What happens next in your business?

It sounds like a ridiculously vague question, but lately I have been asking it about almost everything.

What happens after someone listens to your podcast? What happens after someone follows you on Instagram? What happens after you publish a piece of content? What happens after someone becomes a client? And behind the scenes, what happens after you complete the part of a process that you know how to do?

I started thinking about this because I've been looking closely at the systems behind both Chaos to Clarity and Built to Scale. Recording a podcast has a very obvious beginning and end: I open Riverside, hit record, talk, and eventually hit stop. But the business doesn't end when the recording does. There is an entire journey around that episode, from production and repurposing to relationships, lead generation, follow-up, and eventually sales.

And once I started asking "what happens next?" about my podcasts, I realized this isn't actually a podcast problem.

There are probably places all over your business where you are personally holding everything together because the next step hasn't been clearly defined. You're remembering what needs to happen, manually moving things around, making the same decisions over and over, and carrying processes around in your head.

In this episode, we're talking about how to find those places, decide what should be automated, systematize what shouldn't be automated, and create processes that don't require your brain to remember every single step.

Because your business should not require you to be the integration holding everything together.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why I've been asking "what happens next?" about almost everything in my business.
• Why recording a podcast is only one small part of the business system around it.
• Why downloads and analytics don't tell you the full story of what your podcast is creating.
• How content can create leads, relationships, collaborations, referrals, and sales beyond the obvious metrics.
• What I discovered when I started handing parts of the Built to Scale podcast to someone else.
• Why undefined processes create more mental load and decision fatigue.
• How to identify what should be automated versus what still needs a human.
• A simple exercise for mapping a process and finding where you're personally holding everything together.

This week's next step:

Choose one thing you recently completed in your business. It could be a podcast episode, reel, email, new client booking, sales call, or another recurring task.

Map what happened from the very beginning until a few weeks afterward.

Where are you personally holding everything together? What could someone else do? What could happen automatically? And where does your current process simply end because you've never decided what happens next?

That's where I'd start.

Want to build a podcast that actually supports your business?

On October 14, 2026, I'm hosting a free workshop, How to Turn Your Podcast Into a Business Growth System.

We're going to map how your podcast connects to the rest of your business so you're not spending hours creating an episode only to turn around and wonder, "Okay...now what?"

Links:

All Links: https://maggielynnolson.com/biolink

The Built to Scale Podcast: https://pod.link/6796758128

Sign up for Riverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/en1Qyz

What if I asked you the question No.

If I asked you what happens next in your business, what would you tell me? And I'm curious to know this. Now I know what happens next is a very vague question. And you might be thinking, is Maggie off her rocker? the answer might be yes, but also if you have been listening here to the Chaos to Clarity podcast, even if you've been listening over on the Built to Scale podcast to the interviews that I've been doing.

I've been talking a ton about client journey and really what happens next in your client journey? As in when someone finds you on Instagram and they click follow, what happens next? When someone listens to your podcast and they love it, they rate it, they review it, whatever, they share, they subscribe, maybe they download a freebie, what happens next?

And I've been thinking a lot about this because I've been managing both of these podcasts, but I'm also looking into how can I help others utilize their podcast or their idea to have a podcast to help them figure out what happens next in their business. And you know, recording the podcast as shocking as this might seem.

any sort, right? You could do a real, whatever. You can create long form content so much easier today than ever before. So you know when you think about it, recording the podcast is the easiest part. And I don't mean that to be like condescending in any way because I know that recording sitting down in front of a microphone, looking at yourself in the face as you're talking

Right, like having a cohesive episode, that all takes thought. It can all be intimidating. But what I mean by it's the easiest part is that recording has a very obvious beginning and end, right? Like I sit down with my notes, I open Riverside, I hit record, I talk, and then I hit stop when I'm done. Which is, you know, like in a box, a complete podcast episode. Except

There's more because if you think what happens next, what happens after you record that? Where does that go? If it's an interview, you know, there's the obvious, like I had to find a guest prior, they had to book, I need their information, break confirmations, reminders, so on and so forth. and then we record and then what happens next? And I think, you know, like there's the obvious editing, uploading, title, description, show notes.

Know clips, emails, blah blah blah blah blah. Rate the production side of the podcast. But what I am most interested in is the business side, which should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone because if you've ever been around me, you'll know that I see business ideas everywhere. you know, in fact, I recently had a business idea because my daughter

loves to do the diamond art stuff. And I thought, I wonder if I could generate some images, some AI images and sell them. Like is there a is there a a place that will make the diamond art for me? How much does that cost? How much could I sell it for? Right. So I see opportunity everywhere, which is both a blessing and a curse, right? It truly, truly is. But

The question that keeps popping up for me is what happens next? So, you know, if I have an incredible guest on the Built to Scale podcast, and genuinely all 20 people that I have already interviewed, I every after every interview, I find myself saying, my God.

I need to stay connected with you. We had such a great conversation. I want to have you on again in the future, which is genuinely like for me, like that makes me so excited to understand what happens next, there. Right. And if you think about if you have a guest on your podcast, maybe they share the episode. somebody from their audience hears about you, right? So in my case,

If I have an episode on Built to Scale and Sally shares her episode, someone in her audience goes and checks out Sattva or checks out Chaos to Clarity. you know, and then they can see the obvious ways to get connected with me. That's what I'm talking about. When what happens next? What are the pieces in the road that will drive someone to go from cold to sold? Now, in talking and thinking through this, I was like

This can't just be a me question. I want to understand: like, is this something that people are asking about? And by asking about, I mean, are people asking, like, what do I do next with my podcast? I create the podcast, I put it out, but I want more downloads. Like, what happens next? Now

I did go and find a study on soundsprofitable.com and they surveyed like more than 5,000 people and found that like half of the half of the people in America who are 18 and older tend to consume at least one podcast a month. So it's not just like, you know, a one off thought of mine. It it's definitely there. And then I was

Muir I was more curious because I went into podcast forums because I wanted to understand what actual creators were saying. And one conversation that kept coming up was I'm making this thing, as in the podcast. People seem to like it, but I don't know if all the work is worth it. And by work they were meaning the production, the you know, like just literally everything.

So you have creators talking about 30, 50, 100 listeners per episode and wondering whether it's quote unquote enough and whether they should keep going. You know, whether they can monetize, whether they need more downloads, so on and so forth. And I really feel like we're asking the wrong question. Now, don't get me wrong, don't get me wrong. Downloads are great. I look at our downloads.

Because downloads can tell us whether people are consuming the podcast, but they don't necessarily tell us the whole story of what the podcast is creating for the business. And it's coming back to that question of what's next? What am I saying in the podcast that will help people understand and connect? I need to go to the show notes and I should click the

links button so that I can download an offer audit so that I can make sure that my offer is aligned and I can move on to the next steps. Or yes, I want an offer audit so that I can ask Maggie a few questions about my business where I'm feeling stuck so that I know what the next direction is. Or maybe somebody needs a strategy call because they've realized, shoot, I actually don't know my whole client journey. I am creating a mess and I want help.

figuring it out. It's things like that that I want to connect the dots for. And not just for me. Like, I mean, obviously for me, but also for you who is listening. Because I know so many people who are like, yes, I'm going to do a podcast. And they get like 10 episodes in and they're like, this is exhausting. Why am I doing this and creating content when I could just create content on Instagram? Okay. So I'm not arguing that you should stop podcasting.

And I'm not arguing that you should stop looking at your analytics because I think it's important to always be have a pulse on that. But here's the thing: if you're a service-based business owner and you're spending several hours a week or a month or whatever creating a podcast, I want to know what else that podcast is creating. Is it creating leads? Is it creating relationships? Is it creating content?

Is it creating, you know, someone who's been listening for six or twelve months and then they finally reach out because something you said, they realize, okay, yes, I need this. I need to have that thing. Maybe a guest is referring someone to you. Maybe there's a collaboration. Actually, I just had a an email come into my inbox for someone who had created a product specifically for podcasters.

And it was basically a pitch email to me to say, I would love to offer you this thing. I created it specifically for podcasters. here's the link. Now I took this opportunity to email that person back because I wanted to ask a couple questions. And I emailed them back and I said, I love this. this is a really cool thing. Would you be interested in coming onto the Built to Scale podcast? I would love to talk to you about.

How you created this product, why you created this product, who this product is for, and what your next steps are in your business. and then I also offered a potential referral or collaboration idea for them because of what I'm creating in Satva specifically for podcasters. So from one email, right, that person took the time to listen to my podcast because they

Referenced a number of things that I've talked about over a couple episodes, which is so cool. Like I love that. No, this is where connections, collaborations, like talking to people, having conversations, but also knowing what your what's next comes in so handy. Now, in all of this, what has been happening? Right? What's been happening for me?

this is where I'm really making chaos to clarity and built to scale my guinea pigs. So rather than sitting around and designing the perfect like podcast business system, in theory, I'm using my own stuff to do it, right? I'm looking at where do my processes break? What am I remembering to do manually? You know, what do I want to happen automatically?

What should not be automated because it does require an actual person to take those steps. What am I creating and then not using or barely using? You know, like it's specifically for built to scale. What happens to guests? What happens to listeners? You know, like answering all those questions, like what can I actually see versus what is actually happening and

You know, I'm so excited to share this experiment as we go, which I know right now on social media is a big thing. There's a ton of people sharing how they're building, why they're building, what they're building. They're basically sharing what's next as they're building it, which is I love that. And I've been honestly wanting to be get on that train for so long. But I kept asking myself, like, well, how do I know what's next? I already kind of have everything built. Like

It's already there. So I was feeling a little sad, quite honestly. that I didn't have something that I felt like, my God, this is it. But then the other day, actually just yesterday, I had someone come into my email, into my inbox, my DMs, and ask, like, how did you figure out how to simplify what you're doing? And I was like, What do you mean? It was a tangled mess for years.

So I'm so thankful that people are seeing that simplification now because that has always been the goal. How can I make this as simple as possible so that I can do the most things in a day? And I don't mean the most things as like more than anyone else, but how can I do all the fun things that I want to do in a day if I have a cluster of chaos, right? That's why it's called chaos clarity, this podcast, because

I love getting into the chaos, untangling it to make it clear. That doesn't mean the chaos isn't going to come back, because it probably will. But then you know how to untangle the chaos as you move through it. Now, what is the bigger overarching lesson here? Because it's not a podcast problem, is basically what I realized. And which bless my brain. Because I can't just once I see it.

I see it everywhere. Okay. And the chaos inside of a podcast system and not really understanding what happens next is not just inside of podcasts. It's all over your business, right? And I guarantee in your business, there are places where you don't know what happens next. And some of that I get you're not going to understand how to.

know what happens next, right? We're not ever going to be able to predict the future. But

Think about it from this perspective, right? You're focusing on a visible task. So think about like publishing a reel, sending an email, recording a podcast, booking a client, and you know, things like that. But what we tend to forget is there's a journey around every task. And when that journey isn't mapped, you then become the system, which is fine until you go to hand this off.

Now, a lot of the podcast stuff came up for me because I was handing it off to someone else to do the editing for the Built a Scale podcast. And in handing that off, I realized, gosh, there's a lot of things that I actually touch. And so I realized, like, some of this stuff can be automated. Cool. Some of this is going to need like actual human to check and balance. But it

really got me thinking, okay, what happens next around each of those things? So and I didn't because I didn't want it to get to the point where I was thinking, I don't have time for this because I don't have time for this. Like I and it's not to mean I don't have time for the podcast. What I mean by that is like right now in this season of life, my

youngest is in 4K. So I in during the middle of the day have to run him to pick him up from the babysitter, run him to school, and then I come back home, work for a couple hours, and then I go pick the kids back up. So I drop the kids off in the morning. I bring my son to school midday and then I have to pick them up at the end of the day. So I was going to be

The primary runner, which is fine. I love that. Like I am so excited for that. But it also forced me into understanding what is automated, what is not, what could be automated, what should not, where do I need to spend my time? What are my money-making activities? how many clients do I need in order to sustain? What can I add to bring in more? Like where what

Should I change my prices? Should I add in another, you know, group situation? Like what should I do? So it caused me to really look at what I was doing with my time and then what happens next kept coming up as a recurring question in the Chaos Declarity business, in Satva, in Built to Scale, in literally everything that I was doing, I was asking myself, okay, cool.

What happens next? What happens when I do this? How much is all of this stuff relying solely on me? Now, something I want you to think about here, right? So if you're going to take a piece of clarity away this week, my rule here is automate what should be automated, systematize what cannot be automated.

Not everything is going to need an automation and you're going to drive yourself batty if you're trying to automate literally everything. And now I know somebody's going to say, How do I know what needs to be automated? If you're doing something over and over and over, and you don't necessarily have to do that thing over and over and over, like for instance, here on Riverside where I'm recording this, I record this and then I have it set up in here.

After I'm done recording, that Riverside automatically gives me magic clips, but it also gives me captions and it gives me show notes and it gives me a number of things. And I set that all up in here. Now, do I need to go through that and add more of my voice in there? Yes, absolutely. And I do. But that first automation, that was something that was taking me forever to do.

Even when I was having, you know, like AI help me with it, I was still downloading the transcript, putting it over there, taking it out, putting it here. Now it's all right here. And I can go in, I can edit it, I can add my voice, and then I can put it into captivate where I launch, where I have my RSS feed. So that's an automation within a system. And like I said, not everything needs an automation and

Some things do need an actual human. So I personally, when we're focusing on the podcast, I choose to use Riverside and Captivate. I could use Riverside for just about everything, but Captivate gives me just a few more like analytics that I love to have. I can also have multiple podcasts inside of Captivate. So that's why it's not all in one place. Now

Your brain doesn't need to be responsible for remembering every single thing. And that's where if you're a woman, if you're in your mid-30s, 40s, even in your 20s, and you're going, my God, I cannot make another decision. Girl, you don't have to be responsible for remembering every single thing. However, if you're going to take some of that decision fatigue off of yourself.

In order to do that, you have to, as you're doing these things, you have to either write down what you're doing step by step, as in like I go to Google Docs, I open a Google Doc, I type in some notes about what I'm doing, about what I want to talk about, I record the thing. You need to create an SOP, right? And that is going to help you take out some of that. It's also going to allow you to see what can be automated, right? So if you have a podcast.

I would love for you, and you could do this with your last reel or any of your last content that you've created. So take your last episode and map it from the moment you had the idea until a few weeks after it published. So you're going to be asking yourself, like, where are you personally holding everything together? What is something that someone else could do? Is it

financially viable for someone else to do that. As in if you charge $100 an hour and it's taking you three hours to do one thing, would it be worth paying someone up to $300 to do that thing over and over and over for you? Because with those three hours, you could be making $300 more, right? So thinking about it in those terms.

Right. And also what can happen automatically. I think in the world of AI, sometimes we get a little at least I do get a little camera shy, or maybe not camera shy, but we get a little like gun shy of like, I don't know if I should automate that because like what if it breaks? but I would say now in twenty twenty six things break a lot less than they did in two thousand seven. I'm just

Just being real with you all here. And you know, like if your process ends with, I don't know, nothing happens after that, that's definitely where I'd start. Like understanding, like you want to know what happens next. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, this really just threw me for a curveball. Or I've been thinking about starting a podcast, but now I'm not so sure. or you're wondering.

pulling your hair out thinking, my God, I just created a 23 minute podcast. And now what? I still have to go create content for the day. No girl, you don't. We're also gonna go through like what happens next? What happens after you post this stuff? Like how do you bring people into your world, into your ecosystem, all of that stuff. I'm so excited, I'm so excited for this whole workshop.

I have been this is something that I didn't realize I've been like percolating on this idea for as long as I have until I started writing down and talking about all of the things. so I'm super excited. I hope you'll join. The link is down below in the show notes. All of the links are gonna be down there. So there is one main link down there that's gonna have everything, everything from

Accessing the podcast to the offer audit, strategy call, VIP days gonna have this free workshop. Sign up in there. and then as always, let me know what is connecting with you. Like what hit hard in this episode? Make sure you slide into my DMs. You can find me at Maggie Lynn, L-Y-N-N, Mentoring, or at the Chaos Declarity Podcast.

Slide in my DMs, let me know what resonated with you today, what questions you have as well. make sure you share, subscribe, review. Reviews really help. And that's something that I don't ask for enough in and on this podcast. So if you would give me an honest review, that would be so solid. I would love you forever. And if you have questions, let me know next week.

We are going to be talking about why your podcast doesn't need more downloads. It needs a job, which leads in perfectly from what I've been talking about today. So I'm so excited. I'll see you in the next episode.