249: Ditching Social Media: How Podcasts Can Elevate Your Business Strategy

Stefanie: 0:00

It's what is the one solution for people and it's something you want to create and own because that gets you the biggest profit margin for the least amount of your time. And my favorite highly, highly, highly scalable.

Camille: 0:22

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Welcome back everyone to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 0:46

This is the place to come, where we celebrate mothers building businesses, and one thing that I hear from many women that I coach and I'm helping through the last few years is that a lot of us are tired. We are tired of social media. We want a different way. We're looking at the time that we have and the return that we have for what we're doing, what we're sharing and what we're giving online, and sometimes, a lot of times, social media isn't giving us the return that we hope to find, and so today we're going to talk about podcasting. It is a new I would say newer-ish thing that people are starting to lean into as the next big thing where there can be a sense of well, what do I have to say? Is what I have to say worth it? Is anyone going to tune in? How do I even make money podcasting? So we have an expert today.

Camille: 1:38

I'm so thrilled that Stephanie Gass has agreed to join us because she is a podcast coach, a boy mom and a seven-figure CEO. She helps women to grow their online business, particularly with podcasting, and she is the host of a top 20 globally ranked business podcast called Online Business for Christian Women. She believes it is possible to partner with God to create income and impact without sacrificing your family, faith or buying into social media hustle, and just reading that, I, like, want to take a deep breath and say thank you. Isn't that what we all want? So, stephanie, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Stefanie: 2:19

Hi, I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait to have this conversation.

Camille: 2:24

Yeah, me too. You know it's interesting because I feel like this has been a topic that's come up more than once where people are asking me okay, you're podcasting, but how do you make money podcasting? How do I know if that's something that I'm even worthy of? It feels like this big mountain that needs to be conquered, so I would love to hear if that's a question you get asked a lot. I would imagine that it is, but before we dive into all that, yummy goodness, please tell our audience a little bit more about you, your family, where you are coming from and how you got into this field.

Stefanie: 2:59

Sure, so I'm a boy mom, like you already mentioned, but I have two little boys. We live in a of a wannabe farm. I have four hens, one of them recently died. So I'm a chicken mom, rip to my favorite chicken who got eaten by a coyote. So therefore, you see, like we're kind of like live in the country life, but more so as wannabes, um, in New Mexico we have four seasons, like you do, camille, and my favorite thing, my favorite drink, is coffee. So there's all the fun facts about me.

Stefanie: 3:30

As far as what I do, I have been a full-time entrepreneur for 17 years, which is so wild. I've been in everything. I was in network marketing to get started. I really I have a whole story and I can tell as much or little as you want me to of that, but basically did it the world's way, totally idolizing success and money and working and striving and just constant obsession with the next rank to the point of burnout. Business basically crumbled and had to borrow money from my kiddos savings account to pay the mortgage one month because, um, when you build something overnight, it will quickly leave you and at that point, for me, my faith is, as you read in the intro, a big piece of who I am, and so for me, it was kind of this um breakdown moment Some people call it like the bathroom floor moment where you're just at the rock bottom, Like my whole identity had been in that business. I knew I was still called to entrepreneurship, called to leadership, but I felt like a total failure, and so I rebuilt everything about my life, fully surrendered to God, and that this moment happened. It was in 2016.

Stefanie: 4:42

And I really started to, piece by piece, rebuild my life in partnership with my faith, and so what that ultimately led to was understanding like I don't have to build a business the way that everybody says. I don't have to spend four to five hours a day on social media anymore, because there's got to be a different way that God is leading me, because I'm also called to be a present mom, I'm also called to be healthy in my body. At the time, I was being called to get sober, and that was a whole journey I had to go on, and so there were all these different things happening in my life that I could no longer control, and so, over the course of the next three years, I was on this spiritual journey along with this, you know, physical journey of rebuilding my health myself and restarting a business. So now, today, to kind of fast forward through that messy middle which I had to go through and I think a lot of us do who are in business, have to go through a point of surrender and figure out, like, why everything is so hard and start asking these deeper questions about why we're doing the things that we're doing. And so went through all of that and I had a prophetic dream in 2018, start a podcast.

Stefanie: 5:50

And I had been praying like I don't understand I'm supposed to build a new thing, like, if it's not social media, where is it Cause? I had been feeling so like addicted to social media. I felt like I was capitalizing on my kids. I was on there four to five hours a day and I was barely scraping any any clients. And I heard this in my dream start a podcast.

Stefanie: 6:10

And this was in 2017.

Stefanie: 6:11

I didn't listen to shows, anything.

Stefanie: 6:13

I felt totally unqualified for it.

Stefanie: 6:15

Like you said, it felt fancy.

Stefanie: 6:17

But I was obedient to the dream and I woke up and I plugged in this staticky mic had a weird podcast name that I went with, made my own art it was so ugly and started speaking and, lo and behold, one year into that podcasting journey, I laid down social media. For two years, completely, completely dead to the world. I didn't exist and my podcast grew from zero to a multi-six figure business within that 18 month, 24 month period of time that I was off social media and I was able to really get clear on who I wanted to be as a business owner and the type of business I wanted to create. And it was proof that there was a different way for women just like me to create businesses that were highly profitable in way less time. So that's what I started doing with all my heart, energy and soul, and that's what I do still today. And I now have a top 20 podcast and I've taught thousands of women how to grow six figure plus businesses using podcasting instead of social media, and it literally feels like a dream.

Camille: 7:27

Wow, that really is the dream, I mean, I think, where you were able to really turn it to God and ask that question and be so willing to pick up and go. That is, I feel like that is something we all want to hear. You know where it's like. What is that thing? What is that thing In that moment when you were going from starting this new venture I mean 2017, that was pretty early in the game to have that a nod, to do that, and do you feel like for people who are starting now, because it is much more saturated, what would be the skillset or the things that you would need to know that you wish you knew then, being so unfamiliar?

Stefanie: 8:11

Sure. So I first want to preface this by saying everything is saturated. So if you, you guys have to pick your hard, what is your thing going to be? And the biggest mistake I see most of my students make is they try to show up in all the places, particularly short form. So they're showing up on social, they're showing up in stories, maybe reels, maybe YouTube shorts, because they think that short form is what gets a result, because there's gratification in it, and what I mean by that is there's a like. You can see the likes, you can see the views and so you feel like you're being validated in your efforts and it's going to grow your business.

Stefanie: 8:50

And people don't like podcasting necessarily, or don't think they should, because there's no validation. In podcasting, you don't see views, nothing goes viral Like you're just here talking to this microphone and praying that somebody across the world like magically finds you and listens and has a heart transformation. So what happens is a lot of people start podcasts, which is why it may seem saturated or a lot more busy than of a space than it used to. But the truth and this truth is crazy Less than 1% of people who podcast ever make it past 10 episodes. I've heard that. I've heard that.

Stefanie: 9:26

I've heard that and the reason is is it doesn't feel good.

Stefanie: 9:28

It's not a feel good content method, it's a money making content method. So if you can push through and I tell my students, give me 12 months Like, if you can just with me strategically build this podcast out where it becomes a lead generator and a conversion tool, you're going to surpass all the people around you dropping like flies because it doesn't feel good. And we, as business owners, we have this belief that building this business has to be so validating and I'm like, where does that come from? Like, building a business is hard work. It's like I'm going to get behind the mic and I'm going to speak my heart and soul and teach you day after day after day for seven years and now I have a seven figure business.

Stefanie: 10:11

Like this is not anything that's overnight success is literally could be gone just as fast. So we want to build something that's so sustainable. So when you guys are thinking about back to Camille's question, like was podcasting too saturated? Maybe, but what else isn't saturated? Like pick your thing, and I I highly encourage it to be a long form method which we can get more into that has no shelf life, because some of my top downloaded episodes are from five years ago and those episodes are still making sales every single week, every single day.

Camille: 10:44

Wow, okay, I think that that could be especially so.

Camille: 10:48

I've been podcasting now for over four years and I was talking with a mentor of mine and she said do not start a podcast until you understand a plan for how you want to monetize eventually. And I thought that was really good advice because she said if you do not, eventually you'll resent it, because podcasting is really interesting and I think, in terms of where I have been in the influencer world for many years, it is more visible for people to see your stats, know exactly what's happening, or assume that they do where a podcast it's a little more close to the chest where people can just look and see. So, as far as monetizing, I'm curious what your advice is for people if they have their own product first or if they try I mean going for sponsorships out of the gate. That's not going to happen because you only have to, like, you have to be in the top 0.5 to be, like, eligible for that sort of thing. So I'm curious what kind of funnels you you suggest that people do or what is the game plan in general.

Stefanie: 11:56

So I, you know, respectfully disagree with. That's okay, because for me, what I teach my students is if you can start with the podcast. Now to her point, like you do need to have, I teach it's called the micro, micro niche. So we are going segment of a market identifier inside the market and a who like we are dialing really down deep. Like, for example, I'm not going to bless someone's podcast that says I'm going to have the encourage life mom show and I'm like what is that? What are you even talking about? I'm going to press in with that Life Mom Show and I'm like what is that? What are you even talking about? I'm going to press in with that student to say what about mom life? Are we talking about time management for working moms? Are we talking about connecting with your kids, with patient parenting for kids under five? Like we're going to drill it really down.

Stefanie: 12:45

So we are going to have a plan, but it's not a plan for profit, it's a plan for positioning. It's a plan for like, what is someone searching for when they come to the Apple podcast app or the Spotify app or wherever, and they type in like macros, macros for beginners, relationship coaching, communication, coaching with my husband what is the thing they're actively searching for. We want to position your podcast with a very clear plan, because your podcast actually is your lead generating tool and nobody ever thinks that. They think social media is the tool and all these other places I show up will drive traffic to the podcast, and that's what's going to happen. But what's what I've proven to be true?

Stefanie: 13:32

If we correctly label the podcast, we title it something clear, we have your keywords and your SEO set up. We do all these things strategically. Your podcast actually generates traffic on its own and because it's close to heart, close to the chest. Like you say, people don't need a year of following Camille as an influencer. They need one 15 minute episode where they're like oh my gosh, I know her. How the heck do I work with Camille? So that's where that next, those next steps, will come in, which are monetization, which I'm happy to walk through now. Do you have?

Camille: 14:03

any questions on the first part? Okay, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's the riches are in the niches. I've even considered changing the name of my podcast many times, yeah. I'm here for you when you're ready. I love it. No, that's awesome. So tell us, yeah, let's go a little bit more into the monetization.

Stefanie: 14:33

So good. So you mentioned sponsorships. That is totally a way that. That's the typical way people think of making money from a podcast, you know. But the reality is it is pennies on the download and so unless we're Joe Rogan, you know, it's like going to make 50 bucks here and there. Like, honestly, it's usually not worth it.

Stefanie: 14:40

So what I teach my students to do is how can you have an offer that's highly desired by the ideal listener of your podcast? You know so. For example, Camille, let's say that you have a podcast specifically about how to work from home as a virtual assistant and you have this podcast and people are listening to you. Tell them like it is possible to literally work from home and be a virtual assistant and make really great money doing that, and you monetize it. My three favorite ways are either one-on-one coaching. If your audience is really small, that's a great way that you guys can make fast income, get market research fully, deeply understand who you're serving. My second thing that I move them to is an e-course, like a fully passive course or a group coaching program, and the reason these are my three favorite is you have such a specific solution for people.

Stefanie: 15:31

I see so many people say, I need a tiny offer and a high ticket offer and 13 freebies, and I'm like you don't confuse your audience so far and beyond, Like they don't actually know what to buy from you and so they just left because you're so confusing. So we want, okay, great. Well, I have the work from home virtual assistant method and it's a six month course and it's cost you know, nine, 97 or whatever. We have all that strategy that that I talk about, but it's what is the one solution for people and it's something you want to create and own, because that gets you the biggest profit margin for the least amount of your time.

Stefanie: 16:07

And, my favorite, highly, highly, highly scalable, Because if you run a group coaching program, for example, instead of doing a membership group at $37 a month and you have to constantly come up with new content, people are falling out of the membership as fast as you put them in. You've sold a six month container to people where you can teach one person and you can teach 1000 people at the same time. So I'm always looking for how do I position myself in front of the most people with my podcast, get their trust as quickly as I can because my podcast really designed specifically for them and move them into my offer. That is a scalable model that I own. So that's kind of my favorite way to monetize. And there's a bunch of ways, but those are the three that I teach.

Camille: 16:56

Yeah, ooh, I love it. And I'm curious as far as hosting a course, just because this is always a big question who do you like to use for hosting your resources?

Stefanie: 17:06

Yeah. So I've tried all the things that were super fancy and all the money in the world and I ended up coming back to my favorite checkout system. You've heard of thrive cart. They have a course hosting now and it's just included with your one-time fee. So I'm like I migrated all my courses there like two years ago and it's absolutely fabulous. So that's what I have everyone do, because if we can save money and not have a monthly expense like an email that keeps growing and growing, growing and like we just pay for something one time and we're done with it, that's my favorite. So we use Thrivecart. It's called and learn L-E-A-R-N is the integration with Thrivecart. That is the course piece and it's. It's wonderful.

Camille: 17:51

Okay, and what about your emailing? Is that? Does Thrivecart have that?

Stefanie: 17:54

as well.

Camille: 17:55

I wish emailing, emailing.

Stefanie: 17:57

I've signed contracts and blood cause I'm like, too, built out over there to ever move. Yeah, so they're all pretty similar. We use get response but convert kit. You know you guys can honestly get away with flow desk and save money perfectly fine, so email's less important, I would say. As far as who you, who you set up with, then something that you're going to get like, if you can start with the right course building software, it saves you so much time in the future because migration is pretty awful.

Camille: 18:26

Yes, I'm right in the middle of that going oh, I love Stan store right now. It's so user-friendly and it has a lot of the tools that Kajabi has. It has hosting it for you know, you can do payment plans, affiliate, all these things, but I'm like gosh, moving it over. Do I want to do that? It's so much to bite off which I mean? Listen, we're going to have upgrades with tech all the time.

Camille: 18:51

I think it's really more important about choosing one and getting started, getting some good advice like you are here and then getting into it. So I would love to hear when you're thinking about why do you think social media is dead? And then how we can take the podcast approach Like let's say that we go super, super niche, and then how long is the buildup before you're offering these products? Do you build the product first? Do you build the audience first? What's your order for that? Are you ready to reclaim your time and finally focus on the tasks that actually grow your business? Whether you're looking to hire a VA or thinking about becoming one, I've got the perfect solution for you.

Camille: 19:34

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Camille: 19:49

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Stefanie: 20:13

Yeah, so I'll answer backwards and then I'll go to the social media piece. So the podcast we first build the podcast because if we are not bringing in like qualified niche in leads, we have no one to sell to anyway.

Stefanie: 20:26

So I have my students start with get the podcast in the world like to the best of your ability. Know that we're going to tweak it, refine it, optimize it with with more data, like I've had my show out now for almost seven years and we've gone through three rebrands, so it's not like a big deal. Let's get this in the world and really start practicing with being really really clear and like letting that become a refinement. Then, once that's done and like I am consistent with my content long form I'm consistent with my long form on the show I do want I recommend one episode a week, minimum two is preferable. And if you, I always tell my students, like, just get off of social and do two a week and you'll grow faster, which I'll tell you why in a minute. So then, um, after that's happening, we move to creating the offer or refining the offer. The worst thing is to wait and build an offer that you've not validated. We don't know. Does anybody even want this offer? Can I give it away? Can I beta this offer? Does anybody even like it? Does it sell? Once we then have those pieces of information clear, we can scale something, but if we don't have a following of people who trust us. No one's going to buy it anyway, and then we wasted our time. So we start the podcast, then we work on building what the offer is, and I always have people start with coaching because it helps them validate what their course will be Like. What do we call it? What are people saying? You're basically getting paid to do market research. So that is definitely happens for people for a short while, and some of them love coaching and want to keep doing it. But it's a great way to make faster income when your audience is smaller. So that's the order of ops there.

Stefanie: 21:59

Now related to social media. So you know, I lived this out. I was fully sold out. Like social media is the way I'm going to grow my coaching business. This was back in like 2014, 2015. And that even back then, like it did work better than it works today, but I was still spending four to five hours a day. Like I was making the stories. I hired this big company and they were helping me. Like you need to go and connect with this person and like this thing. And then we're going to post these things in these groups and like liking people's stuff on Instagram and retagging back the tag shares and the back shares. I don't even remember. And I had mistakenly grown to 40,000 followers and I had, you know, a thousand likes per post and like there was hundreds of people in the stories and it was great and like all this stuff looked to be working.

Stefanie: 22:45

You know it's like, oh, I'm growing, this feels so good, this feels so good, but like, why then am I getting one client a month? Like, why then, is this not converting? And it's literally every waking minute of my life, like I cannot have a second with my kids and enjoy it without thinking I should grab it. I should grab the footage because it's going to resonate with somebody. And I started to feel like, um, I had this veil over my face all the time, like the content veil, like oh, my gosh, look how cute my you know kid is swinging. I should get my phone.

Stefanie: 23:18

And it just started to feel so unethical in my heart, like what? And for me it was. I think the kids were a piece of it, but it was even anything that I would do in my life and it wasn't yielding a result. It would have been different if it's like wow, clients are coming in left and right and like this is making so much sense. There's such a return on my time, but there was zero return on my time. So, as for me, remember with the whole, with my breakdown piece, I'm like, lord, what am I not doing Well, am I not doing right? What am I not doing well, am I not doing right? And it was actually my church that started this whole thing.

Stefanie: 23:52

There was a fast that happened and it was like well, I'll fast from Instagram for 30 days, cause that did feel like such an addiction in my life and, um, I ended up deleting it from my phone. I think I had one person on my team at the time and I said don't post anything Like, I'm just going to do a quick fast from Instagram. Well, I told my following about it on the podcast because I had just started the show, and I said I'm going to see what happens in 30 days with no social media. So I go on this fast. And with the first week was awful, like I wanted to touch my phone. I kept grabbing my phone and at this point, camille, I had already been deleting the socials from my phone every weekend for three years, cause I had already felt this conviction, but I was so scared to rip the bandaid off, that I would let me delete everything for a weekend, and then I'd feel so peaceful and good and I'd put it right back on Monday morning and start again, like it's like any addiction like you lay an addiction down for a second but you pick it back up, you're right where you were, and so that had been happening and I could see the fruit of no social. But I wasn't trusting that there was another way.

Stefanie: 25:00

So in this 30 days, the craziest thing happened. I had all this time. I literally got back four hours a day because I wasn't posting anything and I'm like okay, I had all these downloads of like better content for the podcast. I started doing another episode a week. I started emailing my list consistently. I started figuring out how to market my podcast on Pinterest. I used this time to get strategic about my show and in 30 days the podcast grew. The email list doubled.

Stefanie: 25:29

I think I booked like five clients that month and I was going I'm not going to get back on social Like, I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to keep the test going. I told them six months. Well, stayed off for six more months. I hit six figures without a social media presence at all. I hadn't touched it, I did nothing. It's like I had died. Everyone's like where is she Cause? I used to post every single day and stories like five times a day, and so they came to the podcast to find where I was heard about this thing and they were like what, she's not on social.

Stefanie: 26:00

So, anyway, I stayed off for two whole years and, um, everything exploded. Literally everything exploded. I got. I learned so much. I got my time back. Exploded Literally everything exploded, I got. I learned so much. I got my time back. And for me, what it was was a lesson that we do not have to keep doing the things that other people are doing if there's no data behind it. So if you look in inventory, all the things you're doing in your business, what has no fruit, stop doing it. Why do we keep doing the things that have no fruit, no money, no conversion. What a waste of time. And we tell ourselves we have to and it's, it's not the case at all. Um, so that's kind of how that went down.

Camille: 26:40

That's amazing. So when you did do the fast and you're taking a break and you're now niching down in more, was that where you were helping other people to podcast to, or what was the more? Was that where you were helping other people to podcast to, or what was the message or the coaching that you were shifting to?

Stefanie: 26:54

Sure. So at that time, in the very beginning, it was called clarity coaching and I was helping women figure out what their business would be. And then I went from $80 an hour to $800 an hour in 24 months because the demand was insane and I would air them on the podcast and people would be like I want one of those calls and like it was crazy and so talk about like I struggled to get one client a month on social, yet I couldn't even yield feel the inbox responses from the podcast and I forgot to say why social media marketing is dead, the reason I want to just really quick on that social media marketing doesn't work to grow your business or convert people because it's a 90 second dopamine hit. I'm actually miss, I misspeak. It's a five second dopamine hit. It's your 90 seconds, it's their five seconds, right? You go in, you spend all this time creating something and you guys have heard this. You know this is true because we live it. We literally live it. You go to your phone and we're not going to our phone to learn and to usually like digest 30 minutes of training. We're going to our phone for the dopamine hit. Any visual stimulation is going to be a dopamine hit. So we go to our phone, we head to the Instagram, we head to the Tik TOK, we head to the whatever's cool Now click, like often, like it's dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. And so people aren't in the posture of being like, oh my gosh, I love that. Like maybe 0.001% of people are like I'm here to learn something and actually go grow whatever. It is the thing I want to do right now. And so the difference is is that with podcasting, those people are coming to solve a problem People who listen to podcasts.

Stefanie: 28:29

Demographically they are higher earners, they have discretionary income, they invest in themselves, they are people, creatures of habit. They like to work out and listen to a podcast of dropping their kids off. Listening to a podcast, they're making dinner, doing laundry, and so they're already the right type of person who's going to make a change in their life. And because it's audible, learning there is no dopamine hit. So they're actually here for the content. They're actually here to give you their full attention for 10, 15, 20 minutes.

Stefanie: 28:57

Like how many of you guys are still listening to Camille and I right now? Like if you were on your phone watching a story of us, you may have already clicked off it within the first 30 seconds, and so that is why social media marketing is dead. Our brains cannot handle really intentional focus on a visual platform anymore, and because social media is against you, it's only going to be up for 24 hours. Less than 1% of people see it, and most of us can't afford to pay to play when you're getting started, and so, while that's a great strategy, later, when you're making seven figures or whatever, I think when we're thinking about growing a business, if we can better spend our time on the long form content that never dies, why would we not be focused on that?

Camille: 29:39

Oh amen. I feel like this is very in line with blogging, which I've been doing since 2011. And also that SEO piece, where anything we put on social media is not searchable. Maybe someone could search keywords within your name that's, on your Instagram or TikTok but the actual content is not something that people are going to search and then find relatively as long as they would. With long form like podcasting, blogging and other forms like email that you actually own, that you can keep connecting with these people. So I totally, I totally agree with you on that. I would love to hear a few examples of people that you've helped create niche approaches to podcasting and how they've been able to monetize.

Stefanie: 30:29

Sure. So I had this client way back when when I got started, and she won this 15 minute coaching call with me and I remember chatting with her on the phone back in the day, funny enough. And she's like you know, I like to organize stuff in homes and I organize these things. I'm just such organizer and I come up with all these systems for people and I was like, oh yeah, cool, like it's systemize your life, and I just it's like I would have these downloads of what people's thing was, and I was able to articulate back to them because people fumble around right Like I'm good at this and this and I like this and this, and it's like listen, this is your thing. And she's like system is your life. No one would ever listen to that or do anything with that.

Stefanie: 31:10

Well, today she's a top five podcast in the parenting category, over 3 million downloads, multi-mill, almost a seven figure company, and she has obviously built the different systemize your life program. So she first had systemize your life, which was a home management system, and then she migrated into business and it's now systemized to scale, which teaches people how to manage their home and business so they can actually scale. And that's one example of going from like literally nothing. She had less than 200 people following her on Instagram. She thought she had to use social. She tried blogging. That wasn't really working for her and I said stop everything, start this podcast, go all in.

Stefanie: 31:51

She had a slow grow too, because podcasting isn't a feel good, it's not an overnight Her whole first year I think she had 10,000 downloads, which was like which is great, but she wasn't seeing exponential growth by any means. She was like I'm just going to keep going. You keep telling me this is going to work, like I'll keep going highly coachable. So I'll speak to that Like when you're coachable and you don't get distracted, you're going to have a lot more success than somebody who's constantly chasing the new and shiny Cause. All you do is start over and then you start over again. So she locked into that and she really saw it through. By her second year she was a multi-six figure company from the podcast never dollar on ads, nothing like all from her show.

Camille: 32:30

Wow.

Stefanie: 32:31

And was that?

Camille: 32:31

through selling her own course, or was that okay? Yep.

Stefanie: 32:34

We built the course that matched what the people wanted on the podcast. One offer, one thing, one offer. Guys Like, if you want to take something to the bank from this conversation, get clear on what your micro, micro niches. One long form usually podcasting for people who you know. Video is okay, but it's so much more expensive and it's still a video platform it's hard to hold attention. Blogging is okay, too, but it's a much slower grow.

Stefanie: 32:58

I've been blogging as well since like 2012. And it's like too, but it's a much slower grow. I've been blogging as well since like 2012. And it's like we're now seeing traction. So podcasting is a much easier thing for most people to start because it's from behind a mic. So, anyway, yeah, and then she sold that course that matched what her people wanted. And I have hundreds of examples like that from people who've done. You know. I have people someone who started a podcast on infidelity and like repairing broken marriage. I have someone who does the grief mentor podcast with Teresa Davis and she's now making thousands of dollars every month with her offer. And the offers are usually always one of the three things I said coaching course or group coaching because those are the highest profit margin product that you can own.

Camille: 33:39

And I'm curious about price point Cause I feel like that's a thing I get asked about a lot is what if I create a course? How much should it be? And and a lot of times people get nervous about charging for a course. What would be your opinion about that?

Stefanie: 33:53

Sure. So if you are really a newbie and I'm talking like you have, I call them super fans. They're the people who are on your email list opening your emails. You know in your Facebook group like they're your people, your core people. If there's less than 250 of those, I highly recommend sticking with coaching because you still don't really know. You're getting to know your people, you're getting to know yourself, your business, and so you stick with coaching.

Stefanie: 34:17

And we have people start from like $67 to 97 for coaching, like an hour, and then you, every time you book up for three months in a row, you double your prices. So that's how I got from 80 to 800 so fast. It was like 80. Then I went 160. Then I went like almost 400. Then I went 800. So like you're doubling and scaling as your demand grows, because we want to continue to scale, but with a one-on-one method you have to take less clients. So that's the coaching.

Stefanie: 34:46

Once you pass that, like 300 super fans, like people who are really, really in it with you and you've done some coaching, start looking at what your course will be. And I have people price that course out between 297 and 497. And the reason for that is they're still kind of beta, like we're just launching our first course, we're seeing if it sells. We want to validate the offer. I don't want them to create this high ticket thing when we don't even know if it's the thing yet.

Stefanie: 35:15

Like, everything in business is a test, everything in business. So we test it. Does it sell, is it highly desired? And then we optimize. And as we optimize over time we can raise prices accordingly. And so it starts there and I always recommend a payment plan so you don't need to be afraid of charging because there's a payment plan. So people can do that as well. Anything under $297, people don't show up for it, so they're not going to take your course, and you don't want to sell things to people that aren't going to take the course. So that's that. If you have like over 2000 super fans, I start pushing my students a bit more to the higher ticket group coaching. So we'll look at like a 997 or a 1997 six-month group coaching program and beyond. Once we start getting the bigger followings and more super fans, we can scale with that and create something that might be a bit more robust yeah, oh, that's good advice.

Camille: 36:14

I love how you've come up with benchmarks, because those are similar numbers that I am familiar with and I've seen people do. Those are similar numbers that I am familiar with and I've seen people do. But to say, if you have this type of fan base and or this, this, a type of authority because I feel like that piece comes into play too is do you have the accreditation, are you a doctor, are you a specialist? Do you have you know that that also can play a part, and a lot of times it's confidence and what you, what your mindset is around it, especially with coaching, I see, because it's the wild west a bit with that, where it's there's not this benchmark of like, okay, once you hit this, then that's what you can charge.

Stefanie: 36:54

So that's really I like how you set that out. Yeah, and to that confidence piece, you know it's not really what you say, it's how you say it. It's so much of how you say it like what you, how you position everything does matter, like the podcast title and the experience that people get and the SEO those things do matter. But when it comes down to conversion and actually making a sale, it's about how you confidently connect with someone. If they believe that you can solve their problem, they will buy. So if you guys can practice that and I tell my students I'm like, just act as if for that 30 seconds, like really embody the most confident, brave version of yourself, elevate your voice a little bit, like really command attention, because it's about the feeling that your buyer gets in, or that's what creates the buying posture of like I'm actually going to go stop what I'm doing right now and check out for this thing that I've been wanting for a while. It's your authority when you sell.

Camille: 37:55

Yeah, I agree with that, especially when it's audio, of course, because then if they can sense that within the intonation of your voice, how confidently you're saying the thing, and I'm curious with as far as building that list or making that offer, how often would you suggest that people are pushing or selling rather than the value piece, or do you always have that call to action for the thing you're selling? What's your advice with that?

Stefanie: 38:21

So I always sell, and I think that that is a must because people are so distracted Even our podcast people, which are some of the more focused people left on the planet they're still doing something else while they're listening to you, and so I sell every single episode. But I don't do it in a creepy way. It's always an invitation and it's always varied. So one time I might talk about a student success story. This time over here I might talk about the results. This time over here I might talk about the pain points that they're going through. This time over here I might just hard sell it.

Stefanie: 38:55

And so I'm constantly playing with the different methods of selling, because one person doesn't make a buying decision the same as someone else and there's so many different ways that people decide to buy. Like some people are emotional buyers, some people are sale buyers, some people are pain point buyers, and so I do that all the time. But it needs to be varied and really authentic, and it's never pushy, ever, once in a while. It's pushy because Cause it's like I'm going to get in their face and say, like you've been praying for this answer and you've not taken action, like what's going on? I will call that out sometimes, but more often than not it's like I'll be here when you're ready, like take it or leave it, and I think that posture actually gets people to buy because they're going oh my gosh, I'm left behind, like Steph's going without me, with the people that are with her, like I should go, I should go.

Stefanie: 39:42

And so I think if we stop being weird about selling and just recognize, like you have the thing that someone is desperately praying for, so stop holding back on it, like they can choose to say yes or no, and the podcast episode is the value, so they can skip me, don't care, you know, go ahead, skip it. The value. So they can skip me, don't care, you know, go ahead, skip it. The value is here for you 850 episodes later, but I'm going to tell you how you're going to go get that solution.

Camille: 40:10

It's by working with me unapologetically every single time. I love that. I agree with that too. That sense of confidence and I think for me that's something that I have a weakness in is I do. I'm so used to the, I think, the blogger mindset of like, value, value, value, value, oh, and I need to sell to you now. So sometimes I get hold back with that, and I think that that is generally more what people do in my experience that it so to have that confidence of like no, every time I'm going to remind you I can help you. That's really important and I'm curious what do you think about? A new thing I see creeping up is like a secret podcast or a private podcast, where it's like a series or people are doing like a problem and then saying, oh, I have this secret podcast series, but you have to be subscribed. What is your opinion about that?

Stefanie: 41:00

I think that those are fine if you want them to be a conversion tool. But the first order of business is like I need a podcast and I need to blow it up, because the podcast is the way that people are going to come into the funnel and the way that people are going to trust you. If later like, okay, I'm hitting you know a couple hundred thousand downloads, I'm growing my super fan number, I'm hitting a couple hundred thousand downloads, I'm growing my super fan number, I'm making sales and now I wanna build something that helps convert to this offer that I know sells. Sure, you can make the like.

Stefanie: 41:29

Let's say that you have the macro methods course and you have the macros for beginners podcast. You can say I have this secret podcast. It'll take you through seven days of perfecting your macros, but the reason someone goes to the secret podcast is to go through the seven days to get sold the macros course. So, like there's a method to the madness we don't create more things to create more things. We want a podcast that generates leads and offer that's hard selling. And now we figure out the middle. That's the last step. How do I make more conversions of the thing that's already selling organically straight from the podcast?

Camille: 42:05

So question about the middle what is your opinion on podcast length and also having a guest, versus being the solo person who's talking all of the time, because I know that my solo episodes are very well received, but most of my episodes are interview based, because that's a big piece of how I'm doing networking and coaching, with lining people up with what I offer, with virtual assistants as an example. So what is your opinion on the different avenues in that regard?

Stefanie: 42:38

So, usually people's sweet spot for a podcast listening is less than 20 minutes, so I typically encourage my students to be less than 20 minutes for interviews. Typically, I tell them to try to keep it under 35 minutes Cause there's a lot of you know, I hate to say fluff, but like storytelling and things that can happen in interviews which some people are obsessed with and that's the model. And like, as long as your download numbers support, people like these episodes as much as they like 15 minutes with Camille. Keep doing it. But pay attention to those analytics. Maybe you know oh, wow, I'm getting half the listens when I have an episode with someone else. Let me try shortening it by half the length. Does it pick back up? Is it the length? That that's the problem? So I'm always looking at my analytics to see what do they want, what do they not want and then making sure it's fun for you.

Stefanie: 43:28

Some people hate doing interviews. Have a solo show. Some people, like I, only want to have interviews. I hate talking about myself. I have an interview podcast. You can do whatever you want to do. As long as it's niched all the way down to your person and what they actually need from you, you will be okay, but that's so. There's that, and I think just pay attention to what your audience is liking and kind of follow their lead and know that, like you can also just do whatever you want. You enjoy doing something and it brings you joy as a podcaster. Let that be a once in a while thing for you, if your audience isn't loving it, yeah.

Camille: 44:03

Ooh, I love it. Okay, so to wrap this up, for people who are listening and saying I want to start a podcast, I feel like this is what I need to do. What are the top three things that they should do to get started? And then also, of course, how would they connect with you?

Stefanie: 44:19

Yes, so good. So the top three things you should do if you want to start a podcast, number one would be get clear on your micro, micro niche. So what are you going to podcast about? What's the segment of the market, what's the little identifier in there and who is it for? Do that deep work?

Stefanie: 44:37

Um, the second thing you want to do is probably take a course to teach you how to do it right the first time, because I think when we go to YouTube University or whatnot, it's just, it's one puzzle, piece of an entire puzzle, and that really leads people astray. I've seen so many people buy a mini course on email marketing and then a mini course on making a course, and then and now we have 14 different experts telling you to do 14 things a different way, and we end up with a mess. And so see if you can't find the right person for you Obviously, I'm an option if that's something you're looking for and then you start, you press launch, because the only way for your podcast to become highly successful is if you start and then you optimize. If we have no data, we can't refine. So if we sit in perfectionism and we sit in fear and we never start, then the podcast will never grow. So those are what you do and I do have so and where do you connect with me?

Stefanie: 45:29

The podcast is a great place to come and learn. It's online business for Christian women. Anywhere you listen to shows. I also have a five-day bootcamp that you can come and watch at stephaniegasscom slash bootcamp, and we're going to give Camille a code. So if you guys type in Camille at checkout, we'll give that to you for free. So stephaniegasscom slash bootcamp code Camille C-A-M-I-L-L-E, you guys can take that If you want to learn. How the heck do I podcast, how does it make money and go through like a whole five day experience with me? There's your gift and I hope that that blesses you.

Camille: 46:06

Oh, I love that, and I think that the optimized piece is where a lot of people could get stuck, and is that something that with making or working through the weeds of that? What would be your suggestion with the optimization of it?

Stefanie: 46:21

Yes, so that's what I talk about a lot in the bootcamp, so you guys will learn all about that. I have an entire one of the whole days of the training is about SEO keywords why we title the show the way that we do. So that bootcamp will really help you guys get some clarity on that, cause it's a whole process, like my students go through the optimization piece for two weeks in my group coaching program because there's a lot to it.

Stefanie: 46:44

So, you guys can come to that. You know, free five day with the code Camille and kind of deep dive in there and that will help you get a little bit more clarity on that, okay awesome.

Camille: 46:54

Well, one question that I ask all of our guests is what are you reading, watching or listening to and a motherhood moment that you would like to share?

Stefanie: 47:04

Ooh, let's see. Well, I just finished reading Sacred Marriage for the second time and if you guys have not read that book and you are married, please, for the love of all things, go read it. It is such a blessing to your marriage. And then, before that, I'm trying to think. I think I was working through Bob Goff's latest devotional, oh the whimsy one whimsy by Bob Goff, so that was. That's a really good one. I'm a big fan of all his books.

Stefanie: 47:29

Motherhood moment Well, my kids recently went and we recently got them their own Bibles. For like real Bibles for the first time, not like the kiddie ones that were secondhand because they're going to break them, but like they got to pick a real one and to watch their tenderness so they're eight and 11, like putting the tabs on the pages we bought them, the chapter tabs. Like watching them put the tabs with the tenderness and the care I'm. Like watching them learn how to find the wisdom and scripture that we're leading them to. It's been such a joy of my heart, uh, to see their interest in a relationship with God we cultivated at such a young age and to see like, um, you know, it's never too young to start leading your kids into a true relationship and letting them explore what that means for them, and so that's been a really beautiful week or so since they've gotten those Bibles to watch that kind of come alive for them.

Camille: 48:24

I love that. Oh well, this has been so wonderful. Stephanie, thank you so much for being on the show today and, of course, if you are interested, we'll make sure to link all of the links below so that you can get in touch with her, and we will make sure that you get those answers that you need. So, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thanks so much, all right, and we'll see you all next time.

Camille: 48:51

Thank you all for tuning into today's episode and, in true form, of letting you know that I have something to offer. I am helping align busy entrepreneurs with virtual assistants who have taken my course 60 days to VA, and, if you are wanting to take a break from social media, take a load off with your emails, your administrative tasks, whatever that might be. I have had so much fulfillment giving people the ability, the systems and the answers that you need to bring in team members and give you some of your time back. So if that is something that you would like to hear more about, please reach out to me at callmeceopodcast, at gmailcom, or you can reach out to me by Instagram at camillewalkerco or callmeceopodcastcom, at camillewalkerco or callmeceopodcastcom. Hey, ceos, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast, and remember you are the boss.