Binge Factor Media

Are you a podcaster struggling with finding the right motivation and inspiration to do what you need to do? Or are you more than ready to take your podcasting career to the next level? If yes, then this episode is for you! Today, we have Tiphany Kane, M. Ed., also known as “The Heck Yes! Coach,” to teach the secrets of mastering the podcaster mindset and getting inspired to reach your goals. Discover how you can turn your passion into action and create inspiring content for your podcast. Take control of your podcasting journey with this must-listen conversation!

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This Coach Will Give You Ideas On How To Get Inspired To Do What You Need To Do With Tiphany Kane Of Radical Audacity In Love & Life And Mastering The Podcaster Mindset

I have Tiphany Kane and she and I finally met in person. She had been stalking me since she podcast. We found out we were in the same town, and she invited me to a meetup. We got connected. We decided to sponsor the meetup. We had a lot of fun doing that and she has hit it off. I am looking forward to bringing Tiphany back. We’re going to make a regular thing out of having her on the show or having her on Feed Your Brand, maybe.

Our mind share is similar, and we can bring a lot to the table by having you hear some perspectives from her. Tiphany Kane is Mastering the Podcaster Mindset is the name of her show, but she is known as The Heck Yes! Coach. She is passionate about coaching women to turn painful noes in life and business into empowered opportunities to find The Heck Yes!

Tiphany is an entrepreneur, public speaker, coach, and writer who brings her passion for the art of the spoken word to people who need help finding their voice. She weaves in her own personal stories of escaping a cult at 19 years old, leaving a toxic, abusive marriage 20 years later, and then leaving a 20-year career in Public Education to start a business.

Tiphany is the Cofounder of KaSa Media Productions, as well as the host of two podcasts, Radical Audacity in Love & Life and Mastering the Podcaster Mindset. I’m glad I had Tiphany on the show and we’ll have to share an interview that I did with her and her partner David. We’ll have a conversation about that as well. Let’s check out this interview with Tiphany and hear about Podcaster Mindset because that’s critically important.

Tiphany, I’m glad to talk to you. We are excited to talk about Mastering the Podcaster Mindset. As I listen to the show, and as we had our interview with you before, I’m thinking mindset is such a critical part of podcasting. It isn’t talked about enough because people get caught up in things like, “What microphone do you have and what is this?”

First of all, we are mic geeks and tech geeks. My partner has 40 or 50 mics at this point. We’re into all of that stuff too. Don’t get me wrong, but when we are working with people around podcasting, the number one thing that stops them is the mindset. It’s Imposter syndrome, tech overwhelms and getting to the point were frozen. It’s all these fear types of things that affect people and stop them.

It’s the fear of being vulnerable. The fear of, “What are people going to think? What are people going to say? Am I going to have enough content? Am I going to remember all the steps?” There’s so much fear and anxiety that often hinders people from that first step. You then talk about podfade all the time, and I love that you talk about it because that’s the giant elephant in the room.

People get started and then go, “Nobody is listening. This is harder than I thought.” They start questioning themselves, so then the fear comes in after they start of, “Am I meant to do this?” We focus a lot on monetizing your podcast, and growing your audience, but also, what’s the mindset piece of all of that?

Podcast Coach: People get started and think nobody’s listening or that it’s harder than they thought. Then the fear comes in, and they start to question themselves if they’re really cut out for this or are meant to do this.

It’s so interesting that you focus on that because there are a lot of people out there who should be podcasting. They’re going to be so great at it. Their message is so valuable. We want to get that out to the world. There’s a reason why at Podetize, we don’t have a high podfade rate. It has nothing to do with the fact that we teach a better mindset or anything. It’s just that we pick people who already start with the right mindset, and we screen them out in our sales process we think they won’t.

The one thing I hear Tom say again and again in sales meetings is, “I can’t do that for you. I can do everything else, all surrounding it. I can take care of your tech overwhelm. I can take care of a lot of these things to hopefully prevent some of those mindsets and doubt things to come in, but I can’t record for you.” We already pre-select people who are more likely to succeed there, which skews our number and makes it more successful. It’s only because we selected a lot of people.

What you guys do well with your processes is people who come to you already see the value of podcasting and they’re willing to invest in podcasting. It’s people often that are like, “How can I do this free or the cheapest?” Oftentimes, a lot of, “If you’re not willing to invest in coaching or in somebody to help with the pieces and parts that are hard for you, and if you’re trying to do all the things and do it free, then it’s a lot to do it on your own.” What you’re doing in your process is you’re saying, “We’re looking for the people that are willing to invest. You’re either going to invest your time or your money, and either way, time is money. Let’s figure out how to make this the most profitable venture for you.”

Let’s face it. Podcasting is from your heart, and you’re sharing your vulnerable story. It’s a passion project for many people but most of us want it to be an income stream. We want it to somehow be a revenue generator, a brand accelerator, something to open opportunities, and open doors. There are many things podcasts can do for you, and you’ve got to invest in it, whether it’s with a coach or with a company that’s going to help you get all this stuff done like a production team. How are you going to do it? A mindset piece in and of itself is investing in this dream and this thing.

You and I talked about this. There are a lot of people out there, unfortunately, that are preying on the idea of podcasting but glossing over all the things that you do need to do, you do have to have, and the mindset you need. All of those things are getting glossed over. They’re being sold something that isn’t real. That is frustrating.

You hit the nail on the head. I was working with a one-on-one client, and she said, “I was working with this person on podcasting. I took this person’s course, and they kept saying how easy it is, how you hit record and it’s easy. It’s not easy for me. I feel like there must be something wrong with me because it’s not easy.” That is the biggest disservice to saying that podcasting is “easy” because there are lots of things in place that make it easier than it used to be.

Way easier than it used to be.

Several years ago, there was a whole set of tech challenges. Many of the tech barriers have been taken away. It’s easier now than ever but there’s so much to it that is not easy or intuitive and there’s a huge learning curve and commitment that you need. It is a disservice to say, “Podcasting is easy. Anybody can do it.” Anybody can do almost anything as long as you have the help, the coaching, the resources, and the team but very little worth doing is easy.

That’s interesting. Let’s talk about your first show when you started because you started shows within a few months of each other. Your first show was Radical Audacity in Love & Life. You started that in August 2021. In November, you started Mastering the Podcaster Mindset. You did one and then the other right after each other. That sounds a little bit crazy to me. It sounds a little aggressive.

It’s a funny story if we have time for a little bit of a bird walk story. This is interesting. My first podcast was actually Love & Life After Divorce. I started it because I had a crisis at my day job. I was a teacher. I was a teaching coach. I worked out at the District Office. I coached teachers. I created professional development, I was trying to move forward in my career, and kept hitting brick walls. I sat down with my boss and I’m like, “Why am I not moving forward? I’ve got all the skills, the qualifications, the drive, and I’m a hard worker.” She said, “Tiphany, you’re too passionate.”

This ended up being the most beautiful word. They were telling me, “We want people in administration and in leadership that are yes people, that will tow the company line, that will do what we are asking to do, and you ask too many questions, and you’re too passionate.” I am. I am passionate about making the world a better place. It was a great opportunity for me to say, “Maybe this isn’t the place for me. I need something else.” Podcasting fell into my lap. It was during that time listening to podcasts that helped me find my direction. I thought, “I want to start a podcast because this has helped me. I’ve loved it.” It’s been a beacon for me to find all of these podcasters that have these incredible messages.

I thought, “Maybe I want to be a relationship coach for women after a divorce because I went through a whole process,” so I started that podcast. Almost the minute I started that podcast, I had dozens of people coming to me saying, “How are you doing with the podcast?” Not a single person said, “Can you be my relationship coach?” I turn on my partner, David, who has been in the audio world for decades, and as I said, has like 50 mics and all the gear and gadgets. I said, “We’ve had a lot of fun doing this podcast.” He was my tech person, and I was the recorder and I said, “What if we start teaching people how to podcast?” We did a little $25 1-day workshop on 7 easy ways to start your podcast.

Tracy, that opened up a can of worms for us. People started pouring in wanting more information. We then realized all the questions our students were asking if we started a podcast about podcasting for these new podcasters, then we can give them more information in between our times meeting with them. The Mastering the Podcaster Mindset was born a few months after starting Love & Life After Divorce. Funny story, we got COVID the day we launched Mastering the Podcaster Mindset. We were stinky and sick for an entire month. Our early episodes, the ones we had batch recorded. The show must go on and it’s been great. That podcast, the intention for that one was to serve our community. We didn’t do any social media about it. It was just our community.

It wasn’t as intense a launch as you had done with your others and trying to figure out how to find your audience in all of that. That’s a good idea. You already had people who you were working with, which is your community.

It grew. It exploded because people enjoyed our message and the style. We’re bantering and funny. It is fun. That’s the story. In January 2022, I’m like, “I’m not going to be a divorce coach, so let’s switch my podcast up.” I changed the name and went through a rebranding. It’s been a fun journey.

We were on your show and we had a lot of fun with that. It’s fun to do two co-hosts interviewing two guests. We had a four-way interview, which was fun and different but we found it more challenging. When we co-host, we have a shorthand. We know who’s going to take the next question because it flows, but when you’re answering questions, you don’t know what’s going to get thrown at you, and it doesn’t flow as easily. We weren’t in the same room, so we couldn’t nudge each other and say, “You go.”

We’re trying to figure out how we could let each other know that, “You should talk.” Having to do a verbal cue, go, “Tom, why don’t you take that?” I finally ended up doing that, which was such a funny mechanism. We don’t think about it, but we’re rarely doing it on the other side of the mic where we’re the interviewer. It’s rare the other way. We hadn’t done one together in a real long time.

We enjoyed it. I feel like Tom and David, my partner, are the techs. They could talk tech all day long and have a blast. You and I were the geniuses of the group. We’re the marketing people and the connectors. David and I make a great team because we have different strengths that complement each other, and you and Tom as well. It came through in our conversation about how you working off each other and all of that. Tracy, you were the shining star.

When you first started that, you had the great support of David and all of that going on from the tech side, so you didn’t have the tech overwhelm because he took that. What was your mindset stumble? What was your challenge for you?

When I first launched my podcast, I didn’t tell anybody. It was a big secret.

You were afraid to share it.

I was. I started and did a very soft launch. I didn’t tell my family. I told a select small group of friends and I happened to have been in an entrepreneurial course at that time. I told the people in the entrepreneurial course. That was it. I started a whole new Instagram account that I didn’t tell anybody about. It was, “Let me play with this and see what happens.” I didn’t want anybody to know I was doing it.

It was a hush because I was talking about my divorce and my life, and I wasn’t comfortable with everybody that I knew or the whole rest of the world know about it yet. It was funny to me, the evolution happened pretty quickly within 4 to 6 weeks when I was like, “Let me scream it from the rooftops. This is a blast. I’m meeting the coolest people. I’m talking to the most interesting guests. I’m learning so much and having fun. Everybody, guess what? I have this podcast, and it’s about this topic.” Within 4 to 6 weeks was all in. This is a blast. I’m loving it. It’s what I’m meant to do.

I bet that shift happened in terms of the growth of the show too because you don’t realize how much you’re not talking about it in the early days is holding back the show. There is this mindset out there of people who think, “If I put it out there, listeners will come.” That’s not how it works.

That’s not how it happens. Downloads and listeners are nice. That’s all good, but the magic that happened to me was so internal. I am doing this thing and committing to myself and setting myself in this vulnerable way and sharing a message that will serve others for the purpose of serving others. It opened up much inside myself, much creativity that had been trapped for so long.

Your passion got to come through what they were saying was a liability is such a positive.

That was a magic key that opened doors that I never saw that suddenly started opening. Where I got to collaborate with people who I could only dream of collaborating with. I was speaking at a conference. The way my world has changed in eighteen months has nothing to do with the downloads. Nothing at all. Let’s pretend I put an episode out and not a single person listens. It doesn’t matter because I took action, did the thing, and I’m meeting with people and because of that, opportunities have flown in like magic. We talk a lot about what are your personal metrics for success that have nothing to do with the downloads. How can your podcast serve you in ways where the downloads are the icing on the cake and not the main course? For us, that’s been the magic.

Do you think the word that you use, the freeing, is an interesting idea and important? When you get caught up in the idea that the downloads matter, you also don’t realize because you don’t know enough about the industry that you’re comparing against a bunch of fake downloads out there too. You’re comparing against something that’s not even real, to begin with. That harms the whole model of who you think you are and where your value lies.

I’m going to say an ego hit when you don’t achieve it. That’s why podfade happened so quickly with people and early in the process because they didn’t get what they believed was the case, but the reality was that they never saw that that wasn’t real, to begin with. That’s an unusual thing. People see that same thing on Instagram. They don’t understand how big a percentage, there are fake followers on Instagram as well. They think, “Social media’s a failure for me.” They then don’t continue to use it for what it can do for them. Shifting that mindset is hard because there’s so much lack of information, lack of data, and lack of understanding of how things work.

Here’s what I like to say. Buzzsprout releases their download data information and pretty consistently, they find that if you’re getting somewhere around 30 downloads an episode, you’re in the top 50% of all podcasts.

It’s shockingly low compared to what people perceived it to be.

If you’re getting 75 to 100, that number shifts a little bit. You’re in the top quarter of all podcasts. If I’ve got a room full of 30 people over to my house for dinner, and I’m telling a story, and they’re all looking at me, that’s a full house. That’s a lot of cars in your driveway. It’s a full house. It’s a full room. That’s pretty awesome. If you’ve got 30 people listening to you on your podcast episode or if you’re getting 100 downloads per episode, that’s amazing. A lot of times, you don’t even get 100 people in the room when you speak at the conference. Not anymore.

Even if they show up on virtual, half of them aren’t paying attention.

If you’re getting 100 people listening to you on a regular basis, holy guacamole, that’s impact. We have to remember that. Each of these listens is a person listening to you and having an impact on you. If you don’t have a giant show that is getting thousands of downloads per episode, you can still have a massive impact because that person listening might be your next client. If you don’t value that, if you are saying, “This isn’t valid until I’m getting 1,000 downloads at the episode, then this isn’t worth it,” but you have 30 people listening to you and of those 30, 3 or 4 might be your ideal client. If you can bring in the 3 or 4 clients a month, isn’t that cool?

Podcast Coach: Remember that each of these listens is a person listening to you and having an impact from you. If you don’t have a giant show that is getting thousands of downloads per episode, you can still have a massive impact because that person listening just might be your next client.

That’s a big deal. That’s why I have clients who never pay attention. They care less. They probably generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in income, but they don’t even have 100 downloads an episode. That’s okay with them because it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, it’s not the goal and the purpose of everything that they’re doing. That’s important. When we focus on downloads, the problem right there is that downloads aren’t an indicator of someone listening to it.

If you don’t go in almost every Buzzsprout, you are referring to almost every one of the hosts out there who are solely focused on downloads and not plays and play-throughs. We can’t get play-through data if we don’t know how to dive in and look for it because it can’t flow back to the hosting company. It doesn’t work like that. Apple refuses to share that back. You have to log in, go look at it, and see what that is. I have a show, and I’ve mentioned this before on the air that is about breast cancer survivors. It has 110% play-through.

They called me and thought it was a mistake. I said, “This is not a mistake. This is amazing.” It means that somebody is going back and replaying a section of your podcast because they got something so valuable. It says to me, “You ought to have a website where you put those resources there because they’re going to go to it more often and that’s going to drive more business for you, more members of your community, subscribers to your email list, whatever it is that you’re looking for. It can happen here. You have the biggest opportunity for that.” It also might be someone who’s sharing it with someone else, which is why your listener growth consistently growing because they’re sharing your episode with someone they love and that person is then subscribing.

That is meaningful. That growth is real.

You’ve had an impact. You’ve made a difference in one person’s life. You’ve given them some tips and resources that they can actually use. That, to me, is the most fulfilling opportunity that you can have on a podcast. That’s amazing what they have there. If I didn’t tell them to go look for that, that’s because they weren’t one of my clients, but if I met them at an event and I mentioned that they should go check it, that’s when they called me afterward.

Immediately, after they checked that, and then I tell them what that means, they were clients. It was a no-brainer. I gave them the biggest perspective shift on their show. How they look at that and where they find value, we need to reset the mindset of everybody coming in. I love that this is where you’re focused. You are focused on making sure that we come in and get started with the right one. I don’t want to leave anyone behind.

My business runs differently, and I don’t have an opportunity to nurture everyone through the starting process. I’m better when they’re already started or already said that they’re doing this thing. That’s easier for us to take on because of the way our business work. I love that you and I can cooperate and collaborate together. One of those collaborations is working together. You’ve got your Golden State meetup. We’re here in California, the Golden State, and you did a local group.

I have met many companies that would walk into that room and there are 7 or 8 people here. They probably walk out. I’ve seen that happen. We don’t believe in that. We believe that you are onto something. That first group of 10 people is going to be 20 or 30 people and it’s going to grow. The fact that you are taking on the opportunity to create these communities that are going to meet together is going to make a difference. That passion that you talk about that you have is infectious in a good way.

That was an exciting event. That’s another good example, Tracy, of not letting the numbers affect you. The people that were in that room, ended up somewhere around twenty people. The people that were in that room were a number of big heavy hitters in the podcasting world that had been podcasting for a long time and showed up there mixed in with a few brand-new podcasters. This experience of ultra-successful, been doing it forever perspective with these brand new podcasters that were like, “I’m getting started.” The magic there was so incredible, and then I got to meet you.

We got to meet in person, which is so much more fun. We’ve been chatting via email for a while, and now we get to do this in person. I absolutely love it. I’m an extrovert. I can’t help it. I love events and the whole energy of it.

It’s incredible. There’s nothing like it. Again, if somebody gets 20 downloads on their episode, they’re like, “I failed.” There were twenty high-impact people in that room movers and shakers. That’s priceless. I feel like we have to remember that when we’re podcasting because these digital numbers can be so nebulous, and we hear all these stories of tens of thousands of downloads. We have to remember that every single listener is important and meaningful. I’m passionate about that.

Part of what I see happen so often is that there are people who are sitting back, and they’re saying, “I need to do this on a budget. This is not a part of my business. This is a new side hustle that I’m going to start.” There’s no reason why they can’t. David is all into the good equipment, but you don’t have to use that expensive equipment to get started. You can grow yourself into that if you want it later. It’s not necessary but what is necessary that you commit to learning and doing? The learning piece is a lot where people take one little piece of advice that they go with it and think they don’t need to learn anything more. I find that the best podcasters are continual learners.

There’s much to learn and much to know. This is something that David and I are excited about with you because we have our areas of passion and strength, but we have a lot of gaps in our knowledge. One of those gaps is, “How do you maximize SEO? How do you do all of the things that you and Tom are so brilliant with of, ‘I’m going to repurpose this episode and we’re going to turn it into a YouTube channel. It’s going to go on our website, and we’re going to create a blog post and a whole ecosystem around this one episode?’” You and Tom are brilliant with that.

That is something that’s been inspiring to David and I. We have a lot of areas of strength that have not been a focus for us at all. We moved over to Podetize as our host. I have to say, numbers have gone up. It’s because we said, “We’re moving over there with the purpose of we’re going to take Tom and Tracy’s advice and fix up our description.” I’m talking to a VA about helping to ghostwrite some blogs. As much as I love writing, I don’t have a ton of time to do it and all of this stuff. You guys offer all of those services and do all of those things. I feel like this is where David and I are learning a new side of the business to us. That part is very exciting.

This is the thing that I see people who start like you. Everybody comes to them, and they’re like, “How did you do this?” We, in a way, started that way. We had our first 3D print podcast and people would come to us and be like, “What are you doing?” When I explained it to them, they’d be like, “I don’t want to learn how to do that. Can you do it for me?” We ended up with a consulting version of it. “Let’s do this. It’s way harder for me to teach you how to do this. Let me do it for you.” That’s our model because we were consultants. We were done for you consultants before was our model not to coach and not to teach, and I got dragged into coaching. I didn’t even want the title of coach.

Kicking and screaming.

I did. When my team kept saying, “Can you please stop calling the Wednesday?” It’s because every Wednesday at noon, we livestream it out to everyone, specifically for our clients. We have this coaching call and I refuse to, for the first year, even call it a coaching call. My team kept saying, “Tracy, could you call it a coaching call, so people understand what it is?” I’m like, “Okay, fine.” I didn’t want to be in that place of coaching because it involved so much more than I thought of myself.

One of the things that I find is that those people who come in have this passion and people hear it want what you have, and want to learn how you did all of this. The problem is that you don’t have the continual learning data information. We’ve got a thousand that we’ve launched. There’s so much more information that you’re going to catch up on. Not being able to tap into the resources of what we have, we’re willing to share that with other coaches because we can’t do what you do, which is nurture them to get them going. I can’t do that.

It’s not possible with the way our company runs and with the way we run. We need you to be able to do that. If you can do that with better information, that’s why this collaboration needs to happen. I find that many coaches and experts are afraid of not being known as the expert and their mindset is stuck. They can’t open themselves to the possibility that my information might be useful to them. They close off that continual learning, and you didn’t.

It’s such a disservice. Wasn’t it Einstein that said, “The more you know, the more you realize the less you know,” or something along those lines? If you are a lifetime learner, you know there is at no point where you have said, “I’ve learned it all,” because it’s impossible. We never claim to be the end-all-be-all experts. We have areas of expertise that we are very good at. I’m a great coach. I was born to be a teacher and a coach. It’s my dharma if you follow all the dharma types of stuff.

Every test I take, you’re a teacher. I fully 100% embrace that. I love the coaching piece. I’m great at it. He’s great at tech. We’ve never lived in a world where we had to worry about SEO, maximizing our website, writing blogs, and doing YouTube. We are like, “If we can get help on this part, if we can meet with people that know, then we don’t have to slog through it and make all the terrible mistakes.” We get to have people that know what they’re doing and help us.

That information gets to trickle out, and we get to tell other people, “This type of stuff is important.” I will never stop learning and being very open and saying, “That’s the part I’m not strong in. Let me bring an expert in to talk about that.” We do that on our podcasts all the time. We’re like, “Let’s bring experts in.” We’re bringing a Web3 expert in and I’m like, “I know nothing about Web3. Frankly, it terrifies me because I know nothing, so please help us understand.” There’s no way to know it all.

To me, the joy of podcasting is being able to connect with people that know the information you don’t know. You then get to collaborate with them and the magic doors open when you say, “This knowledge, expertise, and thing that you’re doing is great and exciting. Can we work together because I’m jazzed by what you’re doing? Let’s do this.”

That happens when you set yourself up of, “I’m teaching this course or I am having a mastermind.” The problem with masterminds is they’re supposed to be collaborative but too often, there’s someone at the front who’s setting this tone or organization that it ends up being a glorified class and overpaid class at that. That’s not good either because it’s not a two-way straight. I need to know where the struggle is on the other side, or I can’t do a better job of making sure my services are in line with that.

What do I need to do in line with that, or what data I can bring back to you to inform you, so you can better make recommendations? I hear a lot of tips out there, and I go, “I don’t know where they got their data, but their data is bad. That’s not true. It’s a path to failure. How can we fix that if there’s no dialogue happening that you need that data, that tip, and the information that’s going to inform that?” Part of what’s missing is that the experts aren’t banding together and cooperating. It’s something Alex Sanfilippo and I have talked about at Podmatch. He’s amazing.

Podcast SOP, PodPros is his company. He cares about the pros and that makes a big difference. When we start banding together to talk about where the problems are, we can help solve them for everyone and the whole boat rises. The tide rises for everyone if we do it that way. It’s fun to get together. I have never been in a community. When I did contract furniture way back when I used to work for Herman Miller, I was always shocked at, “Customers called you.” It’s the same thing here. Experts call each other. You need to have that. There’s nothing that we would rather do than gather in a room and chit-chat about podcasting. You can’t get podcasters to shut up.

It’s a bunch of people who love talking to each other together.

That’s right. It’s already inherently set for collaboration, but a lot of the systems are set to not work that way. There are a lot of people within it that are harming it because of their closed mindset to that. I’m glad that you are working so much to open that up at the beginning before people get started. Let’s talk a little bit about those things that happen.

I always do the three things here on our show where we’re talking about how you get great guests, how you increase your listeners, and how you think about monetization. I want to see your perspective on that because every time I get that from someone, their perspective is slightly different. It is the mindset going into that that makes a difference. How do you get great guests for your show?

Reach out and ask. I don’t do any shout out like, “I need a guest,” and open calls for guests. For both of our podcasts, we reach out to people that inspire us, and we know something about them. We’ve interacted with them in some way. It’s following them on social media, reading their books, following their podcast, following their work in some way, and getting introduced by somebody else.

We do always honor guest intake forms. We have, “Do you know somebody that would be a great guest?” About maybe 30% to 40% of the time, it’s like, “This is a good fit. I’m so excited to meet this person.” If sometimes it’s not a good fit, that’s okay. It’s always finding the guests that I’ve never been shot short of having guests. There’s always a plethora of people who inspire me.

People think that they will be, but that mindset of, “I’m never going to be short of them,” can be your reality.

Podcast Coach: There’s always a plethora of people who will inspire you. The mindset of you’re never going to be short of them can be your reality.

Doing a mix of super attainable people that you do work with and have a relationship with bringing them on and then also reaching, saying, “Here’s my aspirational person. Here’s a reach.” I’ll be honest. I came back from She Podcast LIVE, heard you speak, and told David, “I heard this great speaker.” At that time, I was such a new podcaster. There were so many concepts you were talking about that I hadn’t wrapped my mind around. I’m like, “There’s so much in here.” I took vigorous notes. I still have them.

I looked back at them. When I found out that you guys are practically next-door neighbors, I turned to David and said, “At some point, we are going to meet with Tom and Tracy. Another couple that is in the podcasting entrepreneurial world, not just podcasters, but they’ve built their business around this. It’s few and far between, and they live 10 to 15 minutes from us. I know, at some point, we’re getting together.” To me, you and Tom were aspirational.

I would’ve been there a year ago if you had called me and said, “Emailed me,” I’ve been like, “Sure,” because you’re local, and you met me at an event. You had all the right triggers, you just didn’t even know it.

That’s great for people to hear having those connection points. Going to conferences is a great way to get those connection points. I cannot tell you how many guests I’ve met at a conference, so that is great. Anyway, you and I are very in alignment with this. The people we have on our podcasts are people that inspire us. We’re able to have these authentic, exciting conversations because we know them and they are inspiring. When somebody reaches out to me, there’s always somebody marketing people, they’d be a great guest.

I’ve only had 2 or 3 of those that I pursued because I thought, “This would be a good fit.” The majority of it is people that I’m interested in, and I showed genuine interest and most of them say yes. I’ve had a couple of noes, whether that it’s because they’re busy or there are a few people out there that are like, “Your show is not big enough for me.” “There are plenty of other people that my show is big enough for, so that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with it.”

That, to me, if someone is in the mindset of asking me how big my show is, I don’t want them on the show.

I am 100% in alignment with you on that. It’s like, “If that’s what’s important, then okay.”

Even though I know my show is big, I don’t want to share my audience with someone whose mindset is already there.

It’s so refreshing to hear you say that.

It’s my policy. I get publicists who reach out to me and they’ll say something. If the conversation heads to this that it’s all in there, I’d like, “I hear that this is important to you, the publicist. Is this important to your guest you’re proposing for my show?” If they say, “This is my guest requirement,” then I’d be like, “This isn’t a right fit,” and I cancel their appointment. I’ve had them push back on me and be upset about it. I was like, “I know the conversation is not going to go in a good way because that’s an indicator of mindset.”

I am glad you put that inwards. It’s important to have those conversations.

I don’t want to take the time to have a pre-call with people because it’s not my thing. I’d rather have this spur-of-the-moment conversation. I’m researching and prepping anyway. It’s not like they’re new to me. I don’t want to do it. It’s not a part of my time commitment to podcasting. That’s too much. Some people can get that in the pre-call if that’s what they choose to do. You’ll get this understanding that’s what matters to them, and you can make your decision then and decide it’s not a right fit.

I love that’s where you go. You’re like, “I don’t even have to worry. I’m going to have guests. It’s going to happen. They’re going to flow.” That’s so great. What about listeners? We already talked about not focusing on the fact that I needed to have a big number here. I love your focus, but you got to do something to help grow that. You have to be advising your clients that there’s something that they can do to grow that. What is the number one thing you go to as the easiest thing to grow listeners from the start? One easy thing where it doesn’t feel burdensome to me.

This is probably one of my very favorite questions because I am all about authentic connections. There are all kinds of ways to buy listeners. If you’ve got the money and resources, you can get 10,000 downloads in an episode, no problem because you can pay for it. That was never my purpose or my desire and I don’t work with clients like that. Our number one downloaded episode on our podcast is 10 Ways to Authentically Connect with Your Podcast Audience because that is the talk that we gave at Podfest Expo on the keynote stage.

We taught a course on it in our membership group because that’s what people are interested in. That’s the way you’re going to grow your business. You’re going to grow your brand is those authentic connections. It’s going to be a little bit of a different answer for everybody, but it’s how are you going to most authentically connect with each listener and love on that listener. For us, having a very active, involved, and engaged Facebook group and membership group has been a beautiful, organic, and authentic growth.

It is so wonderful for us because we know every episode we do, meets the need of our audience because we are constantly engaging with them. We’ve got a membership group, and we’re talking to our members all the time. We’re constantly going live in our Facebook group talking to people, “What are your current needs? What are you currently worried about?” We’re not one of those podcasters shouting into the void wondering if anybody listens because we are constantly engaging with our audience. That’s what has worked for us.

Other people have other things that work for them. You mentioned live meetups. If you have a podcast that has a good local focus, do live meetups, get people on there, go record remotely at a location, and watch the magic that happens. We did that. The third podcast that we’re going to be launching shortly is one of those where we go to somebody’s location and interview on location. The magic that has happened, can I even begin to tell you? We recorded at a local wine bar and a winemaker happened to be there that day when we were recording. The wine bar owner was like, “Do you want to talk to Aaron? He’s here. He’s the winemaker of the wine we’re drinking now.” I’m like, “Yeah. Let’s bring him on.”

The connections, the magic, and when you have those local connections, you have this gorgeous growth. One of the people in our community is so excited. His podcast got 357 downloads on this 1 episode that he did with his high school teacher. The high school teacher is a beloved member of the local community. Because of that, his episode had three times the downloads as normal because it was local, beloved, shared more, and meaningful.

It’s going to be a little bit of a different specific answer for everybody, but the question is, “How can you authentically connect with the people that are listening to you?” You grow super fans and then those super fans share with other people that become super fans. It may not be an overnight explosion. You may not be the overnight sensation, but you will grow.

I’m glad you said this now, Tiphany, because this is a perfect time for me to interject with your binge factor for your show. This is exactly that super fan growth, our binge listeners is what they are. Even if they’re not going to binge-listen to your show, they’ll introduce them to somebody they think will because that’s how they’re in the greatest service out in the world. The super focus you have on the listening experience and being authentic with what you’ve built into your show is something I call accessibility.

You made it seem like you were accessible to me, the listener. If I messaged you, you were going to answer. If I joined your community, you were going to care about me. If I listened to your show, you’re showing such extreme care and you’re going to anticipate what I need next. That’s an amazing feat that you created this intimacy and accessibility in your show. Your binge factor for both Mastering the Podcaster Mindset and Radical Audacity in Love & Life is there’s this intimacy that you have with your audience that comes across to the point where I want to share your show and be around to listen to the next show.

I’m going to subscribe, binge-listen, and I’m going to share it with someone I think needs it and then value it. That’s an amazing factor that you’ve already built in. It is something only you could put in because it’s authentically who you are at the core of it. You’ve managed to make that passion, excitement, and accessibility of who you are as a person come across the microphone. That’s not an easy thing to do, and you’ve done that.

It’s very emotional to hear you say that because it is important to me and the fact that it does come through. Thank you.

Congratulations then because you’ve achieved your goal if you had an intention at the core to do that. It has happened. It is in the show. It’s apparent. That, to me, is sometimes there’s such the radio people, the people who are broadcasters. It’s not authentic in the way that they approach podcasting. They don’t understand the ability to make that intimacy occur.

It’s a little bit of a disservice because podcasting is such an intimate form. Sound waves move things.

They do. You feel with your ears. We say this again and again. Malcolm Gladwell said it on the Colbert Show early on when he asked him, “Why did you start a podcast when you’re this bestselling author?” “It’s because you feel with your ears,” and it’s true.

It hits you on the cellular level. We’ve all seen those experiments where sound waves move grains of sand into these beautiful patterns.

They can make you sick. We’ve heard it the opposite. It can be manipulated.

To me, it is a gift. We all know how time is precious. If you are choosing to spend your precious time with my voice in your ears, that is an honor. That is a gift that I need to respect. If you then take the next step to reach out to me, that’s effort. Heck yes I am responding to you. You took the effort to join my community, DM me and message me. To me, that is an honor. Your precious time and energy you are directing at me, I definitely have so much respect for that. I will respond to you.

I love that you say that. I feel that is missing in a lot of overly professional and produced shows. That’s why those independent podcasters have such a great opportunity and I know you do too. Let’s talk about that last question I ask everybody about their monetization model. You thought you were going to be a divorce coach and find love after divorce. That’s a beautiful thing, but it totally went a different way. People’s monetization models need to shift over time. What have you found to be the best monetization model in the past, and what are you going to focus on next year?

We focus with all of our students on creative ways to monetize because when you have a small show. That classic monetizes with ads is probably not going to work. It definitely won’t work.

I did a 90-minute workshop on why that’s probably not in your future and what you should do instead.

We can’t talk about it for hours. I turned on a popular podcast. I kid you not, five minutes of ads in the beginning. I turned it off. I don’t care how great your message is. I don’t want five minutes of ads in the beginning. That’s not the podcast I want to have. Ads are 100% not the way I’m going to go. Will I maybe in the future have 1 or 2 aligned ads in? If it’s aligned and feels good, sure, but that’s not my monetization model. My podcasting model, in general, is connecting with people.

That’s been our monetization. We talk about creative ways for podcasters to monetize when they have a small podcast. For us, the number one way is creating courses, memberships, and masterminds. It’s a beautiful way to monetize your podcast. That is exactly what happened to us. My first podcast was monetized before we had 1,000 downloads because people were saying, “How are you doing this podcast?” I had 30 or 40 people take my $25 class. I monetized in the first month.

You could have charged more, but I’m glad you didn’t.

I haven’t charged for anything before. I worked for a school district. There’s a whole money mindset there your entire life and you’re handed ten paychecks a year that are barely enough to survive. That’s what it is. You’re not supposed to want money or ask for money because you’re a public servant. You want to talk money mindset stuff, Tracy, we’ve had to work their stuff. It’s my favorite subject to talk about because it’s so deep and rich.

Anyway, for us, we have a membership group. We teach courses, but you asked for the next year. What has happened to us is we realized that our niche is being the bridge between podcasters and companies that offer services for podcasters. These companies are great at what they do. We work with Hindenburg now. They’re recording and editing software. It’s called a DAW, Digital Audio Workstation. They’re amazing, but they didn’t know how to educate people about how amazing they are. I can create a course and teach people in my sleep. I love doing it.

David for tech and audio can talk about it for trillions of hours, so us combined, we can teach people about your products and that’s what we’re doing. We are currently in the beta for a certification program to certify people on how to be Hindenburg editors, so they can be Hindenburg certified editors. This is so exciting to us. We’re going to keep helping people launch their podcasts. We’re taking that course down once a year. We’re keeping our membership because we love that connection and the DIY podcaster, but now we get to be this bridge between the podcaster and these incredible products. Here’s the secret for everybody who’s reading.

Every single company out there that creates some amazing product also creates a problem. They have this great product, but it creates a problem. Hindenburg has this amazing product and the problem is people don’t know how to use it. It’s a little bit different than every other digital audio workstation out there. It’s revolutionary and people aren’t quite sure how to use it. We’re like, “We can teach and certify them.” When we certify them, we are helping them build their business. Our beta group now is podcast managers. We’re working with somebody who teaches people how to be podcast managers. We’re working with our group, and we’re beta-testing this in her group.

We get to help these podcast managers build their businesses. Many of them are moms with small children working out of their homes. They maybe need 5 or 6 podcasts that they can run. We get to help them build their business because we get to help them feel confident in their editing skills. They get to put on their resume that they’re certified editors. It’s this beautiful symbiotic relationship.

We’re working with a couple of companies where we’re going to be their certification company. It’s an exciting time for us. As I’m telling you this, I almost want to throw up because it’s scary. There’s so much unknown. Were building the plane as we fly. It is utterly terrifying. It is the most fun and probably the least sleep I’ve ever had.

That’s always a good thing. It’s hard to live on that edge of everything, but I always find that edge actually energizing. That’s when I know I’m onto something. It’s good. I’m glad and happy for watching the two of you. I’m excited to have someone else local. I feel bad because I have 1,000 clients and 99.9% of them are elsewhere in the country. I know there’s a whole bunch of people right around here that are podcasting and thinking about it, but they don’t even know about me and I don’t even know them. I could be serving them.

I could have them on my show. I would love to, and you’ve made that connection possible, so I’m glad you took the leap and did that. The biggest piece of advice, I want to make sure that you’re teaching something here and sharing it with the community. I can say that the questions that they ask are maybe not the right questions. What do you wish they would ask so that you could give them this answer? That’s what I would love to hear as your final tip to everyone.

My final tip to everybody is to do the thing you’re afraid of. As long as your life is not in danger, do the thing you’re afraid of because that is where the growth happens. That’s where the magic happens. Reach out to the person that scares you a little bit. Reach out, stretch yourself, and do that thing. If many people that are listening to you are already podcasters, how can you grow it? How can you change it? How can you stretch yourself? If you’re comfortable where you’re at, you’re probably not growing.

They’re probably bored, which is a big podfade issue.

Is it, “Let’s rebrand and go in a different direction?” Is it, “Let’s work with a company to grow our SEO and make us a more robust, viable brand?” Is it starting another podcast to talk about a different subject? Is it starting to reach out to people that scare me a little bit? You got I feel are somehow out of my comfort zone in some way, which usually ends up like people, “We’re equals. What’s your deal?” Reach out and do the thing that scares you a little bit because that’s where the magic happens. That’s where the growth happens and what keeps you feeling alive.

Thank you, Tiphany, so much for all that you bring to the podcasting world and what you bring to your podcast and your show. Mastering the Podcaster Mindset is a must-listen.

Thank you so much, and we’re on Podetize.

Thank you. I’m glad.

—

I hope that my excitement for meeting Tiphany and getting to know her and David Sais comes across in this episode. I hope that came across because there’s going to be some beautiful collaboration that we’re going to be working on in the future. I love this model of diving in and getting that hands-on approach from a coaching perspective. It’s so needed. There are a lot of you podcasters out there who can’t get started because there’s something holding you back.

Sometimes it’s the mindset, equipment and technology. Sometimes it’s needing to have someone to bounce ideas off of. That’s why these group programs are a great way to get inspired, hold yourself accountable, grow, do what you need to do, and get committed to podcasting. Make sure you reach out to Tiphany. Connect with her on LinkedIn and social media everywhere.

Make sure to do that because they’re generous with their information, and they are so happy to welcome you into their community. You’re going to want to join that as well as listen to Mastering the Podcaster Mindset for yet another perspective on podcasting. Make sure to check that out, and I know I will be bringing Tiphany Kane back again to talk to you some more in the near future. Thanks, everyone, for reading. I’ll be back next time with another podcaster perspective and some more podcasting mindset here on The Binge Factor.

Important Links

• Feed Your Brand
• Mastering the Podcaster Mindset
• KaSa Media Productions
• Radical Audacity in Love & Life
• Podetize
• She Podcast LIVE

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