If you have a podcast, want to have a podcast, or you’re starting one, this episode is going to be incredibly helpful for you! I’m getting into the nitty-gritty details of how to create a successful podcast and why it’s so beneficial to your business. Let’s jump in!

In This Episode Allie and Michelle Discuss:

• The importance of podcasting

• Podcasts & sponsorships

• Promoting your own products with your podcast

• Creating a movement with your podcast, not just a business

Mentioned in this Episode:

Instagram

Courses (Use the code PURPOSESHOW for 10% off!)

The Purpose Show Facebook Community

Ep 006: How I Got My Husband Out Of His 9 To 5

EP 105: Simple, Stellar Style: Everyday Wear Must-Have’s

Podcasting Confidence 

Mom life. We’re surrounded by the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. We’re supposed to get through it. Survive. Cling on by the last little thread. And at the same time, Carpe Diem—enjoy every moment because it’s going to go by so fast. The typical mom culture that sends us all kinds of mixed, typically negative messages. We shouldn’t take care of ourselves; it’s selfish. The more ragged you run yourself, the bigger your badge of honor. But also, ditch your mom bod and work out. Don’t yell. Make more money. Show up. Be better, but not at the expense of time with your kids. I am putting a hard stop to all of this. While being a mom, running a business, and whatever else you might have going on is hard, it is a lot and there’s lots of giving of yourself, the idea that motherhood means living a joyless, nonstop-hustle-with-zero-balance kind of life, where you give and give and give and never take, needs to stop. 

I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime (at least most days). Stop the mom guilt and shame game. Stop cleaning up after your kids’ childhood and start being present for it. I want to help you thrive in work, home and life. I believe in John 10:10 that we are called to living an abundant life and I know moms are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, some business and life hacks, spirituality and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

Hello friends! We’re going to get into some nitty gritty today. If you have a podcast, want to have a podcast, or you’re starting one, this is going to be incredibly helpful for you. This content is actually what I taught when I spoke at the Blissdom Women In Business Conference in 2019. I’m super excited to bring this teaching to you today!

Here’s the thing. There are a ton of podcasters out there, right? Podcasting today is what blogging was ten years ago. Everyone had a blog. And then blogging began to dissipate a little bit. 

There are still people killing it at blogging. I still blog a couple of times a month. But podcasting has really taken over and become the new thing.

And what’s more important to pay attention to than just the trends of what other people are doing is to actually pay attention to where our high-powered, high-influence companies are investing their money. And they’re investing their money in podcast platforms. Spotify is investing a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of money into the podcast part of their platform. 

I can go on and on about this, but just know there’s a lot of money being invested into podcast platforms. Podcasting is where it’s at. And I think it’s going to be reigning for a really long time. I think podcast is going to reign the online business world for a long time. 

Focus more on the data behind this. Do your own research by all means. Find out the actual data. Look at the analytics. Look at what’s really happening. Follow that when you want to know which way you should go and what you should do. 

It’s not that blogging is completely dead, but I do think that it’s dying out a bit. I think it takes a lot more smarts and energy to have a great blog nowadays. And YouTube is still certainly killing it. Video is winning everything; you should always have video in your business. 

But in terms of what I call your “queen content”—your main, regular, consistent, free content—podcasting is a phenomenal choice for sure. And we want to look at that data. We want to know that we’re making an educated decision about what is going to really give us the most bang for our buck in terms of our time creating, right? 

Not only are there a ton of podcasters out there but there are a ton of podcasters who are using sponsorships to monetize their podcast. Not everybody wants to do this. It takes quite a bit of regular, consistent downloads to get a sponsorship that would actually make the kind of money you’re probably wanting to make. 

And not even making $10,000 months or anything. It’s going to take time doing this for no money to build yourself up to a point where sponsorships are really funding you in a way that’s worth it, helpful, and you can have a lot of financial freedom, even in making a few thousand dollars a month. 

It’s not that it can’t happen; it can happen for sure. And if that’s really what you feel called to do, then it will happen. But there’s a lot of stress that goes in with that as well.

Just because you land a sponsor, doesn’t mean they’re going to stay with you. They want to see consistent ROI (return on investment). They’re going to want to see consistently that people are leaving your podcast and coming to their site.

For me, and this is definitely my own conviction and definitely my own personality coming into play, I’m an entrepreneur. I want to create my own ideas and sell them. I want to create my own lifestyle solutions for women and sell them. I want to call people into this new way of doing things that I have developed because I have the ideas. 

I don’t want to start a platform and build up an audience only to send them clicking away to somebody else’s website because they sponsored me for 5% of what they’re making on my audience. It just doesn’t float my boat. It doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like it. 

If you have a business and you’re wanting to create a podcast and you’re hoping to draw more attention to your products, your services, your business from your podcast but you don’t want to do sponsorships, this is going to be wildly helpful for you. Because that’s what I did. 

I don’t do sponsorships. I get offers for them on a weekly basis, and some of them are pretty awesome. It’s not that I don’t believe in these companies; it’s not that I’m never going to do sponsorships. I don’t really say things like that. I’ve never done sponsorships because I don’t like it. It just doesn’t make me feel good at this point in time in my business.

I feel very strongly that I’m more focused on my message and my podcast is here to serve women and to draw attention to my brand as it serves women. So, getting people to click away to another platform where they can listen to audio books doesn’t feel super aligned with me. I’m building a personal brand. I’m building an empire, and I want the podcast to be a part of that. 

In my view, my podcast is the free content that I’m putting out all the time. I create programs that better people’s lives, and they’re so good. I stand by them. But I also want to have free content, like a lighter version of my programs, so that I can help more people change their lives and I can draw more attention to my brand, and I can create this movement that is helping people at all tiers of the scale—free all the way up to hundreds or thousands of dollars (or whatever the different programs cost).

That’s my view. I view my podcast as generosity. I view it as the thing I’m putting out into the world, and I absolutely deserve to get paid for that. I deserve to get sponsorships and make many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars from sponsorships for doing what I do here on my podcast. 

And maybe someday that will happen. But I just don’t do that right now because it doesn’t align with me. It doesn’t feel good. If this stops feeling good, then we’ll revisit that. 

You don’t need to lock yourself into thinking, “Sponsorships are bad. Ooh, evil. I’m never doing that!” 

Just ask yourself how you feel. What do you want? Is what I’m saying about how I feel really resonating with you because that’s how you feel, too? Let’s just start with that and make decisions based on how you feel.

Remember, in your business it gets to be easy. It gets to feel good. You get to reach your goals without having to do something that doesn’t feel good just because you need to make money. There are other ways, and I’m going to help you with that today. 

You don’t need to trade a small percentage of your revenue selling sponsorships on your podcast when you could sell your own products, your own message, and let your podcast platform be the catalyst to five-figure and six-figure months in your business. My podcast took me from middle to high five-figure months to six-figure months. It was the differentiator in that big jump for me in 2018. I started my podcast in January 2018.

The fact is you’ve got an entire podcast episode to be in the ears of your listeners. Use that time to grow your business, not to send them to somebody else’s. 

In this episode you’re gonna learn…

• • the benefits of not relying on sponsorships and how that will increase the trust of your audience. 

  • how you can promote your own products within each episode. 

  • the importance of creating a movement, not just a business. 

Podcasting is an increasing platform. It’s growing so quickly. It’s a space where creatives and entrepreneurs like us get to be in the ears of millions each week. I believe it’s the best place to grow your business. So, let’s dive in.

You guys probably know my business story. If you don’t, go back and listen to episode six. It’s probably the most downloaded episode of my show. It’s called, “How I Got My Husband Out Of His 9-5.” It really needs a better title; I just haven’t changed it because people know what to look for. 

It’s really my business story. My business had taken my family out of a really, really awful situation in our lives. We were doing well. 

I was blogging. I was doing webinars. I was going live all the time on social media. I was doing really well making up to multiple five figures every month. But I wanted to get to a point where I was making six figures and I really felt like there was something that I could do better. 

I was finding that I was getting misunderstood a lot online because when you’re writing your tone is missed a lot of the time. And if you’ve been around here for a minute you know that I’m very sarcastic and really blunt. My sense of humor is not everybody’s cup of tea and it still isn’t, no matter if I have a podcast, video, or blog.

I just wanted to be heard. I wanted to be able to communicate in a way that was comfortable for me. I was also pretty fed up with how time consuming blogging was. 

I was very intrigued by podcasts. I had actually done a couple of other podcasts before The Purpose Show. I had my own podcast when I lived in Arkansas and was starting my business. I had to record it on an app on my phone and nobody really listened to it. I wasn’t consistent. 

My life was crazy. I was starting my business. It was the wrong time to start a podcast, and I just didn’t keep it up like I wanted to. I think when something is just truly not the right time it will just fizzle out, and it did. 

Then I met Kelsey van Kirk and we started The Purposeful Home podcast together. She ended up wanting to leave and so we branched out separately and I started The Purpose Show, which I believe was the name of my original podcast. 

I was so ready this time. It was really cool how Kelsey had gotten me back in the game and had been encouraging and helpful to me. We did this whole podcast thing for a year together but then her life changed and she was feeling differently. But I was all amped up, so I just kept going. 

That point in January 2018 when I went solo and I started my own podcast was a very pivotal point in my business. That’s when I started making really high five-figure and low six-figure months. It really turned my business into seven figures a year. I already had a seven-figure business, but now it was seven figures a year. 

And it’s solely because of the podcast. I didn’t do anything different. I didn’t try any new launch strategies or anything else. 

I don’t really do that kind of stuff anyway. I just talk from the heart and know that the women that need me are going to come to me and buy my stuff. My point is the podcast started and that was the only differentiation in my business. 

Aside from that, I started a podcast because I don’t like to spend five hours on a blog post that people don’t read. The fact is they don’t read them. They skim them. 

Here I was spending all these hours blogging, even with my team and delegation, it was a lot of bandwidth and a lot of time. If I was delegating, it was money on a blog post that was perfect. It was proofread a million times, formatted a certain way, and then put out into the world only for people to skim it. I was not a fan of that. I was losing my heartbeat for blogging, for sure. 

Then also, I normally look exactly the way I do right now as I’m recording this, so video is not always the way to go. I’m supposed to record a video later today and I have to “get ready.” It’s a whole thing.

With podcasts you can sit down, you can be naked (don’t be naked; that’s weird, but you could if you wanted to), you could have no makeup on. You just sit down and talk because people just hear your voice. I just got out of the shower right now. I’ve got this serum all over my skin that’s soaking in and I thought, “Oh, well, while it’s soaking in, I’m just going to record this episode.” 

It’s so easy and it’s so much faster. All I do is sit down and record the episode. That’s the only amount of time that I spend on an episode—just the recording time—because I have an editor and my team creates the images. Even if I was doing all of that, it’s still way less time than blogging, way less. 

It’s more time efficient. I’ve got a thousand kids. I’ve got another part of my business to run. You can sit down with no makeup on and just to get the job done. 

I can get my point and my personality across way better with my voice. It’s a win/win/win for me. I love podcasting. 

I think that recording the podcast episodes is my favorite part of my job. I don’t know, maybe I just like listening to the sound of my own voice? That’s false. I cannot listen to my own podcast episodes because I don’t like the sound of my voice. 

But you know what I mean? I love sitting down, just talking, delivering value, and knowing that anyone can find this, listen to this for free and that it will bring pivots and changes to your life. I love that. 

When I switched to podcasting my revenue spiked. I also experienced massive growth. Podcasts are searchable. People find podcasts. 

People share podcasts because they listen on their phone. They take screenshots; they share your podcast. People are always asking online, “What’s your favorite podcast? I need a new podcast to listen to.” People would share mine. 

I also created a Facebook group that was deliberately attached to my podcast. It’s a community attached to my podcast. I’ll talk to you about that today. That certainly contributed to the massive, massive growth. 

My audience exploded. It was almost like when I went viral in 2016. It was a similar feeling to that; it was just slower and steadier. I already had a really good size audience

I already had an established message, and that’s when I started my podcast. It’s not to say that if you start a podcast, all these things will happen. There were a lot of other things at play and I want to be really transparent about that. But this is how it went for me. 

It absolutely exploded my business. I would venture to say that even if that’s not what you have  set up and it’s not going to go that way for you, that podcasting is the right way to go. Even if you don’t have everything set up like I did at the beginning when I started my podcast, it doesn’t matter. 

Obviously people listen to podcasts; people share podcasts; this is where people are. There are a ton of listeners on podcasts every month, and it will aid you in success, even if it looks different than mine. 

The Purpose Show started in January 2018, so it’s fairly new. In the first three months we had about 400,000 downloads. In the first six months (three months later) that more than doubled. 

Then a couple months later we had 1.5 million downloads. In the first nine months we had 1.5 million downloads and it just kept going up from there. Today, we have about 6 million downloads. 

These numbers are not normal, but I’m sharing them because I’m just myself. I’m a woman. I have a lot of kids. I am sitting at my desk, in my room, in my temporary office, because at the time I’m recording this we haven’t moved into our new house yet and my office lease has expired. 

My desk is in the corner of my bedroom, against the wall. I’m in my robe. I’ve got no bra on, no makeup on, vitamin C serum all over my face, my hair is in a messy top knot. 

My phone has a billion notifications on it. My kids are playing swords right outside my door, of course, because they like to be loud at the worst times. I’m just human. I’m just here. 

I did this. This happened. And I’m just a person. Get it out of your head that there’s something special about what I did, my story, or there’s an extra special, weird blessing on everything I do.

That’s B.S. I’m just a mom. I had an idea and I showed up. And if you show up, you can blow my numbers out of the freaking water if you wanted to.

The point is that we want to take this power and turn it for our good, for our advantage, for the advantage of our brand, for the advantage of our message, for the advantage of the people who are taking in our message, because they need it. If you want real reach, do this with your podcast. 

I want to talk briefly about how the podcast related to sales. As I said before, when I started the podcast is when I really started to, pretty easily, have six-figure months instead of six-figure years. Also, please keep in mind that this is on low price products, okay? My most expensive course in the mom niche is $297. 

That is incredibly, incredibly cheap in the online course community. The cheapest course is typically a thousand dollars. My prices are very low and that’s going to change soon. I’m reworking some things, but as it stands today, that’s the situation. And I even raised my prices from before. 

Most of the time I’m selling $100 products, and to make six-figures a month on that, that’s a lot of sales. You have to create thousands of sales per month to reach those numbers. And the podcast was a very big part of it. 

I want you to know what’s possible. I want you to understand what’s possible. There’s a lot of power in podcasting. 

My podcast sells more books than almost any other show. My team and I have been invited to Harper Collins to explain how we sell so many books when we’re not even doing sponsorships. We don’t say, “Oh, I’m here to promote this book.” 

I don’t do crap like that. I really hate it. I do not have authors on to say, “Hey, you should buy this book. I’m getting a cut of it.”

I read books, and if I like them I will invite the author on the show if I feel it’s a worthy discussion for my listeners’ precious time away from their babies with headphones in their ears. Is this going to make their lives better? If I think it will, then I will have them on my show. 

And yeah, we’ll talk about the book for sure. And I’m not an idiot, I will use an Amazon affiliate link so I can get a dollar for each sale. That’s not why I’m having the authors on my show, though. 

I want to spread messages. Babes support babes. I want to bring these amazing women who have written amazing books into the spotlight, share that, and then make your lives better by the fact that you listened to that conversation.

That’s the way I do things. I’m not going to lie and say that this is the book that I love when I haven’t even read it. Because I don’t do those things, that’s why my podcast sells more books than any other show. That’s why Harper Collins, Nelson, Simon & Schuster, or whichever publisher it is, sees a massive spike on their graph of book sales after the author comes on my show. 

Because it’s authentic. Because I’m really wanting to understand their message. I’m really wanting to spotlight them. I think there’s a really in-depth conversation that can happen. 

And of course the book is going to come up. Of course, I’m going to say, “Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming and giving my audience value for free. Guys, you should buy this book.” Of course I am. But that’s all I’m doing.

Guys, for those of you who have been wanting to start that podcast, I want to help you finally actually do it, launch that podcast and launch it well! And after you launch it, keep it going, keep it engaging, grow an audience, make money, make an impact. 

Michelle and I have worked together. Michelle is the woman who’s in this episode, who was conducting the original interview for an interview on her show. She is incredible. After we had this conversation, we connected. We became friends and we were texting back and forth and realized we need to create a program together.

As it is right now, there are no podcast courses that will teach you everything about the tech side, the nuts and bolts of everything about podcasting, and the content creation side. There is nothing like what we’ve created out there right now.

And it is so needed. We are filling this gap in the market. We cannot wait for you to get in here and see what it’s all about!

Michelle is an incredible producer on several top 100 podcasts. She’s been a podcast producer for years. She’s incredibly valuable and incredibly wise in everything with the backend of podcasting. And I, here at The Purpose Show, have grown a tiny little podcast from nothing into over 5.5 million downloads in just a couple of years, which if you’re not familiar is amazing and unheard of. I’m very, very proud and very grateful for all my listeners. 

Here’s the thing: we’re creating a program called Podcasting Confidence. In it you’re going to receive all the nuts and bolts to podcasting from start to finish. From brainstorming, to launching, to creating episodes, to sustaining your podcast, expanding your podcast and your podcast audience.

We’re going to go over all of the tech stuff. You won’t even have to worry about a thing. We’re going to give you everything you need to know about creating your episodes, publishing into the world with confidence, knowing that you did a good job, it’s what your people need and it’s going to resonate. 

We’re going to help you spread the word about your show and gain an audience. We’re going to help you create community around your show to cultivate loyal, diehard fans who love you and believe in your message. 

We’re going to help you generate money and sales from your podcast, with or without sponsorships; the choice is yours. 

This course is going to give you such a head start. A massive head start! All of the things that you would have had to figure out the hard way, the expensive way, the time-consuming way, the discouraging way. 

You get the pointed, direct answer from two experts in the field who are leading this game. Here we are ready to help you! Podcastingconfidence.com

My podcast has also made it easier to land big press. Saying that you have a show sounds so much better than just saying, “Oh yeah, I have a blog.” Especially when you can start saying, “I have a top 100 podcast,” or “Yes, I have a podcast with 20,000 downloads per episode.” It’s more legitimacy. 

And the sad truth is that that’s how people judge you in this business. It does matter. But even before you can say all that, you can just say, “Oh yeah, I have a podcast. Oh yes, I’m a podcaster. I have my own show.” 

I know that’s a silly point to make, but it does matter. Press is a really big part of my growth and my strategy for growth, so I think it’s worth mentioning.

My podcast also solidified my status as a thought leader in my niche. Having my podcast, having so many downloads, having this message spread like wildfire and people being able to listen to it, understand it, and take it in all over the globe—in a much easier way than blogging—really solidified my message and my message’s status. 

I began to really get tagged in things: “Allie is a thought leader for moms and for women.” Now that’s being said about me in business because I just don’t do business the typical way. I do it very differently. 

It’s very freeing and easy. Well, not easy, but easier and lighter. I really credit that to the podcast because it’s just so easy to find a show and to see they have a lot of reviews, they have a lot of good reviews, there’s a lot of downloads. It solidifies you.

Let’s get to the good stuff. There’s more than 700,000 active podcasts in 100 different languages. 51% of the population of the United States has listened to a podcast. Podcast listeners listen to an average of seven different shows a week. Podcast listeners are also statistically more active on social media and they’re more likely to follow you because they listened to you. 

69% of podcast listeners agree that podcast ads made them aware of new products. Now, I’m very confident that that number right there—69% of podcast listeners agreed that podcast ads made them aware of new products. I’m very confident that number is highly, highly increased if the product is from the host and is directly aligned with the podcast topic. 

There is enormous potential for your business here. You literally have 30+ minutes of being in the ears of somebody. That’s very intimate. You’re a part of their day. 

What would happen if you grew your brand in this way? If you aligned the message that you have to share on your podcast with what it is that you are selling to further help people, whether it’s handbags, coaching services, or coffee? What would happen?

Here’s the big “but” that I want you guys to understand, though—people will not buy from you just because you have a cool podcast and you’re selling them something. They buy from you because they feel connected to you and you help them. They believe you can continue to help them. But they believe that only if you believe it. 

So, if you’re BS’ing everybody, you’re just trying to make a quick dollar, and you don’t have a heart for the person you’re reaching, you’re not going to sell. I know who my person is, the ideal person that I am reaching. I can see her in my mind right now. I know her. I am here for her. 

Everything that I do is for her. And if something is not going to help her and make her life better, I am not going to do it. I don’t care how much money there is in it for me.  I know that I can make more impact and the money will always follow when I am showing up for her, because that’s what I’m here to do. That’s my job.

I want to keep people engaged with my stuff, my podcast, and my business. I’m not doing all this work to get paid a little bit of money to send them away from me and click to somebody else from a sponsorship. For me, that’s not what I’m doing, right? 

So then, what do you do though? What does it look like? Why has my podcast had so many downloads? Why does it have so much impact? Why is it responsible for increasing my revenue the way that it has?

I think it’s about community. It’s about the tribe that I built around my podcast. The Facebook group that I have that goes with this podcast is legitimately one of the most helpful, positive spaces online. Honestly, I should be charging for this group. I really should. And you know what? Maybe one day I will, but right now, as I’m recording, this group is free. 

It’s The Purposeful Community with Allie Casazza. It is heavily admin’ed. It costs me thousands of dollars a month to keep that group there. And I do it because I’m creating a tribe around my message. You must create a tribe around your show to really sell and make an impact to where you don’t need ads. This is a nonnegotiable in my opinion.

Let’s get a little bit detailed about how this group works and everything because I’m all about these detailed action steps and getting you to go and do this for real. In my Facebook group, we post things that the show promotes. We create engagement with polls. We survey the community. 

We ask them questions every week that fit in with the show. We have engaging questions with each episode that will prompt them to take action, because here on The Purpose Show, if you guys have listened to any of my other episodes, that’s what I do. I deliver inspiration and then I love to give you action steps. 

Sometimes I straight up say, “Let’s go over some action steps for this” and sometimes I don’t; sometimes they’re just woven into the episode. But it’s very much an episode for action-taking, problem-solving women, because that’s what I’m trying to create—these action-taking, problem-solving women who are no longer victims of hot mess mom culture, or of their own negative mindsets. 

They are actually making positive change in their lives. They’re simplifying. They’re letting go of what’s not serving them. They’re making these positive changes, changing their legacy, and therefore the next generation. 

This is big work. To me, this is really big work and I can’t do it alone, for sure. I can’t even do a little bit of it alone. We’ve got to create community and do this together.

The Facebook group, the tribe around the show, is an extension of the show. This is where we’re building community. It absolutely boosts downloads for the podcast. It absolutely boosts revenue. But more importantly, it boosts impact. 

These women are feeling less alone, they’re talking to each other, and it’s all around my podcast. That is huge! 

Here are some engagement ideas. These are some things that I do that I want to give you as action steps. Feel free to jot these down. Go and join my podcast community and stalk how we do things. You’ll see my admins in there. You’ll see me in there. You’ll see how it works. 

One idea is welcome posts. We tag all the new members for the week, everyone that’s been added to the group for the week, we ask them to introduce themselves in the comments and we welcome them. It’s really warm, everyone’s super nice, lots of engagement,

Progress threads. Admins post weekly asking people to share what action steps they’ve taken and photos of any before/afters that they have or anything that they’ve improved in their lives in the comments. This gives people a place to amplify the work they’ve done and really be congratulated by their fellow women. 

It also encourages people who have maybe been in a rut, stuck, or procrastinating anything in their lives that needs to be better or changed, to really get a kick in their butt and see, “Okay, I’m encouraged by this. I want to really make some changes.”

We promote new episodes when they go live. We post quotes from recent episodes. We post discussion questions that prompt people to think about the action steps. We highlight the products promoted in the episodes. 

There was one episode that I did, which is one of the most popular ones about Simple Stellar Style. It was basically me talking about if I had to start over from scratch with rebuilding my wardrobe, what are the key pieces that I’ve invested in that I would invest in again? And so, we shared the links. We didn’t have any affiliate links. We just shared the link to all the products. 

I said, “Here are the best jeans. Here’s what I love about them. Here’s how all the other jeans looked on my butt versus these Madewell ones that look amazing.  We just help. It’s an authentic helping. Even when I’m selling my products, I know I’m helping. But outside of selling, I’m still helping.

We ask for ideas. We ask for feedback on topics, format, struggles, words that they use to describe themselves and how they’re feeling. I listen to them and I create future episodes based on that group. They feel like they’re contributing to the content, which they are. 

A lot of people get new episode ideas from their audience and they know that they got that from them, but they don’t thank them. They don’t even let them know that they’re contributing. They just stalk their comments, see what their problems are, and then create episodes about it. But I really like to ask, “What are you struggling with? What would you love to see here?”

A lot of the time the answers are episodes I have already done and that just tells me what they want more of. I listen to them. They’re contributing to the content and they feel like contributors. That’s really important. 

I also do this on Instagram. You can do this anywhere, but I really love to do it in the podcast community because those are my listeners. Sometimes we do Allie chats. They’re live chats in the group. 

We used to do this with an active group member. We would pull her up on the camera with me, but now Facebook doesn’t allow us to do that anymore. But I’ll go live in there sometimes myself and we do really fun posts like, “Hey, answer with a GIF or a photo.” It’s hard to resist commenting on things like that. It’s just really fun. People love it. 

One of our posts with the most comments ever had over 2000 comments or something crazy like that. The post was: “tell us your kid’s Halloween costumes in emojis or in a GIF” and people were going crazy. It was so fun. 

The point is you’re creating engagement. You’re creating a brand, not just a business. You’re creating a movement, not just a brand. There’s so much here. 

What is the purpose behind your business? I sell lifestyle courses. I sell decluttering, simplifying, schedule, how your week is feeling, and even how to start your business guides for women. But the movement I’m creating is a better, lighter, more abundant life. And that’s a movement free or paid. 

So, let’s get into how to promote your own products on your podcast. First of all, you can present your products to your listeners. You can pitch it to them without pitching through your episode topics. The way you talk, the stories you tell, the example that you set in your episodes, should be incredibly valuable to where people are like, “Oh my gosh, this was so valuable! I feel like I haven’t gotten this much value out of paid courses. Thank you for these episodes!”

In that, I’m helping them. I’m also talking about my business. They’re getting a taste of how I teach, how I talk, what it is that I do. And it’s basically like, “Oh my gosh, if this podcast is this helpful, what the heck are the paid courses like?” 

And I’m like, “Yeah, why are the paid courses like? You should come find out because that’s where real change happens, when you get skin in the game.”

When I’m doing an episode, I have no shame around talking about my paid products. I used to, but I think that’s the worst place to be in as a business owner. If you have shame over talking about your paid stuff, that’s a limiting belief. There’s something buried in there that we have to deal with, right? And so, when I talk on my podcast, I unabashedly mention my courses and say, “Hey, you should come in here!” 

I do little midrolls that I recorded myself that highlight my stuff, my products, or whatever promotion we currently have going on because that’s where the real change is going to happen. It’s my job to do that. I don’t feel bad about it and I’m not ignoring that product the rest of the episode. I’m just talking about it. 

I say all the time, “Okay, let’s go over how we could do this. In this course, I go over 12 more things. But for today, let’s just focus on these five things.” Or whatever it is. 

I’m talking about the courses and programs that I sell as I deliver the episode content. It’s seamless and it’s easy because it’s authentic and it aligns. It aligns with me. It aligns with my message because it’s my product. 

It aligns with my message because it is my message. It’s just a deeper dive. It’s more change. It’s more information. It’s organized, “We’re going to start here and walk all the way through this path until you’re all the way to point Z and you’re done.” A podcast isn’t for that. A podcast is for a message, but it’s still aligned. The message of my podcast is still aligned with my paid programs.

Whenever I create a new course I always record a new midroll for it. When you’re creating promos for your products I think it’s just important to not be boring. The first couple of seconds of your midroll is everything. Capture their attention. Don’t just be like, “Hey guys, if this is resonating with you, I have this new course to help you create your own podcast. Just go to this link and you can learn all about it. It’s going to be great. I hope to see you in there.” 

No one cares. Grab their attention. The first couple seconds are everything. I always think before I record one of those, “How am I feeling about this course?” I sit with that for a minute. Then I speak out of that. 

I’ll say something like, “Oh my gosh, I have been working on this for so long! And it’s finally here!” Or, “Guys, have you been wanting to start a podcast but you keep coming back to it and you keep leaving it and not doing it? You don’t understand the tech? You don’t understand how to be creative and not run out of content ideas? I have the juiciest thing for you today! My podcast course is finally here!” This is so, so much more me and so much more engaging. 

One thing that you could also do is, and this is big; write this down; this is a really big, helpful thing—tell them what the juiciest part of your offer is. Or the result that they’re going to get if they buy. Lead with that. Let that be the first sentence of your midroll. What’s the juiciest part of this whole thing for them? Lead with that. 

Here’s another example. Let’s say I’m selling my course that helps women declutter their entire home. My hook might be, “Hey girl, really quick, listen! I can get your housework down to less than 30 minutes a day.” 

They are not skipping over me like they do with other midrolls on other shows that are sponsored. They are hooked in. And if they’re not, they’re not my ideal customer, so who cares, right? They wouldn’t even really be listening if they weren’t my ideal customer.

Do you see what I’m saying? Be interesting. Don’t listen to other people’s podcasts, talk in a podcasty voice, and do your midroll in a podcast, midrolly voice. Be yourself. 

Why would anyone listen to this? What are you going to do to tweak this message so that you can make it interesting for her? You want to make her experience good. You want her to be connected to you. You want to be connected to her. 

Think about her. No one’s going to be connected to you—even if they’re listening to your podcast—if you’re not internally connected to them. Because they can feel it. And that’s an exchange of positive energy. Really, this matters! 

When I’m thinking about her, I’m thinking, “How can I make this episode so helpful for her? And so gold for her? I know that this promo for Your Uncluttered Home is so important because it’s a price that a lot of people have been waiting for. I’m knocking it down $50 and I’m adding this bonus. I need them to understand. What can I say to hook her attention so that if this is for her, she gets it, doesn’t skip it, and she can go enroll.”

You’re not tricking anyone or persuading anyone. You are doing your job. It’s your job to take your words and make them as exciting and understandable as possible. Don’t be boring. 

Don’t cower back when you’re selling. That’s the worst thing you could ever do because the best thing for people to do is to show up, put their money where their mouth is, put some skin in the game, and show up in your program. If it’s good and it’s going to help them, that’s what you want them to do. So it’s your job now in your podcast to deliver your message and talk about your paid stuff in a very free, exciting, connecting way so that she can hear the message.

Do you know how many times before my podcast people would say like, “Oh, what’s this? I didn’t even know you had a course.” Uh, I’m not doing my job very well, am I?

I need to be talking about this because it is the natural next step. It’s the step to real lasting change for them to get into my programs because they’re good. There’s a reason that my programs have gotten me on every major news outlet and press and media outlet in the country and in the world almost. In Canada, Australia, and all these places. There’s a reason. 

I’m not going to be shy about that. I’m not going to hold back on that. I’m going to tell them, “Hey, I’m running this special right now. If you need help with this, if you want me to get your housework down to less than 30 minutes a day, get in Your Uncluttered Home right now! Hey, I see you with your message, your lifestyle programs, your coffee shop, and your handbag business. And I see you wanting to grow your business. I see you keep almost starting a podcast, but you think it’s not for you. You can’t think of enough content ideas. You don’t understand the tech. It freaks you out. You’ve Googled it. And it’s just too complicated. I know how to help you! My friend, Michelle, is  a high powered producer. I’m a high power podcaster. And we’re going to come together and we’re going to help you do everything from point A to point Z, follow us! I’m going to make this so helpful and understandable for you.I’m going to make you so excited. And it’s not because I’m trying to trick you. It’s because this is where the change is. This is where the change is.”

When I’m talking in the podcast about my stuff, I don’t focus on the details of the product as much as I focus on the details of the results waiting for my listener on the other side. I make this exciting. I let them feel my passion. So yes, I record midrolls for my products, but they’re not your grandmother’s midrolls (your grandma doesn’t have midrolls, but you know what I mean.) 

I don’t ever sit and think, “Okay, how can I create content for my podcast that gets everybody to buy my thing?”

I have a running list in Trello about all my ideas for my show, and I’m adding to it all the time. Then I look at the coming month that I’m going to be recording for—let’s say it’s August—I want to think, “What am I doing in August? What’s going on? What are we promoting? What’s going on? Oh! The podcast course is going to launch in August. That’s great. I have been wanting to teach people about how I podcast. I will do some episodes about how I podcast and then I’ll sell them on the podcast course. And it’s going to be great!” I’m drawing awareness to something that’s going to get your message into the world and telling you that I want to be a part of that.

I already had two Trello cards in my idea board of podcast topic episodes, so I pulled from them, filled in the outline, figured out what I was going to say, and scheduled them for a convenient time in my business. But I never sit down and think, “Okay, I’m going to sell this thing to them. How can I not give them any value? Not give anything away for free because I’m scared that if I give them too much away for free, they won’t buy my stuff? How can I give them just barely enough? I want to just give them an episode with a great title so they click ‘listen’ but I really just want to sell them all my stuff.”

That is slimy. That’s bad energy. That’s not a place you want to be coming from in your business. No, don’t do that. 

Does this make sense? Did you guys take notes? If not, feel free to go back and listen. If you took notes, I want to see them. Please tag me on Instagram. Tell everyone. If this episode helped you, tell them who it’s for. If they want to start a podcast, send them my way. If they want a podcast course, send them that way too. 

Also, I’m going to give you guys a link. In show notes, I’m going to give you my notes for this episode. It’s actually my notes to my Blissdom talk, so that you can have this. We’ll even give you visuals and examples of stuff from my Facebook group. It’s super, super helpful. 

I’ll give it to you for free. Just give me your email, of course, so I can add it to my list, and I’ll give you these notes. And for that go to allliecasazza.com/shownotes/171. You can get all the information there. 

I’ll give you the notes for free so that you can have my notes, get specific examples, see the visuals of what I do in my Facebook group, and see the best, highest performing posts that we’ve had. We have it all broken down for you. I gave it to the Blissdom girls last year, and now you can have them. 

Okay, guys. I love you. Good luck with your podcast. Reach out to me. Send me a DM if you have a question about the course. 

Share this episode with your friends. Tell all the podcasters in your life or want-to-be podcasters to come this way, please. And thank you. Love you guys so much.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me! In case you didn’t know, there’s actually an exclusive community that’s been created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions around The Purpose Show episodes. It’s designed to get you to actually take action and make the positive changes that we talk about here. I want you to go and be a part of it. To do that, go to alliecasazza.com/facebookgroup. 

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you’d like to learn more about me, how I can help you, how you can implement all these things and more into your life to make it simpler, better, and more abundant, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, online courses, programs, and other resources to help you create the life you really want. 

I am always rooting for you, friend! See you next time! I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

Hey mama! Just a quick note, this post may contain affiliate links.