Want a Profitable Podcast? The 4 M’s Between 10-100K

Hey Friend!

I’m Ready to Make My Podcast Profitable! What do I Focus on When I am Between 10-100K Podcast Downloads?! I’m so glad you asked.

Today is part 2 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 10K-100K downloads on your show. I explain why this is the perfect time to focus on the 4 M’s! From Marketing to Monetizing – this one’s got you COVERED!

It’s critical that you focus on going slow to grow 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 M’s so that you can see BIG results!

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):
What’s up, girls? Welcome to today’s episode. I am super excited to bring you part two of our podcasting series, where we really break down what the heck you should be focusing on based on where you are at in your podcasting journey. So super pumped to get into that today, we’re gonna be going through the four M’s of really taking your show from 10k to 100k downloads.

(00:27):
Can you imagine? I am telling you that day will come and it will be such an exciting day, as long as you just stick with it, pour into, showing up consistently, continue to learn and put into place all the foundational things that we learned in last week’s episode.

(00:45):
And now we really start to pivot and move into marketing, messaging and monetization. So stay tuned for all of that. Now, before we get into today’s show, I do wanna let you know that today it is officially the very last day, last day that you and get signed up to join my biz bestie and life bestie, Chelsi Joe Moore and myself at a live retreat.

(01:10):
It’s gonna be going down March 4th, 5th and 6th in Gilbert, Arizona. We are so excited to get to hang out with 20 of you in person, pour into your God size goals, really figure out what those things are that He’s calling for, calling you to step into in not just your business, but also your life, also in your marriage and your motherhood.

(01:35):
And really partnering those God sized goals, those big visions, 90 days in one year from now, but partnering them with tangible tactical stepping stones. Like what do you actually do to get where you wanna go? And that’s really where Chelsi and myself, where we come together and we create this beautiful blend of strategy, but also really specific, actionable planning.

(01:59):
It’s gonna be amazing. We’re gonna take you out. We have these beautiful restaurants while up for you. You’re staying in a beautiful hotel. We’re gonna go to the most amazing workspace. It’s got kombucha and Cole brew on tap, girl, I mean, there is nothing else that you need, but to get yourself a plane ticket and say, yes and amen to come and hanging out with us, getting a big in-person hug at Call Her Blessed 2022.

(02:23):
As of right now, recording, we only have a couple spots left. I think we have three spots left and the tickets do come down first thing tomorrow morning. So callherblessed.us. If it’s on your heart to come do this live retreat, we invite you. callherblessed.us.

(03:39):
All right, friend. So at this point you have passed 10,000 podcast downloads. Congratulations! That is huge. You have proven that more people are here for what you have to offer and can play the long game. You have proven that you can push through, you know, the first chapter of the book that you can push through the hard parts of getting started, that you are here to play and you’re here to stay.

(04:10):
So, first of all, seriously, give yourself a pat on the back. If you did not take a moment to celebrate those 10 K downloads, do it. It’s huge. I am telling you not that many people make it to 10,000 because they give up too soon. So I’m just super excited and proud of you for sticking it out. But now you have got goals.

(04:31):
You’re gonna really put your nose to that grindstone and start pursuing the next level growth. And really the next level growth is a 100K. Now, let me tell you, you’re like, man, I had to grind to get to the 10K. I had to really push through some limiting beliefs and some fears about myself and some emotional pain and tears and trials and tech to get to the 10K.

(05:03):
I know, and getting to the 10 K is the hardest part, because at this point, you know, you’ve really gotten the kinks out of this process, you know the basics and so now it’s just fuel on the fire and it’s really at this point, figuring out what the next steps are aside from just consistent content. You already have proof of concept, you already are showing up consistently and you’re in it. So here’s where we’re gonna go into the four M’s that you should be focused on as you scale from 10 to 100 K.

(05:34):
So number one, the first M is to focus on marketing. So if you recall, when I talked to you about zero to 10K, I didn’t say that you had to have a website yet. I didn’t say you had to be doing all these extra things. I said focus on the podcast and collecting those leads and being consistent and focusing on connection, finding out who your avatar is.

(05:59):
Well, now at this point, what I want you to do is take all of that information that you’ve gathered and go ahead and get legit. So when I say marketing at this point, I would go ahead and have a website set up. I would go ahead and focus on figuring out how to begin marketing your show on Pinterest. That’s my favorite one.

(06:18):
And those of you who are joining me on Podcast to Profit, you guys are gonna be gifted my Pinterest masterclass, we have a whole segment on utilizing Pinterest and SEO and keyword optimization to grow your show. So that’s really an exciting bonus for those of you who are joining me in the April 2022 Podcast to Profit.

(06:37):
And we are officially taking applications already. We do sell out every single time, and you’re gonna wanna definitely get your application in early to be sure that you’re first on the list. And that is at podcasttoprofitmastermind.com.

(06:53):
The other piece of marketing is getting some email marketing set up. So this does not need to be hard. It does not need to be like this huge, crazy complicated funnel automation sequence. Some of you’re like, what did you just say? It’s okay. All you’re gonna do is take what I taught you in the last episode. And you’re going to add a CTA at the end of it.

(07:17):
So we’re gonna start to practice marketing in our emails. What do we want people to do? And we’re already sending our podcast alert episodes once a week, with here’s new content for you definitely come listen to the show. And now we just really wanna practice, like, what do we want these people to do?

(07:33):
So we’re gonna fine tune what the email messaging is gonna be based on who the person is, the avatar clarity that we got in our first 10K downloads. And then last but not least, we’re gonna really begin focusing on sharing our podcast. Sharing. So what does this mean?

(07:53):
It means if you have an Instagram, if you have a Facebook page, if you have a wherever you are. Any socials, yes on Pinterest, yes on emails, you wanna get super consistent with sharing your podcast episodes. That’s what I mean by marketing.

(08:12):
Our podcast can get to 10K 100% organically, word of mouth and utilizing that SEO that I teach in Podcast Pro University and in P2P however, there does come a point where like, just having the podcast by itself will kind of cap out of on that growth.

(08:30):
And so that’s where now that we have kind of locked in all of those foundational ways to market, we wanna move to the next step, which is really this bigger picture marketing, it’s just sharing. You don’t have to create new content, please don’t write new blurbs and new captions, literally just share it. There is a new episode today. Here’s what it’s about.

(08:53):
And I teach you guys all of this stuff in PPU. So definitely if you haven’t taken Podcast Pro University yet, you’re gonna want to cuz this is all in there. And of course we definitely do a deeper dive into this in Podcast to Profit.

(09:06):
The second thing you’re gonna focus on is messaging. So you have avatar clarity at this point so now that you know who your person is now, your job in your 10 to 100 K journey is to figure out what your person actually is struggling with and not just collecting a whole list of pain points, but figuring out how they’re actually saying it.

(09:34):
What are they saying? The words that they are using? What are the phrases that they are using? How are they articulating why they can’t get to the end result? So that’s really what you wanna focus on in number two, here is messaging. And one of my favorite ways, us as a team is we actually have a database. It’s a Google Excel share file.

(09:56):
And we have in there thousands of comments from all of you and these comments come from our Facebook group. They come from the student community, they come from emails, they come from texts or Voxers to the team or whatever. And we just collect this master list of pain points, but not just like, oh yeah, somebody said, you know, they don’t know how to do email marketing.

(10:19):
We don’t just write email marketing down. We write down the sentence that you guys are actually saying, like, how do I start an email list? Or I don’t know what to write in my emails to my list. We’re writing down the way that you are saying things, because that helps us to really on point messaging. And when your messaging is on point, your SEO optimization goes through the roof. Your trust and heart connection really starts to grow and to thrive.

(10:53):
So we’ve talked about first focus is marketing, getting all your ducks in a row, your website is kind of set up and let me say something on the website. You can do website and I have a website episode, i you guys are part of our Facebook group, stefgasscommunity.com, go into the guides, grab our catalog because we have every episode in there you can search for website.

(11:15):
I have lots of episodes on website creation and the five things you need to know. So go grab our podcast catalog, it’s in our Facebook group. Again, that’s at stefgasscommunity.com. But on that point, you can do a website scrappy to start with, but I would actually recommend just having it done, right but short, sweet, clean and tidy because here’s the deal like you’re still learning. You don’t really know what you do yet.

(11:44):
You don’t really know who you serve. You don’t really know what you offer, which offer that you create and test is gonna be the thing. So spending five grand on a website or even three grand on a website, when you you’re not past a hundred K downloads yet, it’s kind of a waste of money, cuz you’re going to end up going back and redoing everything.

(12:02):
I’m telling you, cuz you’re gonna know later what I actually do and who I serve and how they speak and what people want. What my final branding colors are, there’s just so much growth that happen up until you’ra at a hundred K mark. So do it like simple, clean. If you guys wanna go through Ale, my graphic designer, she can bust out like even a one pager for you, a super simple clean website landing page.

(12:25):
Just so you have like a hub, but it’s not over the top so that you can still grow with the brand. I do think that’s important. You guys can and get in touch with her at ahappymompreneur.com and of course tell her Stef sent you so that you can get my student pricing. So we went through marketing, number one, two was messaging. Let’s move on to number three.

(12:46):
The third thing that you can focus on when you’re going from 10 to 100 K downloads is monetizing. This is a great time to start creating your offer. Now my favorite offer obviously is to start with coaching, get to know your person, even if you do a handful of coaching episodes. And again, I have a whole episode on coaching. If you go grab the catalog, I have a few, check those out.

(13:09):
The second thing is to create a course. Now courses are awesome because they are such a high profit margin. They give people a solution at a really low investment for your person and they allow you to learn. Now, I am gonna tell you that the first time you create a course, you are not done. Your course is kind of a test. You will sell some courses depending on your super fan number.

(13:32):
You probably are gonna get a lot of feedback on that first course. You’re gonna think of ways to make it better. And you’re gonna either redo the course a year from then, or you’re gonna have a different course that comes out. Up until I figured out Podcast Pro University was the course that I was gonna have, I think I had six courses that I had created, tested, launched.

(13:51):
Some had failed, some had done well. And even for me like figuring out what I actually loved to teach and the things that I was gonna stick with, it took time and it took trial and error. And this is not an overnight thing, you’re in this long game.

(14:07):
And so try something based on what your avatar is saying based on number two, the messaging that they’re speaking to you and obviously join us in P2P cuz that’s what we do together is we create your offer together so that you’re really clear and clean on how to create something that’s gonna sit well, that’s gonna land, that’s actually gonna sell.

(14:26):
And you’re not just wasting time because it does take some money to create a course, not a lot, but it does take some investment. Take all my lessons learned, it’s gonna save you so much time, effort and energy, trying to throw spaghetti at the wall and create a thing and hope it works.

(14:45):
And there are reasons that I don’t promote membership communities. There’s a reason I don’t promote tiny offers. There’s a reason that I say like, let’s figure out what your person needs, how we solve that problem, what the messaging is telling us that we need. And then I actually give you guys an entire blueprint in P2P where we create your offer together.

(15:02):
I teach you how to sell it, how to optimize it, all the pieces. So that’s a really fun thing to do though, here at this point in your podcast journey, now you’re gonna sell some, it’s gonna be really exciting. And then you’re gonna have your heart and ears open for ways that you can optimize it in the future, ways you can make it better, ways that you can add to it. And it’s gonna be such a fun growth process.

(15:24):
So that is gonna be number three and, and there’s so much that goes into like pricing it and all these little pieces. So just wanted to let you guys know that monetizing is in here, but it definitely doesn’t stop with, I think I’ll just create a thing. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into this.

(15:41):
Also, let me say, if you guys are a student of mine in CYC, PPU or P2P, you can always grab a 30 minute unstuck session with me. I have a few slots that are set aside for you guys every single month. And so you can still grab access with me to 30 minutes where we can actually brainstorm this together. I can help you come up with what your course or offer will be help you price it, title it, we can bust out an outline together and really get you started.

(16:10):
I think having the vision gives you the first foundational steps of like, how do I actually create this and what are step one, two and three. And typically what I see is that you guys get so stuck on the how, but you don’t even have the vision yet. And so the vision is so important.

(16:29):
So if you wanna do that, you can schedule a 30 minute with me as a student. Only students at this time are eligible for coaching at support@stefaniegass.com. Sorry, all the links, but I wanna let you guys know how I can support you at a deeper capacity, no matter where you are.

(16:45):
And the last M is to master the one thing. What does this mean, Stef? This means as you’re going from 10 to 100K, you’re still exploring, you’re still learning, you’re hearing probably like maybe five to 10 pain points from your avatar at this point, so you’ve got a concept, you have an idea.

(17:11):
But I don’t want you to throw everything in the sink and then like try to shove it all down the garbage disposal and be like, here’s a course, it has like every single thing in it and I threw in like the ketchup and the mustard. No, that’s too much.

(17:25):
The way that you become super successful, hear me, the way that you become super successful is, you know what your one thing is, the one thing that you solve better than anybody else. The one thing that you can get someone a result, the one thing that lights you up more than any other solution, you have got to find out what that is.

(17:50):
And there’s no way to know until you’re talking to people and working with people and maybe doing a few coaching calls and maybe sampling a few different beta course opportunities, or at least doing some polls and some data research around course options. And so that mastery it’s really gonna come as you do those 100K downloads.

(18:12):
Cuz that’s more and more data that comes in, it’s more and more listeners, more and more super fans, more growth in your Facebook group. This entire process is going slow to grow big. We’re going to go slow and do it right so that we can scale big. And that’s actually gonna be the next episode that I air for y’all on Thursday where we talk about, oh man, I did it, I’m at 100K, how do we now go big?

(18:44):
How do I scale past half a million downloads? And there’s some other really great strategies. They’re gonna gonna take you from marketing, messaging, monetizing and mastery to scaling, to really hitting it, making those big numbers, making a lot of big impact and doing some big things, making some moves.

(19:03):
So let’s just do a quick recap, so your goals from 10 to 100 K, goal number one, get your marketing locked in. Get a really easy, simple, clean website at this point. Go ahead and begin some email marketing, definitely start sharing on Pinterest and socials, all of which is covered in my courses. So you don’t need to be stressed about how to do all of that. That is definitely gonna be covered in Podcast to Profit, my mastermind for podcasters.

(19:32):
Goal number two is to get your messaging locked in. What’s your person actually saying, like the sentences, like the words coming out of her mouth. You’ve gotta get that, now just create a database with as much of her verbiage as possible. And then you can that database forever. And we’re gonna use that database a lot when I talk about scaling strategies on Thursday’s episode.

(19:57):
Goal number three is to start monetizing and start playing with monetization. You are not gonna be a millionaire overnight. You’re not gonna hit 10 K months overnight, this is going to be a slow grow based on your super and number episode 199.

(20:14):
And the only way you impact your super fan number is by podcasting consistently, showing up growing slow to grow fast, putting everything I teach you in Podcast to Profit into play, SEO, keywords, podcast pitching, visibility, sales strategy, messaging, the way that we market and pitch on our show. All of those pieces have to be super locked in.

(20:36):
There are little pieces to this big overall monetization puzzle. We don’t just get to snap our fingers, create a course and make it big. There’s lots of components that go into this, but it’s fun for you at this point to start really playing with monetization and see how it’s working, what is selling, what is working, what’s not working, what feedback are you getting from your courses? How is launch? And every time that you guys do something, you just learn more so that you can fine tune, tweak and pivot and try again.

(21:06):
And the fourth goal as you scale to 100 K, is to master the one thing. So figuring out from the five things that you’ve been playing with, or maybe even 10 things, you gotta pair it down and truly know the one thing. If you really look at the one thing, a big clue to what your one thing might be is looking at your tagline of your brand.

When you guys took, Clarify Your Calling at clarifyyourcallingcourse.com with me, you walked away with your five tier brand map. And in that five tier brand map, one of the things we we created was your TSO statement.

(21:45):
Which is your tagline, it’s a tactical, specific outline. And we created that together in the course because that gave you so much clarity and so many clues around what your one thing is, the one mastery, the one specific solution that you are promising to your Lola.

(22:05):
So if you look at my brand, I start started with I help network marketers and mompreneurs build businesses online and conquer their fear. Great place to start, Stef. That’s like a really big direction, but nice. And then it was like a year later I help Christian online entrepreneurs build businesses online using social media and also using live video and maybe YouTubeing. You’re getting a little bit more clarity, but it’s still too big.

(22:36):
And then another year later it was like, oh, hold on, I help Christian mompreneurs start a podcast. And that was like really, really close. But the why and the how really wasn there yet, and God kept fine tuning and pivoting me and opening the door and all the while, my podcast is growing, the income and impact is growing. Everything’s growing and I’m learning, but I’m continuing to be open. I’m open to the growth.

(23:03):
And so now finally, three full years into this specific business and 10 years as an online entrepreneur, I finally know that I help faith led women get clear on their calling so they can start an online business. Period. End of story. That’s what I do. And then how do I do it? Well, they take Clarify Your Calling course. They get clear on their calling. They have a five tier brand map.

(23:30):
Then they start their podcast, which is how they’re gonna grow their audience, how they’re gonna connect with people without social media, without the hustle, they’re gonna do it evergreen, organic, and then step three, I’m gonna teach them to monetize their podcast and optimize and scale their show in Podcast to Profit mastermind. I have a three step process, the three step process guys, it took three years to figure out, it took three years to know what my one thing is.

(23:57):
And here’s the deal, God’s gonna continue to move. What is this gonna look like a year from now? I don’t know. What’s this gonna look like five years now? I have no idea because I’m open to godly growth. I’m open to Him, laying the path beneath my feet and he will continue to teach me what the one thing is as He grows me, as He prunes me, as my business continues to blossom so that I can impact his kingdom in the way, which he needs me to.

(24:27):
And it’s the same thing for all of you. So there you go. Those are your four M’s marketing, messaging, monetizing mastery, your four goals I just wrapped up for you. And that’s really what you’re going to focus on. I just pray that if you are in this middle, cuz you really are right now, you’re in the middle, you can see the light, you can taste it, but yet you’re like I’m so far, Stef.

(24:49):
Look, you are three feet from gold, continue to lean into God’s call for your life. The reason you started this podcast in the first place, the reason that you’re showing up to teach, to give, to inspire, to help, to encourage, to pour out from a heart place. And that God created this book in heaven about you from day one and you are just fulfilling it. And I just place this decree over your life, that you will be able to foster the kingdom of God through your voice, through your message and through your positioning of purpose.

(25:23):
Yes and amen. We are so excited God for how are moving in these women’s lives, how you are showing up with God’s size confidence to help them just speak out your truth, help others, inspire, motivate, teach, and continue to have a hand in your godly kingdom. We love you so much. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(25:44):
I’ll see you, guys, back for the final round of this series, which is how to scale and go bigger, go home. As we go from a 100K to 500 K in the next episode. And again, reminding you just a couple spots left for Call Her Blessed. If you wanna come hang out with us with other faith led entrepreneurs, just like you, go to callherblessed.us. It is your last day to snag a ticket. Bye, friend.