Hey friends, welcome back to the show. I am really excited for today's conversation, because if you listen to last week's episode, I actually did a little recap on mic check retreat and what it was like, What I enjoyed, and today we are actually releasing the live in person, podcast panel interview that we did at the retreat, included on this panel were a couple of really special people to me. The first is Layli amati. Lali was actually my very first like podcast client outside of my corporate job. And it just, you know, it was a full circle moment when I got to bring her in to speak at Mike check retreat as a speaker, but also as a panelist, as we just celebrated our five years together working on her podcast. So lately is an educator, speaker and conference host with a heart for serving clients and fellow entrepreneurs through her coaching work as the host of so here's a thing, and the founder of the creative educator conference, she believes in leading with heartfelt encouragement and honest guidance. As a longtime entrepreneur, she's not afraid to dig into tough topics or transparently share her own experiences the good and the bad. Laylee is passionate about her goal to equip you and your ability to make a difference, create impact and to build a life doing what you love. Now, the next panelist was someone I actually met this year at another podcast conference at podfest. I heard her speak, and I was like, ideal, this is this is who I want at my retreat to come and speak so Danielle Desir Corbett is an accomplished travel and personal finance creator and host of the highly rated travel podcast the thought card, which aims to inspire financially savvy travelers to explore the world while living on their own terms. Danielle also co hosts the new travel podcast, road trip ready, which explores some of the best road trips and destinations across the US and Canada with a knack for storytelling and a pulse on her audience, Danielle has successfully partnered with various tourism boards, attractions and prominent financial institutions, crafting engaging Podcast campaigns that resonate with 1000s of listeners worldwide. When she isn't jet setting, she's sharing her insider knowledge as a podcast marketing coach, helping fellow podcasters strategically grow and monetize. Okay, and our final panelist is Bree pear. Bri is the owner and host of Thrive, a podcast for bloggers. Bree began blogging in 2011 and continued to blog because of the rich blogging community she encountered after three years of being part of that community, she saw an area where many bloggers were in need of knowledge and resources to turn their blogs into full time businesses. Once thrive. Was founded in 2014 her passion for seeing others succeed was fueled, and that passion has driven her to continue growing thrive, to educate more bloggers every year. Now, Bree also runs two coaching programs, profitable blogger society and shift. These are both to help bloggers take their blogs to the next level. You can hear her on thrive, the podcast for bloggers, or she is also a co host with me over on let's grab drinks, which is our personal Lifestyle podcast that we just love to have a lot of fun and conversations on. So I brought all three of these women together because they each had a different experience in their own right and their own you know, where they're focusing their time for their podcast, and what they're using their podcast for. And I just thought it was a really powerful tool to bring these women in, but also they have a wide variety of knowledge. So I hope you enjoy this panel of attendee submitted questions and then a couple of my own personal ones that I had All right friends, here we go. Hey, y'all. Welcome to the clocking in Podcast, the podcast for podcasters, entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world while building their own personal brand in the podcasting industry. I'm your host. Haylee Gaffin, owner of Gaffin creative, a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs, if you're a podcaster or even just dreaming about launching your own podcast someday, this show was built to help you merge your love of conversation, education and business. You can find resources, show notes and more for the clocking in podcast@gaffincreative.com Today's episode is brought to you by Mike check society, a community that was built for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great scale. Your podcasts, improve your processes and connect with your listeners through our educational trainings, our private members only community and our monthly calls. If you're ready to join us, you can head over to Mike check. Society.com and enroll today, and you can get $10 off per month with the code podcast. Now let's clock in and get to work. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today we are doing something extra special and doing a live in person recording at MIC CHECK retreat here in Chattanooga, and today we are recording a live panel, so I have three panelists here with me, and we have some questions that were submitted by attendees, and also questions I just kind of was curious about. So first, I actually want you all to introduce yourself. So we'll start with Bree tell us about your podcast, what you do, and that's, yeah, yeah, we'll go there.
I think that's a good start. Hi friends, thanks for having me here. So excited. All right, so I am a coach for bloggers and influencers. My podcast is the Thrive blogger podcast. I also have a podcast with Haylee called, let's grab drinks. Yeah,
I did not know that, so I will, I will follow, and that's awesome. Hi everyone. I'm Danielle Desir Corbett. I am a travel and personal finance podcaster. I host the thought card podcast and also road trip ready. I'm also a podcast marketing coach, so I love helping podcasters grow and make more money. Amazing.
Hi, I'm Layli Amati, and I am a coach for creative educators and a conference host, and my podcast is called so here's the thing, and I help educators become impactful and profitable through monetizing their creative education.
Awesome. Thank you all for being here and agreeing to do the panel. Okay, so one of the biggest questions that I get from my clients, and then just podcasters in general, is one way I want to grow my show is through people coming on to be a guest and getting in front of their audiences with them sharing. But how do you actually get your guests excited to share the podcast episode? Because so often they just come on and then never even tell anyone that they've come on. So does anyone want to start? I can
start. So in my guest intake form, I ask them how they would like to share the episode. So I get real feedback, of like, how do you prefer? Is it an IG real? Is it a newsletter? So I take that into account, into how I'm gonna provide them with the assets to make that happen. Also, when the episode is live, I don't feel like my episodes are live until the blog post is complete. So because that's really what I want to share, is the blog post asset, because they'll have the episode like, I'll have the YouTube all of the things, but I also give them a newsletter script. So I say, hey, here is everything you could say, like, feel free to copy paste. I just want to make their lives easier. So that's been very helpful.
I like that, like, you're customizing it to your guest. Because I think often we just share all of the assets instead of like, and it might even overwhelm them, you know. So, okay, awesome. Yeah.
I mean, I love that idea. I think as much as you can customize and provide as much as you can up front and just making their jobs a lot easier is, like, number one, most helpful thing you can do. The other thing I like to do is I really love, like, building rapport with my guests during the interview and becoming I like to say, like quick fast friends, instead of just an actual interview, I like to treat every guest like we are old friends. And in that, for me, that includes being really transparent about, you know, I would just love it, if you don't mind sharing and then that conversation. I love the idea of putting in my intake form, because I don't, but I do always ask in the interview, once I stop hitting record, I'm like, how do you want to share about this? Because I would love it. It would really help me. And then, of course, if I can ever help you in any way, and that's just something that I voice. And I think when you voice something face to face, it just, I don't know, there's something a lot more approachable about it. It feels more casual, and it feels like a friend asking a friend to, you know, take that extra step for them. And I do think that that helps a lot.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Sorry. Haylee Gaffin already tell No, I love that. Yes, I'm thinking about talking to them in person. Makes a huge difference. One thing that I have found is we have a lot of people come on our show that have never been on podcasts before, and so they don't really know what to do or what all they can get out of it. And so we created a kind of like a mini media kit, basically like, here's how to make the most out of being on a podcast, and almost like taking the educational standpoint of it, of like, here's everything you can get out of it. Make sure that you add this to your website. Make sure you do this and that way they fully understand. Like, oh, okay, not only am I getting out in front of their audience, I'm also able to use this as. Clout for myself.
I love that. Okay, one thing that I've noticed with my own one of my own clients, is that we started adding the guest as a collaborator on a reel. But instead of just doing it, we also warn them like, Hey, we're gonna add you as a collaborator. We would love it if you would accept it so that it goes to their feed, because some of these high profile guests are not actually going to accept it, but when you put that added layer of asking, they are more likely to accept it onto their feed, even if it's just temporary, like they can delete it later.
I want to add something to I think, especially for me, I've been on like over 200 podcast I probably don't share it because it's content that I've shared and talked about on every show. So my audience sees me talking about how to make travel a financial priority all the time. So I love sharing episodes that are unique and that, to me, adds actual value to my audience, like, what's new that they haven't heard me talk about. So the content you create is really important. So see what other people have done and do something different.
Yeah, someone actually said at pod fest, the reason people are not sharing your episodes is because you didn't ask them anything they've never been asked before. And I was like, Oh, I didn't say it. Honestly, I should have written down who said I probably have it in my notes. But yes, okay, the next question I have, Danielle, you actually talked about this earlier with monetizing. Is it possible to make money from your podcast when your audience is tiny or you have a tiny, tiny budget?
Yes, I think budget doesn't have much to do with how you make money. I think you could start off with affiliate marketing that costs nothing. And I actually always say every episode, I always have three ways, at a minimum, to make money, so that could be three affiliate links, or it could be an affiliate link in a sponsorship. Of course, I'm selling a book like anything. So I feel like, sure there's expenses when it comes to creating a podcast, but when it comes to monetizing, you can start at zero, like Day Zero. You can start doing things. Wonderful.
Either of you have another I
love that. Okay, so I'm I have follow up question for you three different ways. That's awesome. So do you kind of make sure. Like, okay, I've got an ad in the middle. I make sure I talk something at the end. Do you mix it throughout? Do you have like, a formula for how you're making sure you always hit three?
Um, it's kind of like, I don't have like a checklist because I've been doing it so long, but I do always know, like, my show notes, my episode description in the podcast player, there's always a resources for financially savvy travelers with three books or like, there's just always resources that they can purchase from me, and it's great if I have a sponsor for that episode, but not every episode is sponsored. Yeah.
Okay, so it's actually funny that Brie were the one that followed up with that question, because I have a podcast monetization audit of breeze podcast where she did a really good job of using all the monetization strategies. I'll link that in the show notes for listeners, but it's just
funny. I just always want to hear how other people are doing it.
Do you have anything to add?
Yeah, I mean, I would just say this kind of just follows along with that same concept, but just pushing everything back to products that you already have. Because of my position, working with creative educators, most of the people that I would work with, and all of my things that I do for my podcast relate to products and services and offers that I already have, so just referring back to them is a way that I monetize without actually bringing in sponsors. Now that's not to say I won't bring in sponsors, because I will, but it's a really great way to at least get started. Like, like we said, If you don't have a budget, promote your own, you're your own sponsor. Wonderful.
Okay, so as far as getting in front of new listeners is there, I'll have each of you share one way that you have gotten in front of new listeners that you think is the best way for your specific podcast. Now it's not necessarily advice to other people of how they should but in all your years of podcasting, what was the best way you got in front of new listeners?
It's been guests on our show that have cared enough to share that's truly like how we've grown our podcast is definitely our number one refer. Is how people find us. It's how our brand has grown. So I know that people are also organically sharing, which is great, and we we did a really good job, especially at the beginning, of getting our audience really involved with sharing and talking about it more. And we do still kind of get that organically, which is awesome, but, yeah, it's been our guess
awesome. What about you? Danielle,
yes, so I'm all about, like, low lift. So what's low lift? I have a baby, so what's low lift, right? So I really focus on podcast, search optimization. So a lot of people focus on Google Search, which is great. Like search, SEO. I. But Apple and Spotify and all the other players have their own algorithms, and understanding like what makes a show rank and what doesn't is key, because I'm focusing right now on discoverability, meaning, if you're looking for my content, you will find me versus me having to talk about it. So understanding podcast SEO is the most important thing that I've used to grow there's
a new tool that came out recently, this year, I think maybe even late last year, called Asha, yeah, and it will actually tell you what you need to plug in to your title description, episode titles. Because for a very long time, people including myself said Apple podcast does not really have that much discoverability, and it doesn't to the extent of like, oh, nothing's gonna there's no feed like Instagram or social media that creates that virality, but it's becoming more and more apparent, and people are figuring out the algorithm, and you can use tools like Asha, Asha sponsor, my podcast
sponsored by in the future. No, I think that's great. I love the low lift ideas, and I think that's that's amazing. I like to make my life really difficult. And so honestly, I think the thing that got my podcast in front of other audiences was doing like a heavier lift and inviting podcast guests into my communities to do lives and to do extended Q and A's to interact with my audience, and I think that they would invite them inviting their own audience to participate in that conversation, is what grew my community and what grew my visibility with their audiences, because it was unique. Similarly to the other question that we were talking about, how to stand apart, it's it's that extra step that was always an invitation, and still is, where you can come on my podcast, but then we can have a follow up conversation that involves our community members. And I'd love for you to invite your community, your newsletter, giving them those prompts, giving them those scripts, and then letting their community join mine has just been really beneficial. Yeah, awesome.
Okay, so the next question that we had submitted was, how are you converting your listeners into buyers if you're using your podcast for your business? Well,
I don't have a response, because my podcast is my business, like, this is a content creation media company, and that's how I make my money, is through the content I create. So I think that's important to understand that there your show could be your business, or your show could help you market your business. That's all I got.
No. I mean, that's a great answer, because there are a lot of people who are, even if they started as someone who was trying to convert listeners into customers, now they're loving the podcast and want to turn it into their business.
So yeah, no, I think that's that's such a great thing to have in mind and to just have an open mind about other options that we might not always hear about. But for me, I do use my podcast as a marketing tool for my business, and I just make sure to center my content around my offers, whether I mean, it's not always as specific as each of my offers, but it will lead back in some way, shape or form, usually to at least one of my products or one of my services or one of my events, and then I'm able to organically mention it without having to feel, you know, quote, unquote, salesy or pushy or aggressive. I just it's just part of what I live and breathe in my business. And I think that that has just really helped convert people, listeners into buyers, whether it's for products or in particular, lately, for me, it's been in person, events that have been really, really beneficial to talk about on the podcast, because it just paints a better picture than I think reading about something. Yeah,
that's true too. I There's another question coming, but I do want to go ahead and highlight this. I actually did something similar last month on the podcast. So in May, I released a series of three episodes that talked all about private podcast, and y'all are the first to hear about it in planning of launching a private podcast service during the summer. So like, it's a launch style thing, but I'm warming my audience up to it, because I've never talked about private podcasts before. So, yeah, okay, Bree, what about you? You're
priming your audience. That's fantastic, kind of a combination of what both of you were saying. So we've gotten to the point where we do have sponsorships on the podcast, and then we have to talk, I have to talk about our stuff all the time that's like. What I have learned with my audience is they need to hear about our coaching services, our products, over and over and over again. So if we don't have an ad running in a podcast that is from a sponsor, we'll run our own ads. So I have ads that I've recorded, haylee's produced for me that are. Are for my two coaching programs, and so we'll run those, and then just organically talking about them. I'll also do occasionally here and there podcasts that are just, Hey you guys, you like to listen to me. So here's what we got going on over here. And just promote our own stuff. We have to be like our biggest promoters. Perfect.
Okay, the next question, I'll go ahead and jump to it for the series. Aspect is, have you used a series in your podcast for a certain campaign? How has it worked? Campaign, meaning, like something you were trying to sell? And What recommendations would you have for breaking up something that could be a very long podcast episode and turning it into a series.
This year, we started to do more episodes, so we've had our podcast for five, six years now, and have always just been a once a week podcast. And this year, starting in January, we added on another episode that is a shorter episode. We call it thrive in five so it's like a little five minute episode. And my idea with those was that each month we focus on a very specific topic. So I will make sure that out of a certain amount of months, I'm always hitting conversations that really push people to one of our coaching programs so that takes care of like two out of the month. And then if we have something else we're launching, we'll do that. And then my other thing that we're wanting to start doing is really selling those to advertisers, where they can purchase an entire month's worth of those, thrive in five episodes, sponsor those. And there's different levels, like where either you are the sole sponsor for those episodes, and we kind of do it that way, where we're running an ad, or you want to bump up to the next level, cool, let's talk about your product, your service, in all four of those episodes that month. So that's kind of how we're doing our series right now.
It took me a second to think back over the past five years, but I will say I've done during live launches. I've done series where I've brought in alumni, or, you know, past students, because as a course creator, I think the best, one of the best things that you can do during a launch is feature testimonials. But I wanted to take it a step further. And so instead of talking solely about the program, it was about that student's business, which was inevitably affected by their work within my academy, within my program. And that was, I believe, like a three or four part series. And I just thought it again, painted a really great, organic picture of what it looked like to have been a student before they started with me, after they finished with me, their struggles, their wins, and then be able to kind of let people, let listeners, put themselves in, in their shoes. And I think that that was a really successful use of the series, for sure. I mean, I do have other series that are less focused on, you know, like sales, but when you're talking about actually utilizing them for the purpose of selling, that was really helpful just to, like, spotlight and showcase the success of previous students. So
again, I don't have a business tied to my show. My show is the business. So I found series to be bingeable Because you are literally like a three parter, like you have to continue on to get the full scope. So I think about what are big topics that I want to talk about. So my first really successful series was about cheap flights. So the first episode was like, How cheap flights work. The next one was like, tell me about mistake fares, which, you know, airlines make mistakes, and I want to capitalize on it. And then the last one was, like 10 general tips of, like, cheap flights. So it's, it was literally a transformation. And that series could be a book, like it could be an E guy, it could be a paid product, but I'm dishing it out on the podcast. So that's been a great like marketing tool to just create these series. I also, when I'm coupling that with a sponsorship, I'm always thinking about like, what's juicy, like, what's a juicy topic that my listeners would devour, and we're attaching a sponsorship with that, because, again, like sponsors, views matters, so I'm attaching it to great content that's gonna get views and and that's still beneficial to my listeners. And then lastly, we talked about at the retreat was like, knowing when your inflection point for your your podcast is so mine's a summer time. So my banger series comes out in the summer, so I'm really just everything is riding on the low lift wave. Yeah,
I will highlight too. Like, look at your own numbers. Because when you said that the summer is your high, I was like, what not mine? Because all of my clients, well, for the most travel, travel, yeah, traveling. I looked at Megan, and I was like, what she goes travel, yeah,
everyone's traveling, yeah.
But like my, most of my clients are business owners. Dollars and July is like, no, most of a lot of my clients will break in the summer like they will take a break repurpose content. So, yeah, awesome. Okay, so the next question, do you have any systems in your podcast that you have set up that you're like, I could not run my podcast without this Gaffin creative that was not meant to be, but it is, but it is.
I pay her full price, no, but honestly, I think investing in a producer changed my entire outlook on the way that I perceived the feasibility of having a consistent podcast for the past several years, I think I would have burnt out really quickly if I had continued to try to do everything by myself. So that was, that was the number one thing. And then, of course, like scheduling systems and making sure that I set aside specific dates and things like that to be able to get ahead has also been helpful. But the biggest thing, system wise, is having an, you know, an actual professional systematize my podcast for me,
I will add to that, because I also outsource my own editing to Megan, who is monitoring us right now. Yes, yes. But same, I don't my podcast slowly, just declines when I'm doing it, because I'm waiting till the last minute. I am the problem. I'm the problem in my publish publishing schedule. So yeah, anyone else I
can go, I think anything that you do repeat on repeat, can create a system for it. So my outreach emails to all my guests. That's a template that's repeatable system, my guest intake form, repeatable system. My Calendly. I use Calendly. There's a lot of other ones like, that's a system. So it's like, what can I do that spends less time me actually doing it, but it's repeatable. I think that's helpful.
Yeah, I have a couple of clients, Coley, who's sitting in the audience right now, like her air table, dubsado, all of that is so seamless that I never have to ask her for anything. It's like everything just funnels into one place, and I'm go to grab everything, and that system that it's really good. Sorry. I just wanted to brag on you for a second, and she does it for other people too. So many plugs, I love this.
Do you have any pre I mean, no, that's really it's like, yeah, Haylee faced my life. I was doing all of it on my own before, and just being able to record and hand things off is amazing, and gives me so much extra time to do all the other little things and like, yes, all the templates, oh my gosh. Template, everything. Agree,
Agree. Oh, yeah, agreed. Agree. All Agree, Agree. Okay, final
question for you, if you could do one thing differently in your podcast journey, what would it be like in the past?
I would do video sooner, much sooner and like, really focus on it. Pay attention to it. Do the SEO? Get it up on YouTube? I think video has just changed everything in the last few years. I think it was even before then, and we all just kind of were ignoring it and not paying attention to it, hoping
it would go away,
maybe a little bit.
I think for me, I struggled with because I was a blogger, first blogger versus podcaster, and I struggled with like, do I create show notes? Do I not create show notes? Do I focus on the blog, or do I focus on the podcast? So it was all this mental drama where I should be focusing on the and like, these are both skill sets that I have that are gonna help me at various different points. So I think that's been a big shift, and it's my superpower. Like, when I'm approaching a brand, for example, I can say I will write you an SEO optimized blog post that's gonna get found, and also do great work on the audio front. So if you're struggling with your identity, like you can do both like or whatever it is, like you don't have to be an or person like you can do both of the things that you want to do.
Yeah, I really like that answer. Gosh, there's so many things I would do differently. I think probably the number one thing I would do looking back would be to plan out, I guess, like a more consistent and attainable schedule, you know, I know a lot of people do it seasonally. They have, you know, multiple seasons. Some people are just ongoing. I kind of didn't give thought to that when I first started the show. I just was like, Oh yeah, I'll do it every week, and it'll be fine without any thought to Can I actually. Be consistent in that from day one to the end of time. So just, I think maybe being a little bit more strategic in how I wanted to plan out how much of myself I would be giving to this show, and it resulted in having to take a couple of unplanned breaks, and it wasn't super detrimental, but if I could go back, that's what I would probably do is just strategize and and try to make it a little bit more low, lift, pull a Danielle be a little bit more like thoughtful. And how can I not overload myself and burn out? Yeah, and we've
talked about this a couple of times throughout the conference, conference, retreat, whatever we're calling this thing and but you do not have to be a weekly podcast to be successful. I do see benefit in biweekly over monthly, but I also high like, highly recommend that if you have to be monthly, be monthly. Like I have produced monthly shows that did really, really well.
I had to just add something else that I thought of while you were talking. Is that, like, if I were to go back and think about like that part of it, it would also be segments within recording the show, of like, instead of just like, oh yeah, we're just gonna get on and chat. I do love the shows that have different segments and that kind of, like, break it up in that way, especially if it's a longer episode, and I feel like it's something I'm like, just now starting to think about and be like, ooh, do I want to, like, add that in? And I didn't even think about that when I first started,
I was talking to Coley about, like, some of the innovative things I'm doing right now for my show. Like, I'm no longer allowing my guests to share their blurb at the end of like, how to connect with me. I'm narrating that in the beginning because the drop off rate is steep, so they're not gonna listen like people are not listening to that at the end. So cutting that also looking at like YouTubers, like, what are they doing for retention? And they're super like to the point. And I feel like we kind of we get used to things in podcasting and these bloated like things that we do in the beginning and ends of our episodes. So I'm definitely seeing a retention bump by just these small little tweaks and innovative for podcasting.
Yeah, I do like that. I I get, I guess it was a couple years into my podcast, I started doing the pre intro intro, and I feel like it allows for me to hook my audience as well. But I do like the idea of, like, saying this is where you can find so and so, blah, blah, blah, because no one really ever listens to that part. You're right. Like, so I'm not gonna ask y'all. I'm just gonna do it later, and
I prompt, I prompt my my guests. I tell them, hey, this is not happening. So whatever your plug in, make sure it's naturally in the conversation. I'm going to mention everything, of course, in the beginning, but it's your job to make sure it's natural, because it's not happening at the end, and they understand it and they love it. Yeah? They probably appreciate it. Yeah, awesome.
Well, thank you all for being here and chatting with me until next time, we'll see you all on clocking in. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to clocking in with Haylee Gaffin for resources mentioned in today's episode. Head to gaffincreative.com if you're a podcaster looking for community that will help you improve your podcast, make sure you check out. Might check society, our community for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great, enroll today@mikechexociety.com and use code podcast for $10 off per month. If you love this episode, I'd be honored if you'd leave me a review in the Apple podcast app. Until next time, I'm your host. Haylee Gaffin clocking out you
