Are webinars still effective for growing a coaching or speaking business?

If you're thinking of using webinars, you'll want to get some insights from one of the founders of the amazing platform Webinar Ninja, Nicole Baldinu, and she's my guest on this episode of Podfluence.

We go behind the scenes of Webinar Ninja and also one of the top business podcasts in the world, $100 MBA with Omar Zenhom, Nicole's husband and business partner. Here's the link to the episode we discuss in the show: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-%24100-mba-show/id906218859?i=1000578374648

We discuss how important podcasting has been to their businesses, both as hosts and as guests. You'll want to know what Nicole says you'll catch with a podcast...

Nicole shares some of her journey to being an entrepreneur, having previously been a school teacher. We both had some things to say about moving from regular jobs into entrepreneurship and the challenges that come on that journey.

Nicole has her own show out with her best friend Kate Erickson, it's called 'Nicole and Kate can relate.' Do go check it out. You can also find out more about Webinar Ninja here: https://webinarninja.com/

Enjoying the content? Join me for the Podfluence Weekly newsletter HERE to get articles and show updates every week.

You are warmly invited to join other coaching & speaking professionals who are building their authority through podcasting in the Podfluencers Facebook Group and pick up your free download of The Complete Podcast Guest Superstar Framework

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If you've ever wondered to yourself, who am I to be an entrepreneur,

a coach, a speaker, or a podcaster?

This episode shows that Even from a completely non-entrepreneurial

background, you can make that change.

This is Podfluence the show that helps you to grow your influence

and income with podcasts.

My name is John Ball and my mission is to help you as a self-employed business

coach or speaker to grow your influence and income now so that you can have

a continuously thriving business.

That said, if you are a personal brand, service-based solopreneur, this

content can definitely help you too.

Nicole Baldinu is not just one of the nicest people you

could ever hope to encounter.

She's also a founding partner of Webinar Ninja and the $100 MBA course and

podcast with her husband and co-founder Omar Ze nhom , one of the things I

was particularly interested to get into with Nicole was understanding

more about webinars and using them as a tool to grow your business.

Nicole shares with us some of the best practices and also some of the things

to avoid doing with your webinar.

she also shares with us why you may want to consider starting your own

podcast, and certainly how her and Omar ended up starting the a hundred dollars

MBA and building that into one of the most downloaded podcasts in the world.

When we recorded this show, I was just coming back from, quite a long hiatus

from not having recorded any episodes at all and just rebranded the show.

I say that in the hope that you might forgive me, that I was woefully

under prepared for this interview.

and the reason I put it out even at the risk of my own embarrassment

is because Nicole is a high value guest, and she saved the day.

Even with a poor interviewer on this particular episode, you're

gonna get a lot of value outta the conversation that I had with Nicole.

So I tried to edit it to make it as cringe free as possible for you to listen

to so that you get as much of the value that we talked about as you can get.

That said, if you have your device, your hand right now, do me a solid

and click the plus button on on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you

need to press on whichever listening platform you're using to subscribe to

the show so that you can get weekly updates of Podfluence as they drop.

For now, pop in your EarPods.

Let's get started.

Welcome to the show and today on Podfluence, I am very happy to be

joined by someone who has some, some serious expertise and, some interesting

business ventures that I am looking forward to talking about because they're

all gonna be very relevant to you.

If, if you are a coach and a speaker or if you have an expertise based

personal brand business, this is definitely something you're gonna

be wanting to pay attention to.

So let me formally welcome to the show, Nicole Baldinu.

Hey.

Hi, Johnny.

Did, did I say your name right you?

You did.

I think I got really excited when I heard you say my name.

Right.

Look, I've really been looking forward to speaking to you, not just because you are

such a nice person and, and when we had a chat before, I thought you're so nice

and, and I'm really looking forward to having you on the show, but also because

you are involved in some amazing business.

particularly fascinating to be that you have a, a webinar business.

It's a webinar ninja, is that right?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's one of our bus.

Tell us a little bit more about the webinar business

and why you started that.

I wasn't always in business.

I actually started my career as a teacher, a high school teacher, and I did that

for 12 years before going full-time into I'm gonna do something else.

I don't know what that something else is gonna be.

It turned out to.

Entrepreneurship, which led to the a hundred dollars mba and

then subsequently Webinar Ninja.

That's really in, in, you know, a nutshell how that kind of trajectory led me to

Webinar Ninja and I co-founded that with my husband and co-founder Omar.

And really the way Webinar Ninja came about was quite early on.

I mean, we're talking 2014 now, so it's, you know, at the time there weren't

that many other solutions out there.

Mm-hmm.

, but we had already started the a hundred dollars mba, which

at the time initially started.

Business training and community for aspiring people to, learn the

foundations of business, which I didn't have at that time, like 10 years ago.

I did not know anything about business.

And I, and I don't mind admitting that cuz I've learned a lot along the way and

I'm still learning, but me too, right?

Aren't we all?

So we had the a hundred dollars mba.

We were trying to get new members.

So that membership was slowly growing and Omar started running webinars

to teach business, to give little workshops and bring in new members

to the a hundred dollars mba.

And so as I said 2014, there weren't a lot of solutions out there.

He's kind of frankensteining bits and pieces together to

make it all work each week.

And and it was really quite a headache to put those webinars together.

So it was really early days.

He had a little bit of coding and developing skills that, you know, so he

was able to do it, but he thought there's gotta be like a better way to do this.

So he did recruit just a freelance developer at the time to help him

create a very minimal, viable version of that first version of Webinar Ninja.

And when we were running those workshops, I he's teaching these workshops on

this thing that he's put together.

Somebody on the workshop asked, oh, what are you using to run this webinar?

And he just said something, I slapped together.

And then the subsequent question was, can I buy it?

Right, of course.

. So that, that makes Exactly.

Cause I think at the time, I mean I was doing webinars at that time

and I think pretty much the only horse in town was go to webinar.

I mean, it was like that, that, or pretty much nothing.

The grandfather of the industry.

Right.

We always refer to it . Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But you know, I, he had its limitations and I'm pretty sure it still does as well.

Yeah.

I think I haven't checked it out recently.

But I mean, I don't want thing

to have changed

. Nicole Baldinu: One one.

I know, and one thing, you know, one thing that Ira and I have kind of abided

by and is that we know how hard it is to build a software, so it's right.

I don't wanna ever badmouth any other in the competition or cuz I just

know how incredibly difficult it is.

But yeah, I'm sure I actually don't even know if it still exists

, John Ball: so.

Oh, do you know it?

It's been so long, but there, there's I guess most people are kind of D Zoom.

I think they are still around.

I'm pretty sure I've been on some webinars with people who are still using them.

Yeah.

But.

Yeah, I mean, certainly they don't have necessarily the functionality

that a lot of people might want or at least they didn't.

I couldn't say now.

It's been so long since I checked them out.

So what were the sort of things that you were able to do differently?

I think we wanted to create as former teachers, so both er and

I, were former high school teachers before we turned to full-time entrepreneurship.

That interactive element that, the less of the one-sided, just, transmitting

information and not getting anything back was something that, we wanted

to replicate in the online space.

Right.

In having, Back and forth, whether it was a, an interactive chat, a way

to ask questions, polls, all of that.

So we're really looking at when building webinar ninja and all the

different iterations of it, always looking to how can we maximize the

interactivity and the engagement and the participation of people who are on there.

Because, know, like really it kind of became this thing where, you

know, a live webinar was the next best thing to an in-person event.

And of course we saw, over the pandemic how critical these solutions became when

people couldn't meet in-person anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

I think well, I mean, zoom has clearly increased in value during that time

and, uh, to a point where I know a lot of people still have some Zoom fatigue

from from the pandemic and stuff, but so many people were scrambling mm-hmm.

to transition their businesses.

Yes, online who had been mainly sort of in person, face-to-face

kind of things, and now suddenly had to have an online presence.

Now some people did that very swiftly.

And smoothly at best.

For some people it wasn't quite so easy.

Were you able to help some people make that kind of

transition with their business?

That was what was really interesting and one of the challenges,

to be honest, because we did end up having customers who were very new, were

trying to make that swift transition and frankly, we were desperate to get

their business and their services and their offerings online so that they

could continue to keep the lights.

So you were dealing with customers who again, were, they were used to

maybe the zoom, the meeting aspect of Zoom with being able to see everyone

versus, oh, this is different because this is more like a one to many stream.

So you had to there was that element of education and getting people familiar

with what's the difference between a meeting software and a webinar platform.

So there was that aspect And, there was obviously those businesses that

were very physical, karate studios, dance studios, fitness instructors

that were trying to make their whole offering work with tools like ours.

and some of those really struggled because they have so much

feedback from, you the people that they're working with, obviously.

And then there were some really interesting case studies and businesses

that were very much in person.

And I'm thinking of one in particular, Cass, who's runs a

fashion styling, personal styling business next level wardrobe.

she's a fashion consultant.

She does in-person styling.

She shops with her clients.

And when everything's shut down, what was she going to do right?

And it was really interesting to see her business evolve and her offering

evolve when she started delivering webinars, teaching all the fundamentals

of fashion and, styling and all of that.

And then at the end, offering people to work more with her one-on-one

and she was able to continue.

And a lot of that A lot of her business still, depends on bringing in new

people via webinars and, and continuing to serve people all over the world.

So it's really, it's an interesting time.

It was a really interesting time.

De definitely I know for me, I mean, I've been doing

webinars I think since around 2011, something like that.

So I, it wasn't a big transition for me.

It was out of something I was already doing.

What were you, t what were you.

Doing webinars.

I mean, you could teach me like 2011.

Wait a second.

No.

Who's the expert here?

. John Ball: Well, I don't know if I

is interesting, but and certainly experienced in delivering them.

No, because I've worked with T Harv Eker since around that time.

Okay.

In, as an online coach and trainer with them they had me, so I was initially

doing go to webinar stuff with them.

and then we transitioned when the industry standard became a bit more like

you should be seen on video and mm-hmm.

We switched everything over to Zoom, but you know mm-hmm.

, I had to learn, not just learn how to work with the technology, but also to

be able to deliver in a way that was gonna be interesting and engaging.

Uh, Especially with, if you know how someone who is quite passionate about

what he does and he's very key in that his coaches and trainers have

kind of passion and excitement with people as well.

So yeah, there was some experience there, but I certainly still wouldn't

call myself a webinar expert.

I still learned so much about this subject from so many other people all the time and

something Oh, yeah I'm the, I'm no expert.

I'm just experienced . Yeah.

That's just, that's the best I can say.

makes you an expert to me.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Ki kind of, kind of, but, but that brings me to an

interesting thing here because.

Delivering webinars, if we even call them webinars.

A lot of people now are saying, don't call them webinars because

people are sick of hearing webinars.

You, is that, have you come across that?

Yeah, there's definitely like, a bit of, like we talked about

before, a zoom fatigue or a cookie cutter approach that started to emerge.

And so you feel like, okay, there, there has to be an evolution, there

has to be an innovation in the industry because eventually a lot of

these things can have a shelf life.

they'll have to evolve into something that's.

More interesting, more exciting, something new for audiences to consume.

So definitely the use of the word webinar is interesting.

And I find that too because we have users all over the world

who speak different languages.

It was interesting when they're wanting to customize their

registration pages, their landing pages, they may wanna change the word.

And it, it made so much sense.

Like it's totally understandable.

They're not everyone who's gonna understand this word.

or then masterclass became a popular way of referring to these workshops.

And I think just people adopt these different ways of, calling a workshop

a lesson or an online presentation.

I think whatever's on trend and whatever's kind of understandable.

So I definitely saw that transition from webinar to masterclass recently happened

too, but, Yeah, I've seen a lot of more groups saying masterclass

or event or things like that.

. Yeah for sure.

And I get it.

Just, you know, in, when you're doing it in the industry, you want

to, you wanna call it a webinar, you wanna say, oh, it's, it's webinar.

But when you're titling it for marketing and stuff made, Be not

but I see plenty of people who still do that and it's not a problem.

So I'm not convinced it's such a big issue.

And some people, yeah, some people are claiming it to be like, I see

Pat Flynn for example, still using webinar and it's like, it doesn't

seem to affect his business.

So, and I think people will still look, look for the value there,

but how valuable are webinar?

For coaching and speaking businesses to be able to get additional business?

Or, I mean, what kind of uses are uh, do you see people

mainly going for with them now?

Yeah, I see that I, I suppose by thinking of our u custom, like

our users directly they're wanting to.

Get more clients attract more potential clients.

So, being able to deliver something online on mass at scale like that and get, as

as many people, opted in and interested as they can, is, definitely a very

effective way to demonstrate what they know, how they can help build that trust.

That, that kind, that trust that you really do

get and see when it is a live webinar especially.

So it.

We've definitely seen coaches, be able to deliver and teach, what they

know and give incredible value and leave people watching with that desire

to learn more, want to have more.

Exposure, direct contact, directly work with the person.

So if they're done well, if they're that, and if that presentation is

effective, then that's what you want.

You, you can only cover so much in 45 minutes to an hour.

And so that leaving that desire to continue the conversation

further is, you know, done very effectively with a webinar.

Yeah.

So that does lead me to asking you what in your opinion, makes a good webinar?

There's a lot of things.

There's that participation, the same thing that would happen really on stage

as well, if you were giving a talk on stage, asking for that feedback, asking

for so quick participation, whether it's, the simple, the things that we

know are pretty common in the space.

Tell me where you're tuning in from.

What's something that you're here to learn today?

Like, why are you here today?

Type in the chat.

So that constant re-engagement and very, and what I see really good hosts do is ask

very short questions and quick questions that just ex elicit a very rapid fire.

Just type, you know, give me an emoji and you just see the chat blowing up

with all these emojis when you know.

They ask a very simple question.

And so just that constant re-engagement with the, and being aware that because

you are delivering, and you would know this from your experience, right?

You are delivering content via a screen.

Your energy has to be taken up a few notches.

And so those kind of presentation skills come.

Everything from like EF effective slides and you know,

the visuals are on the screen.

Again, same thing if you're in person.

Being mindful of all of those ti all of those things is still really

important in with the webinar.

I mean, uh, the story, a little story I'll share with you,

, that when I first started doing these webinars, and I'm saying about how

Harv likes to have passionate trainers, we have good energy so half, and his

partner, Michelle would listen to.

Calls they'd be on like some training webinars with me, and at

the end I'd get the feedback like, The energy's just not there yet.

It's just not there.

And, and I'm thinking, but I'm really, I'm really working on it.

I feel like I'm cranking enough.

. Yeah.

I feel like I'm really delivering a super energy level.

If I go much higher than this, I'm gonna blow people's brain barrier.

You know?

It's like, I, I didn't want, I was a bit concerned about that.

But you know, they're saying no, you have to get the energy higher.

You have to get the the excitement and the enthusiasm turn down, just add up more.

We wanna see that.

And if you can't, and if you can't do it, we will find someone who can.

Okay.

And.

. And so that sounds really harsh, but it was exactly what I needed to hear.

It is like, okay, this is not an option.

If I can't do it, I'm out.

Mm-hmm.

, so, uh, no.

So I have to, I have to make sure I can do this.

And so I really, really pushed myself to do it.

And yeah, it, it was absolutely right to say that because I, I think, bring

up a great point that the energy you have to bring is a little bit different.

Like even as a speaker, you have to bring a good energy, a high energy, But if you

come too high energy people are going to probably get bit turned off by it, right?

Yes.

We, we don't, yeah, we tend to find that a bit too, a bit overpowering.

Yeah.

Yes, I agree with you there.

And I definitely think, and I think I took this from teaching days as

well, you know, there's that kind of modulation or you know, if, if

you're al, if you're up here the whole time, like you said, it's exhausting.

And when the energy's too low and it's continuous, that.

That's a snooze fest.

No one wants to hang around for that.

So definitely being mindful of those moments in your presentation

where you are much more high energy when you can bring it down.

If it's something more serious or if you're sharing a personal story, maybe

being a little bit vulnerable, just like in person that, the, the sentiment

behind your voice is gonna change.

And I think that variation, that variety needs to be

present in a, in a presentation

as.

Yeah, I do think you have to bring some performance energy to, to these

things because there is a, because such a performance level to it.

I, I wonder what o other than maybe energy issues, what perhaps are some of

the pitfalls or mistakes that are quite common for people to make in going into

webinars, things like, and not being able to maybe get people on them or

not, not, uh, running them effectively.

What, what have you seen?

I mean, Being, um, the title, like what the, what

we refer to as like the promise.

Being very clear on and, and creating a very effective title that really

gives the person who's registering for that webinar a very clear indication

of like, what am I signing up for?

Because, you know, giving your email, giving up your time nowadays, you

can't take that for granted anymore.

Right?

So they really need to know what's, what's in it for them.

So I think a lot of the times, you know what, we spend a lot of

time, I must spend a lot of time teaching is, you know, making sure.

, whatever you promise, whatever that title is, you can actually accomplish

that in that time of the webinar.

It's, it's like when you're, I dunno if you've ever been on stage and you've

seen a speaker just flick through slides and go, oh, I don't have time

for that, don't have time for that.

Like, that can be effective.

That can be a sales technique or a reason for doing that, but really

you, you want that timing to be right so that the person, the, the people

watching and the people attending feel like, oh, I've really what I

came, what I, what I showed up for.

I got that.

I got even more maybe through that AFI that, you know, rapport with

the host, that interaction, that participation, they get a little

bit more than what they expected.

Um, so being really clear and what you can deliver in that time, and making sure

that you do deliver and get that feedback.

Like, did you guys get what you came for?

Um, yeah, let me, let me know.

I'd say that's one of the things, you know, and I think a lot of the times

that I think I've been guilty of this, Maybe in your webinars as well where

you wanna give as much value as possible and it's very overwhelming, right?

Like we, it comes from a good place, right?

Comes from a good place cuz you wanna share as much as you can.

But being mindful, especially when someone's on the other

side of a screen that.

It's really only so much they can, listen to for, you know, a certain amount of time

and you really want them to take action.

So I think being mindful of like, what, what are they actually gonna do

with the, the content that I've given them and being really clear on that.

And sometimes I think it's just an information dump.

I think a lot of people go that way.

You know, I, I've . I've been in, in the Toastmasters organization for a

long time, and I not currently, but you know, from, for the, from my time

with them, it has been very valuable to to also do an opportunity to get the

help people who are developing their speaking and training skills as well.

Which, you learn so much yourself when you're helping other

people to do these things too.

And so you are getting developed by people who are higher level than you every.

. Everyone's lifting each other up there.

I love that environment.

And one of the things, one of the things I see so often with people, especially

newer speakers which they would likely do in webinars or podcasts, whatever is the

information dump is like, oh, they just wanna teach to share all this information.

They've done all this research.

It's like, so I'm gonna give you everything I researched like that.

That's great, but it's too much.

Yeah.

And, as Joe, we don't love that.

We don't just want information, information, information because

you won't remember it afterwards.

Mm-hmm.

, if you take, even if you take great notes, you probably won't

remember much of it afterwards.

And so you are right is such some simple bits of information, two

or three points delivered clearly.

Mm-hmm.

, and explained well with.

How, and some action to take afterwards.

And so people are clear on what to do with that information is far more valuable

than just a whole load of information that you can pick and choose from.

And so that's true in webinars.

It's true in podcasts, it's true in public speaking.

It's like just, it's just avoiding that desire to ote and to yes, over

teach and to be coaching and sharing everything, you know, and you can't

pass everything off all at once.

And nor.

Being effective is more important.

Yeah.

And sh and having and knowing there's that balance of showing

them that you care, right?

Like they're there for a reason.

You're there to share something that they're really hungry for.

They really wanna know.

It's gonna help them overcome a problem, a challenge.

Whatever it is.

And so investing in that time, as as much as you wanna give, as much information

as you can in actually showing that you are there to help and care, that's

gonna create so much more of a, a rapport and, you know, a trust in the

person who's delivering the content.

That I think is super important, and I'm glad you brought that

because we hear it over and over again.

It's been discussed on this show in its previous iteration, a number, a

number of times about how important it is to show that you care.

and there, there were a lot of people who were quite cynical of coaching

and motivational speaking and things that, because there have been people

in the industry and for a while there was quite a lot of them, who

we might call them, I mean, Mike Winnet calls them contrapreneurs.

Uh uh, we might.

We might call them sharks or whatever, but people who are, maybe they're

just in it for what they can get.

And they want your money and they don't really care about you.

And that's been very clear.

They have the slick sales.

They have the image, they have the videos with the private jets

and the Ferrari . Why Ralph?

Think of a few . Yeah.

But they don't care about you.

And, and what you see is what I see.

Far more people want to see that and feel that connection.

Mm-hmm.

with the people who are selling to them.

So whilst I don't think we've completely moved away from the people who are

more perhaps of themselves are more cynical about their approach to this.

Just getting money outta the people in the industry, the.

People who are really caring and showing that they care.

I see.

Doing much better now.

Yes.

And that, that's great to see . Yeah.

For, for me, that's great to see it.

Yeah.

I think for consumers as well, I the connection part is super important

and hopefully that carries out into other parts of our lives as well.

Yeah.

That would be nice to think that it does.

Ah,

yeah.

No, I, and you said the word connection a couple of times

and what's interesting in, in.

All the webinars that we've done and people showing up to them

is that you see the same people showing up again and again.

Right.

And there's a reason why they're doing that.

It's because, they're still, Working on that trust, they're still wanting

a little bit more time to connect with you and to learn more, and to build

that trust with the person who's on the other side selling or whatever.

And so those moments of connection are really important to keep in mind

as you're delivering your content.

Yeah.

The you, you mentioned something earlier and I do, I feel like I need to come

back to it because I'm pretty sure our listener will be, I maybe just

listening to this and Kim, is he just gonna leave that out on the table there

and not come back to it or mention it?

And he's not, he's gonna come back to it now.

The hundred dollars N b a tell, tell me a little bit about that.

So, the a hundred dollars m v is now a podcast, the hundred dollars

N v Show podcast, but it started out as a online business training and community.

So, Done a little bit of a stint at Wharton Business School because he

wanted to be a great entrepreneur.

But his, on his marketing professor said, well, what are you doing here?

You don't get an MBA to, to be an entrepreneur, you don't need it.

And so he'd already had a lot of experience side hustling

while he was in teaching.

And so the a hundred dollars N B A came out of just, let's teach the fundamental.

not me.

He was teaching the fundamentals of business.

At the time, I had no idea about business.

I knew nothing about business.

Let's teach the fundamentals of business for a hundred dollars, like make it

really accessible so that people can just get started and specifically

start an online business, but also had, just fundamental business advice.

And so we created this community.

At the time I had very rudimentary film skills and so I was shooting

the videos, editing the videos and put, and they were up on the.

And we ran that for a while before we launched a podcast with the same name.

And now the podcast is the primary focus of the a hundred dollars MBA

and published over 2000 episodes.

Oh, wow.

That is a lot of podcast episodes.

Yeah.

And, and so, It's the kind of thing I hear, I'm hearing that.

I'm thinking I wish I had known about that when I, when these kinds of

things when I started out in business.

Although maybe, I don't know if your podcast is around when I started out,

but but that's the kind of stuff I think.

Yeah.

I didn't know.

You don't know what you don't know.

Right.

And like yourself.

And I came from, I, I was a flight attendant for 12 years.

Wow.

So, you know, it's like, I, I did not come into the world of business

having the first clue about mm-hmm.

, how to run a business or anything like that.

And so it was a bumpy, a bumpy ride to say the least.

No, you've used that one before, haven't you?

That's a good one.

I like that.

Was trying to put it in, in sort of terminology

that isn't too extreme.

But but yeah, definitely it was a challenging part to take.

And yeah, now I know that, at the time you think sometimes when you're

getting started out, you think you have to bootstrap everything.

You end up Scott having a blindfold on in a dark room and pointing a stick

to try and find the light switch.

Yeah, . And like similar as a flight attendant.

I would imagine it was similar to me being in teaching.

You're surrounded by people in the.

Job in the same career, right?

And so when as soon as you step into entrepreneurship, you realize, oh,

I need to actually meet different people, talk to different people,

have different conversations, and then you realize, that, oh, it's through

them that I can learn so much from.

But you don't have that experience when you're coming from, a career like.

A flight attendant or teaching

r Really, really you don't, but I do think, the world

generally doesn't seem to set people up for entrepreneurship anyway.

Yeah.

And so most of us are almost conditioned to go into the kinds

of roles that, that we did.

Mm-hmm.

, thing you ha you're supposed to get a job.

You should know if your skills are with customers and people do customer

service or if your skills are in teaching and you work well with

young people going into teaching.

You know, it is all those kinds of things.

Like you, you have to find your box to fit into mm-hmm.

In the working environment, but that you don't really hear that many people

talking about actually starting your own business as a way to secure your future.

That's always like, oh, that's risky, and that's.

The, the begin, but I, no, I think people if Covid has taught us anything

is that no job is secure , right?

No.

Nobody has that sort of job for life or security that you can hope for.

And I realized that quite early on with the, my job in the airline industry.

The opportunity was being taken away.

As things were being restructured in the business.

Everything was all about cost saving and.

Whilst I got to the point where it's time to go.

It, it's really time to go.

And now I'm glad I did, but I just wish I'd been more prepared for it.

May maybe you feel the same thing, or maybe that's part of where.

Hundred dollars n b came from for you as to yeah, you just need to know this stuff.

Yeah.

I just, I, I laugh at the fact that I, at myself when, and in 2012 when I'm

seeing Omar create blog posts for the a hundred man, like, what's a blog post?

What's the blog like?

I was just completely removed from this world of business and.

I think what I ended up, the small stint when I transitioned out of teaching, I

went through film school, very short stint at film school, picked up some skills,

started freelancing as a videographer, and then pretty much, nine months later

I was already working with Imar and Will building the a hundred dollars mba.

But I just learned in that time that what the confidence that it gave me

was that I, when I joined, when I went to film school, I didn't even

know how to use a camera really.

I didn't know all the fancy settings.

Aperture and all of that stuff that I learned, I had no idea.

Like I started at zero and I saw that very quickly.

Like in four weeks I was able to learn, a solid amount to get me started, to get

me start starting to work with clients.

And that just really gave you the confidence that in, short amount

of time, you could pick up the skills that you need and you can

start applying them right away.

You.

Make, a mess of everything that you do for the first time.

Like my first work was just embarrassing, but I proved I got better and I

applied that philosophy and that mindset as my mindset developed in,

throughout the entrepreneurship journey.

And yeah, within 10, 10 years on still around it's

, John Ball: which in itself

Yeah.

Many people do not go that long in their business.

So it's a testament to what you've been doing.

How much or how important has the podcast been as part of that business success?

It's been huge.

. It's been huge.

I think what I've also realized through the podcast and what I saw

that Omar was trying to do was really building an audience is incredible.

It's an incredible.

Asset to have so that you can then continue to, create more service a

product and offering that, people who were already committed to you have trust,

in you would, might be willing to buy.

So, the podcast, was launched in 2014.

We were very fortunate.

To be awarded, best of iTunes that year.

So that was a, a huge accomplishment.

Yeah.

And that set us up for, okay this, because there was a failed podcast before that.

So , we'd learn some hard, we learned some hard lessons before that one.

But when, the a hundred R N B A really took off, it had legs.

We realized, okay, this is working.

This, we found, our voice and we found something that really works.

That opened up, the opportunities for not just revenue and sponsorship,

but speaking engagements.

It's a huge marketing channel for Webinar Ninja, sharing stories, webinar

Ninja gives a lot of content, to, to share on the podcast, but it also

brings customers to webinar as well.

So

That's great.

I love that.

I mean, I don't.

I'm not necessarily the current person says like everyone who

is sort of a coach or speaker or trainer should have a podcast, but.

I mean, , I feel, I feel like they should.

I think it's a good thing to have because one, one of the things that

I see, and, and I get people actually contacting me about this as well

which is that I'm always welcome to contact from people as well.

Just if anyone's thinking, oh, can we contact John or Nicole?

Like, yeah, you can reach out to us.

We may people, we'll, we'll fit it.

So I've had people contact me about that.

They're trying to be on all these different channels.

They're trying to do all.

Have content everywhere because that's what they think they're supposed to do

and I think part of it is, Part of it is they see some of the bigger players

doing that and don't necessarily realize that there's a whole team of people

usually who are doing that and they've had to build up to that they haven't

just started necessarily with that.

But also, There are some people out there who are teaching that

they need to be everywhere and be churning it out all the time as well.

And I do think it's a recipe for burnout for most people.

Yes.

And if not burnout, at least just disappointment.

And sending them to quitting earlier.

Yeah.

If you're trying to do too much, what do you think?

What would be your advice to people in that situation?

Yeah, that's such a good, like, I've been

thinking about this a lot because.

I've been thinking about how I've been, I have a very much a love

hate relationship with social media.

. I feel like it's this, one of these, like, it's this necessary evil.

It's a necessary

evil.

Yes.

Right?

and, and I was reminded of it the other day when I was talking

to Kate on the podcast actually, and she said, oh, you guys have done so well.

I always remember that you just thought, social media's not our thing.

We're not doing.

and, and it's true, like we, when we launched the podcast, it was because

we really believed in the medium.

Like we saw people have, had success.

But we also saw this is a great, it's a bit more long form.

It's a way to really deliver and.

Give a lot of value and connect with an audience, connect with the

listener in a very intimate way.

And so we just really fell in love.

I'm with you when you say everyone should have a podcast, right?

Because it is such a great medium.

And then, but it takes time, right?

It takes a long time to to be consistent.

It takes that commitment.

A lot of people do give up early.

And so I think what I'm, what I see now, like what I've seen you.

All the social media platforms that have come out and all the different

ways to connect with your audience.

I almost feel like that influencer model is almost trying to cut through

and fast track or shortcut to what is something that takes quite a

long time and actually takes a lot.

Creating a podcast takes a lot of thought.

It takes time.

There's a whole process behind it, and there's not to discourage anyone, but

I think the product you get in the, at the end, It is, it's quite special.

And I, I don't know what it's like to go on a Facebook Live

or turn, or an Instagram live.

I'm sure that, has a lot of value as well.

But I think there is that pressure of trying to be everywhere, and it's

just like, why don't you just choose one, two mediums that you know you

really wanna double down on and really get traction there before you start.

When you, when you get traction, when you have the budget, you can bring on a team.

You can bring on the team to

help you exactly that.

Yeah, exactly that.

I, I was chatting to somebody just yesterday who who was said to me,

He's talking about podcasting.

And he's saying that, oh, I said, what you been doing?

He said, I've been doing all these lives and stuff, and said, yeah, I

did that to you, but I wasn't really getting any much traction with it.

Like people saying, oh, go live all the time and you'll

get builders, huge audience.

And I was like, I'm sorry it didn't.

No, it did not happen for me.

Uh, and this guy's saying yes, same for me.

I'm going, going live at the time and feel like it's a lot of pumped energy into it

and it's also kind of lost afterwards.

And there's, the thing is like people are generally not gonna go back and watch your

old lives on replay, , on social media.

No, possibly, unless it's really valuable information, they're probably

not gonna watch replace at all.

Yeah.

But podcasts are a bit different.

Mm-hmm.

, if somebody fi, if you find a podcast you like, let's say you go and check out a

hundred dollar B eight which you should do, if you're listening to this, you

should definitely go and check that out.

And you listen to somebody, you think, oh, this is really good.

I like this.

The chances are you're gonna start going through the whole catalog of Yeah.

2000 episodes and say, oh, these, oh yeah.

I should listen to that one as well.

I should listen to that one.

So you will go through the back catalog?

Mm-hmm.

, the content is ever.

And that that is that even YouTube channels don't really have that

to the same way that podcasts.

Right.

I was, one of the things that I think is so valuable about it is

like the, the energy you're putting in, it's not a one-time deal.

It's not a, if they're not there, nobody's generally listening to it live anyway.

Not that many people still are doing live podcasts.

Right.

And, and I'm still not sure that's really going to become a thing, but.

We'll see.

We'll see.

We saw what happened at the clubhouse, right?

That concept.

. John Ball: Yeah.

But we'll also TWI Twitter are kind of going down that path

now with the spaces and stuff.

But, but I also know that they're moving into a sort of podcast thing

as well, so they're gonna have.

Both.

Mm-hmm.

. But I do think, some people have been saying pod live podcasting

is gonna be a big thing.

I don't think that, I think the technology isn't quite there yet.

And I think no you're so, you're certainly an exception to this,

but some guests are not so reliable

So, and when I've done some live shows before, people sometimes show up.

. Yeah.

And yeah, and like life happens.

Sometimes just can't help this stuff.

And so that's one of the reasons why I think live podcasting.

Mm.

No.

But as a format, you have your, you have all your content out there.

People can come back and say, oh, maybe something similar with blog,

oh, I checked out this episode.

However long ago, and it was, it was so good.

Or you can even refer back to your old episodes like, oh, if you

wanna know more about this, check out episode 66 where I talk about.

Whatever, that, that's such a good tool to have and your effort, your

energy is repurposed and Yeah.

And still available to people.

I dunno.

I

like that.

Uh, I, no, I agree with you and you, and you mentioned

when you said the noise, you know that when you're on social and alive, like.

. It just, all that content can just get just caught up in this noise.

It's super distracting and people are just jumping, oh, I got a notification now.

I got a message now.

Oh, hang on.

What was that?

Oh, I've got an event to go to.

Wait, when did that , where were they before?

But they don't even remember.

I mean, they knew that happened to me, so it's interesting like with podcasting and

I guess if we take it back to webinars too, cuz it's one of the questions we

would always get asked or you stream to Facebook, why not do just a Facebook Live?

What's the difference?

And it's like, it's that attention, it's that very focused, localized attention.

I'm not somewhere else, you know where I can.

See other things and be distracted by other things.

My attention is here in this place, whether it's on that podcast episode in

my ears, or whether I'm just watching a webinar, watching a live workshop.

And I think that's a big, a big advantage to these formats.

Yeah, and I think it's one of the, it is one of the things that

people struggle with a lot is presence and so, the interview podcast like this

is quite is quite an intimate scenario of it's a one-to-one conversation.

Yeah.

And whilst we are speaking, there's no one actually listening to us just

yet, but people who are listening to it people who are hearing our voices now are

listening to a conversation that was had.

A while ago, . That's just the surreal is, but when you're having the

conversation, you're there, you are.

Yes.

In the conversa, hopefully you're in the conversation.

You're not thinking about everything else that's going on for

public speaking or for webinars.

There's bit moving bits and pieces around.

Yes.

There, there's, there is stuff that can distract you if you're not careful.

And so you do have to get into that presence and be focused on what you're

delivering, who you're delivering it for.

Think about your.

Get out your head, be there, be present, and I think it's easier

to do in this sort of format.

Yeah.

We're big fans.

In case anyone didn't realize, big fans of podcasting

. John Ball: But I want to,

What, what are the things, what one of the things that I kind of preach and

the Podfluence is all about, is being a guest on other people's podcasts

which you very kindly or come agree to come and be a guest on this show.

What value does that have for you as a professional?

A lot.

But the first thing I think about is a, it's something that my friend

said, Michelle, on her podcast, that podcasting is a friend catcher.

And I don't know if she paid a forward from someone else where she

heard that, but I do feel that these opportunities to connect and have

these conversations can result in friendships lifelong friendships.

We're friends now, right?

Johnny?

I'm putting, I'm putting you, I'm putting you on this spot.

I'm.

No.

Yeah, I'm, I'm happy to be put on that spot.

Yeah.

I certainly feel that we are, we've connected, we, there's, you know, we've

even we've even kind of said, said the same words at the same time at some point.

No, that's rapport.

That, that that stuff doesn't come easy.

But yeah, absolutely.

But you realize people are gonna be, people f who are listening to this

are gonna be going, yeah, I heard Nicole bne on this podcast say that

podcasts are friend catchers and so you are gonna get . I'm gonna get

attribute the attribution for that

now.

Yeah.

No, I, no, again, I don't know who came up with it, but I think, I

thought it was, it's a good one.

I like that.

It's a good one.

I think.

Again I really believe that communication is, one of those skills that everybody

should be working and refining that it can help us in, our personal

lives, in our professional lives.

And I do see that exercising the muscle of speaking, communicating con, having

a conversation sharing a message.

All of that.

You can, you get to do this, you get to have this opportunity every

single time that you show up.

And you get to share your message.

You get to give back.

There's collaborations that come out of, podcasting.

Being on each other's shows all of that.

So there's, yeah, there's a tremendous benefit to being on a guest.

Do you feel that there are things you've had to learn about

being a podcast guest that would maybe be a bit different to being a

webinar presenter or a podcast host?

Hmm.

I think being mindful of the energy, being mindful of the, I wanna say, I'm

very sensitive or aware of ambience.

I feel like there's an ambience that's created in, even though it's not a

physical, tangible ambience because we're on, you know, different parts in different

parts of the world and all of that.

But being mindful and aware and slotting yourself into.

The tone of the podcast I think is important cuz it could be very jarring.

Your listeners are used to you, they come back for you.

Yeah, they come back for the guests that you interview, but they come

back to hear you and there's a tone, there's a vibe that's created.

And so being mindful of that, I think is important.

Doesn't mean you have to change who you are or speak in a different way.

But I think being mindful of that is something that I've

recognized with podcasts.

You match each other's energy in some ways.

I don't know if you relate to that at all.

I, no, I absolutely do.

And one of, one of the things that It's always interesting to me.

Sometimes there are conversations where the rapport clicks in straight away and

it goes really well right from the start.

Sometimes it doesn't click at all, which is rarer.

I think that's a bit rarer for me.

I've only maybe had that once or twice.

And I probably haven't published these episodes to be honest.

We'll never know.

, you'll never know.

So, but more commonly, the rapport kind of clicks in halfway through

or two thirds into the conversation.

And so sometimes it's the last pipe, I think, oh man, I don't

want to end this conversation now because it's really into a flow.

Yes.

I just have that style of show like I, I.

Roughly what I want to speak to you like I, I pretty much knew

there, there were things that I wanted to speak to you about today.

But we've talked about, a few things.

But I like to give myself the space to like, no, I want to go wherever I feel

that I need to go here because I want it to be a natural conversation rather than

a prepared interview show, which I know some people do, and that's great as well.

Horses for courses, but this is my style and it works well for me.

But there is that risk of sometimes the rapport takes a while to yes, to build up,

mm-hmm.

And still get people saying, oh, is podcasting a thing?

Is it really gonna last?

Is it kind of die is like far from it.

It's really only just getting started, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Oh, I agree.

I agree.

You're right.

And I think the con, the type of show as well, as a guest, I.

Always make sure that I listen because I, not only do I wanna know what your,

you are after, what your audience is expecting because that consistency,

I think is I, is important as well.

so I always make time to listen and listen to different episodes

so that I can be familiar.

I c I could be prepared as well.

You're right there.

I've noticed that in a conversation type podcast even if it is an interview,

but it kind of flows more like an open conversation, it does take a

while to warm up, and that that juicy meany stuff usually ends up being

at the end because people Yes, each the we're more relaxed we're more

comfortable, we found a bit of a flow.

So yeah, I can relate to that.

Yeah.

feel, I feel.

Confident enough to be able to ask, because I don't think this is gonna

be the answer, but what has been your, perhaps your worst experience?

Either as a podcast guest or as a host?

You don't have to name names, just we'll keep it anonymous.

No,

that's okay.

Yeah.

I won't name names.

I.

And I think this might come with experience, but I think earlier on I did.

I'm the type of person, I don't like to phone things in.

I like to shop, I like to be prepared.

I like to be organized.

It's just the way I am.

It's the way I operate.

And so I think in earlier, Experiences that I had as a guest

when I didn't have any information really as to what I was going to

be, what we were gonna talk about.

Perhaps it was even a new show.

So there wasn't much that I could, feed off and understand like

what the audience needs, what the host is looking for, all of that.

I.

Did have experiences where, you know the host would just say, just show up.

Just be yourself.

You're gonna be awesome.

And I really didn't feel like I did the conversation, the interview justice,

because I could have been just that little bit more prepared had I had

the opportunity been available to me.

And I'm not, I don't wanna blame the host.

because that's, that's not really what I'm trying to say, but I do think, the

fact that you go into, taking the time to do pre-interviews, all of that,

some people might say, oh, really?

Why?

I'm a professional, I can just show up.

I know how to, I've done this a million times.

Yeah, I okay that sometimes.

But there's so much that comes from, you mentioned, just we already have

a connection, which can make this conversation go so much better.

And I'd say the same thing.

, just giving the guest a bit of preparation these are the

things I'd like to talk about.

This is what I see that you can, this is where I see you can add value.

This is where I see you've got, some things that my audience can benefit from.

And just that little bit of a heads up,

. John Ball: I, I feel that's

that in the pre-interview and recap.

As we did before, before we start talking.

Just and, but that, this is why I said I don't like to be too

rigid on the content because sometimes I'll just hear something.

I think we definitely need to talk about that.

Or I want to go a bit deeper into this, or that could be a bit of a rabbit hole.

Let's step into it and see and we can pull back if we need to.

But, I like to have that flexibility and I think it makes

for a more interesting listen.

Maybe you see this as well, but a lot of shows just well, we're just gonna

talk about anything with anyone and cover all the subjects under the sun.

And it's like, then nobody's gonna listen to your show.

. Sorry.

But yeah they're.

You have to be pretty specific these days and Yes.

With, without that, like something like the hundred dollars MBA is

a very specific kind of thing for people like you, you pretty much

know what you're gonna be getting.

Yes.

And that has to be the case.

It's like you got, if you call it the, you called your show the Nicole Baloo show

what's, uh, Nick?

Yeah, yeah.

Or if I call it the John Ball Show I do people know who we are?

Really that well, yeah.

Uh, No.

That's not gonna pull people in.

But, Podfluence or hundred or B kind of gives you an idea.

Yes.

You pretty much.

What you're gonna be getting into before you've listened to it.

And so long as the content that gets delivered in those things relates to

that and it is within that sort of niche, people will keep coming back

for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And I was gonna say like, it is definitely format dependent.

So what the way you show up as a guest or as a host depends on your format.

And if you're very clear about your format.

That will generally go well.

But you know, with something like the a hundred dollars MBA show the format is

so different in the sense that it's a lesson and that consistency of delivering

that lesson, that short format, no fluff, no backs, stories, just here

is what you're going to learn today.

And it's a very specific topic with actionable advice.

If we, if Omar didn't deliver the.

Consistent format and the same and de and pretty much keep

his, be good for his word.

This is the promise that, they're tuning in for then.

Yeah, the show wouldn't be successful because I think podcast, this has really

come to depend on that consistency.

It's just like your favorite TV show.

You know what you're gonna expect, every time you tune in.

Absolutely is.

Is there a recent episode that you think our listeners

should here, should check out?

we've started what he started to do recently, we

used to have a format again, it's eight, eight years now since 2014.

We would alternate on a Monday with a must read and a guest teacher episode.

We've recently started to introduce actually having that guest teacher be an

interview where Omar interviews A guest and recently he interviewed Aman Alad,

who used to be the c e O of AppSumo.

That conversation is super interesting super, super interesting.

So you want, you wanna check that one out?

Oh,

I, I'm gonna check that out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm very familiar with AppSumo and there, that sounds like

that's gonna be fascinating.

And for people who are maybe thinking.

Webinars and I want to know a bit more about Webinar Ninja.

What's the best way for them to learn about that?

They can head over to webinar ninja.com.

We have blogs Omar runs, we run a Twice a month a webinar

for anyone who's interested.

It's a free workshop.

You get to see, the app in action.

You get some content, you get a lesson there as well on how

to deliver a great webinar.

So we definitely have a lot of content over at webinar ninja.com.

We've recently, we launched a community earlier this year, which is, has

been really fun, really exciting.

We've got an amazing community manager, Jenny.

She does an awesome job.

So people who end up do signing sign.

Join the community and they get to share best practices and just give each other

feedback on all that fun webinar stuff.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Well, look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure there's a link to the episode

you mentioned in the show notes for people to go and check out listen to

that interview but also, The link to Webinar Ninja and to, for people who

may want to reach out to you and go and contact you personally, that's all

gonna be in the show notes for people.

If there was you mentioned action and importance of action earlier.

If there's one action you would like people to take from this

call today, what would that be?

Start a podcast.

A podcast.

I like that.

. Oh yeah.

I, I can actually, I can certainly go along with.

Is there anything you wish you had known at the start of your journey

that if you could go back and tell yourself that you had like just, uh, one

sentence or a couple of words just to sort of say, wish I wish I could send

this message back in time to myself?

You often know more than you think.

When that imposter syndrome creeps up and there's that constant

self-doubt and lack of confidence.

Oh, I don't know enough.

I'm not good enough.

What do I.

Just give yourself the benefit of the doubt you might surprise yourself.

Wonderful.

Nicole, it's been, it's been a real pleasure chatting to you.

You are absolute delight.

You've been very generous with your time and your information and and

certainly I feel like I've made a friend and I'm glad you do too.

So, uh, you are welcome on the show anytime you would like

to come back yourself and.

And, uh, and I look forward to staying connected with you and

I, and I will certainly do that through the podcast as well.

And I hope people listening to this will do the same.

Nicole, thank you for coming and being a guest on Pod

Tour.

Thank you so much, Johnny.

I had a really great time.

Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you got some great value after

this episode and that it wasn't too cringe listening to me struggling to

get through that as an interviewer.

So if you've ever wondered how to make webinars part of your business growth

strategy and what it takes to grow a top podcast that hopefully you got

some great notes outta today's call.

Now you can check out Webinar Ninja and the $100 MBA from the links

in the show notes, and also give Nicole's new podcast a listen as well.

I wanna encourage you as well to come and get your free podcast guest checklist

when you subscribe to the Podfluence Weekly newsletter in the show notes.

Just so you know, if you subscribe through LinkedIn, there's no free

download there, but if you do shoot me a message, I'll send you something else

very cool.

Instead.

Now of course you can subscribe in both, if you'd like to do that, but you

might see a bit of duplication there.

And for anyone who's tuning in for the first time after having heard me

speaking on a panel at Pod Fest this year.

I appreciate you covering and checking out the show and hope

you'll come and join us next time.

For now, though, all the remains for me to say is wherever you're

going, whatever you're doing, have an amazing rest of good day.