Hey friends, welcome back to another bonus episode of cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs, the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin and I just returned from a busy week out on the road. My team and I flew to Dallas to attend and be a sponsor, and I also spoke at Make Your Mark Live, which was an event hosted by my good friend Jordan Gill, also known around the interwebs, as @systemssavedme.
And it was so much fun, because that was our first time doing a pop up podcast booth activation, which I'll talk about in more depth in just a moment, because it ties directly into the focus of this bonus episode all about how we use our to live events to jump up on the podcast charts. And then so we were there, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, flew home Saturday, I got to bring Andi and Sabrina on my team with me that was our first out of state trip together via plane at least as a team. So that was so fun to have them at a conference there with me because usually, when I'm just speaking at conferences, rather than also acting as a sponsor, I am traveling alone. So it was lovely to have the two of them with me. And then on Sunday, the very next day after I got home, we also were the presenting sponsor for the upper left ladies summit mini in Portland, Oregon. So my husband and I drove up to set up for that. And that was a completely different activation, which again, I'll kind of compare and contrast the two different live events that we did, since we were a sponsor for both of them, and then talk about how that ultimately helped support our goal of utilizing these live events for podcast worth.
Okay, so first things first, just to kind of break down what we did at these two different events. In Dallas at Make Your Mark live, we did a pop up podcast booth. So this was a much heavier lift for our team for a number of reasons. One, because we were traveling from out of state, we had to really coordinate with a vendor that lived in Texas to help us design and build and install the set that we were going to use. We knew we wanted to make this really visually appealing. And because the purpose of the pop up podcast was to allow the guests who are coming to interview with us throughout the course of the two day conference, to walk away with tangible media assets that they could use for their speaker sizzle reel, for their media kit, for their press page, about page, for social content and B roll, we really wanted to make sure the quality of the visuals was up to par. So we actually hired a Dallas company, shout out to Satin Pavement for creating and designing a set for us essentially.
So it was this huge like I think it was an eight foot backdrop made out of wood, we had our brand splashed across it our colors, our logo mark, if you're curious to see the visuals, if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll insert it here somewhere in the video. If you're listening on the podcast, if you head to our Instagram, we have a really fun recap reel of our time spent together at the event, you'll see lots of behind the scenes and snapshots of our booth installation. So just check out the show notes go to our Instagram @cubicletoCEO for the visuals there. But it was quite a coordinated effort. And it did require a much larger budget for us to be able to pay for that service and then obviously pay for the installation to be built and then set up and torn down.
So that was kind of the idea behind the pop up podcast booth, we had two mics. And people throughout the two days signed up for a 10 minute session with us where they would come and sit down. And it was more of like a bite sized sound bite style interview is how I described it. So we didn't have time. In order to be able to interview as many people as possible, we didn't have time for a sit down full length interview that I normally do with our guests on the show. So instead, we had the same question that we asked for every single person that came and sat down. And then you know from that anywhere from three to seven minute clip, you know some were a little shorter, some were a little longer. We basically told them you know, we we've created a nice video asset for you now that you can utilize for all those different things that I mentioned before your speaker sizzle reel, your media kit, your B roll content for social or whatnot, we're going to send that to you in one to two weeks after the event after we've gotten to go through all the footage and you know, edit and splice it together for each person.
But then on top of that, we were also going to choose our top favorite answers from all of the guests that we interviewed throughout the two days. So I think in total I did oh my goodness, like close to 40, 40 Micro interviews. It was a lot I will say it was a lot. I don't think I could sustain that high volume again. If we were to do another pop up podcast booth. But you know, it was our first time we were experimenting. We didn't really know quite what to expect. So, it all worked out great. Even though we did have some technical errors at the beginning, connecting all the different, you know, microphones to our camera to, anyways, it was a whole thing. But it all worked out for the best in the end.
And we told people you know, like, you're gonna walk away with a media asset no matter what. But then on top of that, we also we're going to choose our favorite snippets to put into one big RoundUp episode that we're going to actually publish on our show. So you'll get to hear some of those attendees answers and interviews in a future bonus episode on our podcast. So stay tuned for that, because there were some really juicy answers and tidbits shared in those interviews. But that was kind of in summary, the pop up podcast booth.
And with that, our main goal with you know, being a sponsor at Make Your Mark live with that pop up activation is we wanted people to actually get to experience our podcast themselves. So rather than just having a booth setup, where we could tell people about the show, we wanted people to live and breathe our show to actually feel what it feels like to be interviewed on our show to actually get to experience visually, and tangibly tactically, really, our branding and our podcast. So it was a huge brand awareness play. But also, we were able to use it for lead gen, right, because anybody who signed up to be interviewed on our show, we were able to collect their emails and information.
And then of course, we wanted to gamify the experience for everyone, even people who didn't have a chance to sit down with me and do a micro interview, we still wanted them to be able to engage with our brand in a meaningful way. So we came up with some really creative and find ways to gamify the experience, we had a game that I won't get into the details of in this episode. But essentially, the main KPI or metric that we were trying to increase was more new podcast follows. This is really important, because if you listened to my previous bonus episode, which I'll link below in the show notes, if you haven't listened yet, but it was talking about my most surprising or top takeaways from Podcast Movement this year.
And one of the things I mentioned in that episode, is that the metric that most impacts your ranking, your shows ranking on the podcast charts, is actually the number of follows that you get the number of new listeners that you get on Apple podcasts. I'm not entirely sure if the same is true for Spotify in terms of the number of new follows being the most influential factor, I should say in in your ranking on the charts. But for Apple it is. And so knowing that going in, we wanted to test this theory, right that we had learned at Podcast Movement and put it into real life practice and say, okay, is this true? So in order for people to play the game to win a prize at our booth, we asked them to follow our show on Apple podcasts. So over the course of the event, I think we got 40, some new podcast listeners or new podcast follows to our show, which was awesome. And then we had some additional bonuses for if you wanted to also support our show by giving it a rating or a review or whatnot. But the main focus was really all about collecting new podcast followers. So that was what that activation looked like in Dallas.
Now in Portland at the Upper Left Ladies mini Summit, it was totally different in terms of the level of lift required. So this one was a really low lift for us in terms of being a sponsor, we were able to setup and teardown ourselves in 30 minutes, there was no fancy installation. To be honest, the sponsorship was a little bit last minute because I had been so focused on coming back from sabbatical, you know, I took the month of August off and then I was preparing for Make Your Mark live. So we didn't have a lot of heads up in terms of this other event that was happening. But when I found out about it, I immediately knew I wanted to be part of it because Jyssica, one of the co founders of Upper Left Ladies is a longtime friend of mine and and someone who I've loved collaborating with multiple times in the past. So it just made sense for us to step in as the presenting sponsor and you know, jump on that opportunity.
So we were able to just set up a quick little table and we had a backdrop that we had used for our let's get visible event it was like a step and repeat that we'd already use. So we just repurpose some of the materials from Make Your Mark live, as well as from past events that we've done ourselves. And for that event. The activation that we chose to do was a 10 minute session on stage where I got to in real time walk people through our quiz our What's your CEO style quiz that I created and launched earlier this year, with the help of my friend Linda Sidhu, who is the queen of personality quiz funnels. You guys know that if you want to create a personality quiz funnel, Linda is your go to person you have to talk to her. So I actually we did an entire episode an in depth case study Interview with Linda on how quiz funnels can really generate revenue in your business. So if you're curious if you want to listen in and learn more about the quiz funnel strategy, I'll make sure to link Linda's episode in the show notes for you as well.
But anyway, so we were at this event and I got to go on stage and lead people through taking the quiz live, it's only a 10 question multiple choice quiz, which works perfectly for an in person activation like this, where you don't want it to feel like a very big ask or a tedious thing for someone to get through, you know, an assessment, right? So it's 10 questions or multiple choice. If you haven't taken it yourself, you really should take a moment to take the quiz because it'll be easier for you to I think, understand this episode, if you get you know what I'm sharing here and have experienced it yourself. But the link for the quiz is ellenyin.com/quiz, 10 multiple choice questions, we walked through them breeze through them in a couple minutes. And then I spent the remainder of the time actually sharing how you can apply your CEO type or your CEO style. There's four distinct styles, how you can actually take that and utilize it to better understand your own audience and their preferred buyer behaviors and personality types.
So it was a really enlightening exercise that was able to be fit into a very short time window, just 10 minutes, like I said, right. And I got so much good feedback from people from live attendees, after sharing how helpful it was how it really opened their mind to a new way of thinking about how they approach selling to different personality types and different buyer behaviors. And it was so cool to see what a large impact it had in such a short span of time. And again, this was also our first time testing a live activation like this, because usually, when I'm at a conference, I'm being asked to actually speak right, whether that's a keynote speech, whether I'm on a panel, or moderating or whatever it is. And I never done like essentially a micro 10 minute session on stage where I'm leading people through an activation where they get to engage and participate in real time with me. So I'm very glad that we decided to test this out because it worked so well that this is now the main sponsored session, I want to lead with going forward for any other events we're sponsoring because I see how impactful it is immediately with the live attendees.
It's a way for us to showcase our expertise and how we can be an educational resource for entrepreneurs of all stages. And they were able to really get a taste of that, through this activation, we're also able to collect leads immediately in the moment because they're entering their email in order to get their quiz result. And then on top of that, we also added that gamification piece again, where we invited people to then come talk with us visit with us at our booth. And you know, if they followed our show, which again, was the main KPI that we were, you know, incentivized, and we wanted people to follow our show on Apple podcasts or Spotify. If they chose to do that, then they would also get to win a prize of some sort.
So that was kind of those two activations one was high lift one was low lift, I don't necessarily think one is better than the other. It really just depends on the resources available, the timelines, what type of event it is, but I will say what was fascinating about testing the theory of is it true that new podcast follows is what really impacts chart rankings? I can definitely say at least from our own experience, the answer is a resounding yes. So between the two events, I think over the course of you know, 48 to 72 hours, week since the events were back to back, right, we got I think about 60, or more new podcast follows on Apple, which when you think about that, objectively, like if you're looking at it from comparing to social media, right, if you get 60 new followers on social media, if they're qualified, new followers, that's actually amazing, right, that could really turn into something for your business. But in general, when you're thinking about social media 60 New follows doesn't feel that significant, right? Podcasting is a totally different world.
And I've actually talked about this a lot before, including in the bonus episode I referenced earlier where I shared my top takeaways from Podcast Movement this year. But podcasting is just a totally different ballgame. You cannot compare the volume and the virality of social media to podcasting as a channel, because podcasting, all of the numbers are just shrunken right like even the number of active shows even the number of just people who are producing content, on podcasts or through podcasts is is so few and far between. If you compare it to number of active social media users on a monthly basis, so the numbers don't, it's not apples to apples is what I'm trying to say. So when you hear 60 new podcast followers, you may be thinking that's actually not that much. But that's only if you're looking at it through the lens of how you would measure like social media followers. So not apples to apples, one new podcast follower is, in my opinion, a lot deeper of a relationship than when you social follower, because this is now someone who says, Yes, I want to consume your long form content. And I want you in my ears every week, or however frequent the cadence of your show is and it develops a much deeper relationship.
And the coolest thing is those 60 some new followers jumped us up in the podcast charts by almost 100 spots, 100 spots, guys. So each week on chartable, which is like a kind of like a data aggregate platform for podcasting, where you can look at all the charts across different apps like Apple podcasts chart rankings. And then chartable has its like own chart rankings to where you can see across all app players, like how is your podcast ranking are performing. So we always you know, are checking our charitable stats each week. But it was fascinating because on Monday, we were number 89 cubicle to CEO was number 89 on the US Apple podcast charts for the entrepreneurship category. And it showed that we jumped up by 93 spots, compared to our previous rankings. So we literally jumped almost 100 spots, up to number 89. So we broke the top 100, which we have broken before I think our peak position or podcast has ever reached is number 31. On the US charts for entrepreneurship in particular.
But it was cool, because we're still a growing show. And anytime we can break the top 100 is a huge celebration. And it was so cool to see the direct impact of those new subscribers, those new podcast followers and how that had such a huge impact on the chart rankings. So basically, the thesis is proven true, I think that if you are looking to really jump up in the podcast charts, your primary metric that you have to focus on is getting new podcast follows new listeners, that is the metric at least as of this recording, that seems to have the most impact. Now, I talked about the differences between the two activations, how we added in a layer of gamification.
One thing, additional that I just wanted to bring up is, I think live events are such a cool way to conduct real time market research. The process of market research, in my opinion should never end you should always be learning more about your audience and your people and really trying to get to know them. And not only know them in what they tell you vocally and verbally, but also what you just observe right. And so this is a cool little anecdote from our two events that we sponsored. So at Make Your Mark live in Texas, basically one of the things that we were giving out to attendees at both events, were these new stickers, we had created quite a few different stickers. Because you know who doesn't love stickers, right? It's a fun way to engage with someone to give them something to remember you buy that they can, you know, put on their water bottle or on their laptop cover wherever they want to put it and then you know, you kind of stay in their periphery stay top of mind for them visually.
So anyways, we had created a variety of different stickers. And we allowed people to choose which sticker they wanted to take home with them. And it was fascinating because at Make Your Mark live, the most popular sticker by far was the 'CEO status' sticker. Like almost every single person chose the sticker that said CEO status. And so when I went into the Upper Left Ladies summit mini in Portland, you know, the following day, I totally thought the same was going to be true. I was like, Okay, we might run out of these stickers, we need to print more of these. And then the total opposite happened. Almost every person at that event, chose our other sticker design, 'keep dreaming big', which is the last thing I say to you guys on every podcast episode for our Monday interviews, if you've been a longtime listener of the show, you know, like that's what our outro ends on. I always say like, "and friends until next time, keep dreaming big". So you know, hence the inspiration for that sticker.
But I was observing, you know, people choosing keep dreaming big, keep dreaming big, over and over. And I was like, hmm, I wonder what this says about the attendees. Like why is the behavior so different? Is it regional? Is it that Oregon entrepreneurs resonate with one message more than Texas entrepreneurs and granted, I would say over half of the people who attended the Texas event came from out of state or even out of country so they're not necessarily local to that region. Whereas most of the people who were at the Oregon event are people who live and reside in Oregon. So There's a little bit of nuance there.
But I was thinking about it, and I think the conclusion I drew and I don't know if this is 100% accurate or not, but it's just my hypothesis, let's call it is at Jordan Gill's event, Make Your Mark live, the type of entrepreneur that was attracted to that event, most of them are established business owners, many of them have team support, whether it's full time employees, or virtual contractors, or whatever it may be. These are definitely more established business owners and I was thinking, maybe the way they identify or see their role as a business owner matches more of that CEO, title or role, right, they might identify more with that type of language.
Whereas at the Upper Left Ladies Summit, not to say that there weren't also established business owners, but their whole community is very geared towards soul led entrepreneurs, I always describe them as like, where business meets Woo, like, a lot of their entrepreneurs are definitely more creative types more spiritually led. And I also noticed that a lot of them seem to be solo practitioners or solopreneurs. And so from that perspective, perhaps the term CEO didn't quite resonate with him as deeply as the message of dreaming big and being expansive, and your vision of what you imagine for your business in your life, right. So it was really fascinating to think about their behaviors and why different groups went for different options. But that's just a little like, I don't know, I feel like it's like a microcosm of of bigger trends at play.
So TBD on how that plays out at additional events, I will say both of these events were more intimate style events. So it would be interesting to kind of see this market research play out at a much bigger conference, like something that draws 1000s of attendees, I'd be very curious to see what that mix would look like. So who knows, maybe we'll have a chance to test that out a future event. But I hope this little behind the scenes was helpful to you on learning how we're using live events as a strategy right now to grow our podcasts. If you're a fellow podcaster may be thinking about how you can bring your podcast with you to the events that you are speaking at or attending or sponsoring.
And if you got a new idea, a new inspiration from this episode, the best way you can think us is to honestly if you haven't yet, make sure you're following this show. So it's the plus button in the top right hand corner on Apple podcasts on our main show page. If you're listening on Apple or on Spotify, it's near the top of the page, just as follow. So make sure you have hit that plus button it will turn into a check on Apple podcasts to show that you're following our show, or hit the Follow button on Spotify. And then share this with another podcaster. Share this with another friend who has a show who also attends live events or likes to you know, think outside the box in terms of growth, share this with them as a resource. That's the best way you can thank us.
But of course I love to hear from you too. So selfish way if you got a new idea from this, I would so appreciate if you would take a moment today to DM me on Instagram @MissEllenYin or chatting with my team @cubicletoCEO and tell us you know what, what is the new idea that sparked for you? How are you going to take what you learned here today and apply it to growing your own show. All right. Thanks, friends. I will catch you guys in Monday's episode.
