TBF 82 | Short Episodes

 

When you look at the different podcast niches for women, one of the striking observations is how many tackle the struggles of having that work-life balance, of being a mompreneur. But what if you’re an entrepreneur but not a mom? Where do you turn to? Raphie Wagner is tired of reading, seeing, and hearing all the mompreneur stuff out there. So she started her own podcast called Not a Momma Life Podcast. In this episode, she joins Tracy Hazzard to talk about her podcasting journey, offering great insights into starting a personal mission-style podcast. Pointedly, she shares how to gain a niche audience and fascinate with short, laser-focused episodes. A child-free woman of color and entrepreneur, Raphie is fostering a community of people who are thriving and overcoming the struggles of the day-to-day busy life, even without a child. Join today’s conversation to learn more about Raphie’s mission, how she is engaging her audience, and how you too can share your message to those who haven’t heard it yet.

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

How To Gain A Niche Audience And Fascinate With Short Laser-Focused Episodes With Not A Momma Life Podcast Host Raphie Wagner

I am excited about this podcaster. I say that about so many of the podcasters because every one of them comes forward. I’m like, “There’s something so interesting and exciting here that is going to highlight something that you’re going to learn from and some amazing nugget that you’re going to receive and get.” We don’t often get to talk about those personal-mission style shows here. A lot of times, we’re talking about business-style shows. I am excited to have Raphie Wagner on the show. Her show is called Not A Momma Life Podcast. She is a child-free woman of color and an entrepreneur. She’s getting sick of reading, seeing, and hearing all the mompreneur stuff out there so she did something about it. She started the Not A Momma brand, ironically, on Mother’s Day in 2019.

She had another show called Not A Momma that was lost during migration. You’re going to say, “Tracy, she doesn’t have enough episodes yet.” That’s okay because she did. They just got lost in translation which can happen. She has started a new one. It started in January 2020 and it already has over 2,000 downloads. It’s doing well. When she started her entrepreneurship journey, she wanted to find a community just like her. She wasn’t finding a leader of it so she started her own child-free community. She has fallen in love with all things about podcasting. She is getting passionate about it. You can hear that as we talk about it in the episode to talk about her show.

Here’s the thing. Do you want to know how I connected up with her? First off, she’s been following our show. She was mentioned and commented on Instagram. There’s no better way to catch the attention of a host than commenting and saying something on social media. If you want to be on a show, that’s a great way. It didn’t happen from just the commenting because I had checked out her show and it didn’t have enough episodes yet. She was on my radar, but she wasn’t all the way there yet. However, I met her in a Clubhouse room and I got her. She came up to the front and spoke. She impressed me and then made some comments that made me realize she had a deeper experience than I had thought when I checked out her show initially. One other thing happened.

I made a recommendation because we were doing a Clubhouse room on podcast shifting or we call it Host in the Hot Seat. We’d hosted the Hot Seat in the Podetize Club. I mentioned to her that her cover art, as beautiful as it is, was a white background. It was blending in on the app. It made the name of it seem smaller. I suggested she make a colored strike around the outside of it. Sure enough, when she applied to be a guest on the show, I went and saw her show again, I checked it out, and she had put that strike in. She had taken a recommendation I made and put it into practice.

There isn’t someone who I want to reward more on my show than someone who already proved to me that they can engage, has the expertise that they’re sharing, and I’ve been giving insight into it by her showing up on Clubhouse. When I made a recommendation that is right for her and she took action with it, it’s immediate. That’s the perfect kind of person that I want to highlight here. I know that you’re going to be able to take some of her tips and turn them into action yourself. You’re going to be able to follow her guide. Let’s talk to Raphie Wagner about Not A Momma Life Podcast.

About Not a Momma Life Podcast Host Raphie Wagner

TBF 82 | Short EpisodesI am a childfree woman of color, an entrepreneur. I was getting sick of reading, seeing and hearing all the “mom-preneur” stuff, SO I did something about it. I started the “not a momma” brand ironically on Mother’s Day 2019. I had another podcast called “not a momma” that was lost during migration in April 2020 at 25 episodes (Jan 2020-March 2020) and over 2000 downloads.

When I started my entrepreneurship journey I would have loved to find a community exactly like me, it’s so very needed, that how I want to continue to serve my child-free community. I fell in love with all things podcasting in early 2019 but wasn’t until I went to PodcastMovement in 2019 that I got completely hooked.

I am also in the planning stages for starting a podcast production and management services company for childfree women.

Follow Raphie Wagner on Social:

Instagram | Facebook | Podcast Facebook Page | Twitter | LinkedIn

Thank you so much for joining me, Raphie. I’m so excited to have you here because we got connected on Clubhouse and now we get to see each other. I don’t know about you, but I’m frustrated by the audio-only and I’m a podcaster.

It’s nice to connect the faces, mannerisms, and everything with the voice. I agree.

Tom yelled at me because he could tell that I was moving my hands and making the microphone vibrate. I’m not used to having a microphone on my headphones. I’m used to having a microphone in front of me, just like I do when I podcast. It wasn’t something I was thinking about. I’m more worried about the fact that I’ll push my hands and hit the microphone. Have you found the tech to be daunting for you?

No, not at all. I prefer all-audio. I don’t have a problem with the earphones. I don’t like those wireless ones.

You don’t like the in-ear buds.

I don’t like those. I’m more comfortable with this or what comes with our iPhones.

I used to have the over-the-ear ones, but once I started doing video, I removed them because they were so big on me. I dislike those AirPods or whatever they call them.

They look funny too, like two little white things.

I see all the journalists on TV with them on. I was like, “How is your sound people not cringing because this sounds bad?” I know they drive me crazy. Anyway, I’m glad to have you physically across from me on the screen here so we can have a chat about your show, Not A Momma Life. When you first said it and caught it, we used to have this running joke. There used to be this TV show about dinosaurs. It was a dinosaur mommy and a dinosaur daddy. Do you remember the show? I think it was called Dinosaurs. The baby would constantly hit the dad on the head and say, “Not the momma.”

That was the running joke in our house because when you do have a baby, they only want momma for a while. That was like, “Not the momma. You take the baby.” It was my thing. I need my space. That caught my ears funny, then I thought, “What a great show concept. What a great market of people who need to hear what you have to say, who need to be in a place where they know that there are other people who have made the choices.” It’s not just that it happened to you. It’s a choice that you’re making. That’s fabulous. How did it come about that you said, “I want to do a show about this?”

Ironically, this whole brand was founded on Mother’s Day in 2019. What happened with me is, as I was going through my entrepreneurial path, I kept on running into the mommy bloggers, mompreneurs, and the influencers that are moms who are doing big things. That’s all well and good and fabulous, but I could never relate to them. I would read a book and then that one chapter came in where the entire chapter was about being a busy mom. I kept on saying to myself, “You don’t have to be a busy mom to have dishes in the sink, time management issues, a messy car or dirty laundry.” I kept on saying to myself, “I’m not a mom. I’m not a momma.” I kept on saying that as I was reading these blogs and articles and listening to these endless shows. I started that and then that quickly started the Instagram community side of my brand.

It started on Instagram first for you. That’s powerful when you can bring some people to someplace that you know people are already interested in this topic. Now, you bring them to the vehicle that you want to deliver your messaging.

You don't have to be a busy mom to have dishes in the sink, have time management issues, a messy car, or dirty laundry. Click To Tweet

It started that way. There was a previous show and that show got lost in migration.

It got lost in translation here. What was the show?

That was Not A Momma. When I came back, I put a little spin to it. I thought to myself a way to rebrand and relaunch, “Let’s make it a little bit broader.” It’s very different. The previous show had interviews. This show is almost like a branch of my Instagram or vice versa.

This is normally like what we do, this on-air coaching thing. For all of you reading out there, you have to check out Not A Momma Life. It has an interesting way that Raphie has chosen to put this teaser statement at the beginning of it before you get into the whole subject and before the music plays. I love it because it is truly like, “I’m making a statement about what today is about.” It sets the tone and it makes you go, “I’ve got to listen to this.” The episodes aren’t very long. They’re all under ten minutes so you’re like, “There’s no way you’re not going to listen to it.” You caught them with that statement.” Often, people do that wrong and you do it very right.

I love that. Thank you so much.

My question for you and the on-air coaching mode of myself here, are you using that statement piece on Instagram?

Sometimes, but not the audio clip.

Start using that. Use that as your Story and as your Instagram TV Drop because we see them doing well. We also see that you could use those exact clips on YouTube Live, LinkedIn Live, or just in LinkedIn in general. There are LinkedIn Stories now and you can use them. There are all kinds of places you can use these nice short clips. Why not think about TikTok with them? Those clips that you’ve created are such a great marketing vehicle for the show itself. They’re right there and I’m like, “You left me. I better go check out the show.” That’s the perfect thing to use in social media to get a listener. You can do them with an audiogram. They don’t have to be visuals.

I’m glad you liked those. Because the episodes are so small, I thought to myself, “I certainly can’t do a three-minute intro because then that’s half the episode.” It’s like that question. Another thing I like that’s easy for me is I am my audience. That’s why this time around, I decided to do the shorter episodes because that’s what I enjoy. I used me because I am my audience and it’s working well. It makes it easy to binge. Also, you don’t get lost. You’d get the message and that’s it.

What’s interesting too about it is that it’s a concerted choice. I want to make sure that the readers out there are seeing. You’re making a concerted choice about making short episodes. It can hurt your monetization long-term. Think about in contrast to what Raphie is creating with ten minutes or under to a Joe Rogan with 90 minutes or more. When you create the longer shows, you create more ad spot opportunities. Unless her model is and it could be in the future advertisement, she’s hurt the profitability of the ad spot because you don’t have enough places to put it in by choosing a shorter show.

However, she’s created a more bingeable show in her particular case that is going to attract more people to build up a higher listener base. It may weigh out in the end. It’s hard to tell at this stage. What I would recommend for you, Raphie, and for anyone out there making that choice is that if you want to attract the audience and you believe the short form is the right thing for both you and them, go for it. Every so often, drop in a long episode, once every couple of months or so, and see what the reaction is. If you get the reaction back that, “I want more of that,” then now you can add them into the mix. Do them once a month so it’s not labor-intensive. You’ll have the best of both worlds. The nice, long listener base and a great place for ad spots in the future.

I thought about that. I took that advice from the last time that you and Tom did a Clubhouse where we talked about doing a series and introducing something a little longer. I have that on my idea list.

There were two shows that I recommended to Raphie when I talked to her. There’s a second one that came to my mind. Whenever you’re building your show up, which you’ve got a great start to it, there are some brilliant things that we’re going to talk about as we go forward for the choices that you’ve made. Now, it makes more sense that you did have a previous show because you don’t have enough episodes here for me to go, “She’s so good,” which you probably are. That’s how it came. I was like, “You’ve had a few experiments before you got here. It makes sense now.”

TBF 82 | Short Episodes

Short Episodes: The messaging is from two sides. On the one hand, the messaging to the audience is all about “I hear you, and I see you, and I am you.” The other side of the message is that we are here proud and loud to get our message across.

 

Six Vulnerable Conversations of Robert Kandell, he did them within his regular series. He then spun them off into their own little feed of them. It’s six vulnerable conversations between two women, between a man and a woman, between a white man and a black man. They have these conversations where he’s generating that edge to them. First off, I thought it would be an interesting one for you to check out. There might be a moment at which you want a momma and not a momma together and have that conversation. You talked about the frustration of the languaging. There may be a perspective interest there of each side, seeing each other’s perspective that could be valuable. That would make a great, longer episode and a purposeful place to do it. Sometimes, that could be a good play for you.

That’s why I brought it up because sometimes, when you see a model like that out there, you go, “That one would work for me.” I never want to see you like a Joe Rogan. It doesn’t fit you. It’s not your audience. It’s not going to be you. To see you do something like that, that might be ideal. The other one is SOLO. This is a show that he wanted to do. It was personal. It’s about the choice of being single. He’s built a tremendous community. The reason I want you to take a look at that one and I want people to hear about that one is because Dr. Peter McGraw has ended up building that into a great monetization tool that he didn’t anticipate was going to take that on. It was a very personal thing that then turned into advertisers and affiliates, people who wanted access to the great audience he built of single people.

That’s where I see the great audience you’re going to build here, there’s going to be someone who’s going to want access to that. It’s going to be on you to choose who gets that access and how they do that. Making sure that you continue to grow the vehicle to do that, whether it’s over your website side of things, you have courses, book offerings or whatever you decide to do over there or in the show itself with advertisements. This is the brilliance of where your show is going, Raphie. It has an audience that isn’t being served but is a valuable, interested and active audience.

I followed Dr. Peter McGraw and Dr. Kym Marsh after the episode.

Robert Kandell is the other one that I suggested. Follow him too. I think Robert is not a doctor, but he has a Psychology degree or something like that. It’s interesting that we’re following this model of those with that background. Tell me about the audience. As you started this on Instagram and as you’ve been doing the show, have people reached out to you? What have you been learning?

That is one thing that blows me away and keeps me going because I have the most engaged audience ever. I get direct messages almost every day.

This is early. I can tell you most people don’t see it until they’re way over 25 episodes.

I got one on Facebook. He’s a married man. He and his wife are not having children. He told me that he listened to one of the entrepreneur types of episodes and said, “Great episode, I’m listening to more. I rated and reviewed.” I thought to myself, “One episode and he’s already rating, reviewing and listening to more.” What I do is I put all the comments I get in the DMs in my Instagram Stories and always thanking people.

Add that to your website too.

Sometimes, they’re long messages so I take a screenshot.

I’ve done it before where you do a screenshot behind and then you highlight just the quoted part to bring it up forward, “It’s a great show,” or whatever it is. That’s so great that you’re getting that feedback because it makes it worth doing, doesn’t it?

It does. It makes me gush sometimes and I think to myself. I send them to my sister because I’m like, “Look at what’s happening here.” Also, what’s happening too is I’m seeing a broader range in age. When I first started this, it was someone my age, Gen X. As I’ve been doing this, I realized and recognized there were a lot of younger listeners. If I look at my analytics, there are a lot of younger listeners. I might have got a few of them based on recognizing why those younger women and men might be choosing to be child-free. I sometimes do something along with climate or what’s going on in the world because those are the two reasons they might want to have that.

This is something that I noticed that you do. I don’t know if you’re very conscious about it or if it is something that you’re naturally doing well. I noticed you have a noticeable tone change on certain episodes. It’s not just a tone, but it’s in the speed of how you paste that tone as well. The broad edge of it, the wide edge of it is where you slowed down on the episode where you talked about like-minded friends. That tone change is brilliant. Did you do this on purpose or is this naturally your approach?

If you want to attract the audience and you really believe the short form is the right thing for both you and them, go for it. Click To Tweet

It’s a couple of things. I do it with intention. Believe it or not, I do it because of the message but I also do it because I don’t edit my show.

You’re methodical about the word choices, right?

Yes. I don’t edit in the pauses. I use a program that doesn’t require me to edit and I don’t use a script. My pauses are very intentional as I pick a topic and I just speak about it. It’s as if I’m speaking to my friend who’s sitting in front of me.

This is what I want to point out to you. When you read this, go check out that like-minded friends episode. It’s about ten or something, somewhere right in the middle there. First off, I think it’s a good message for anyone, whether you’re choosing to be childless or not. Secondly, the way that you put that out there, knowing that it’s not scripted is a talent that you have. To me, Raphie, this is your bingeable factor. Your binge factor is that you understand your audience so well. When you deliver the messaging to them, you were being crafted, cultivated and targeted about it. That episode expressed it in a great way. That in and of itself is a huge skill that is hard to teach people. They think I can run away with my mouth here and I can say whatever I want. You’re editing yourself on the fly. What prepared you to do that before becoming a podcaster?

I don’t think I had any preparation, to be honest with you. I have always been able to talk to people and I never had a problem doing that. Podcasting has made me slow down, be more intentional, and take those pauses. I have listened to a lot of podcasts about podcast. I’ve learned from them as far as how to do those pauses. Knowing that I have no skills in editing, I knew that I needed to be spot-on on pre-production and the actual show itself. That lends to that pausing, the different tones, and stuff like that. I’ve never done speaking. I’ve done virtual events. In 2020, the brand Not A Momma, I did two virtual summits. I had a lot of practice there but that’s also very different.

A lot of people are finding that out now.

It’s also because I’m talking to them. When I sit to do it at home, I click the button that I need to click to record but I’m just talking to them.

I want to start with my five things that I do when I ask you the five things. Because you don’t have a guest, I’m not going to ask you the first question. I’m going to flip it around. Now is the perfect time for me to ask you that question. We’re going to talk about topic choice. How do you pick great topics is this area of what I’m talking about where I normally would say, “How do you get great guests?” How do you pick great topics? Do you have some mission or have you defined that to help yourself say, “This is the right topic to choose because this is the mission of my overall show and the messaging that I’m trying to get across?”

The messaging is from two sides. The messaging to my audience is that, “I hear you, I see you, and I am you.” The other side of the message is, “We are here proud and loud, and to get our message across.” Every time I do an episode, that’s why I talk to them. I also make it to the point where they could share that episode with a family member or a coworker who may not understand them.

In a way, this is where you’re carefully cultivating these topics to provoke a conversation in our own heads, which is helping your engagement. You’re doing that as a concerted choice against pontificating, where you’re on your soapbox saying, “This is my position.” You’re doing it in a very different way. You’re doing it in a thought-provoking way. That’s a topic choice, the topics that you’re choosing. How do you go about choosing them? Do you make a list for yourself or it comes up this week and you’re like, “This feels right?”

A little bit of both. One thing I did differently for this show, although the previous one was an interview so that was completely different. Before I launched this one, in one eight-hour day, I sat down and brain-dumped every idea, every comment I ever got on Twitter and from friends. Everything I could think of that made me feel less than because I chose not to have children or everything I’ve seen on media like TV episodes and everything. I just did a brain dump. I have hundreds of one-word topic ideas. I had that done before coming into this, but then I do keep myself up-to-date. If there is something very topical that needs to be done, then I can insert that easily and have it more timely.

You can also go down the list and go, “This one needs to be done now.” That’s one of the techniques that I teach people. It’s to not do it in eight hours. I love the amount of commitment you spent on this. Kudos to you again. To sit down for 30 minutes to an hour, I try to get my clients to sit down and do that and brainstorm their topic list. They get worried that they won’t be able to generate enough. At the end of the day, they’re like, “I have 100 topics.” I’m like, “Yeah, way more than you can do in a year of shows.” You’re good. I wanted to prove that to you. You’ve got that.

For me, I do probably 1 or 2 words. I don’t even do a sentence or anything. Most of the time, it triggers more. I felt I needed to have this before I launch because I knew it was going to be short-form. I wanted to have ideas flowing, going in my database that I use, clicking, and go from there. I keep track of the date of that episode so I’m not repeating something too soon after something else.

TBF 82 | Short Episodes

Short Episodes: There’s enough of us out there. We don’t have to compete for people. Your voice may not be what Amy down the street is looking for, but it could be others.

 

How are you increasing listeners? What are you doing? How do you get out there trying to make sure that people are listening to the show and finding out about the show?

I started hosting a weekly room on Clubhouse. The show is hosting a weekly room. I do Twitter, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Instagram Live, and very little on Facebook. I do have a Facebook group for the show and that’s just for the women listeners of the show. I do events. I have the podcast sponsor events. We’re about to start a book club. It’s the Not A Momma Life Podcast Presents.

I wrote down the book title that was on it that was coming up. I was like, “That sounds interesting. I want to check out that book. Momma or not a momma, I still want to check out that book.”

I recommend that.

This is also a problem. A lot of people think, “They’re just listeners. They’re not readers. They’re not viewers.” You’ve tapped in and said, “No, my people are readers as well. We’re going to have some tips, tools, other things that are going to go for them and some book ideas.” That’s great.

We took a break from the virtual events because I had so many in 2020. Towards the end, I felt that fatigue. Instead of pushing, doing an event and not having a good turnout, I decided, “That’s it for this year.” There’s one event that I did in 2020 that I want to bring back on a yearly basis. I want to feel it out and see if there’s still too much Zoom fatigue or not, or maybe do that same event in podcast episodes. Maybe use it that way, instead.

If you’re going to do an event and then you use pieces from the event in shows themselves, that’s a great use. At least you’ve gotten double duty for the time and effort you put into it. That’s a great idea. We’re working on some of that organic, social, increasing our listener base. What about producing it? You mentioned in tease to people that you’re not editing. What else do you do to produce it like a pro?

I batch-record, but I don’t batch-record crazy. I know a lot of different people out there do different techniques. I choose to do probably about a week or two in advance and nothing more. I also pick what’s going on. I look at my idea bank, but if I have an Instagram post that’s getting a lot of engagement, I might switch to that topic. Sometimes, I go back to that post, update it and put in the comments that there’s a current podcast episode about that. I think it’s producing what my community wants.

You’re being a lot more timely about what you’re doing by not going farther out than two weeks, which is a choice. I have some clients that are out for a year. What I keep telling them is, “This is a mistake for you because it’s been so long since you’ve interviewed your guests that they don’t have the energy of it. By the time you air it, they may not have the same business.” It’s dangerous to go that far out. Those that go shorter, there’s the risk of you getting behind. If you get behind, you’re podfade. There’s a happy medium in there. You have a responsive community, which is my next one for you. Because of that, you’re sitting on that edge of feeling the pressure from your community and still keeping on, but not so far ahead that you’re not timely with the information or things that could help them at this moment. That’s a great way to look at it from a professional perspective.

I also added a little pressure to myself because I did not want to go through the podfade. I went up to two episodes a week. I went from one and then I did a bonus episode. I like that flexibility too. I like that I can throw out a bonus one, but the two keep me on my toes as well. I’m getting great feedback on the two. There are some women in my community on Instagram who have been with me since day one. That’s May of 2019. It’s amazing. I mentioned on Instagram Live that I was going to bring back the shout-outs because I used to do shout-outs. I’m going to bring those back because those are also good.

Especially if you were like, “This episode is inspired by.”

I did one, the pet episode, the loving the pets. I told her the day that it was going to come out and then I tagged her dog because he has his own Instagram. That went over well. She shared that days after.

That’s going to help you get some more listeners right there. That’s tying into the encouraging engagement. How do you encourage engagement? It sounds like you’re forcing an engagement which is real because you’re going the other direction with it. What else do you do to encourage engagement in that community? It sounds like not only are they loyal to you, but they’ve stayed loyal and they’re engaging with you sooner than normally we hear on shows.

Have a mission, values, and just as many ideas as possible before even thinking about podcasting. Click To Tweet

I’m very intentional. I know that’s a buzzword and people say that all the time. For example, if I have somebody DM me and say, “I love this episode. Thank you. I’m having a hard time with my mom.” I might turn around and welcome them and everything. I might even say, “Here’s a link to this episode and you might like this one,” or “Here’s a link to this episode. You might be able to send this to your mom or your sister.” I’m focused on my DMs because I get quite a few. I do that but I also return. If I see someone who’s commenting a lot on mine or if they’ve DMed me, I go and return that. I go and check out what I can interact and engage with them. I have a listener who fosters kittens. I went and asked her about one of the kittens. You have to be involved with your community. It can’t be just the listeners because you’ll never hear from them. You’ll never know what’s going on with them if you don’t engage.

That’s a challenge as you grow your community. You want to be in touch with them, but your community is growing so much that it’s hard. I have the thing with over 500 clients. I confused some of their shows or their names. We have seven Jennifers or four Elizabeths. I’m like, “Which one are we talking about? Which Christine?” It happens to me all the time that I get confused by that, even though I want to be that intimate or personal about it, but it gets harder as you grow. At least the DM-ing gives you a chain, so you’ve got the help of like, “You’ll refresh my memory.”

Do you know what else I use too? It’s Instagram on a business account. Instagram has the Quick Replies. I already have queued certain episodes, the website and the website that goes directly to the episodes. I can start engagement that if it’s time to throw a link, it’s one quick thing. I don’t have to type out the www and all that. I use that and there are quite a bit of options on Instagram. I set time aside and say to myself, “In the morning, I’ll check,” and then I may not check until the following morning. It’s not like I’m doing it minute by minute, but I am focused on engagement and knowing what’s going on with my community, knowing if someone’s suffering something.

A side question I want to ask before we get to our last one of the five things. I noticed a listener survey on your site. You had a good amount of people who went through it. Have you got some good feedback from that?

I added that. There will be an Instagram post to remind them that that’s there. Another thing I do well and some people may be falling off is that you can’t do something once. I did Reels to show people how to look for a show. You can’t assume that people know how to even find you. You have to do things like that. I did a Reel about how to use Apple Podcasts and Goodpods app and how to find me. I did a Reel about supporting the show in other ways and how you can support any show and little things like that.

We do little videos. We’re not in Reels because we do mostly for people’s websites, but we do them for how to rate and review because it’s not easy. If you’ve never done it before, finding where the rating and reviewing is confusing.

You have to tell people what to do if that means how to find you, support you, rate, review, share and all the different things.

With all the people who have DMed you, even if some who haven’t done it in a while, but they’re there in your list, if you had a quick little message that was one of your quick links that you could also drop in about the listener survey, invite them to it. Because they’ve been in contact with you, they’re more receptive to that and will more likely take action. Being able to mine your past DMs is great. They love not stalk messaging. I get them all the time on LinkedIn. I’m so sick of the robot ones. When we do it in the way of which we were saying like, “You contacted me about my show before and I’m doing a listener survey. I would love your feedback,” that is valuable. Most people will respond to that because it doesn’t feel like a stalk message and they already had an interaction with you so they invited the conversation.

That’s a great idea. I need to do that. I have done that before with the voicemail, the link to the SpeakPipe. I have done that before saying, “I hope you enjoyed the episodes. If there’s anything you want to let me know about, any feedback, here’s the link for my voicemail.” I’ve done that so I need to do that for the listener survey.

The last of our five things is about your monetization. How are you going to monetize your show? It doesn’t necessarily mean the show itself but monetizing the Not A Momma Life movement. What are your plans for that? What’s your vision?

I have a very big vision. My vision is to help other child-free women to use their voice and launch a podcast. One thing I’ve realized is there’s enough of us out there. We don’t have to compete for people. There are so many things out there. My voice may not be what Amy down the street is looking for, but yours could be. It’s so powerful. Podcasting has changed my life between the people I’ve met, the communities I’m in now, and what I’ve learned. I am starting a business for podcast management, podcast strategy, and helping people launch. That’s going to be my audience. My readers would be my clients. It’s still within my child-free world.

You get more voices out there and diverse ways about, “We’re going to do a lot better out there.”

My day job is an occupational therapist. I want to also gear towards the medical professionals. It would be child-free women who are in the medical profession.

TBF 82 | Short Episodes

Short Episodes: We really grow by listening to things that are not a fit for our show because we’re going to learn something about how to do something brilliantly.

 

The biggest thing for them, I can hear it coming up, is time management, like how busy they are and how little time they have. Give us your advice. How do you handle all these entrepreneurial ventures and different moving pieces, Instagram’s, engagement, podcast piece, growing, and achieving your vision?

I handle it with as much automation as possible, inbox automation and automation for Instagram. Anything that you can automate, automate. Anything that you can get rid of. Before going into this, I unsubscribed to a lot of things. I finished courses that I hadn’t finished in years. I did a lot of things because I knew I needed that time that I would normally be spending with all those shiny objects. I needed to put that in my podcast. I was very clear about unsubscribing and canceling. A few months ago, I was already into the podcast, I canceled five memberships because I was like, “I’m not getting stuff out of it. I need to put my bandwidth somewhere else.” It saved me money and time to dedicate to my show.

Decision means to cut away. You made those smart choices for yourself because I believe it’s paying off already. You have all the good indicators of a great bingeable show that is going to turn into something much bigger. I see all the great signs here. Normally, a lot of people are like, ” I think I’ve got a good show here.” I can see comparatively you have a good show here. You have a great show in the making. Keep doing what you’re doing. What is going to be your biggest piece of advice that you’re going to give to your future clients, to those that you’re giving podcast business strategies to?

My number one piece of advice is the topic, brain-dump, have a mission, have values, and have as many ideas as possible before even thinking about this. You have to be on that wheel whether it’s doing a brain-dump once a year or once every three months. You have to be in that habit of doing that because you don’t want to be podfade. You don’t want to be, “Next week, I have an episode. What should I do?” You need to be able to have somewhere to go to and take that. Also, don’t be afraid of feeling like you have to have it all scripted. I don’t script anything.

That’s my number one thing I beg people not to do.

I feel like you’re focused so much on that. I generally go into an episode with a topic and that’s it. That’s all I do. That allows me to do that deep dive, although it’s brief, but a deep dive of that one particular topic. The idea bank would help everybody as far as podfade and burnout. You could even start to be creative and to plan your graphics months in advance because you know you have that topic coming up. It allows you to be more flexible with all the other stuff.

Raphie, I can tell you, you are on your way. You are a show to listen to and one to watch. Thank you for coming on and sharing that with us here on The Binge Factor.

Thank you so much, Tracy, for having me. It’s been such an amazing experience.

I told you that was going to be fun and interesting. She’s got such a great perspective on podcasting, how things work, and how she wants her show. The thing that I hope that you took away from this episode is how she was able to take a mission-driven, very personal podcast with short episodes. You know that I don’t always say that that’s a great idea here. She’s been able to turn that into a movement because she’s been so careful with the execution of each of those episodes. If you’re going to do small episodes and you then do them brilliantly like she’s doing, then you’re going to be able to create that engagement, community and that built. She’s creating a Not A Momma Life Movement. It’s an interesting watch to see the growth of that happening for her.

Many of you may be out there where you may even have a business show. It’s not a personal mission show, but you want it to become a movement as well. You feel that your message is that powerful and needs to be supporting a community out there that hasn’t heard this yet, just like Raphie. This is a model show. Go check out Not A Momma Life. Even if you are a momma, I got a lot out of it. That’s okay too. Although that’s something that we talked about, we don’t have to listen to things that are only just like we like it. Sometimes, we grow by listening to things that are not a fit for our show or not a fit for our model because we’re going to learn something about how to brilliantly do something.

I learned from Raphie about the power of that tease that she puts on at the beginning. I saw the power of how it could be used on social media, and how it could be done out from a tactic standpoint too. I learned something just by checking out her show for my research for this guesting opportunity. Looking at those things, these are some things that you shouldn’t miss out on. Just because you heard it, you’re like, “I got what it is.” I highly recommend that you take any one of our guests and at least go spot-check their show, and then do them a favor. Do them a favor because they’ve come here to share with you and let you learn from them. Do them a favor of at least sharing with one or more people who could benefit from their show, who would be energized by listening to it, whose life could be better, who belong in her movement. Share it with one other person, even if you’re not going to be the one to subscribe to it. Also, if it does fit you, subscribe, rate and review. Help her out. Help a sister podcaster out. Please do that as well.

I hope that more of you will join us on the Clubhouse rooms. Check it out. We’re going to do more Host in the Hot Seats. I’d love to put you in the hot seat and strategize with you about your show. I’ll give you some tactics and some small things that can shift your show and make it more successful. Maybe you’ll catch my attention and I’ll invite you right here on The Binge Factor as well. You can find out all about that at Podetize.club. That’s going to send you right to the Podetize Clubhouse page. It will give you all the information about how to join us and how to find us on Clubhouse and what times we run our different clubs or different rooms as they call them there. Check out and find out whether or not Clubhouse is worthy of your time and attention. I look forward to seeing you on social. I look forward to hearing you on Clubhouse. I look forward to bringing you another great episode with another interesting podcaster who’s a model for something you might want to try out next.

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