00;00;01;05 – 00;00;20;23
Anika
Welcome to Your Brand Amplified the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. I’m very excited to be back for another week of Your Brand Amplified with Sarah St. John the Frugalpreneur. Welcome to the show.

00;00;21;20 – 00;00;23;27
Sarah St. John
Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

00;00;24;08 – 00;00;52;21
Anika
Absolutely. Now, I don’t know your whole story, but I’d love for you to share as much as you want. I can say that your podcast really resonates with me, the whole idea of the frugalpreneur, because most of my entrepreneurial journeys have been bootstrapped and started with zero or, you know, me in like some situation where I’m like, OK, I’m going to do this, this, and then I’ll put the money into this so that I can actually build up my own business.

00;00;53;05 – 00;01;19;28
Sarah St. John
Oh, yeah. So I would say, well, I’ve always kind of had an entrepreneurial mindset, I guess. Like when I was a kid, I would take things that I would get for free, like, you know, pencils and candy and sell them to friends. But I didn’t really realize that it wasn’t until like 2008 that I actually realized that I had an entrepreneurial mindset going all the way back then.

00;01;20;27 – 00;01;44;27
Sarah St. John
I had actually had six different jobs that year, not at the same time, but throughout the course of the year and realized I think I want to work for myself. And so the first thing I started was a photography business, but I realized that just the expense to maintain and upkeep like equipment and lighting and software and all that stuff.

00;01;44;27 – 00;02;14;08
Sarah St. John
Plus I was doing weddings and portraits because that’s where the money is when you’re first starting out. But I like taking photos of like animals, architecture, landscapes, not people. So then I decided to try to do something online and but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. So I tried a bunch different things like drop shipping, affiliate marketing, blogging, on demand T-shirt printing, all this different stuff.

00;02;15;07 – 00;02;46;06
Sarah St. John
And it was kind of in that process that I discovered, like all these free or really affordable tools, resources and software that people could run an online business on a budget. And so I got the idea to write a book called “Frugalpreneur” about the different online business models and how to run them on a budget. And then while I was writing that book, I got the idea to launch the podcast also called Frugalpreneur, and it was just going to be like ten episodes to help kind of promote the book.

00;02;46;23 – 00;03;11;17
Sarah St. John
But I was getting more leverage and traction with the podcast and the book. And so I kept kept the podcast going. I’ve been doing it for like three years now. I think about 150 or so episodes, and I just loved the networking and connections and everything. And so but yeah, so I took over a decade of trying a bunch of different things before I figured out that podcasting was my thing.

00;03;12;01 – 00;03;33;09
Anika
Yeah, well, and I think that is the entrepreneurial journey is if you have that spirit you’re going to do. I’ve had very disparate businesses, right? And that’s what you do. You kind of go, okay, maybe this, maybe that. And on one hand somebody could call it shiny object syndrome, but on the other hand I’m like, No, that’s not what it is.

00;03;33;09 – 00;03;45;28
Anika
Because if you have this in your blood, you’re going to keep trying and trying and trying until you find that thing that really, like, sets you on fire and that resonates and that you can turn into a great business for yourself.

00;03;46;09 – 00;04;10;02
Sarah St. John
Mm hmm. Yeah. I think sometimes I call it shiny object syndrome, but it might be more like- I mean, if you find something that you’re good at and successful and then you start looking around at other stuff, that would definitely, I would think be true. But whereas my situation was more like just trying different things that I had heard of, but the issue was I wasn’t passionate about it.

00;04;10;03 – 00;04;28;09
Sarah St. John
It was more, I would say, transactional or trying to make money. Like drop shipping like just finding a way to make money online. But then that’s why I didn’t stick with them because there wasn’t that passion there. So that.

00;04;28;09 – 00;04;43;23
Anika
Makes sense. Well, and so now you have a podcast that’s been around for three years. As you said, you have great episodes. I’ve been listening to several of them, and then you have your book and then you also now help other people start podcasts.

00;04;44;00 – 00;05;14;02
Sarah St. John
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I have my own podcast production agency now, which so it’s kind of funny because I started the podcast in 2019. I didn’t even start listening to podcasts until maybe a year or something before that because I’m more of a music listener in general. So like when I’m driving, if there’s not a song, like if it goes to a commercial or the deejay, I switch.

00;05;14;13 – 00;05;35;08
Sarah St. John
So when people would say, Oh, you should check out this podcast or that podcast or whatever and be like, I don’t like people talking on radio, so I don’t think I would like a podcast. But then there were a few that I had heard about that like really interested me. So I tried them out and then I got hooked and I’m subscribed like 30 different shows, and so yeah.

00;05;35;08 – 00;05;59;12
Sarah St. John
What I love about podcasting is that I mean, some of them have ads in them, but for the most part they don’t, but, or they’re not as long, but at least all the content is niche down and you know, to whatever topic that you’re interested in versus a DJ talking about anything and everything. And so I guess where was I going with it?

00;05;59;13 – 00;06;13;02
Sarah St. John
Well, so I just started listening to podcasts not long before I started my own. And then once I started my own, then I really got into it and I was producing my own show. I figured, why not get paid to do it for other people?

00;06;13;08 – 00;06;14;10
Anika
Yeah, exactly.

00;06;15;03 – 00;06;29;29
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So I started doing that and it’s actually it’s like post-production, but also like marketing, coaching, monetization, like stuff like that as well. Not just the editing part of it, but yeah.

00;06;29;29 – 00;06;49;28
Anika
Yeah. Well, and I think that’s something that’s important for people to think about, for and for any online business, right? Because podcast is essentially an online business, but there are resources out there, but you have to figure out which ones are the right ones for you and the right fit for you. And you have to figure out it’s like any product.

00;06;50;09 – 00;07;16;22
Anika
It’s not just you release it to the world and you hope that somebody listens to it or you really sit and think, OK, everybody is going to hear it now. I mean, my partner, he is in the film business and he’s an editor and he’s done different projects and he’s like, Oh, I didn’t really realize how important marketing and PR is to start from the beginning of a project until we started dating because, you know, he as a creative, he was just thinking, Oh, I’m just going to create this product and it’s going to go out there and it’ll be great.

00;07;17;02 – 00;07;41;22
Anika
But no, you have to have all of those elements that you said who you’re marketing it to, who is your audience, how are you marketing it? You know, making sure you have the right music or the right fit and the right flow for each individual podcast and podcaster and their personality and package that together. So what are some of the things that you would share with somebody if they were wanting to start a podcast?

00;07;43;29 – 00;07;53;29
Sarah St. John
As far as like how to get started, just the basics or kind of, I guess, what to think about as far as just-

00;07;54;13 – 00;08;14;23
Anika
I guess a part A and a Part B, right? Like, start- you know. How do you pick a topic or how do you decide what you’re going to speak about? Are you going to interview people? Are you going to, you know, do are you just going to talk the whole time? I mean, I know there are so many different kinds of podcasts it can get overwhelming to figure out, yeah.

00;08;14;23 – 00;08;24;28
Anika
That and then how do you then transition to figuring out, OK, how do I do this thing besides going to your website?

00;08;24;28 – 00;09;14;19
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So I mean, definitely find a topic and the niche down as much as you can because I know there are some people out there like Joe Rogan, for example, who have a podcast on everything, you know, but that for the most part that doesn’t work for the average person or business owner. So definitely niche down. Like, for example, my podcast is a business podcast or an entrepreneurship podcast, but it’s niche down even more and that it’s like frugal entrepreneurship and then as far as like a title for your podcast, I definitely like, OK, so I wouldn’t normally suggest something cute, you know, whereas my it’s kind of cute, I guess, but it’s very obvious

00;09;14;19 – 00;09;39;10
Sarah St. John
what it’s about, like Frugalpreneur. That’s pretty obvious, but I do have a kind of a tag line under it just in case called building a business on a bootstrap budget. And so it’s pretty clear what it’s about. But also I don’t recommend someone like having their name in the title. I mean, you could say what the title is with so and so like mine’s Frugalpreneur with Sarah St. John.

00;09;39;24 – 00;10;00;15
Sarah St. John
But if you were to, like, if I were to have the Sarah St. John show, all that kind of sounds cool because of the alliteration. It’s like that’s not going to really go anywhere because no one knows who that is. Like if you’re Oprah, yeah, you can have Oprah. The Oprah show or whatever, but for the average person, I wouldn’t recommend like your title being your name.

00;10;01;04 – 00;10;32;10
Sarah St. John
And then yeah, definitely cover art that really pops in is simple. But like colorful. And then as far as what kind of format, I mean, I guess it depends on what your goal is with the podcast because you could do a solo podcast was just, you talking and usually those episodes would be shorter. You could do interview style, which is the most common, I think.

00;10;34;00 – 00;10;58;28
Sarah St. John
And the thing that’s nice about interview style is you’re connecting with people, networking, you know, a lot of people use a podcast, at least if they’re using it for business, they’re using it as a way to get to know people and get clients and things like that. Or, you know, that person might know somebody and they might, you know, just kind of the networking.

00;11;00;08 – 00;11;28;26
Sarah St. John
So interview podcasts are really good for that. But there are so many out there. So I personally recommend doing a little bit of both during the interview and solo episodes. I’m trying to do more of that. I haven’t done a whole lot of solo episodes lately, but I’m trying to kind of mix it up more and, and then there’s also like a panel or well, actually, you know, the next one would be like co-hosting where it’s like two hosts.

00;11;29;02 – 00;11;52;28
Sarah St. John
Or a panel where it’s like three or more. Or maybe they invite a guest on and there’s like two hosts or something like that. So there’s all kinds of different ways to do it. And then, yeah, to get started, I mean, I recommend- so the mic that I have is called an ATR-2100. It was under $100.

00;11;52;28 – 00;12;28;16
Sarah St. John
It was like $60 or 80 or something. So I recommend I mean, you could start out with like Apple earbuds or whatever if you have like no budget whatsoever, but if you have $100 budget, you could easily get a mic. There’s also the Samson Q2U which is about the same price. And then- and they’re USB mics, so they plug right into the computer and then really the only other expense at first would be the hosting.

00;12;30;04 – 00;12;49;03
Sarah St. John
You can get free hosting through like Anchor, but I recommend Captivate. That’s what I use. It’s like $19 a month. Most are $5 to $20 a month, most hosting companies. So those are kind of a few things like if you’re just starting out, what to think about.

00;12;50;14 – 00;13;07;15
Anika
Yeah. Well and for your podcast, did it evolve over time? Because I know when I started this line I was like, I’m going to ask five questions. I’m going to give a really short I’m only going to interview like other PR people or other marketing people. And then I was like, This doesn’t really feel like what I want to do.

00;13;07;22 – 00;13;30;03
Anika
So then I started expanding it and you know, really I want to make sure it adds value. So people are still talking about ways to do marketing for your business, but it’s expanding to like lead gen or making sure your LinkedIn profile’s good or maybe you should have a podcast to help promote your business. Right. So it really evolved over time.

00;13;30;03 – 00;13;50;18
Anika
And, and I started being more regular with it and I’m still a newbie compared to you. I’ve done other stuff. Like I had a radio and Facebook show in Houston a few years ago. We were what you would call “panel style”, which would sometimes get like if people, you know, we people would accidentally talk over each other asking questions to the guest.

00;13;50;19 – 00;14;02;27
Anika
They got a little like, you know, angsty sometimes. But when you started, did you know, like exactly what your podcast was going to be and kind of the format and how you want it to flow?

00;14;02;27 – 00;14;07;17
Sarah St. John
Yeah, so for well, first of all, are you in Houston? Are you still in Houston?

00;14;07;18 – 00;14;11;16
Anika
I am not in Houston. I know many people there. I’m now in California.

00;14;11;17 – 00;14;38;10
Sarah St. John
Oh, OK. I was going to say I’m in Dallas, so not too far, but. Oh, well, so when I started my podcast with the intention of it just being another promotional method with the book, what I did was I interviewed like the CEOs or someone within the company of like the different software programs that I use that were free and so that was kind of how I started.

00;14;38;11 – 00;15;14;06
Sarah St. John
But then once I kept going with it, I interviewed different people that I- there’s different entrepreneurs that I admired and followed that were within certain niches like affiliate marketing or podcasting or self-publishing or whatever it is. And then I kind of- so it’s like every year it’s there’s kind of a slight pivot, not intentional. It just kind of happens well, I mean, at a certain point I make that decision, but it’s not like I set out from the get go.

00;15;14;12 – 00;15;16;28
Anika
Yeah, like here’s what I’m going to do. This you’re sure I’m going to do this? Yeah.

00;15;17;09 – 00;15;46;06
Sarah St. John
Right. And so then, then the next year I did interviewing people who start a business with under $1,000 and then bootstrapped it to at least a million not per year, but like total without any outside capital or loans credit or any of that kind of stuff, but like bootstrapped it. And I think so far those have been the most successful episodes.

00;15;46;06 – 00;16;13;19
Sarah St. John
Those people are. I like listening to those. Yeah, I like some people even starting with no money or under $100 and then bootstrapping up to multiple millions. But so I did some episodes like that and then let’s see, I’m wanting to do- Well, I’ve interviewed one person so far that was on Shark Tank and got a deal.

00;16;15;00 – 00;16;25;15
Sarah St. John
But I’m wanting to interview more of those because I just think that’s interesting. And then what else I’m wanting to do, like a Kid Preneur Series.

00;16;25;18 – 00;16;26;12
Anika
Oh, fun.

00;16;26;21 – 00;16;55;28
Sarah St. John
So it’s kind of like I have the general podcast, but then I like to do like these little series. Like, you know, I wanted to do a Shark Tank series, which I only have one episode of that so far. So it’s not really a series, I guess, but and then I’d like to do a Kid Preneur one, and then of course I did the Bootstrap one, and then yeah, so it kind of like the type of people I interview is a little different from-

00;16;55;28 – 00;17;01;06
Anika
Yeah. It evolves, but that also helps your audience to learn new things as well.

00;17;01;16 – 00;17;02;01
Sarah St. John
Mm Hmm.

00;17;02;15 – 00;17;28;23
Anika
So especially, I think as a small business or an entrepreneur, a lot of times you don’t have you can’t get outside funding, you don’t have credit built up in your company. You can’t get loans, you can’t get outside funding. So knowing those things from that series that you did is really important. I mean, it speaks exactly to who you are, the Frugalpreneur and how you can successfully bootstrap and the things that you need to look out for.

00;17;28;23 – 00;17;47;25
Anika
And there are so many things when I was doing my business, when I started getting more success, you know, then I would make wild decisions like I’m going to provide benefits or I’m going to make everybody employees, even though they live in five different states. Not really. Like I didn’t have that person next to me that was like, you know, that’s probably not what you should do right now.

00;17;47;25 – 00;18;11;24
Anika
Let’s just do our projections. Let’s think about this you know, and let’s like maybe pivot that a little bit, put more investment in here in the business and then get there down the road. But I was like, so excited. And I just wanted to give like everything I could out of the gate. And I think sometimes it’s good to hear other people’s stories and be able to take a step back, right?

00;18;12;16 – 00;18;39;12
Sarah St. John
Yeah. Yeah. I mean everyone I guess has their own approach and their own- Like maybe if someone has a whole bunch of savings built up or maybe they have a spouse that can fully provide or you know, something like that, then maybe they can take some more risks and spend some more money here or there or whatever. But yeah, I, if someone at least is doing an online business, I just feel like it can be done.

00;18;39;12 – 00;18;59;17
Sarah St. John
So affordably because there’s hardly any overhead as far as like you don’t have a building or rent or utilities and all of that stuff. And so that’s just what I found. Like the profit margins are much higher with an online business and very little overhead.

00;18;59;17 – 00;19;02;11
Anika
And you have you’ve also done online courses.

00;19;03;01 – 00;19;23;13
Sarah St. John
So I’m working on one right now. It’s called Podcast Profit Pro. It’s on presale right now, but it’s basically it’s a podcasting course, but it’s not covering the intro basics. Like I do have a book called Podcastpreneur, which covers like basics, like Podcasting 101, basically.

00;19;25;13 – 00;19;53;18
Sarah St. John
But the course is going to be more about like if you already have a podcast, how to monetize it, how to get the right guests, how to get bigger guests, how to get on other shows, bigger shows, different like marketing techniques and like ads like within the podcast players and all, like so very a lot more detail.

00;19;53;18 – 00;19;57;26
Sarah St. John
And I would say like an intermediate level there.

00;19;58;00 – 00;20;02;11
Anika
Oh, cool. And so that’s on presale. When is it going to be like fully launched?

00;20;03;06 – 00;20;35;10
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So I’m so working on it. So that’s why I’m thinking the plan is it should be done by August. So this is May, I don’t know when this episode goes live, but we’re in May. And so the plan is August and I’m actually also working on a book that will kind of, I was going to say coincide with the course, but it’s not going to be nearly as because the course obviously is going to have screen shares and all kinds of stuff and like different PDFs and whatnot.

00;20;36;08 – 00;20;55;10
Sarah St. John
So it’s going to be more in depth, but there’s going to be some overlap of information. So I’m going to try to put both of those out around the same time and hopefully right before podcast movement, which is podcasting conference in Dallas this year where I live in August. And so yeah.

00;20;55;20 – 00;21;05;21
Anika
Nice. While this episode will be coming out in June, OK, so it’s a really great little promo spot. So talk it up, talk yourself off as much as you want.

00;21;06;12 – 00;21;11;11
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So PodcastProphetPro.com is the website.

00;21;11;19 – 00;21;41;29
Anika
Nice! I love that. You know, I love working with women or hearing women’s stories particularly who have bootstrapped their entrepreneurship. I’m there. I, you know, I’m a single mom. I’ve been like the highest high, the lowest low and everywhere in between. And so it’s really great to get these tips. And I am, for one, going to go back and listen to all those other episodes because I’ve been listening to some of your more recent ones but I think there’s always something new to learn.

00;21;42;25 – 00;22;01;08
Anika
And so speaking of when somebody decides to work with you, what are some of the things they know they can like? Do you have an intake form? Do you work with everybody? Are you you know, I know some people are like, no, I’m going to work with certain people. Like our certain niches because other ones might not fit.

00;22;01;21 – 00;22;42;17
Sarah St. John
Mm. Yeah. So I just work primarily with business owners you know, I’m not niche down as far as like certain types of businesses, but businesses in general versus like an entertainment podcast because that’s, that’s harder to do to get someone to monetize, first of all. And secondly, I mean, those tend to not always stick around and like plus they don’t usually have the budget because it’s like if it’s an entertainment podcast, they’re doing it kind of for fun and they’re not monetizing it.

00;22;42;17 – 00;23;10;21
Sarah St. John
It’s like how can they justify paying someone else to produce and all that stuff? And so yeah, definitely business owners who have a business who well, there’s kind of two tracks. There’s they already have a business and they want a podcast. Either they already have a podcast or they’re thinking about starting a podcast to help get more exposure and to promote their business.

00;23;10;21 – 00;23;43;19
Sarah St. John
And like I said earlier, where they could position it in such a way where their ideal client could be the guests on the podcast type thing, and then the other would be someone who doesn’t have a business yet, but they want to use the podcast as kind of like the launch pad. I guess to start the business or have a business around that, that’s a little more difficult than you know-

00;23;44;11 – 00;24;11;27
Sarah St. John
But yeah, so and then as far as like- so I have the production side of it where it’s like all the post-production, the editing and the show notes and transcriptions and the, the graphics and social media and all that stuff. Because I think one problem is so many people start a podcast but they only get about seven to ten episodes in and for the most like 90% or something.

00;24;11;27 – 00;24;37;12
Sarah St. John
A podcast. Oh, wow. Yeah, they “pod-fade” is the term after seven to ten episodes because and I think one of the big reasons for that is because they go in not really realizing the are the post-production and the time it takes because yeah, I mean for me it takes like you know, three to 4 hours post-production per like hour of recording.

00;24;38;13 – 00;25;14;06
Sarah St. John
And so, so there’s that side of it and then the marketing side of it the monetization side, I have like, it’s like four M’s. I just, I’m still updating my website to reflect this, but so it’s like the management side is the production. And then there’s marketing, monetization and matching. Which should be like the guest to host, like matching those up to the right shows and the right guest stuff is kind of all in one yeah.

00;25;14;06 – 00;25;46;10
Anika
You do it all. I applaud you because I can’t I would be lost if I didn’t have people helping me with some of those things. Like, I don’t create graphics. I don’t know how to use the editing software. Luckily, like I said, I have an editor boyfriend, so he slides it in for me. But what are some of the things and I don’t want you to give away all your secrets because I know people work with you and pay you for this but what are some easy tips and tricks that you would give to somebody?

00;25;46;17 – 00;26;16;20
Anika
So, OK, they’ve started their podcast, they got the equipment, they started doing recording. They’re now trying to figure out how to market and monetize it. So what are some things that you have seen, like really fail and then on the other side work really well for those like because I imagine, you know, finding the right advertisers or sponsors or what have you is not always easy, depending on what your topic is or how many downloads you have or does that stuff even matter?

00;26;17;17 – 00;26;27;10
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So on the monetization side, one big fail is merch. Like to have merch for your show.

00;26;27;15 – 00;26;28;21
Anika
Oh, OK.

00;26;30;05 – 00;26;38;01
Sarah St. John
That didn’t work at all, at least for me. I think that rarely works, but you know, like t shirts and whatever else. Your-

00;26;38;01 – 00;26;41;25
Anika
Hats, T-shirts. Yeah, yeah. Swag-

00;26;41;25 – 00;27;22;00
Anika
Unless it’s like a really huge show that everyone knows about, you know, as far as OK, so as far as sponsorships like you’d mention. So I think the average- so most places they operate on CPM, which is like cost per mille, which is a thousand. I mean you’re maybe you’d have to have about 50,000 downloads per month or per episode or per month for that to really make sense to go that route.

00;27;22;27 – 00;28;11;20
Sarah St. John
So like Joe Rogan, he’s getting millions of downloads so that makes sense because it’s only like, oh, what was the last I checked? Oh, I think it was like $15? $15-$40 is the range per thousand downloads. And so what I’ve actually done is instead of going that route, like I have approached companies directly and said and just put out a price and said like what it includes like I’m going to put this ad in the episode and it’s going to stay there, it’s not going to be replaced or asked to do like an email blast with the episode with like saying sponsored by so-and-so and then like the show notes and all

00;28;11;20 – 00;28;37;17
Sarah St. John
the stuff. And I’ve actually gotten a lot more sponsorships that way. Oh, cool. And I was doing that kind of like testing it out, but that’s still and unless you’re getting millions of downloads, that’s still not I mean, it’ll pay for your expenses and stuff like that, but it’s not going to pay your mortgage typically or anything like that.

00;28;39;20 – 00;29;14;05
Sarah St. John
So and that’s another reason I like to work with businesses because they always have some sort of product or service on the back end and so what I recommend if you have a product or service, is to actually create your own ads or talk about your own products and services because you’re going to end up making a lot more money talking about that you know, as a podcast listener, getting to know like and trust you over the course of however many episodes, and then maybe they need your products or services on point.

00;29;14;28 – 00;29;40;09
Sarah St. John
You’re probably going to make a lot more doing that than I mean, you can do both. I’ve kind of done a variety just kind of testing things out, but I definitely recommend that first and foremost. And then also affiliate marketing where that works pretty well. Like say you have someone on your show who maybe they have a software program or they have a book or something like that.

00;29;40;26 – 00;30;19;00
Sarah St. John
You could link to it in the show notes or reference it and like create a pretty link. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that or like a bit.ly. Yeah, like a URL shortener like get an affiliate link from them, assuming they have an affiliate or referral program, which most people do. And then, yeah. So that if someone buys something from them because of your episode, because of your show, then you’ll get a commission basically and then like with authors, Amazon has an affiliate program.

00;30;19;04 – 00;30;47;06
Sarah St. John
You could link to their book through Amazon with your link. It’s only like 2-3% or some 2-5%. It’s not much, but the nice thing about Amazon affiliate program is if say someone clicks the link of the book in your show notes, for example, even if they don’t buy that book, let’s say they buy a flat screen TV within 24 hours as long as they haven’t cleared their cookies, you’ll get commission on that.

00;30;47;10 – 00;30;48;00
Anika
Oh, wow. That’s good to know.

00;30;48;01 – 00;31;01;06
Sarah St. John
Yeah. So that’s really the only reason I recommend Amazon affiliate because the percentage you’re getting really isn’t that much. But like if they end up buying a whole bunch of stuff.

00;31;01;12 – 00;31;02;01
Anika
That can add up.

00;31;02;01 – 00;31;37;20
Sarah St. John
Yeah, yeah. It can add up. So. So yeah, I would say on the monetization side, that’s I would say talking about your own products and services, affiliate marketing where it makes sense like an author comes on, merch not so much. And then sponsorships, I would say, well, plus also if you do a sponsorship, make sure it’s with a company that makes sense to your audience.

00;31;38;29 – 00;32;10;15
Sarah St. John
Like, I don’t know. There’s a bunch of companies out there that put ads on all kinds of podcasts and it just doesn’t make sense. So it needs to make sense. Otherwise people are just going to get annoyed. And then as far as marketing goes, so podcast ads like ads within a podcast player, which not all players can do them that works really well.

00;32;11;02 – 00;32;32;06
Sarah St. John
As far as getting more listeners and followers and stuff, it can be expensive depending on which app you do it on I think it can range anywhere from like $99 on the low end to like $2,000. So, yeah.

00;32;32;06 – 00;32;45;26
Anika
It really depends on how big your budget is and what your goals are, right? And I like the fact that when you’re talking about monetizing your podcast, I think your main point was it’s really a marketing tool for you.

00;32;46;07 – 00;32;47;08
Sarah St. John
Right, exactly.

00;32;47;09 – 00;32;55;01
Anika
And foremost. So don’t look at it necessarily. You’re going to make money off of it, look at it as something that’s going to help you market your product your service, your business.

00;32;55;17 – 00;33;18;29
Sarah St. John
Yeah, exactly. It’s like a lot of people they want to monetize directly. And you can with sponsorships and things like that. But you’re going to make a lot more money with it being more of a marketing tool kind of like the front end of your sales funnel. Like that’s where people find out about you and whatnot.

00;33;18;29 – 00;33;21;17
Sarah St. John
So monetizing more on the back end is what I recommend.

00;33;21;21 – 00;33;28;23
Anika
Yeah. Nice. What continues to inspire and motivate you about helping other podcasters start their journey?

00;33;30;21 – 00;33;47;04
Sarah St. John
Oh, I mean, I just I just love the space. I feel like it’s continuing to grow and I mean, there’s tons of money being thrown at it. We know with like Joe Rogan, for example, I keep bringing him up just because he’s like, well, I’ll just- I don’t-

00;33;47;04 – 00;33;47;12
Anika
I’ll just say, yeah-

00;33;48;01 – 00;34;15;11
Sarah St. John
I don’t even listen to his show. I don’t think I’ve ever to listen to one, but it’s just that that’s the most popular or well known podcaster I guess, but yeah. So I mean, Spotify paid him I think one or $200 million. And then Spotify bought a bunch of apps like Anchor actually, and some others and then it’s just different.

00;34;16;13 – 00;34;53;04
Sarah St. John
And oh, Amazon has podcasts now, and Google. So like even if someone is searching in a Google search, they’re searching something, and a podcast episode could come up as a result. So I just love the, the direction it’s going that it’s becoming more mainstream because I mean, even when I first started listening to podcasts, you know, four or five years ago, I mean, I don’t know that I knew a whole lot of people listening to podcasts.

00;34;53;04 – 00;35;30;11
Sarah St. John
I felt like it’s really grown really quick, like because it’s been around since 2004 I believe, and between 2004 and 2019. So 15 years ago there was only 800,000 podcasts, but then between 2019 and 2020, it doubled. Then yeah, it’s like 1.6 and now I think it’s over 2 or 3 million, but of course some of those don’t last very long, but still it’s like, and so, but I love the fact that it’s almost kind of like a community.

00;35;30;11 – 00;35;58;06
Sarah St. John
I feel like. If like within the podcasting community, if it just feels like everyone’s tight knit, like even when it’s two companies that are like the same type of company, it doesn’t feel like competition. They like encourage each other and I just I don’t know, I love the networking aspect of it and the connections and making friends.

00;35;58;06 – 00;36;20;25
Sarah St. John
I’m actually going to a podcast conference this coming weekend. It’s going to be the first one I’ve ever gone to. It’s in Austin, so only like a three hour drive and like half of the speakers I already know only by online though. Like they’ve been on my show, I’ve been on their show or whatever, and so it’ll be nice to finally meet them in person.

00;36;20;25 – 00;36;38;13
Sarah St. John
But yeah, I think plus just the exposure that podcasting gives, especially a business owner and the reach and it’s almost like, well, I don’t know if I want to say this, but almost like a cult like thing it’s almost like.

00;36;38;13 – 00;36;41;00
Anika
Some of my favorite podcasts are about cults.

00;36;41;00 – 00;36;41;21
Sarah St. John
Oh, really?

00;36;41;21 – 00;36;45;07
Anika
Yeah. Or like people who left cults.

00;36;45;07 – 00;36;46;10
Sarah St. John
Oh, interesting.

00;36;46;10 – 00;36;46;23
Anika
Yeah.

00;36;47;20 – 00;37;05;07
Sarah St. John
Yeah. Most of the podcast I listen to our entrepreneurial, but some of ones like you’re talking about are like the true crime ones. They interest me, but I just don’t have I don’t have time or room for them on my like I literally don’t have room for them on my phone. Like my space is running out.

00;37;06;10 – 00;37;40;00
Anika
Yeah, well, to your point, like I usually like love listening to music in the car, but now I commute a few days a week and the commute is, you know, an hour, sometimes longer, depending on traffic and construction. So I have to have those podcasts qued up. And that’s been really awesome. And listening to different business podcasts or manifestation podcasts or like this one only because of again, like somebody else was like, oh, I’m doing a project on this cult. Here is a podcast episode that just came out on it.

00;37;40;07 – 00;37;47;27
Anika
And then I got hooked on like, Oh, let me dove into that world a little bit. So I think it’s interesting to see like what we figure out that we want to listen to, right?

00;37;48;17 – 00;37;54;01
Sarah St. John
And you know, how they always say there’s an app for that? Well, I feel like there’s a podcast for that.

00;37;54;21 – 00;37;56;29
Anika
Yeah, yeah, you need to trademark that.

00;37;58;00 – 00;37;59;07
Sarah St. John
Oh, I should.

00;37;59;08 – 00;38;00;08
Anika
Yeah, you totally should.

00;38;00;21 – 00;38;10;18
Sarah St. John
There’s a podcast for that. Oh, OK. Now I got an idea. Now I’m having shiny object syndrome because now I have ideas of like what that could be, but-

00;38;10;18 – 00;38;20;04
Anika
I think it goes really well with your brand and what you’re doing and how you’re helping people, you know, get to the next level and think about like what they would want to do for their podcast.

00;38;20;19 – 00;38;30;02
Sarah St. John
Huh? Yeah. You just gave me an idea for a podcast. I can actually call it “There’s a Podcast for That”. I don’t know. Well, we’ll see!

00;38;30;03 – 00;38;47;25
Anika
OK, well, we’ll have to stay in touch about that. I want to see where this goes. I know back on because one of the things I was thinking about doing is starting to bring brands on who want to talk through their brand strategy and do some of that as well. So it’s not just talking to experts and getting some of their case studies right, but then turning it on the head a little bit.

00;38;48;11 – 00;38;55;03
Anika
So and that’s you know, when you were talking about how you’ve kind of done these different series, it’s like, oh, yeah, that’s something I want to do, too.

00;38;55;17 – 00;39;19;02
Sarah St. John
So yeah, I love. Yeah. And the nice thing about podcast is you can technically do whatever you want. So I mean, even if you want to pivot, like some people end up changing the name of their podcast. Like they realize they’ve had so many episodes about a particular topic that or they’re more interested-

00;39;19;02 – 00;39;40;27
Sarah St. John
They’re kind of- Either their business is pivoting or their interest or whatever, and then they end up like changing, but they don’t. Well, I don’t know if we want to get off on that, but I was just going to say, you should keep the same RSS feed which is the feed that- so that you keep your followers and listeners and stuff.

00;39;42;06 – 00;39;52;21
Sarah St. John
But I’ve thought about doing that a couple times like more into podcasting, but I really like the whole Frugalpreneur and I love talking to-

00;39;52;21 – 00;39;53;09
Anika
Ah. You got to keep it.

00;39;53;17 – 00;39;53;29
Sarah St. John
Yeah.

00;39;55;09 – 00;39;58;15
Anika
I’m a fan. You got to keep. Yeah, I think there’s a lot to be learned there.

00;39;59;07 – 00;40;12;14
Sarah St. John
Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I love the fact I can talk to all kinds of business owners not just like not just podcasters, which is what it would be if it was just podcasters.

00;40;12;24 – 00;40;21;28
Anika
Awesome. So I know you have a couple of websites and ways for people to find you. What is your most highly recommended?

00;40;21;28 – 00;40;41;00
Sarah St. John
So I give away all three of my books, the PDF version for free, if anyone’s interested. And that’s at TheSarahStJohn.com/free. That’s Sarah with an H and then S-T-J-O-H-N. TheSarahStJohn.com because SarahStJohn was already taken so I had to- Oh well.

00;40;41;21 – 00;40;45;20
Anika
Well you are the official Sarah St. John. So.

00;40;45;20 – 00;41;12;25
Sarah St. John
And then yeah, if someone’s interested in like say they already have a podcast or they’re thinking about starting a podcast. The podcast agency that I have is podseam(P-O-D-S-E-A-M).com. That course I was talking about podcastprofitpro.com and then if someone wants to listen to the podcast they can just go to any podcast app and type in Frugalpreneur and it should pop up.

00;41;12;25 – 00;41;21;28
Anika
Awesome. And I’ll share these in the show notes so that everybody has access to the resources and can find you easily is there anything else that you’d want to share with our audience today?

00;41;23;09 – 00;41;47;12
Sarah St. John
Oh well I mean I guess a couple of just basic tips that I would give in general when it comes to business is, well in terms of the shiny object syndrome, that’s where we kind of talked about that, is to kind of recognize when it’s happening. And I think it’s OK to have that in the beginning when you’re trying to figure out what you’re wanting to do.

00;41;48;06 – 00;42;25;12
Sarah St. John
But like once you’re zoned in on something that’s actually working and then you find yourself like getting distracted I just recognize that and you know, because you imagine like a pie or a pizza or something. If you’re focusing 100% of your time, energy, money, even on one thing, you have 100%. But if you’re spending, if you have like ten slices and doing ten different things, then you can only dedicate 10% each thing.

00;42;25;24 – 00;42;47;07
Sarah St. John
So that’s just something I’ve had to learn over the years. And then I would also say the other thing to kind of watch out for is that we spend so much time learning, which is good. We need to learn with podcasts and courses and books and all this stuff. But if you don’t implement what you’re learning, then it’s pointless.

00;42;47;07 – 00;43;07;18
Sarah St. John
So you got to implement what you’re learning and also because if you’re learning all this stuff, when the time comes to actually need to implement it, you’re not even going to remember. So just learn what you need to learn for whatever stage you’re in and then implement it.

00;43;07;26 – 00;43;17;19
Anika
Nice. 100% agree with that. I have, yeah. There are so many projects and I’m like a little bit on the way and I’m like, I just need to sit down and do it.

00;43;18;02 – 00;43;19;05
Sarah St. John
Mmm. Mhm.

00;43;20;00 – 00;43;41;17
Anika
Well, awesome. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing a lot of knowledge on podcasts and entrepreneurship today with our audience and I’m going to go download some free resources myself right after this, and I can’t wait to see your next book and see what you do next. So thanks to our audience for coming back for another week of Your Brand Amplified.

00;43;41;17 – 00;43;51;23
Anika
I’m your host, Anika Jackson, and I’ll be back again next week. Want more? Check out AmplifyWithAnika.com or follow me on socials @AmplifyWithAnika.