How I Turned My Podcast into a Revenue Generator ft. Haylee Gaffin

Haylee: Hey friends. Welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast with Colie James. I’m not Colie. I’m Haylee. I’m the producer of Business First Creatives, and I am here for a special episode with Colie, where I am actually interviewing her all about her podcast. Hi Colie, welcome to your show.

Colie: Ah. Thank you, Haylee. Thank you for having me. It’s so nice to be on my own show.

Haylee: Well today, I know we’ve talked about this pretty often of like leveraging your podcasts as a strategy in your business, and I know you’ve heavily leaned into that, so I’m really excited to kind of dive into that. Before we get into that though, I would love if you’d give a little recap of why you started this podcast and maybe a couple of pivots along the way.

Colie: Ooh. Okay, Haylee, so you weren’t with me in the beginning. I did this podcast for four months all out my own. A podcast was something that was always on my to-do list, if you will. Mostly because I like to talk like. There’s only so many times that you wanna show up on video and be on Instagram and do the YouTube thing. And so once I got into actually listening to podcasts, I was like, okay, I like to talk. This is probably a really good fit for me. And then it sat on my, my wishlist, I think for at least one or two years. Because Annemie of This Can’t Be That Hard podcast. When she launched her podcast, I was like, oh, that, that’s cool. You know, I listened to a couple episodes ’cause she’s my business bestie. And it wasn’t until I like, really started religiously listening to her podcast that I was like, uh, no, I want a podcast of my own. And I mean, I had thought about it. I, I even had a name, which if you asked me right now, I couldn’t tell you what that name was. But I had a name completely picked out. It was like all about me guys, you know, I’m such a narcissist. was like chat with Colie. It was something really stupid like that, but it wasn’t until, I guess it was like what, March of 2022 that I was like, no, this is when I’m going to launch a podcast. I hired someone else to help me in a VIP day format. To do the podcast. And she was like, oh, well you know, most people take two months to launch. And I was like, no, I want this launched in three weeks. Like you’re gonna give me whatever it is I have to do, I’m gonna do it. And like by end of May, right after Memorial Day, I want this thing launched. I was like, that’s the whole point.

I am paying you to motivate me to finally hit publish. And so. I did, I think I published it. I got a little, antsy. So before I even had three episodes, I published the trailer and that was up for like a week. And then I recorded episode one and I was like, Nope, that’s good enough. And just went and hit publish.

And then I think two days later, I added like two more episodes, but I was like, no, if I launch it and I hit publish, that is going to be my accountability to kind of. Go forward now. You know, I have a love hate relationship with solo episodes. I think everybody at this point knows that I have this love hate relationship. In the beginning, the idea was that it was gonna be half. Guests half me and I, I don’t know if it was, I knew I was gonna like alternate it, like guest me, guest me. But you know, very quickly that didn’t last. I shifted to doing three guest episodes and one solo podcast, and then I don’t even remember how long that lasted before I was like, okay, no, no more solos. Because I really just like talking to people. That was the whole reason that I wanted a podcast, and we’re gonna get into why I keep coming back to doing solos as part of my strategy. But, I’m in for an entire year for all of 2024. There were no solos. On this podcast and recently I published eight in like two and a half months.

So solos are back. But that’s kind of the journey that I took on this podcast. And, you know, there’s been a lot of strategy and a lot of thought behind who I invite on my podcast and who I don’t. But we can also jump into that later if you wish.

Haylee: it’s so funny you say that. There’s like five things I wanna talk about. The first one was your launch plan of like releasing your episode. You just kind of did it on a whim, and I’m like, no. But at the same time, you said something about you launched with your first episode and then like two days later added two more.

I am very intrigued by different launch strategies, even if yours wasn’t really like thought out prior to it happening. I am intrigued by the different ways people go about it because the standard for a long time was launched three episodes I. The launch of your podcast. So the people had stuff to binge and I’m almost wondering if it’s better to launch one and then the next day launch another, and then the next day launch another so that you are, you have something to market every day of the week to send people back.

And it’s not like, oh, they listened to one episode, didn’t listen to anymore, and then they forgot to go back and listen this week. They’ll come back next week, but instead. I’m marketing this day after day, so they have to keep going back for more. ’cause it wasn’t there yesterday. So maybe not a bad launch strategy.

Colie: I feel like if I was gonna do it again, like if I, if, if I had this podcast and let’s say I was gonna launch another podcast, I feel like I would be motivated to launch one new episode every day of the week, Monday through Friday, and then go to weekly.

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: is because you get so much in that first week.

And again, you don’t wanna talk about the same thing over and over again. I would probably also have like a a real good strategy as to why I picked those five episodes and they would be related to me and not guests. ’cause that’s the other thing. My first episode was a solo. the next two were guests.

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: I still refer back to my very first episode, because it was what we all consider to be like a very hot topic, it was if someone says no to your offer, it’s probably not your prices. I mean, I talk about that all the time, but I was like real in your face in that first episode.

Haylee: Mm-hmm.

Colie: So I often refer back to it.

But in hindsight, I think that launching with solos, so that you do get people the opportunity to really get to know you and you can really talk about your offers and the way that you work. And if you can get that out of the way, you can continuously send people back to those starter episodes to get started and they will still make sense two to three years down the line.

Haylee: Yeah, I think it’s a solid foundation when you launch. Also, I think that some of our best ideas happen. In our first few episodes because like that’s when we’re most motivated to launch or like to create a podcast. So yeah, I mean I do the same. There are some of the foundation episodes I started with I definitely recommend and refer back to.

I will say though, like in my own podcast, it was not what it is today. Like it wasn’t a podcast about podcasting. Um, it was like a business podcast. So I’m curious, from the start of your podcast to now, has the primary audience that you speak to, or the topics changed at all, have you shifted the way you approach conversations in the last, what, three years now?

Colie: Not really. But I will say something that I noticed, I would say in the last week, which when you go in the Airtable hub and you see who’s coming up next, you’ll actually see the shift. I realized that somewhere along the way I stopped really interviewing photographers like. I’m not talking about photographer educators.

I’m talking about, I would say that like 2023 was like my golden year of I had so many just photographers, people that weren’t trying to sell you things, like I was legitimately asking them about their photography journey. And I’ve realized recently I haven’t had one of those kind of episodes in a really long time.

And so I am getting back into the groove of inviting more of those people back onto my podcast because. I have never shied away from who my audience is. I don’t. I love everyone who listens to my podcast, and many of you are not photographers, but the overwhelming majority of you are. And so somewhere like, even though I invite business guests on that are talking about topics that are relative to photographers, to get back to having actual photographers on my podcast. talk about those things that matter most to you.

Haylee: And they’re the ones that are actively in the work. That’s something I, I have loved when you bring a photographer on, ’cause I used to be a photographer as you know, and I’m out of that world now. So if someone was like, oh, do you have any advice on this? I’m like, it has been years since I have actively photographed or marketed a business for photography.

So, no. And then when I hear photographers come on your show, I’m like, wow, things have really changed.

Colie: I mean, I, somebody was literally, and she was a photographer, educator. I don’t wanna like deceive anyone because she’s probably gonna be on my podcast soon. But she had an ad going and I saw it and I was like, I talked about that all the time and I haven’t talked about it in a while. And I was like, I should make a solo episode.

And then I was like, oh, but I should also invite her on my podcast to talk about it. So she’s now on my list. I haven’t actually sent the invite yet, but I mean, I get a lot of the ideas for the podcast episodes based on what other people are talking about, or just a question that I see that I’m like, oh, I have something to say on that.

Do I say it by myself or do I invite a guest on to talk about it with me? Usually a flip of a coin. Now.

Haylee: Yeah. Well, okay, so we are talking about most of your listeners are photographers, likely not podcasters. Some of them might be, but the majority may not be. And I think one miss. Maybe misunderstanding misconception of what a podcast does to serve your business is people don’t realize that it is the primary piece of content in your business.

So that long form piece of content that a lot of photographers will use, blog posts for your using your podcast to then create a blog post to then create additional marketing assets for your newsletter and social media. Can you kind of give us an idea of. Like what your dream scenario would be for your podcast to serve as a marketing channel in your business and how you’re, you’ve either done it or are planning to move forward in doing it.

Colie: Yeah, I think when I really noticed, I mean, I think that’s been my intention all along. I don’t think that I knew that it was going to replace blog posts. I still blog, well, actually that’s not true. I don’t blog Kara blogs, but someone in my business blogs for me. And it wasn’t until she was doing her SEO research, she was getting those key words, what people are searching. She would come to me with an idea and I would be like, oh, Kara, I have a blog post. I have a podcast episode on that. Let me just send that to you, listen to it, and that should shape how you, you know talk about it. Because I will say a lot of the things that I talk about related to systems on the podcast or even in the blog post, really are rooted in like my signature system for client experience on my knowledge and expertise as what I was as a photographer.

And so I really do need to give my blog writer something to go off of because I don’t want her writing something that’s general. Or that actually disagrees with how I feel, just because that’s the research that she did. Like I have to walk a very fine line, but when she kept coming to me with idea and idea and I’m like, oh, I’ve done a podcast.

Oh, I’ve done like a free training on that. Let me send those to you. I was like. Why are we trying to write blogs from scratch? Like this just doesn’t make any sense because also when I’m interested in something now, I don’t think to myself, oh, let’s go put a blog post out. I think to myself, oh, I’m gonna record a podcast episode on this.

How quickly does it need to go out? Then does the blog post that’s like SEO rich need to come with the podcast or can it come later? That is how I address and how I like think of using my podcast as a marketing tool Now. one of the things that kind of slipped off of the radar, if you will, when I stopped doing solo episodes, is. wasn’t talking about my offers in that. I’m telling you how they work. I’m giving you my process and I’m asking you if this is something that you need. I think I still do a great job when I interview other people of mentioning my products, but that is different than actually creating like a sales message around that particular product.

So. You’ve told me, Haylee, that I need to do more solos to talk about my products

Haylee: Yes.

Colie: I love you, I trust you. But it wasn’t until recently, I had two or three calls with completely different coaches in completely different areas, and they were looking at my offer suite and they were like, okay, Airtable’s really hot right now.

Have you talked about Airtable? And I was like, yeah on like other people’s podcasts. I was like, off the top of my head, I can think of three guest episodes where I did this. I was like, and then I reshared one of them on my podcast. And yes, I interviewed my bestie and we talked about what we love about Airtable. But again, when I think about that conversation that Annemie and I had, it was a really good, this is how we’re both using Airtable in our business. Yes, I mentioned my products, but it really wasn’t in a, and hey, listening audience, if this is a problem that you have a need to solve, here’s where you can go find these products.

Like that wasn’t the angle that I was taking in a guest episode, and so I now have an entire list solo episodes, most of which are, Hey, I’ve got this amazing Airtable product. Do you know that it exists? This is how it will help you. And hey, if you want it, here it is, so that I can refer back to those podcast episodes in emails to try and shift some of my email people over to the podcast, because the podcast is a great nurture tool just in general.

So I wanna get as many people listening as possible.

Haylee: Okay. You talked about like you’re able to mention during conversations the products that you have, um, when it’s relevant, but then also those solos give you a little more leeway on strategy. So I wanna talk about that for a second because I feel like, people are nervous to sell when they get onto podcast, either their own podcast or if they’re a guest on a show.

But as long as you’re serving, in every episode you should be serving, but as long as you’re, you’re serving, people don’t mind being sold to. And I also wanna flag that your podcast can go through seasons where like you are highlighting experts. On your show, you’re running those ads within those episodes where you’re plugging that in or you are.

And even if you’re speaking to an offer that you have and you put that ad in there as well, like that’s still serving your business. But again, like you said, having those like really intentional episodes where you are planning it out, you know you’re selling something, they’re just getting educated and then sold like.

Those seem to be the episodes that make the most impact on your revenue as a podcaster. And I see it in my own, I see it in a lot of my client shows where if they are not doing solos, they start to complain about not making money from their podcast. And I think that’s where our conversation started.

You’re like, the, the podcast isn’t bringing any revenue into my business. And I was like, but you, you don’t have any solos. You’re not talking about what your products do. I wanna go back, uh, to you mentioning that you shared episodes with Kara because. I think any business owner who has ever had an intern can laugh with me at this because I used to have an intern write blog posts for me, and then when I went to review them, I’m like, whoa, no, no, this is not right.

Well, that’s ’cause the intern had no idea. They are not in this business with me. And had I been able to share podcast episodes, things that told her, this is what Haylee believes, these are the like. Standards of Gaffin creative and what we do. She probably could have gotten the notes right.

Colie: Well, and I will say, so Kara is like a search driven marketer because she said that one time and I was like, no, every time you open your mouth, I need that to come out of your mouth. Like that is the thing. And she is a very gifted writer and she actually nailed it like 90%. problem was like she would reference something and I’m like, no, that’s not what I called it. Or she would say something and I’m like, no, that’s how it works in Dubsado, but it’s not how it works in HoneyBook. She didn’t have like that backhand knowledge that I had, that she needed in order to write those blog posts.

I mean, the blog posts were great. I was just like, they’re, they’re just not great for me. I have very strong opinions and I need to make sure that whatever you write isn’t, um, go against what I’ve written.

Haylee: Yeah, I was gonna say, you, you’re very sassy in your approaches to things.

Colie: Am I Haylee? Really?

Haylee: No. For the listeners that don’t have a podcast, but maybe they’ve been a guest on a podcast, they can use the same approach in training their VAs training, anyone that works with them, copywriters, et cetera, by sharing and leveraging this content.

Not only that, but you can create your own social media posts from podcast episodes you’ve been a guest on and. I’m gonna go ahead and do the little plugging for you. Colie has a tool where you can plug all your content into and organize it and be able to reference it. Colie, take it away.

Colie: She’s talking about my content organizational hub in Airtable. no, seriously, and it’s funny that you mentioned that one because I did a guest teaching in Sabrina’s. Round table. And right after I did it, I was like, oh my God, I need something like this on the podcast. And that same week is when I recorded a very similar episode on Erin Olila’s Talk Copy to Me. And so we have already taken that episode and repurposed it as a blog post. I might have even already done a feed drop on Business First creatives, I can’t remember, but like the way that I talked in there and Aaron was so great about like. Asking me and she continuously plugged it, which by the end I was like, if I went and counted how many times she told people to go buy it, it had to at least been 10.

Like it was a lot,

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: That is a perfect example of, I explained how the tool worked and that’s like my goal for a solo episode and it was great to like talk to somebody else about it, but I’m probably gonna go back and reference that episode when I create the solo episode for that particular product.

But yeah, I mean, you mentioned the content hub. It’s basically so that you can. Gather all your ideas everywhere that you’ve ever been a guest, and you get it all into this hub and you start to link all of your content together to make sure that everything is getting leveraged across all of your marketing channels, and that you have a good way of going back in when you are ready to repurpose content, repurpose ideas, and you know, send it back into the world with new packaging, if you will.

Haylee: I love this because especially when you bring on new team members, it’s like, oh, here is. The hub of everything you could possibly need of my thoughts, my opinions. Um, I always like to caveat everything I say though with, this industry changes and I might have a different opinion in the future. So if I said something three years ago on my podcast, it might not be exactly the same now, and that’s why I QA stuff and just look over it.

Colie: I mean, that’s true, Haylee, but did you see that? I slipped an episode in yesterday. I mean, when we’re recording, this is yesterday, but did you see that I slipped in an episode?

Haylee: No, I did not.

Colie: So I recently did a survey of people after my launch that just ended, and I was like, oh, you know, I feel like I have a solo episode where I talked about this. I went and listened to that episode and everything was still true and I was like, this is a good piece of information for me to use this to intro one of my new offers. So I took that old episode, I put a new intro on it, I let the episode run. There’s only a minute that I took out and that was where I was specifically referencing an episode that was coming the next week.

Of course that made no sense, so I took that out and then I added an outro that was like, and just like I said at the beginning of this, my new offer is systems in session and if you would like to hear more, DM me. you know? I woke up to an email this morning, someone apologizing. She’s like, I don’t do Instagram, so I’m sending you an email.

I hope that’s okay, but she’s asking me about the offer that I mentioned in yesterday’s podcast, and that was 70% of a repurposed episode, a replay, if you will,

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: I just stuck on a new intro and a new outro.

Haylee: Did you mention in the intro or outro that it’s repurpose content? Okay.

Colie: I, you know, I was listening to an episode and I realized that instead of me rerecording something that sounds just like this, I’m just gonna replay it for you, because most of you probably never heard the original. I mean, the original was like episode 49.

Haylee: Mm-hmm.

Colie: on what two? This is, I don’t know.

It’s gonna be like 2 10,

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: something like that. So we’re way past 49. I mean,

Haylee: they’ve forgotten it’s been years.

Colie: yes.

Haylee: Um, okay. I love this because that’s another component of podcasting that people don’t take advantage of, is the fact that you can repurpose this content. You can replay episodes. You even mentioned earlier, airing an episode on your podcast that, was from someone else’s podcast.

I do it all the time. I even highlight some of my clients on my own show that if their content was that good, I’m like, huh. I wanna drop this, and we call it a feed drop in the industry, but I wanna drop this on my show, and I just plug it with an intro that’s like, here’s the reason I’m sharing this. I loved it.

Here’s where you can find this person. Woo-hoo. Yeah, but you can do that with your podcast episodes too. And here’s something I wanna challenge you with is have you considered doing a feed drop swap Where if you’ve had a guest, like you’ve been a guest on someone else’s show and they’ve been a guest on yours, when you ask them if you can do a feed drop on your show, if they’ll do it on their show too.

Colie: Yes. So interestingly enough, I just had an, I was on Felly Day’s Unprofessional Entrepreneur. I had her on my podcast and we, I was recently on her podcast, but we ended up talking about the fact that, when she was first on my podcast, she got the idea of doing feed drops from our conversation.

And so she got married like, I think it was six weeks later, and she took that opportunity to feed, drop a bunch of people’s podcast that she had been on. And she didn’t use mine because literally it, it wasn’t out, it wasn’t public before she had her wedding. But she’s like, you know, I’ve just been thinking about this and I’m planning another one this summer and I’m gonna drop. She was like, you know, if it’s okay, I’m like, of course it’s okay. I gave you the idea. Of course it’s okay. So she’s gonna take our episode and she’s gonna drop it on hers this summer. I do a lot of interesting things with this podcast in that, you know, Sabrina and I have each done, feed drops, not at the same time, but we have, we also have our Business quarterly Biz chat that we always put on her podcast. But like, it’s something that I do quite often where I am on someone’s podcast. I think I’ve done it with Brittany Herzberg now twice, and we’ve actually aired both episodes in the same week. So. Maybe not a feed drop for that, but maybe we could both think about it for like a year from now to be like, Hey, last time we aired these at the same time, her episode on her podcast, my episode on my podcast.

Now we’re gonna swap and share them with you again. ’cause they were such different topics, like vastly different topics. I talked about HoneyBook versus Dubsado on hers, and she talked about SEO everywhere on mine. Like not even, not even similar.

Haylee: So with that in mind, like Brittany obviously had a goal and you obviously had a goal for the content that you were talking about. I wanna know like how are you working your podcast in currently with the bigger goals in your business? Is there anything specific you’re thinking about, whether it’s guest related or those solos, and can you kind of.

Share with our listeners how you make those decisions.

Colie: Yeah, I’m literally bringing it back full circle. So I think in the beginning of my podcast, one of the goals that I had that seems to have disappeared into the. I don’t know. Gone, it’s in space was I used to have a lot of my clients on the podcast and I would interview them. I think that first year I probably had. least 10, maybe 14 people. And the goal was to interview them about working with me. I mean, we talked about their business, don’t get me wrong, but like the goal was how did you like working with me? How did you find the course? Like those kinds of things. And while I have had many of my clients, I mean, in fact this week’s episode when we’re recording, this is one of my clients.

And yes, in a very like surface level way. We talked about, she was a student in my course. She’s also done a follow-up VIP day with me to, update her senior photography workflows and forms. But like, that wasn’t the goal. Like we were talking about her and how she as travel photography for her seniors. But I do think that I have to be more purposeful about inviting my clients onto my podcast to talk about working with me because. Somewhere along the line, I stopped talking about transformations. And do you know who called me out on that? Haylee ChatGPT called me out on that. There was a prompt like a month ago, I wanna say it was, and it was like, tell me five things that I am missing the boat on.

I can’t remember. We’ll put it in the

Haylee: It’s kind of like a roast me thing.

Colie: It wasn’t a roast me though, but yes, came back and it told me that I am, I am doing way too much teaching and not enough selling. And of course it actually knows what it’s talking about because at this point I’ve fed chat, GPT at least. I don’t know, 50, 60 of my episodes to do work on them.

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: me that I wasn’t doing enough

Haylee: I.

Colie: It also told me that I wasn’t talking enough about my transformations. Yes, my testimonials were great, but people want to hear where people started and where they ended up after. You know, my offer and. I don’t even remember what the other three were, but those two were like, so shocking.

I feel like I was being attacked and that next week I had new plans and new ideas for different podcast episodes. especially now that I’m not on Instagram, like

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: sharing at all. Like the podcast is where I bring all of those things. And so that was part of my motivation of, okay, I do need these solo episodes where I’m actually talking about specific products because there are things that. People don’t know that I have, especially new audience members because I haven’t talked about them in months, and I’m talking like 18 months. I’m not talking about like three months. So I just need to do a much better job of that. So bringing my clients on. To talk about transformations and the solo episodes to do more selling.

And really, it isn’t gonna be me talking the whole time, like buy my shit.

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: this is the problem that you probably have. This is how I’ve solved it in my own business. And hey, if you want the thing that I created for myself that I now sell in my shop, here’s a link.

Haylee: Yeah. Like you’re basically giving them the foundation and structure to go and do it themselves, but if they wanna save a lot of time, you, you can just spend a little bit of money.

Colie: that part.

Haylee: Yeah. I think that’s like, um, a, a piece that a lot of podcasters do miss is like they do over teach and they don’t sell enough.

Um, like ChatGPT I mean, they got it. They, that’s.

Colie: you that, Haylee, ’cause I don’t remember what the other three were, but I felt attacked. I felt like I needed a drink after I read the five things they had said, because I was like, it’s absolutely correct, and oh, I know what it was. One of the other ones was about visibility. It was saying. I mean, and I don’t know how it knows that I haven’t been on Instagram. Maybe I talked about it and put a transcript into there to where they knew, but they were like, you’re not showing up. And so you need to find different ways to show up.

Haylee: Hmm. That was my next question. So since you’re not on Instagram, how are you marketing right now, at least marketing your podcast that it’s getting out or marketing your products?

Colie: Okay, products is an easier, um, is an easier answer. I have really been leaning into my email. Uh, community. My newsletters, I have an evergreen sequence that goes out every Sunday, but by the time this airs, it’s gonna be Saturdays. Now I’m testing, see if there’s a different day of the week. But those emails are all very educational. They’re talking about topics from the podcast. Oh, I guess they are talking about topics from the podcast

Haylee: Mm-hmm.

Colie: that I’ve said it out loud. And they’re also referencing. and they all have at least one CTA, whether it’s go listen to this episode, go check out my guest, go check out this product, go listen, or watch this case study for my student.

I mean, the information in these emails is, it’s very, it’s a very wide array of them, and at this point, I think I’m up to. 44 of them. So technically if I’m sending one a week, I’m almost at a year, worth of content that these just go. And this is to make sure that like of my most loved and I’m defining most loved as open rate is like 70%.

And the click rate is like, I think it’s at least seven, is I have an email where I’m talking about all the ways that I use Airtable in my business and it lists all of the hubs. And the funny thing is. It started as an email and I was like, wow, that’s a really good email. Um, Kara, go write me a blog post, or maybe I wrote that one.

Regardless, it got done as a blog post. And then once I had the blog post, I was like, okay, that email doesn’t need to be as long because now I could just tell them to go read the blog post. So I did take some of the content, you know, I shortened it up a bit, made it a little bit more concise, but so I have that evergreen sequence that’s constantly going out every week once someone is done with their nurture and their welcome series. Now I have stopped sending podcast specific emails, but our good friend Sabrina, is the one that told me that was Complete horse shit. And so those are coming back this summer. was very disappointed in the lack of clicks that I was getting on the podcast episode emails, but Sabrina brought up a very good point.

She goes, Colie, I don’t even open your emails that talk about a new podcast episode. She goes, but do you know what I do? I see it in my inbox and I go to my podcast player and I make

Haylee: Yep.

Colie: that it’s downloaded for my workout the next day,

Haylee: Yep.

Colie: I never really thought about the fact that just by being in their inbox, it is calling attention to the fact that I have a new podcast episode out.

So

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: start putting those back out this summer to see if my podcast downloads start increasing as a result.

Haylee: So I, completely agree with Sabrina.

Colie: That’s not a shocker.

Haylee: I actually did, I tested a theory myself on how much my email impacts my downloads. So for a while I was sending my emails on Tuesdays, which is my release day. Then I decided to start sending the, the email on Thursdays, not Tuesdays, and it like about 25% of my listeners were coming in on Thursday instead of Tuesday, because I sent that email out.

Meaning that like, while they may not be either subscribed or have automatic downloads turned on, they’re relying on that email to go and listen to my show.

Colie: I feel like you and I had that conversation at podcast Movement and. it’s been seven, eight months and I still haven’t done it, but I swear to God it’s gonna be this summer. One of the things that I had played around with is your episodes come out on Tuesdays, so it does make sense that you’re doing it on Thursdays.

For me, my episodes come out on Thursday, and so it makes much more sense for me to drop that email on a Monday, and that’s one of the reasons that my evergreen sequence is getting pushed a Saturday so that

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: the Evergreen email will go out on Saturday. Podcast email from the previous week will go out on Mondays and then Thursdays will be my new day to like, talk about something new, flash sale, some, you know, just a newsletter, story filled email if I choose to send one.

So three emails a week, I’m sorry, email list. If you don’t want all the emails, you know the way to leave.

Haylee: A question for you, Saturday. Why Saturday or why a weekend day in general when you serve photographers?

Colie: Because this might be crazy. I feel like during the week all of the, like the amount of emails that I get is absolutely crazy, and I do feel like I have a really good open rate on Sundays. And for myself, I do like to just sit and read emails that are in my newsletter folder on the weekend versus doing it during the week.

Haylee: Mm-hmm.

Colie: preference. was also recently listening to, there’s a private podcast, kind of summit, an audio summit, if you will. It’s called Inside the Inbox, and it’s from Kylie Kelly. I. that I’ve worked with, someone that I have, a lot of her products is Tara Reed. And she was on there talking about how she does hers on Saturdays because she had looked at all of her data and Saturdays tended to have the highest open rates for her.

And so

Haylee: Hmm.

Colie: something that I’m experimenting with. If I don’t feel like they’re getting as good of downloads, maybe I’ll move them to Fridays, or maybe I’ll even move those to Thursdays. So right now I’m just in play mode. I’m just gonna move it around and, and see, ’cause originally it wasn’t going out on one day, people were getting them on the day that they subscribed

Haylee: Oh yeah.

Colie: the, the day that they got added to the evergreen sequence.

And I just found that problematic because then sometimes when I was looking at my email data, like someone was getting two emails in one day and it was always that one got a higher open rate than the other. And so I was like, how do I fix that? So then I limited it to only going Thursday through Sunday and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is what I was like holding open to do like more timely emails. And then I was like, no, I want everybody to get these emails on the same day. What day? I was like, Hmm, let’s go with Sunday. So that’s how it became Sunday. I mean, random.

Haylee: I mean,

Colie: Yeah, just random.

Haylee: I think that’s a big piece of business in general is just strategy, like, or testing strategy is the wrong word. Testing, to make sure that. What works for you, works for you and not like listening to someone else. That, that’s something I’ve talked about a lot is like, just because someone says something doesn’t mean it’s the one and only way to do something,

Colie: Doesn’t mean it’s for you either. ’cause what works

Haylee: right?

Colie: person definitely doesn’t work for another person, which, hey Haylee, that happens to be, what that episode was that I dropped yesterday.

Haylee: Oh,

Colie: was if you go to someone and they have offers, I mean, it was specifically about offers though.

Haylee: yeah.

Colie: you go to, you wanna work with someone and hey, let’s talk about you for a minute. You have like a launch week, you have production, you have strategy and coaching. If I went to your website. How would I know which offer is right for me? And pricing is usually not the answer. Like it’s how is she going to solve my problem in something that’s going to help me move forward? And so that was what yesterday’s like, you know, replay if you will, was about, but it’s very hard because when you’re new in business and you don’t know what you don’t know, it is. I will say it’s a trend go find someone that you think has the business that you want, and you just try to mimic the shit out of it, and initially. It’s okay as long as you test what you think makes them successful. And if it doesn’t work for you, you pivot and you try something else. But I think it’s when we all get stuck in, oh, this worked for my coach, so it should work for me.

And I say the same thing about CRMs. Jessica’s Colie tells you to get dodo or HoneyBook. Doesn’t mean it’s the one for you. If you go into those CRMs and you hate them for the love of God, pick another one, like. not that you have to sit in the torture just because Colie told you that it’s the best one for you.

It might not be. There’s a lot of different offers, products, options, anything half of being in business and being successful and making it past year three is figuring out how to take an idea, customize it for yourself and make it work.

Haylee: I love it. Okay. I want to kind of wrap this up with you sharing an example of an episode or maybe even a series that directly led to either inquiries for your services or sales so that our listeners can kind of see how like podcasting provides an ROI as a business.

Colie: So the funny thing is, I’m gonna start because this is like one of the ones, and it was more recent. I was on Sarah Gillis’s podcast, um, Copywriter on call, and I know you’re asking me about my podcast, but I swear it has a point. I was on her podcast and she is someone who bought a Airtable template for me, the client hub. She literally set it up in an afternoon while she was at her kids’ hockey game. She was setting it up and when she had questions, she was boxing me ’cause we’re friends. But by the end of that practice, her client hub was completely set up and she was like, oh my God, I can answer all of these questions in my business.

So then when I went on her podcast, that was what we talked about was Airtable, and that was one of the first ones that I was like, absolutely, this has to be a feed drop on my podcast. Now when it aired on hers. saw a little sprinkle of like client hub sales. I really did. And then when I reshared it on mine again, I saw another like sprinkle and I was like, oh, well maybe there’s a lot of people in the evergreen sequence, right, that are currently getting an email about it.

I went and looked, no, no one had gotten that email in like the last week, so it was definitely from the podcast and me sharing that on my podcast. And so I have been able to identify certain places where I know that I mentioned a product. I didn’t mention it on any other marketing channel within the last seven days. And I’ve seen, you know, even a handful of sales. ’cause I think for that one it was like seven people bought the client hub. Like, know, it was like seven hours after that episode went live. And while that’s not a huge amount of money, I mean seven times 147, you guys like do the math. Like that’s well worth one episode.

Right. Another good example. Since I’m now back in my solo episode era, I recently did a client experience series and it was, honestly, it came from me being on someone else’s podcast, on Kara’s podcast. She asked me a question when I was on her podcast, um, the Kara report, and I was like, you know, I don’t talk to my audience like this.

I should, because she was basically trying to get me to say, if someone doesn’t have time to set up their full systems, where should they start? I was like, I don’t ever talk about where someone should start anymore. I’m always talking about like holistically, how do you set up all your systems? And I was like, that would make a good series. I created one episode on how to audit Yourself. Another one on how to map your client journey. Another one on how to set up a five minute booking process, which was actually the focus of what I talked about on her podcast. And then. Only in the fourth episode. Was it like after you’ve done all three of those, now let’s talk about how you make some workflows, but. I have had such good feedback, including someone who sent me the email this morning that’s interested in systems in session. She’s like, I gotta tell you, like I have been in HoneyBook and after listening to that series, like I went in there and I spent a couple hours and my systems are so much better than they were before.

And so that felt really good. I mean, it wasn’t a sale, it, it could potentially be a sale if she joins systems and sessions. But other than that, like it was really good to hear. That she listened to the episode and she took action because that action might not have been to go to my shop and buy a product, but it was to take action and make her systems better, and that makes my Professor Hart very happy.

Haylee: Yes. I think the other thing too is, as a podcaster, opening the door to communication for your listeners of like, DM me, reach out via email when they feel like they have that connection to you and they can make that relationship, I. More than just like, oh, I’m a listener to you and that’s all I am, then they are more likely to end up buying from you too.

Colie: And also I do, you know, I have a five minute rule, Haylee, ’cause I haven’t talked about it on my actual podcast. I don’t think I usually mention it when I’m a guest on someone else’s. But I was recently on the Keep It Moving podcast with one of my clients, Melissa Arlene, and then Alison Bell, who’s actually now a client too.

So I was on their podcast. We started talking and I’m like, Melissa had a problem, and it wasn’t until I had told her this that she came to me to ask me for my advice. I have an open door rule if you have been struggling to answer a systems question. You’re looking on YouTube, you’re, you know, searching on Google, whatever it is that you’re doing. I would really prefer that you just send me a DM or you send an email. But listen, if I don’t answer your email, you should probably then try a dm. ’cause things get lost in the inbox guys. But you should probably reach out to me, because if I can tell you yes or no. give you some clarity in less than five minutes without having to go into, you know, the back end of your business and actually do research. I would rather you give me the opportunity to give you five free minutes of my time to tell you no, that’s never going to work. Stop trying

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: can move on to something else. But. It wasn’t until I said it on their podcast that I, it was like a couple weeks later, Melissa had an Airtable problem and she’s like, okay, Colie, you set this up for me and now I’m trying to do this for somebody else and it’s not working and I just need to know am I like spinning my wheels?

And so, you know, she told me the whole set of, I was like, yes, you’re spinning your wheels. That is never going to work. I set you up using this piece of software and you’re trying to do it with this one and that one doesn’t give you the same data. And she’s like, okay. Now I can move on and try to find an alternative method.

She is like, I just, I knew you did it for me, and so there must just be a way. And I’m like, no. So, you know, now I love it when people take advantage of this, like don’t sit there and just try to figure it out over and over again. Now I. If I tell you that I have a free resource that will solve it. Hey, if I tell you that I have a paid resource that will solve it, hey, but at least I’m gonna tell you whether or not it’s possible or not.

And then you can stop trying to, you know, force it. It’s like trying to, what is it? Force a square peg in a round hole. just imagine people doing that, and I feel so bad because I know most of what I know so intimately that if you ask me, it’s only gonna take me like 30 seconds to dictate a note to you to be like, yeah, no, that’s not gonna work, or It’s not working because you did this.

Try this and then I can just move on with my day.

Haylee: I like the five minute rule because I also feel like. When you get stuck on something, it just takes you reaching out and asking someone for advice and then it’s gonna start working. Yeah. I literally did that the other day. I was having issues with, uh, Zapier and Asana, and I posted on threads, is there anyone that can help me with this?

And literally I’m like, DMing. Um, someone reached out and was like, Hey, shoot me a couple screenshots of what you’re doing. And she was like, have you tried just like. Logging out of your, Asana account and logging back in, in Zapier, and I was like, no,

Colie: And

Haylee: it fixed it. Yes. I was so mad.

Colie: Oh my gosh. I mean sometimes it’s sometimes someone else you are, you are in the thick of it and you are just blind

Haylee: Yeah.

Colie: just cannot see your way out. But someone with a different perspective will look at it and be like, well, yeah, you just need to try this. And

Haylee: Exactly.

Colie: it works and they’ve probably saved you hours of additional pain and stress of trying to figure out what is not working.

Haylee: Yep, exactly. Well, Colie, looking ahead with this podcast, how do you see it continuing as your business not only evolves, but as your business grows?

Colie: I honestly don’t think I’m going to do very many things different with this podcast. Now, I have already ideated a new private podcast because I’ve had one. For a while, but I did not create it as a private podcast. I took my masterclass, my webinar that leads into my course, and I repurposed it as a private podcast, and I don’t think that it does a very good job.

So I have created a new one and honestly. No, it’s not gonna be ready by the time this airs, but it will be shortly after. It’s called the Client Experience Glow Up private podcast,

Haylee: Woohoo.

Colie: than what I’ve done before. Everything that I give you guys is very like, do this and then do this, but this is gonna really be my first attempt at. Talking about the mindset changes that you have to like make internally before you’re ready to like really glow up your client experience. And so it is gonna be something a little different for me. I will put a wait list link or Haylee. We’ll put a wait list link in these show notes for that private podcast for when it airs in June. But other than that, I mean the goal is to refresh my ads, make sure that I go back in on inviting people that I’ve worked with onto my podcast. And again, just making sure that I am really speaking to the people that I know are in my audience. Like you know, the photographers that I love.

Haylee: Amazing. Amazing. Alright friends, if this is your first time listening to this podcast, make sure you hit subscribe. Colie’s face was like, what are you talking about?

Colie: Like who would, who would listen to this episode as their first episode, which, oh my gosh, we didn’t even say the reason that we recorded this Happy three year podcast anniversary to

Haylee: I forgot to say it.

Colie: That’s why Haylee’s here, guys, when this podcast airs, the podcast has been here for three years, and so I just wanna say to the listening audience, thank you for each and every one of you that subscribe or randomly download and listen to an episode. The podcast is only here because you are listening, so thank you.

Alright guys. I hope that you have learned something from this podcast about how I am using it as a marketing tool inside of my business and maybe why I make some of the decisions related to this podcast that I do. But that’s it for this episode. See you next time. you, Haylee.

Haylee: Thanks, bye.