about, you know, using guesting as a tool to get people to listen to your podcast.

It's a pretty low barrier to entry. Ask, you know, hey, you're listening to this podcast, and if you liked what I said. I also have a podcast.

And you're just trying to continue to grow that relationship with the listeners. And I think that is very interesting, you know, in the strategy.

A lot of people are like, you know, I'm very sales driven and I want to make a sale from this, but, you know, taking the time to nurture that relationship is important. Speaking of important things, what is the most important thing, in your opinion, when an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur sets out to launch a podcast?

Yes, I think the most important thing is knowing what you plan to say after episode 10. So, so many people get really excited about having a podcast and they think of the first episode. And usually the first episode is, why am I here?

Why did I start my business? Why did I start this podcast? Episode two is maybe diving a little deeper into a particular part of the journey.

And then they give a couple tips at episode three, four, and five, and they're like, I've run out of ideas. And maybe they have a couple guests lined up.

So they get to episode nine and they get to episode 10, and they're like, I've run out of friends and I've run out of ideas. I guess I'm not podcasting anymore, because especially as business owners, everything else is more important.

Like, it's really easy when you've lost the inspiration to say, whoops, my client needs me. Can't do this.

So if you start and you decide the first 12 episodes and you say, I'm gonna have this many guests, I'm gonna talk about these things, and they're gonna build upon each other in this way, they're going to lead to a specific offer.

I always encourage people reverse engineer your episodes from the offer that you're trying to sell, and then you plan from the very beginning to get to 12. It'll be a lot easier to stick with it and actually endure in this podcasting game. Because pod fade is the most common issue with podcasting.

It's just people running out of things to say or putting something else as a bigger priority.

And so we've talked a little bit about the benefits of being a guest. We've talked about the benefits of being a host.

I want to talk now about the different styles of podcasting shows, which is an interview or a solo style show. In your experience, if your goal as an entrepreneur is to eventually drive business from your podcast, what style is best, interview or solo?

So I don't ever want to tell people, ditch the interviews altogether because it is amazing to be able to collaborate like we are right now. I would always encourage at least hybrid. My favorite is solo only, but hybrid is a good transition point.

And so the importance of solo episodes is to position you as the expert, as the authority in the space because you're the person who's being invested in. When there are only guest episodes. People don't see you as that authority. They see you as a curator.

They see you as someone with an amazing network, maybe someone who asks great questions to other people, but they have to work really hard to see you as, oh, this person is an expert at systems, or this person is an amazing real estate agent, or this person's an amazing private practice person. I'm thinking of different clients and they're having a hard time making that leap when you are only asking questions.

When you are answering questions through a solo show about your expertise, they can say, oh, I see how much they know. That's really cool. So having solo episodes, at least maybe one or two a month, really, really helps build that.

If you go towards a solo only strategy, really building it again, reverse engineering from the episodes and saying, okay, I'm launching a course on, I'll use systems again. If you're someone who's launching a program about systems and how to onboard clients appropriately, then you would break down episodes.

Solo episodes can be 10, 15 minutes. They don't have to be long. And you would say, okay, this is the discovery call form and this is how you can automate the discovery call form.

This is how you can automate the contracts. Might be episode two. Talking about mistakes people make in follow up. Might be episode three.

Mistakes people make with onboarding a client, that first email that you get might be episode four, all of them leading to, hey, if you don't want to make these mistakes, or, hey, if you want to learn more, you can go to this course and you have that room to talk about it in solo episodes, where you might not in guest episodes.

I love what you're saying, and I am realizing now that I need to go do that for my own process.

I do interview and solo episodes, but a lot of my solo episodes are talking about problems that I'm seeing in the marketing space or things that I've seen clients work through.

And I will say that's one of the benefits of an interview style show is just how much inspiration that you get from the people who are experts in their niche.

So, yeah, you can still pull from your clients, right? Like, those mistakes that you're seeing just talking about it from a level of like, how can I tie it back to exactly a benefit of what you do?

And if you can say, okay, I. Before people work with me, I always see them make XYZ mistake. For me, it's cover art. I always see cover art looking kind of wacky.

And so I can make an episode and say, like, before people start working with me, their cover art typically looks like xyz. And I really highly recommend that it has bold fonts, clean colors, and a picture of the host on the front. And people can start to tweak it.

And then when they come to me, they're a little bit more ready, they're a little bit more open, and I tie it back to, hey, if you don't want to figure this out on your own, come into XYZ Offer. And you can just repeat that formula on every feature of your program, of your offer, of your services in general, and just from different angles.

I love that it's a way for you to provide value to the listener. And a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, were like, no, we don't. We got it.

We'll figure it out, and you'll give them enough information to make an improvement. And so they're creating that trust with you.

But then inevitably, me, when you get to a spot where you realize that you can't take it all the way, you're there to offer that help and support. And so that's really interesting and I think a valuable way to build that relationship with your audience.

Speaking of now building the relationship and you've launched your podcast and your past 10 episodes, what are some of the things that we should avoid when we Are podcasting for our business. Maybe, like, three key mistakes or the most common detrimental mistakes that you see people making in their podcast.

The first one, I would say, and this got heated on threads, actually, but it's not jumping right into your episode. The mistake is to not jump in.

If you go in and you think you're building rapport when hosts do this, they're always coming at it from a good place where they're like, I'm gonna build rapport by talking about my weekend. I want them to know me. I want them to like me.

So I'm gonna tell them about going to the park with my kids, and I'm gonna tell them about the trip that I just took.

But then the episode title was six ways to sell on your Instagram stories, and you clicked it, and now the person is talking about their weekend and their husband, and you're like, what am I doing here? And you're actually losing trust with the listener when you do that, when you take a detour at the beginning of the episode.

And so that's a huge mistake. It's not jumping into the episode. The second mistake would be not taking the opportunity to invite them to go deeper.

So a lot of hosts will create these incredible, incredible episodes and give all this value. Present agitate a pain point, present a possible task or tip that they can do, and then say, cool, see you next week. And that person has just.

Their pain point has been agitated. They're ready. They're much closer to buying, but now they don't know what to buy. They're just like, I now know that I have this problem.

What do I do with it? So if you do take the opportunity to invite them to go deeper, inviting them to go deeper might be an email list, a freebie.

It might be a free consult call, or it might be directly into an offer because you've said, hey, I'm letting you know that there's a better way, and now your problem can be solved. And so many hosts get afraid to be salesy. Or they're like, oh, the person's gonna feel like I took advantage of their time by now pitching.

And I'm like, no, they're gonna appreciate it if you did the episode well. They're going to appreciate knowing where they can go, get the solution, and so really focusing on those beginnings and ends.

And I would say the third thing is not taking the time to promote their episode. So, again, so much love and effort goes into each recording, and then it fizzles when the easiest thing you can do is send an email.

Say, hey, if you've ever wondered about this topic, or if you do have a guest on saying, this person just gave us this big juicy tip. Go click on the episode. Sending a quick email, posting a story.

Even if you are using Instagram, even if it's just hitting the share button on Spotify, it'll create this like one slide graphic on your Instagram stories and you can share that. That's better than not sharing it at all. And then it's controversial.

But the new episode announcement on your feed, no, that's not going to bring in new listeners. If you like, put a little canva graphic that says new episode and the title of the episod.

It won't bring in new listeners most of the time, but it will remind your existing listeners that there's a new episode for them to consume. So making sure that you really promote the show and get people into what you're taking so much time to create.

I love that. Isabella, you are somebody who helps people do this in their own businesses, and I'm sure that keeps you really busy.

But I'm curious to know what's next for you. What are you working on?

I appreciate this question. So I have talked this whole time about solo episodes, and I love them and would do them all day long.

However, I recently went on a challenge to do 60 to 70 interviews in the span of about 50 days, and yesterday I hit interview number 60 and I've been learning so much about being a great host with guests and have created a second show called the Thought Leaders Podcast. And that has me so excited because it's just learning an entire new realm of this industry that I already love.

And I'm just hoping to be able to share those insights deeper with my clients and with new people.

Amazing.

And if somebody is listening to this episode and they're realizing that they want to take their podcast to the next level or they want to start a new podcast for their business, what's the best place for them to get in touch with you?

Yeah, so Issa Media Inc. Is is a M E D I A I N C and you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. Usually if you type that in wherever, you'll find a page for me.

And I'm happy to just talk about how that can look for you. Even if you're in an industry where you're like, why would I create a podcast for this? I'm sure there is a way and we can find it together.

I love that if you are listening and any of that sounds good to you. All the links will be in the description, so everything will be right there for you. Isabella, thank you so much for joining us today.

I really enjoyed our conversation.

Thank you so much for having me.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Growth Pod, please leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.