Ep 153: Because Niching Down Your Podcast Can Transform It with Stefanie Gass
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Well, hey there, friends. If you're ready to turn your podcast into a pure profit machine, I've got a little something super exciting for you. We are opening registration starting today for the seven-figure podcast bootcamp. Oh my gosh, I am so excited.

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Hi, I'm Joanne Bull and I am obsessed with all things podcasting and creating an unapologetically big revenue business with it. From podcast guesting to podcast hosting and everything in between, we're going to dive into it all and show you step by step how to build a big business.

by Awesome Step, how using a podcast can and will grow your business. So grab a glass of wine and pop your headphones on because girlfriend happy hour has begun here on The B-Word.

Hey, Stephanie. Oh my God. Thank you so much for being part of the B-Word today. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have you as a guest. Well, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. You know, I started my podcasting journey several years ago and I did what most people do. And I Googled digital courses and how do you start a podcast? And I got overwhelmed with everything. And for some reason, I landed on B-Word.

your courses for starting a podcast. And then of course I dived into your podcast and I started following you on Instagram. Well, I think you're now off of Instagram, but Facebook and all the things and what really fascinated me and I did take the course and yes, it did teach me lots of stuff that I didn't already know about, you know, doing a podcast. But what fascinated me, Stephanie, was you not only niche down and then, you know, we tell podcasters you've got a niche down. You don't,

You don't just niche down into women in the online business space with podcasting. You niche down into Christian women. So I would love to hear your journey into that space and how your faith plays, obviously, a huge role in that. Yeah, so good. So I guess, really, we all start out, and if I rewind back to really when I began this particular business that I'm doing, which has now been five years, we all began with

this idea of what we want to do.

And it's usually very foggy. It's like, okay, I came out of network marketing. I knew that I wanted to teach women how to do sales and marketing of some kind. And I had built this really successful network marketing company using Facebook at the time. This was five, six years ago. And so it was that it was fuzzy. I'm going to teach sales and marketing. Okay. Well me and the hundreds of thousands of other people that teach sales and marketing, right?

So I started doing these Facebook Lives, but...

Case in point, I went ahead and started, even though it wasn't niched in and it wasn't super clear, did start, did start messy. And I started doing lives in Facebook groups and I started my own little Facebook group and I would just have a baby on my hip because I had, you know, two year old and a newborn and my hair was always a mess, still is, it's fine. And I would walk around my house talking about sales and marketing. And what happened was,

Just by being authentically me, I started to attract a certain demographic within sales and marketing. So women started like women were drawn to me because I was doing mom life while teaching them something that was actually, you know,

it was pointed and it was intentional and I was getting results and they were getting results and they're like, but yet you're mommying at the same time. So it started to resonate with them. And I realized, okay, I'm just talking to women. And when I started, they were all moms. So I niched down one layer into this. Well, then a couple of years later, as I really leaned into my faith journey and

I was getting in the word more. I was learning for me what an important role partnering with God, not just in life and like having this section of my life be about my faith, but realizing that he was in charge of and could help me in every area, including business, including the way that I parented. And that surrender process took place within me. I started to talk about it a little bit more.

to my audience. And by this time I had started a podcast. And so I started to talk. It was then called the Mompreneur Mastermind Show. So I knew I'm talking to moms about business. I'd gotten that clear. But as I started to bring faith into the show, really cool things started happening. Again, I started to hear from these women around. I had no idea how to pray for my business. I didn't know that

scripture spoke about how to lead a business and the favor that unlocks in your business when you're aligned with God's will. And so as I started to teach these things,

I started to realize that like, oh, I'm not just talking to any mom with a business. I'm now talking to women of faith who want to grow a business God's way. So it was this third level of niching down in my own business and kind of by accident. And when that happened, which was about three, four years ago now, the true unlock happened in profitability, sales, revenue, explosive growth because

because now I was not just talking to anybody. I was talking extremely intentionally to one specific woman with the same dreams, goals, visions, and plan on how she wanted to grow a business as me. And we were fully aligned. And when she knew I was for her, that's when they buy, right? That's when people really connect and resonate with you. So that's how it happened. It was an evolution. Oh my gosh. I love this story. And I liked

I think for me, it's that you openly say, because listen up, ladies, this is really important to hone in on. It started fuzzy. You know, I think especially as moms, like we want the answers. We want to walk out. We want to know exactly what we're doing. And when someone says, what's our three-year vision? Right.

We want to know the answer and we don't like to deviate from it a lot of times. And to say no, ladies, it may start fuzzy and not get clear until several years into the business. I mean, that is so key critical for people to really wrap their mind around.

It is. And I think starting messy is one thing, but being in constant pursuit of what's my next level niche? What's my next level niche? You're asking yourself this question on an annual basis and even on a monthly basis. Like, am I there yet? Do I see any clues? Am I seeing...

anything coming through when we look at like the downloads of the show, what are the top downloaded episodes? What is my market research telling me? What are my people saying in these Facebook groups or in these messages they send me? And looking for clues around how can I take this niche to the next level? And I think people often have it

The wrong way when we start in business, we think, how can I make this bigger? How can I reach more people? Well, the problem is you are a very small fish in a huge pond when you get started. We all were. And no matter who you are, you're still in some kind of a small pool compared to what is possible for you. So as you make your pond smaller, you become a bigger fish until you no longer fit in the

pond and it will be inevitable that you'll be able to jump to the next larger pond. And so your growth is slow most often because you are not niched in enough. I love that analogy so much. It resonates with me. I know it's resonating with people who are listening to the episode today. Let's also talk about, you know, you, you,

honed in on the fact that it took about three years to get some revenue going in the business. And I know a lot of people, when we start podcasts or we start businesses, we think to ourselves, oh yeah, it could take a while to start some revenue and see profitability. That's cute. But none of us really think it could take three years. And it really took you niching down, like you said, becoming the big fish in the little pond to jump into the next one before you saw that revenue occur.

You don't really do sponsors and stuff for your podcast. It's really, it's you and the business and that's where the revenue is coming. So talk to me from the perspective of your podcast is truly your main marketing tool. Yeah, absolutely. So I've actually been a full-time entrepreneur for 14 years.

And I was first in network marketing, like I had mentioned, and it taught me so many great lessons about building a business, but that revenue was not mine. I was basically getting paid to market this product and making 20%.

at best. And so realizing that and learning the hard way that I needed to create something where I own the basket in which I place my eggs was critically important for me as now a business and podcast coach, I had to go through, let me lose this business and learn the importance of not working for someone else if this is truly what I'm called to do, but building something that's my own. And that taught me the importance of

Not picking the easy thing because the easy thing is always to well, I'll just affiliate or I'll grab a sponsor and not to say anything's wrong with that when you don't know what your offer is going to be and you're not super clear on your micro micro niche, which is something that I teach, but.

But learning what is that niche going to be for me? How am I going to get super deep? And then what is the number one problem that I solve for my person? When you know that, that's your moneymaker. Because now you can actually start with what I always teach my students to begin with is coaching. Because your market is not big enough yet, typically, to just create a course and it be successful. But coaching is. And so you can sit with people, listen, and help them solve a problem on a one-hour call.

And within just, it was within the first year of my podcast starting, I had a six-figure business from coaching. And the podcast is what led all those people in to say yes to coaching with me because they heard me. It's almost like a free discovery call, right? They're listening to you teach on the show. They're getting a transformation going, emailing in, do you coach? And I was like,

God, do I coach? Yeah, let's do it. And so I meet with people on Zoom. We do this call and listening to people and learning from people will teach you what your method is. I didn't know what my method was when I first started coaching with people. I just showed up and helped them. And over time, they started to tell me, oh, you're a clarity coach. You're giving me what my business is. And I was like, cool.

That's what I do. And I was able to label it and that niche became more clear, right? Again, I coached before I exactly knew what I was going to be coaching on forever. That was later lead to the podcasting course, which would later lead to my big mastermind that I have. And so,

What happened is the podcast led those leads in. I coached people, which taught me what my method was. That was able to get me to about 200, 300K revenue business until you can't coach anymore, right? You've hit the lid. You're at the top level that you're comfortable charging people. And at that point, I created my podcasting course because people are asking, okay,

Well, now how do I grow an audience with my clarity? And it was podcasting. So built that course, that thing grew. And I always also just free bonus for everybody here. Less is more when it comes to profitability from your podcast, one sticky core offer until you pass six figures, then you can look at what is the next offer. Wait for it to pass another sick two or 300 K in revenue. Now what is the next offer? Okay. So we're building a stair step. The

The one mistake I see a lot of people make is they have 14 offers or even three offers when they've only got a thousand listeners on the show. Well, what you've done is dilute your sales because you've created confusion from your listener. They're like, do I do this? Do I do that? Or you have a tiny offer. How many sales at $37 do you have to make to make a dent in your mortgage payment? So there's some strategy around building an offer that's going to sell.

having it be sticky having it be strategic and having it be priced at the right level to where you're actually going to grow a business from your show when your audience is still relatively small and new as it all it as we all start right so does that answer how the podcast

The trust and the commitment and the listenership really works to get them to trust you and to be excited about working with you and having the one core offer is what leads to making money. Absolutely. And I want to kind of land the plane just a little bit more. I see, I'm the same with you. I see it all the time. Podcasters, business owners, digital course creators, they'll start out with 500,000 different offers. And from the consumer's perspective, they're

I'm coming to you to be the expert in one, maybe two things. Don't give me a menu that's as big as Applebee's menu. Give me a very high end restaurant menu that only has three things on it. And that's all I have to choose from because then I know you are the best at that. Yes. So good. And if you don't know what you're the best at, you stay in the wheelhouse and you serve and you practice and you look for those clues and ask yourself, how do I niche in? Yeah.

And sometimes it takes a while too. I want you guys to have permission not to have an offer for a few months, even a year. It's okay to allow your audience to determine for you what they need and want. That's what I did, even though money wasn't coming in and it was stressful and I was just trusting God's provision over the show.

Very quickly, within a month, people were saying, do you coach? And that allowed me to know what my next step would be. So if you're feeling like you're forcing it, maybe take a moment and take a step backwards and go, let me just be and let me serve for a minute and trust that the offer is going to become clear. I love that. You know, when I first started, I did exactly what you said not to do. I was like, oh, how many offers can I do? How many people can I serve?

I thought it was clear. It was actually fuzzier than I thought it was. And it took me listening to my people that said, we're taking the digital courses. We're learning how to podcast, but what next? How do we actually integrate it into the business to figure out, oh, that's actually my wheelhouse. It's not the how to get started. It's what to do next. But had I not been listening, I wouldn't have realized that. And the revenue probably would still be struggling. Yeah.

Exactly. Listening to your people is the absolute best way to find success in your business. And that is the hardest thing to do because we want to look at what do I know how to do? What do I think it is? What course should I create? What should my freebie be? Let me go to Pinterest for ideas. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah.

Go to your people for ideas. Send out polls. Shoot them an email. Get in the Voxers. Get in the DMs. Three quick questions. Hey, what are you struggling with right now? What is your number one problem? Why are you struggling with that? What have you tried that hasn't worked? And how would your life be different if that was no longer a problem in your life? $3 million questions you can start asking your audience right now every single week. Message mine all of their answers and find your clues. That's going to change the game for you.

Okay, so let's talk social media for just a second, because they sometimes do go hand in hand with the podcast and growing the visibility on the podcast. I've noticed you guys, your team came off of Instagram, and you focus primarily on Facebook. What prompted that decision?

And what would you, what would your advice be to a podcaster today on, you know, all the social platforms? Yes. Okay. You opened the soapbox. I'm here. Go, go, go. I'm here for it. So, um,

As any new entrepreneur, online business owner, you believe that social media is critically important because you've been told because you go to social media to do things. And for whatever other reason, because maybe you're already on those platforms often. And so you think this is where I need to be. This is where all my effort goes. So just like that, just just say I believed the same things to be true.

I grew and grew and grew and poured out and showed up. And specifically it was Instagram for me for many, many years. And I was spending upward of five hours a day doing reels, the commenting, the posting, the content creation, all of these things personally myself, because I felt that I needed to create this rapport and this connection in the stories with my people.

well this was to the detriment of everything in my life i felt like i wasn't present with my kids who were still home at that time like i wasn't like they were full-time school and mom's building a bit like they were here and i'm trying to like with my phone in my face all the time i felt like i had to capitalize on every special moment to share it and my for me i call them discernment alarms like my holy spirit continued to convict me like this is not right this is not right but the

But the numbers were in opposition of that. And so I was seeing, well, I got 40,000 followers now and I've got a thousand people watching my stories and I've got a thousand likes on my posts. Like, what do you mean, God, that this is not working? And so I'm super stubborn. So I continued to do it until my phone broke. We were on vacation and my phone broke. There was no Apple store nearby, even though I tried to find one and my phone was broken.

completely just ruined where I could not get on at all for three days. At first it highlighted my addiction. I kept, I was in panic. I was in pure panic. How many of you have lost your phone, dropped in the toilet before they were waterproof? Like, and your phone was gone and you felt the rise of panic. Like I may or may not have slightly broken out into hives. Just hearing you tell that story, like just listening to it made me go, Oh my God.

Exactly. And so I had to not have a phone for three days. And what happened is I started to feel peace that I had not felt in years, like true peace and presence. And I could just sit at the restaurant and have a conversation. I didn't know where my phone was because it didn't matter.

And so this really created a shift in my heart posture around why do I have to be there all the time? And I started to ask these questions and I started to journal and pray. And so every weekend for the next year, I got off of the socials. I deleted them all from my phone and I started to tell my audience about this and they started to do it. And I started to hear these testimonies come in around how they felt different and how they were hearing, you know, from God more clearly and how their relationships were better.

And so about a year later, I went on a 30 day fast and I asked God what to fast from. And I heard clearly social media and I'm like, hello, this is still my business, Lord. Like I need to be there, but I was obedient to it. And I got off and I told the team no one is to go on because at this point the team was helping me manage Instagram, but I was still there a lot. I still felt the same.

And so everybody got off of all the socials for 30 days and we did a test and I have tons of episodes about it on my podcast. You guys can go listen to the whole journey. You can hear how scared I was to do it. Like I have so many episodes about this. And within 30 days, here's what happened. Revenue grew. The podcast downloads grew. We had not shared it in one place other than using the show for its own organic growth.

Uh, the email list grew the team. We had a new hire come in that like, I didn't even ask for. And God was like, this is someone you need. I had time and space to become the CEO of growth again. I added another episode to the show. I was present. I was picking up my kids. I was done with work by one. I'm like, what is all this time Lord? And so I felt so good that I continued for six more months. We did not get back. We did go back to our Facebook groups. Cause that's where our community is.

but we did not go back to Instagram and everything exploded. I mean, exploded like revenue doubling, like the favor of God on the decision to stop showing up for the thing that was stealing from my time and my presence. And so why I share this story is because now it's not just me, but this has really inspired other people and students in my community to do the same thing. And they're having the same result. So I started to ask myself, okay,

Is it just me or is this something that can work for everybody else? And as I started to do my research, what I found is Instagram and social media in general, I don't care if it's TikTok, any of the socials where we have to force ourselves to be seen, right? You go in and only 10% of your following will see a post and then we'll only see a post for 24 hours if they are intentionally looking for your stuff. And this is when we're talking about organic traffic, not paid, okay? Right.

So how long did it take you to create that reel or that story or that content for it to be seen by hopefully 1%, if we're being honest, of your following? And I would find, well, maybe that took them 30 minutes. In the same 30 minute span of time, you could create a podcast episode. Really, if it was 10 or 15 minute episode, don't even edit, make it be easy, post it up. And that is seen forever and ever. Amen. Because there is no shelf life.

the keywords and the strategy that you use to market your show is found when people type in certain keywords and do certain things to find your show. And I went brain explosion. Why are we wasting so much time on these platforms that don't even matter when it comes to creating an audience that's going to convert? And so I feel very strongly and very intentionally around creating

Just encouraging people that want to grow in a different way. If you're called to social, great. That's amazing. I'm so excited. If it's working for you, because it was also not actually generating revenue for me, it felt good. It was a vanity metric. I've got all these followers and I've got all these, like nobody was actually buying because when we got rid of that channel, revenue actually grew.

And so asking yourself, do I want to be here? Do I want, am I called to be here? And if not, how can I lessen the time here to begin with? Start with weekends, delete the apps. You've got to delete them. The time limit on your phone doesn't work. You will ignore it.

Just like you're on a diet and the cake is in front of your face, you will eat it. It's the same thing. Throw it away. Throw the Doritos away, okay? Then if you are liking that and you're seeing that you're continuing to grow, get off for 30 days. Like follow in my footsteps to test it. You don't have to go,

go cold turkey if you don't feel the need, but some of you are feeling it right now. You feel the need to be completely free of this. Know that that is an absolute possibility for you. I have students, one woman's name is Joy from the Joy Loving Home podcast.

Two full years. And when she started, I said, you don't have to get on social. She didn't. And she didn't tell one family member. She didn't tell one person. She grew exclusively with her podcast using the tools and the strategy I teach. And she has now grown over 200,000 downloads in two years and has a really super successful business without social or even telling one human, even in her own family, that she had started a podcast. So there's so much power in shifting your thinking

From this is how I have to do this and this is how I have to grow to starting to ask the questions, why do I believe this is the way that I have to grow? And being brave enough to challenge and test the status quo. I resonate with that.

so much ladies this is your permission slip you don't want to be on tiktok you don't want to be on instagram you don't want to be on facebook whatever it is you don't if it's not aligning with you then it doesn't align with your business and you don't have to do it you don't have to personally my kids are always like mom please don't get on tiktok and i'm like i i don't i don't like tiktok because they don't want you to see what's on instagram and

I'm not a TikToker. I just, I'm like, no, I don't even, when they even come to me to show me something on their TikToks, I'm like, please don't. I don't, I don't want to see it. It's so bad. And that's another thing, right? Is like you being in a place that it's not just growing your business, but it's creating addiction in your life and it's putting trash in. And we put trash in, we...

excrete trash, right? And so it's what are you filling your mind and heart with? Because we can't just show up there for business and draw the line. The most highest paid engineers in the entire world are there to create addiction in your life and in your mind. And we all are powerless to it, let alone ourselves, let alone our children. Our brains cannot handle social media usage at this level. And so sometimes we have to have a complete barrier. It can't be part of our life at all.

And so, you know, for me, like I'm, I'm an addictive personality. So now it's coffee and Jesus, which sounds so cliche, but it's literally true. Coffee, Jesus and joggers. And before, you know, it's social media and it was alcohol and it was all these other, you know, all these things that success and money like.

What is the addiction you're going to create in your life? Be very careful and be very mindful about the seemingly innocent thing that everyone else is doing. If that has a role and a place in your mind, in your heart, in your business, and in your life. And if not, make the decision to make the change. You have that power, but it does take being super brave. But I promise you, God blesses the brave.

And he blesses the people that are obedient to the tug in your heart telling you to lay that thing down.

All right, girlfriend. So I know that we are on a very limited time slot with you. So I will end by asking one last question. What do you see the podcast industry evolving to over the next 18 months? Because I feel like it is the wild, wild west. Yeah. And there's been so much going on lately. I'm sure you watch podcast news and stuff like I do. Where do you see it evolving? Yeah. You know...

I think when we look at all the long form options, we've got blogging and we've got video and we've got audio. And I feel sadly that blogging is definitely a harder road to walk now with AI and the ease of putting out written content, not to say that it's negligible anymore, but that it's more difficult. And I think that video...

is great if you have a visual thing that you teach, but it's a little bit of a slower grow, right? YouTube, I had a YouTube channel and it was, it's a slower grow. Plus it's a lot more time. It's a lot more time for you and just the editing

and the things that you have to do. And so that leaves us with audio. It leaves us with podcasting. And so here's what I think about that. I think that podcasting is extremely easy to get into. There is a very low barrier to entry, which is good and it's bad. It's good because anybody can start one and everybody will. And so you're going to look and think, oh no, everybody's here now. And like, there's no place for me and it's too late.

But here's the truth is that I believe don't quote me on this. I can't exactly remember the number, but it's like only 1% ish of people ever reach 100,000 downloads, ever pass 100 episodes, ever make it over one year. So even though it looks oversaturated, everybody is quitting left and right because it doesn't feel good. Podcasting is not a place that you show up and have all these vanity metrics right away. Like you can show up on TikTok and have some random video go viral.

and feel good about yourself, but what is it doing for the purpose of your life, right? What is it doing for your revenue and for the impact that you want to make? Probably nothing. - Right. - But podcasting is this thing that takes dedication and discipline, and you have to be so committed to the thing that you're going to teach over and over and over again, past the 12 months and past the 24 months. And if you can make it there, you will be part of a very select small number of people who are willing to be disciplined enough to show up for their craft.

And if you are willing to do that, you are going to be in an upper epsilon of podcasters. There's no way that you can't make a difference, that you can't help people, that you aren't going to make money, that you aren't going to have the downloads and the recognition and all of those things that you want from your podcast. So how I see it is it looks saturated, but the truth is if you're willing to be the person that sticks with it until you are in a really great place, because podcasting

For now has really for your favor, an algorithm that works to your favor. It's very easy to find episodes once you have been showing up consistently because your keywords will work for you. The verbiage you use in your podcast titles and in your descriptions of your episodes, those will be shown to people to find you.

And the people that stick with it become an expert. And I'll tell you, there's no other platform that has a higher conversion rate, in my opinion, than podcasting. Someone listens to one episode, they buy. Not everybody, but I'm telling you, I sell every single episode because somebody goes, that's my person. I've just hung out with her for 15 to 30 minutes. I don't need any more. I don't need to talk to her. I don't need to shop this thing. That's my person. And they'll buy. That doesn't happen anywhere else.

It is the ultimate interview that you didn't even know you were having. Exactly. All right, Steph. So where do you like for people to go leave a review, listen in? What is your favorite platform to be heard on?

Yes. So the largest platform and really once you grow your show to a high level will always be Apple, at least for now. And so if you guys want to head over to Apple Podcasts and check out the show, it's called Online Business for Christian Women. And you can leave a review there. I've got 650 episodes about niche, growing an online business, monetizing a podcast, coaching, online course creation, and faith. And so if any of those things are in your wheelhouse, I would love to invite you to come and check it out. All right.

All right. Fantastic. You guys heard it here first. Stephanie joined us. Go listen to her podcast. Give it a whirl. Give it a review. Drop back into my DMs. I am on Instagram. It's Joanne Bull. And tell me what your biggest aha was from this episode. And I will be happy to share it with Stephanie and her team because I know that they're going to want to hear it too. So as always, your message does not have to be perfect. It is perfect for someone. I'll

See you same time, same place next week. You just finished another episode of the B-Word Podcast. Cheers to you. If I were with you, I would literally pop a big old bottle of Prosecco and pour you a glass. Since I'm not, why don't you do the next best thing and share this episode with one of your besties? Because we all know you've got that one girlfriend that needs to hear it. Thanks, friends.

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