When I started my podcast years ago, I did tons of research and actually landed on a podcast course from my amazing guest on the show today, Stefanie Gass! Stefanie is a Christian business and podcast coach, boundary boss, and multi-six-figure CEO. She helps women grow their online businesses and make money online using podcasting! She is the host of a top 20 globally ranked business podcast, Online Business for Christian Women. So I knew I just had to have her on to discuss her success journey in podcasting, how she found her specific niche and her thoughts about cutting certain social media platforms out of your marketing! You are going to want to listen to this more than once! 

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Niching Down & Starting Fuzzy

When Stefanie started, she began with a basic idea of what she wanted to do, but she admits it started out fuzzy. She knew that she wanted to teach women how to do sales and marketing, and eventually built a successful network marketing company using Facebook and doing lives. Just by being authentically herself, showing her life as a Mom, struggles and all, she started to attract a certain demographic while teaching something that was potent and intentional. Here she began her “Momprenuer Mastermind Show”, but when she started to bring her faith into the podcast, that’s when things really started to happen. 

“The true unlock happened in profitability, sales revenue, explosive growth, because now I was not just talking to anybody, I was talking extremely intentionally, to one specific woman with the same dreams, goals, visions, and plan on how she wanted to grow a business as me and we were fully aligned. And when she knew I was for her, that's when they buy! That's when people really connect and resonate with you. So that's how it happened. It was an evolution!”

As we can see, Stefanie really niched down into 3 levels of her podcast audience- from general sales and marketing, to marketing towards mothers in business, to specifically Christian moms. It’s so important to be in constant pursuit of asking “what’s my next level niche?” Asking yourself the right questions by analyzing your data, like most downloads and engagement, is a great way to start with what you have so you find find your place!

You Might Not See Instant Results

As entrepreneurs, and especially as mothers, we want the answers and to know exactly what we’re doing right away, but it might not start to get clear after several years into your business. It took Stefanie 3 years to really start seeing revenue and not just choosing the easy way that might work for others when it comes to sales. Another great question to ask yourself is “What is the number one problem that I solve for my person?” 

Listening to Leads and Your Offers

When Stefanie was at the heart of her podcast growth, she was asked by many listeners if she did coaching for other podcasts and businesses. By taking the leap to do so and getting feedback from them on what she was excelling at, eventually that led her to creating her first podcast course. Listening to your people is the absolute best way to find success in your business. But less is more when it comes to profitability from your podcast. You want to start with one clear quality offering! When you have multiple tiny offers, what you've done is dilute your sales because you've created confusion from your listener. They might be unsure of which one to pick and ultimately cause you to lose the sale, or not make any revenue on such a small priced offer. It’s okay if you don’t have an offer right away. Just be you, put out the work and trust that the offer is going to become clear. 

You Don’t Have to Be on Every Social Media Platform 

At this time Stefanie and her team are actually not on Instagram! They primarily use facebook, and I just had to know what prompted that choice and her biggest advice for podcasters when choosing what platforms to be on.

There was a time when Stefanie would spend 5+ hours a day creating content, posting and engaging with her community on instagram, because she felt that was important to her business. However, she also felt convicted about the time it was taking from other things, like her children. Then on a vacation with her family, her phone broke! This seemingly unfortunate situation turned out to be a game changer for Stefanie and would eventually catapult her into a 30 day social media break for her business. You would not believe that only posting episodes to her podcast (and not even sharing them!) would increase not only her downloads, but her revenue and email list too! So many more amazing things would come from this.

The main point is, to find what works for you! If you feel like a platform is taking your time in a way you don’t want it to, (when you could be making podcast episodes instead!) then you DON’T have to be on that platform. There's so much power in shifting your thinking from “This is how I have to do this and this is the only way to grow.” to asking “Do I want to be here? Am I called to be here and make an impact in this way?” Find what truly aligns with your business, values and goals and you will see things transform! 

So many mic drops in this episode! Head over to my instagram @itsjoannebolt and send me a DM with your biggest “aha!” moment from this episode and be sure to give Stefanie’s podcast a whirl here or her website here!

As always, remember your message does not have to be perfect. It is perfect for someone!

If you loved this episode, I just know you’ll want to check out Building Alignment in Your Business with Anna Nichols and But First, Coffee: My Pathway Into Podcasting