Focusing on Growth Between 100 K and 500K Podcast Downloads

Hey Friend!

I’m between 100-500K podcast downloads. I’m ready to make BIG Income and BIG Impact! What should I focus on?

Today is part 3 of my podcaster-focused series designed to help you know what the heck to focus on in your biz, based on where you are. I have broken it down into 3 categories. 0-10K downloads, 10K-100K, and 100K-500K.

In today’s show, we go through what to focus on as you go from 100K-500K downloads on your show. I explain why this is the perfect time to focus on the 4 B’s! These B’s will help you SCALE and STREAMLINE – this training will help you go next level.

It’s critical that you focus on back-end biz-ops, growth, scaling your team, and other critical components now that your show has gotten so BIG! That you take the time to build an organic, evergreen business that will be highly profitable and far–reaching.

Let’s dig into these 4 B’s so that you can see even BIGGER results!

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):
Hey, friends! Welcome to today’s episode, where we’re gonna be going through what to do when you pass that 100K download mark. Congratulations! That is a huge milestone in your podcasting journey, in your business and I am telling you the breakthrough is so close. It really truly is.

(00:19):
If you haven’t already experienced it, this is such a huge pivotal moment because, honestly, you’ve made it. The percentage of podcasts that make it past this point are very few because one, people give up; two, people give up; and three, people don’t come from a place of service or they don’t keep their avatar and their listener first.

(00:42):
But you are doing all of those things and so you are gonna make big strides, my friend. So we’re gonna go through four B’s today that’re gonna help you stay focused. What do you actually do right now? Now that you’re going big or you’re going home and you’re gonna chase that half a million download mark.

(02:02):
So let dig into this today. The first thing that I want to bring up is that this is exactly the moment when people decide that they should do something new and different. This is exactly the moment when you’re like, Hmm, what else should I create? What other course, or what other thing? Or let me go try this thing over here.

(02:22):
Because it’s working, we start looking for the new thing, but here’s where most people go wrong because the fact that it’s working means you need to stay focused on why it’s working and pour more fuel on that fire. Not start diversifying, not start really pulling things apart and building new stuff at this point.

(02:45):
It’s really about optimizing what you already have. You know, I’ve heard some wise words of wisdom from some coaches and some programs I’ve taken recently. And even some other friends of mine who have had big success in whatever it is that they do. And that advice is that you can get to half a million to a million-dollar business on one product alone.

(03:06):
And now that I have three that I build on, I can see where it’s so much easier to just have the one thing. Every time I have to create an email marketing funnel or a workshop or something of that nature, I have to really decide like, well, where are they in this process? Are they at CYC or PPU or P2P?

(03:25):
And there’s so much different marketing that goes into it. We have different organizations within my company structure for different programs and different courses. And it just gets so complicated the more stuff that you add in to your business.

(03:39):
So I would encourage you, once you’ve figured out the one thing which we talked about in Monday’s episode and really focusing on monetizing the one thing, is how do you just stay locked and loaded on the one thing. And don’t get distracted from that.

(03:56):
And this is what you know, that feedback is that I have for you today are these four B’s. So grab a notebook and pen let’s dive in. Number one is you’re gonna focus on your business backend. So what I mean by this is at this point, once you’ve passed that 100K mark you really have over a thousand super fans, for sure, probably even upward of that.

(04:25):
And so you are consistently making sales at this point. If you’re following my super fan number calculation, you’re most likely anywhere between 10 and 20 sales a month, if you have everything locked and loaded, the way that I teach you in Podcast to Profit. So here’s the deal though, now you don’t wanna look up and be like, oh snap, like I’m running a legit business.

(04:47):
You wanna go, oh, snap, I’m running a legit business. I’ve got my legal in order, my contracts are locked and loaded. I’ve got my bookkeeping taken care of. I’m not freaking out about taxes. I know how to pay and account for contractors in my business. Nothing is happening in the backend that you’re ignoring, you’re ahead of it.

(05:09):
This is the point, if you haven’t already done this, that you really need to do this. Because as soon as those floodgates burst open, there’s truly no stopping it. You really can’t because people know you’re for them. And they’re gonna tell people in a it’s gonna continue growing and you know how to grow at this point. So it’s only up from here.

(05:28):
I’m gonna be bringing on my friend, Andrea Sager from Legalpreneur, we’re gonna be talking to you guys about legalizing your biz. We’re gonna talk to you guys about trademarks and contracts and all of that. So don’t worry that episode is coming super soon. Also, you can go to stefaniegass.com/resources and find out everything that I use in my business.

(05:48):
I share with you my contract software. I’ve got a coupon code for you there to save 20%. I share with you how you can get trademarked. I share with you the QuickBooks software that I started out with bookkeeping and all of that.

(06:04):
So now’s the time though, take some of those 10 sales a month, some of that revenue and put it into making sure that your business is where it needs to be. If you haven’t created your LLC yet, or if you’re gonna do an S Corp, or if you don’t know what that means, it’s time to meet with a tax person.

(06:21):
If you don’t have a bookkeeper yet, or you’re gonna do it yourself, it’s time to figure that out. If you don’t have the business bank accounts locked and loaded and all of those little pieces, like take a couple of months, invest in getting yourself structured properly because it’s high time that you do that.

(06:40):
And I’m so glad that I did that sooner rather than later, because you know, the journey from a 100 to 650K downloads was super quick, I don’t know it was like a year and a half. This company is truly making some serious revenue numbers at this point. And I’m really glad that I set this stuff up so that I’m not confused. I know who my team is if I need help, I’ve got some tax peeps to call on and I know who to turn to for legal.

(07:09):
So you’re gonna start there. And I do have that episode coming out for you guys and just a couple weeks to help you with legal and all of pieces and head to stefaniegas.com/resources to kind of see what I’m using. And of course, word of mouth, ask people that you trust.

(07:30):
Some of these people for me, these resources for me are virtual because they have an expertise in my type of business model. And then some of them are local to me, like my bookkeeper and my tax team, they are local. They’re actually right down the street. So that’s really great. Cause I can pop over there and, get my questions answered live, that kind of stuff.

(07:49):
So it just takes some time and remember this, I heard this recently and it was so good and it was, everything’s hard until it’s not. And how often have you proven that to yourself as you’ve been on this growth journey? Everything’s hard until it’s not, you got this.

(08:06):
The second B is boister growth. It’s time to boister that growth. So you’ve really focused a lot on organic marketing. You got to a 100K downloads using the stuff that I taught you in Podcast to Profit, Pinterest, marketing, SEO, keywords, pod pitching, all of that cool stuff that we go over together.

(08:29):
How to really scale just using word of mouth, using your show, using your socials, doing it all, super chill, super low key. Now, there will come a point and this might be closer to the 500K mark for you, guys, and it’s definitely after you’ve passed at least 200K in revenue in your business. So go ahead and note that if you’re not at those numbers yet, just keep doing what you’ve been doing.

(08:54):
But at that point, once you’ve really passed that 200K revenue mark, and you’re getting close to a half a million downloads, it’s time to start looking at how do I grow faster? Now, there’s lots of ways to grow faster. But the number one way to grow faster is to start looking at removing yourself from a lot of the inner workings of the business at this point, and figuring out how to position yourself as the CEO of growth.

(09:24):
We call it the director of growth in my company and push yourself in charge of that leg of the business. Because you can totally, and then actually, the third B is build a team, but there’s people and things that everything that you’ve done for over at least a year, cause very few of you are gonna pass a 100K in a year, unless you already had a big following.

(09:46):
Everything that you’ve already done for like a year, you can create an SOP, a standard operating procedure for this, create a procedure, record the tutorial videos, and start bringing people in to fill those roles. And we have contract labor to do that, you can do interns, you can start hiring from within your super fan base.

(10:07):
It’s time to allow yourself to become a true visionary of growth. And with that, once you have that space and that room to really see big picture for the big time growth of your show, there’s lots of cool options. Plus the great news is you actually have that revenue spend because of the way I’ve taught you to build. And you have such a big profit margin selling courses and selling coaching.

(10:32):
You’re making at least a 50% profit margin, if not closer to 70%, you have some of that money that you can start putting into growth. Now, this looks different for everyone. And I do not recommend this until you truly have passed 200K in revenue at a minimum.

(10:51):
And you’re getting close, you’re probably over 350K downloads, maybe even 400K because that’s the super fan number that you can grow with. But at that point, you can start looking at paid ads and driving webinar traffic because you know the thing you’ve built is working.

(11:09):
The reason that I don’t promote ads or paid traffic or paid webinars or really confusing funnels and stuff of that nature is because you, guys, are still learning. As you’re growing up to a 100K, you’re still getting to know your person. You’re still testing products and courses and coaching. And you’re still really understanding what the number one problem even is.

(11:30):
So for you to go and spend a bunch of money running ads, spend to something that you’re not a hundred percent locked and loaded on, you’re not pulling at least, you know, 10, 15, 20K months in yet, don’t put money to it until you’ve tested it.

(11:45):
We have to have proof of concept, proven proof of concept before. We don’t put the cart before the horse. So that’s why we wait until we hit these numbers to really start focusing on these bigger growth options. But once you’re there, have a great time find what works for you, have fun with it. We’ve tested lots of stuff. And we’re kind of finding some cool things that are working at this point.

(12:09):
And it’s been a cool process. And the good news is you’ll be in a position to try and test and know tha you have the bandwidth for that because you are sitting as the director of growth and you’re testing and you’re marketing and it’s really a kind of a fun process.

(12:24):
The third B is it’s time to build a team. At this point probably, most of you have at least a virtual assistant at this point, someone is helping you in your business. But again, once you’re really passing those bigger numbers, like a minimum of 10-15K months at this point. If you, guys, are listening and you’re not at a hundred K downloads just to learn what I’m saying. You’re like, whoa, is that possible?

(12:52):
Everything is based on the data. So your super fan number, episode 199, it will tell you exactly where you should be from a sales perspective. And if you’re not there, you gotta take Podcast to Profit cause I teach you, guys, where your thing may be broken.

(13:08):
Is it the way you’re selling or the way you’re pitching or your messaging or your marketing or the way that you’re positioning the course? So there’s so many little pieces to making sure that you’re hitting that 1-2% conversion of your super fans every month, but that’s where you should be.

(13:22):
And if you’re not there, you can grab a 60-minute coaching session, and I can help scrub through with you and let you know what looks off to me cuz everyone that has this finetuned in, is hitting those numbers. I have multiple students and clients who hit these numbers and even higher than that conversion, which is awesome.

(13:45):
But my point with building a team is that there comes a point where if you’re still in the weeds, in the bottom legs of each division of your organization, you’re still uploading graphics and you’re still dealing with transcriptions and transferring blog stuff over. And you’re still in the comments of your Facebook groups, 24/7. You can’t be seated at the table of director of growth.

(14:07):
You have to have space and time and clarity and you have to have people on your team to help you really strategize a bigger picture dreams and goals and visions. So it’s time to build a team and add a 200K revenue business, which is where I expect you to be when you’re at roughly 100 to 500K download somewhere in there, you should pass those numbers.

(14:32):
At that point you have the money, you have the finances with the big profit margins that we build out when you, guys, followed the Stef Gass business model to allocate some of those to a team, doesn’t need to be an expensive team, but you do need help.

(14:50):
So at a minimum, at this point, I would be recommending that you have a virtual assistant, that you have somebody helping you manage the podcast, that you have somebody helping you manage all your media channels.

(15:03):
So this would be social media, this would maybe even be Pinterest marketing at this point, Instagram, all of that. That can be an intern, that can just be a social media assistant. We have found such great, incredible people who wanna swap for a course or a program of mine, or even just wanna intern to learn.

(15:23):
There’s so much opportunity for you to help someone and for them to help you. And then I would also start looking at this point for you to begin looking at the operations side of your business. So that means how do we create standard operating procedures, how do we start getting again, the biz backend in order, not just legally, but also organizationally.

(15:50):
We need procedures for everything going on in the company because if somebody leaves, you just hand them a new SOP and they come in and they’re ready to rock and roll. So we have standard operating procedures for how to create a blog, how to migrate a blog, how to create an updated podcast CTA, all the little pieces that are being built.

(16:07):
Now we’re just working on this now. And, I do have Lydia now overseeing the operations management. So she’s really overseeing this SOP project, but it didn’t start that way. So as you build a team, what’s so cool is you’ll start to notice who your all stars are and you just let them grow with the organization. As you grow, your team grows.

(16:28):
And as your people start to grow with you, and you find the people who are linked in with your mission, and they’re really truly lifers with the company and they wanna be part of this with you, you can grow those people up into management roles and in the future into director roles with your organization. So building a team allows you to test people in a way and work with them for a while and really see who’s in it with you.

(17:02):
And when you find those people, it’s a game-changer. You can trust them, they’re loyal, they are committed. They really truly want to help you succeed because they believe in what you’re doing. And they know that they’re a part of something bigger, and they’re truly with you.

(17:20):
So building a team is something that is imperative. And if you’re struggling with that, the sooner you let go of control and you let go of all those little tiny pieces and you trust that someone else can come in, it brings fresh vision. It brings new eyes, clarity and time into your life.

(17:41):
We’ve been in the hospital now with Landon for a week as he’s gone through his appendix removal and then CT scan because his blood count was growing and a small abscess and like just still in the hospital, and my team is taking care of everything. We had to push Podcast to Profit out a week and Lydia and the girls recorded videos for me and sent prayers. And they took care of everything.

(18:05):
And Nina canceled all my appointments for the entire week and she took care of everything and I didn’t have to worry about anything. And the girls all took care of the Facebook groups and Erica and Kristi holding it down and Laura moving blogs, everything kept moving because the team knows exactly what to do.

(18:27):
They know how important are to this kingdom machine that we’ve built to further God’s purpose and mission and help women. And they understand that they’re part of this big, incredible thing. And they’re here with me and there’s no way, absolutely zero chance that I could get to these numbers without them. You can’t go grow big alone. You only go far with others. So there’s that.

(18:56):
And fourth last but not least B is brainchild. I want you to be the brainchild of how your organization is running. You’ve got to know your numbers is really what I’m saying here. What do your analytics look like? Why? What do your podcast stats look like? What episodes are doing the best?

(19:16):
Which courses are selling the most? Or if it’s the one course, where do people fall off? Is it time to revamp or revise? Is it time to pour some oil into this vehicle, into this engine that you’ve created? And is it time for a new paint job? You’ve gotta be the brainchild of staying as optimized as possible.

(19:38):
Don’t ever get lazy with your business and with your growth. You’ve gotta put on your Albert Einstein hat and go, how do I make this better? Not different. Don’t get distracted. Better. So brainchild of better is the name tag that you’re gonna wear along with director of growth.

(20:00):
So, let’s recap. After you’ve passed that 100K download mark, and you’re really hustling towards the half a million. Truly a lot of this is aimed at you, guys, who are over six figures and multi-six figure at this point. And if you’re not, podcasttoprofitmastermind.com, cuz those numbers or a coaching session with me should be happening based on that super fan number.

(20:20):
And the four B’s that you’re gonna be focused on are biz backend. So focusing on getting legal, getting all your ducks in a row, looking at tax, looking at help in your business to make sure at all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.

(20:35):
Second B is boister growth. You take the seat as director of growth in your business. Focus on how you can start to expand, get seen, maybe put some of that revenue into different revenues of testing paid growth, and see what that looks like.

(20:52):
Third, build a true team. Four, become the brainchild of better. How can you revamp, revise, optimize and make this the coolest best, most incredible business, podcast and course experience that anyone has ever been a part of.

(21:09):
Cheering for you. Here’s to 500 and beyond. And once I pass a million, my friends, I will absolutely record the 500 to a million for you, guys. That will definitely happen this year, which is really, really exciting. And I can’t wait to share with you the cool discoveries I found about getting to those numbers. God bless. See you, guys, soon. Bye.