Adding Sponsors to Your Health-Focused Podcast with Bev Hampson

Profits Through Podcasting
Profits Through Podcasting
Adding Sponsors to Your Health-Focused Podcast with Bev Hampson
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How can health experts effectively monetize their podcasts without losing their authenticity? We’ll get the answers in this episode with Bev Hampson, a veteran media strategist who has dedicated over 10 years to helping women’s health podcasters increase their revenue streams. She is the founder of Category 3, a boutique media group dedicated to supporting voices in the alternative health and wellness industries

Bev uncovers the secrets to monetizing your health podcast, such as how to align sponsorships with your niche, understanding crucial metrics like monthly downloads, and exploring different types of ads. She shares her expert strategies for maintaining authenticity and building lasting brand partnerships to grow your audience and revenue. We’ll also learn some practices that she ensures all of her clients adhere to, such as consistency and appearing on other podcasts.

Today’s episode includes:

  • Why maintaining your podcast’s unique voice is crucial when incorporating sponsorships.
  • How to align sponsorships with your niche, particularly for health and wellness podcasts.
  • Why smaller “micro” podcasts are appealing to health brands.
  • Why consistency in publishing episodes is vital for audience growth and engagement.
  • How to build strong, lasting relationships with brands through collaborative promotions.
  • Why guest appearances and strategic follow-ups enhance podcast growth.
  • The importance of understanding a brand’s ecosystem for effective podcast monetization.
  • How Category 3 manages ad inventory to ensure consistent podcast growth.
  • Importance of humility and incremental improvement for podcast growth.
  • Strategies for turning a podcast’s passion into profit while maintaining authenticity.
  • Why you must have audience trust and engagement when securing long-term sponsorships.


Ready for a professional team help you produce quality podcast episodes so you can grow your business? Visit https://eastcoaststudio.com/apply.

 

Our LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eastcoaststudio/

Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecpodcaststudio/

Category 3: https://www.category3.ca/

Category 3 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/category3media/

View Unedited Podcast Transcript

Welcome to profits through podcasting, the show for entrepreneurs with health focused podcasts who want to monetize by generating leads. And profits for their business from podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver, CEO of east coast studio. As a podcaster and business owner growth is something that’s constantly on our minds.

You enjoy what you’re doing, but at the end of the day, you need your audience, your following, and your client base to grow. That’s one thing we’re going to discuss this episode. Today’s guest is a wealth of knowledge, and we are very fortunate to have her because she typically enjoys staying behind the scenes.

She has a humble online presence, but has worked on some very big projects with names you would definitely recognize. And currently runs a thriving business called category three media, which supports female health experts with a mission to enhance health and wellness for women aged 40 to 60. So they have indeed selected a niche. Uh, Beth Hampson is her name.

She’s a media strategist with over 10 years experience in the podcasting industry. Bev’s company specializes in monetization and strategic growth, helping podcasters and content creators. Turn their passions into successful sustainable businesses.

I’m

Thank you for having me.

so glad we’re able to do this because I guess we can share a little first about our story of meeting and perhaps your hesitancy and everyone’s going to see how cool you are and how full of knowledge you are. But we were introduced through a mutual client and I, in our meeting, I realized you have so much knowledge to share.

And I said, you’re just kind of hiding. You’ve got a great business, but you’re not really out there. And I would love to have you on as a podcast guest. And you were hesitant about it. And I said, well, let me leave it with you. And if you change your mind, let me know.

And here we are.

We’re going to hear lots of advice and expertise from you. Let’s start here. Would you say it’s accurate that most of your clients have businesses of their own, have a podcast and they are generating revenue through sponsorships as well?

And if not, please tell us who are the types of people you are working with.

Yes, So my clients, majority are podcasters. They are selling advertising. We are selling advertising on behalf of them. We not only do podcasting, but we also do social sponsorships as well as email and blogs. So we’re full ecosystem is what we call with our podcasters and health experts. Uh, we also have a handful of other media clients as well that have brands, and so we’re just doing affiliate management or promoting their brands as well to additional health experts and podcasters.

We also work with authors, so health expert authors, who have really engaging books on self help, guiding through health, issues, those sort of things. So we work with them as well.

Okay. What is say the most common or a couple or three, whatever you think the most common business model of these people say they say is it like coaching or are they selling a product or a service? Like what are they doing to monetize what they offer?

All of the above. I would say majority have some sort of program or coaching that they do. Some also have supplement companies so they’re promoting their supplements. Some are authors. So that is their, that’s their foundation is being an author, selling book rights, working with publishers.

So a little bit of everything.

Okay. Now, something I want to get into here is because you’re so much into the sponsorship side of things is there could be interesting opportunities here for the right people. Now, traditionally, as you know, with marketing and calls to action, we’re trying to keep it pretty straightforward, pretty clear and not have too many options for people.

So. When you think of someone with a business and a podcast, when you add sponsors into the mix, you have a new challenge to deal with because now in addition to asking people to come do business with, say this, this person we’re referring to this hypothetical person, you’ve also got the sponsorships.

Added on top of that. So traditionally could be maybe a bit of an issue, but not in the case of what you’re doing here. Like people are thriving, having both a business and then generating extra revenue through sponsorship. So I want to hear a little bit about how that is working and find out more, I suppose, about who this could be suitable for.

 I think what we’re kind of getting into is the authenticity of podcasting. So podcasting was a byproduct of a lot of these health experts. So they were already doing coaching programs. They were already having supplement companies or food companies or any of those areas. So podcasting was a way of awareness for them to bring audiences into those other areas.

areas of their business. And then after, as we know, podcasting can be a slow burn and it takes time to gain traction, it got to a point where What’s next? Do I keep doing this? Do I just keep promoting my own things? Oh no, I can actually promote other things. So that’s where over the years, and I’ve been working in this space for 10 years, is we’ve seen The transition from I’m only talking about my own things to I’m talking about affiliate brands, so affiliate obviously is, is our revenue share commission structure to I’m actually going to get paid up front to talk about a brand or something that I authentically love.

And that’s what I really like about, I specifically only work in the health and wellness space. And specifically, we work in the female health and wellness space. So we have audiences of women 40 to 60. We’re supporting in their thyroid, hormone, perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, cardio, weight loss for women over 40.

That’s a hard area to live in. So we have to live in a very authentic, organic space. We have to. find the marriage between the brands and the podcasters. So Home Depot can’t come and say, Hey, I really want to sponsor so and so’s podcast because we are trying to target women 40 to 60. That podcaster is probably not going to feel the marriage as much as maybe Home Depot wants it.

Um, and that’s not what we do. We. Are very niche. We’re very nuanced. We’re looking for a very specific products that are going to move the dial on women’s health and in how they transition through the next portion of their life. So as it came about, uh, sponsorships for those podcasters was never the, goal.

And I’m firm believer that when a podcaster starts a podcast, it’s not to make money. It’s to educate. It’s to share their knowledge. It’s to share their passion, their love for helping people, work with other podcasters, um, share books, share things that just make life kind of fun.

And sponsorships and making additional profit is just the icing on the cake.

Right. Yeah, we have a business. We’re trying to generate some kind of revenue there, but if you, if you’re trying to start a podcast specifically for money, that’s the wrong mindset, the wrong way to go about it. So this is a very interesting because I think what I’m learning here is the health and wellness space or specifically what you’re talking about here.

And I’m sure there’s others I would have to think about them, but some niches lend themselves very well. to this kind of model where let’s say a, a coach is selling a health service, as you described here, but of course, they’re also going to be talking about different products like a supplement or some other kind of product.

And it fits in really well to have has to be a fitting sponsor. But like you said, it’s not really intrusive in terms of their message. It compliments their message. So there could be various niches where that does make sense. And then some where it’s probably more difficult to fit that in, or it makes more sense for that person to sell all of their own stuff.

So this is interesting for anyone listening. That’s considering, Hey, maybe this could be for me. It would be niche specific to at least some extent. Would you say that’s accurate?

I would say too, if it’s something that a podcaster is thinking about doing, is to look in your kitchen. Look in your medicine cabinet. What are the things that you’re using that you already love? Right? And that’s the best way that you can sell a product, ? When you authentically believe and know that it’s working for you, as soon as a, a brand comes along that says, Oh, just talk about my stuff. it’s never going to hit the dial for that audience, right? And especially in health and wellness where your audience lives, breathes, and dies by what you’re saying as a health expert, as a podcaster.

When you say, this is the shampoo that I’m using. This is the skincare that I’m putting on my face. This is what I’m feeding my children. Your audience lives and breathes that. So you have to be so specific in the products that you want to endorse.

Your audience is here to, is, is in your space to see what you say and what you endorse and how you want them to move forward. So if you’re doing a financial podcast and you’re like, Hey, you should drink this coffee. Is it going to give me financial advice? I don’t know.

Yeah, absolutely. And you’re, you’re putting your reputation on the line when you endorse these types of things, you take these sponsorships on. So it’s no joke to just take whoever is going to give you money. It has to be a good match. And I think comes coming into play here is the data that we see that the host read style ads.

Can perform better than just an announcer voice. So you don’t know type thing. Like when you have that host of the show saying, Hey, I use this, the person that you’re listening to. And you trust, I literally use this every day and I love it. It’s very powerful. I don’t know if there is a more powerful method of, of advertising.

Is there right.

yeah, and like, and nothing to, incredible podcast platforms that do offer dynamic insertion, non host read ads, right. To help that podcast make money when you’re too busy.

 If that’s the goal of your podcast and that’s, you’re okay with that and your audience is okay with that, all the power to you. We specifically don’t do that we have to have the endorsement of that podcaster because the audience, they’re listening for content, but they’re listening for that host.

They want to know what that host thinks. They want to feel the passion and the excitement of that host. So, if any of our podcasters say, well, you know, is it possible to have somebody else do the ad? No, we don’t allow it. It’s not with the brands that we work with, and we work with somewhere around, 500 brands yearly on different podcasts because not everyone’s a good fit for all of our shows that we work with.

Those brands are used to having, a host endorsed read on their podcast. And so we want to make sure that they, they know that they’re getting that.

And so for anyone who’s not quite familiar with the terms here, so let’s make a distinction. So the dynamically inserted ads that Bev’s talking about here is let’s say you just have an ad spot open on your podcast and it gets filled with whatever could be based on region, your interest. You have no idea what it is and you might get a dollar or something for having that ad heard by a listener.

You’re not doing that. What you are doing is working directly with a company who is sponsoring a podcast and we’re, putting that in with the host reading it. So it’s not like up to chance, it’s very, intentional who gets to do this, who, like, what company is sponsoring who.

So, that’s, uh, an important note there on how this is all working.

I was going to go back to some of the terms that we use for sure and some of the things that we talk about is obviously baked in ads, which are historically incredible and wonderful. And we have two types of baked in ads, right? A lot of people don’t know that. We have our traditional baked in where you’re recording the episode and you naturally just do the ad right then and there.

We also have baked in as episodes recorded, and now your editor is going back and editing in. to your episode and then our more futuristic dynamic insertion ads where we’re uploading ads separately from our episode into our podcast platform and telling our ads which episodes to live on, which just gives us a little bit more flexibility as we go through the process.

Different types of editing and different types of advertising. We have our regular pre roll ads. We have mid roll ads. And then, in the last year or so, a lot of people, a lot of podcasters have become known with the term back catalog ads. So back catalogs are any episode that you have that’s older than a certain period of time.

You can actually go through, re edit those episodes, remove those podcast ads, and actually, resell them for more revenue and more profitability. Back catalog ads are something that I’ve been doing for about seven years. But it’s based on a catalog. So if you have 200, 300, 400 episodes, and especially if you didn’t do advertising for so many years into your show, go back and take a look at your metrics and see how much of your monthly downloads are actually coming from those older episodes. Chances are. There’s a good portion because we see a wonderful amount of binge listening in podcasting.

Somebody finds you for the first time, they want to hear every episode that you have on sleep, on nootropics, on supplements, on whatever. They’re going to go back through and listen to those episodes. So why not sell some advertising on them?

Yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah. You explained that very well.

 So we talked about the importance of a proper fit when it comes to working with a sponsor is the ability to get sponsors and bigger payments, largely also dependent on download numbers, audience size. What else would we be considering there if we’re Wanting to put our podcast out and try to get some sponsorship revenue.

Yeah, so the easiest way, obviously, if you want to control your advertising is to be thoughtful surrounding how many downloads you have. So we, as brands, we’re looking for monthly downloads versus your individual episode downloads in the first 30 days.

A lot of brands are looking outside of the podcast as well. So what is the campaign, right? So I get podcast, do I get a sponsored episode? When we talk about a sponsored episode. I’m using that term as if the brand would like to, to have a certain guest on your podcast and they are going to pay you for it.

So that’s what we would call a sponsored episode where the whole episode surrounds that brand. It’s more of an education, I call it an edu, edu sale, so an educational sale, uh, episode. So it’s not strictly about the brand. And it’s about. You know, if you’re working with a stationary bike company, you know, the episode should be surrounding, sprints, or cardio, or nothing to do with the actual bike.

The call to action for the bike is at the very end of the episode, after all the education has come. So we talk about sponsored episodes. Uh, part of that campaign would be what type of ads are we doing? Are we doing pre roll ads? Are we doing mid roll ads? Are we doing a back catalog ad? is there Social involved?

Is there email? Are we doing dedicated email sends to your audience for that brand as well? Do you have TikTok? Do you have YouTube? How do we create the most amount of traction for this brand? So that you create the best longevity partner. A longevity partner is, is a brand that stays with you forever.

hmm. Mm hmm.

Right? So they keep buying year over year over year. Right? And there’s something a lot of, a lot of podcasters will say, Well, you know, my audience is too small. Is it? Are you sure? Or are you assuming that your rates have to be so high in order to get that brand? Right? Brands are really in a great stage right now, especially in health and wellness where micro podcasts are the way to go because micro podcasts have this really wonderful, engaged audience.

 When you look at, for example, let’s take a really big podcast, maybe a million downloads a month, right? That’s, that’s a decent sized podcast, a million downloads. , and keeping in mind that at a million downloads a month, And it probably does like maybe two episodes a week.

Half of their downloads are from older episodes and half are probably from new. So a million a month is really not a million in new content a month, but there’s only a small percentage where they’re actually engaged. They’re actually listening. They’re actually doing the call to action.

They’re going to buy that product, right? In micro, micro podcasts, their audiences are. thoroughly involved in what that podcaster is talking about is bringing it to a real light. And micro podcasters usually don’t have a ton of brands. Their market is not as saturated. So what we’re seeing in health and wellness brands is that they’re more interested in those micro podcasters. Uh, because they’re going to see a better traction and a better ROI.

Now, would you have some kind of rough numbers to put on what would be considered a micropodcast versus something bigger?

 I mean, it’s always subjective, right? So I’ve worked on podcasts that have done two million downloads a month, that’s a decent sized podcast, but that’s also comes with longevity. So they have thousands of episodes because they’ve been around that long.

Some of the micro podcasters that we work with is anywhere from 20, 000 downloads a month to about 40. Those are kind of what we consider our micros. They’ve been at it for a little while, so they have nice traction, and they’re doing about two episodes a week. So, to kind of give an idea. So some people will say, well, I’m doing 30, 000 downloads a month, and I only have one episode a month.

That sounds awesome. Like, you have a great audience. And that’s why when we look at, profitability, and I talk about those numbers per episode in the first 30 days, Because your monthly numbers are so skewed between how many episodes you have in your back catalog, how many episodes you’re actually putting out a month.

So take a look at your first 30 days of one individual episode and see how well it’s doing. And then we also take a look at where.

Which shows are doing better? Is it solo shows? Is it interview based? What type of guest? Male versus female? So we take a look at those and we can kind of cater to, you can cater to your brands and offer a different advertising space based on your theme content. You know that you have a big guest coming up on your show.

Awesome. Let’s maximize that. You’re already kind of starting to do brand sponsorships. Great. Let your brands know that you have so and so coming up. That’s going to be a big episode. They’re going to want to be on it.

 I wouldn’t have guessed that the 20 to 40k range in

downloads is, is what’s called micro. So that’s interesting to know. Like, that’s,

subjective, right? Cause of, cause of the shows that I’ve worked on. Right. There’s also other shows, um, with brands that I work with and they’re doing a thousand a month, right? A thousand downloads a month. That’s great. From an agency, and I hate saying that I own an agency, it sounds really dirty.

Uh, but our boutique agency, right? We have to have a certain number of downloads in order for profitability for us as well as our podcaster. So if you are a podcaster and you say, yeah, I have a thousand downloads a month. I’m going to go sell my advertising. Cool. That is amazing, and you should absolutely do that.

Unfortunately, from a, from a boutique agency standpoint, there’s not enough margin there for both of us to make profitability from the time it takes to do a sale.

That makes sense. Yeah, for sure. And people, depending on their own business model, even, it’s gonna vary. How many listens or downloads that they would need to perhaps keep their own business afloat and their own lifestyle is going to come into play. Like, is it a solopreneurship or do they have an assistant or they have a team?

So yeah, it’s all, it’s all going to vary.

Exactly. So micro could mean so many different things to so many different people

 okay. We’ve covered the sponsorship stuff and we’ve had a little chat here about audience size and as you’ve said, it’s subjective. So there’s not a one size fits all in terms of what’s good.

Uh, most people who are podcasting, I presume would typically lean towards bigger is better, at least to some extent. But it’s not everything you don’t have to obsess over audience size, depending on your niche. You can have quite a sustainable business, maybe even sponsors with a relatively small audience or what you’re calling micro here, or perhaps smaller.

So maybe in some cases, just focusing on growing the show isn’t necessarily a good idea. investment of time, and in some cases it is. I just want to throw that initial thought out there before we dive in here a bit, but would you agree with something like that? Or do you have any thoughts to add to what I just said?

It’s almost like, uh, Instagram influencers, right? That pay for followers this is not a new phenomenon. It’s been around for a long time. There’s a lot of agencies out there that you can pay them X amount of dollars for X amount of followers so that you can inflate your numbers. But your views and your comments and your ROI don’t lie.

And we, we’re starting to see it in podcasting too, that it’s kind of happening a little bit too. And so we want to be, we want to be very clear about being authentic. Your numbers will grow. You will grow, but you have to stick with it.  This is a slow burn. People want something fast.

They want instant gratification. They want, I’m going to be a podcaster and I’m going to make a million dollars this year. No, you’re not. But could you? Absolutely. You absolutely could.

You just got to stick with it. Patience is key.

Yes, the, the patience, absolutely understanding that it is a slow burn is huge, but let’s say we want to keep people on the right track as well. So if you just say, just stick with it and you’ll be fine, it’s, it’s more than that. So let’s dive into that a little bit more. Let’s say someone has been podcasting for a while.

They’ve got a nice microphone, got their social media accounts. They’re talking to some guests, but they’re wondering, what do I really need to do here to grow? So. Or what steps should I take now so that in a year or two, if I keep this up, I’ve really made some progress or done what I can to help ensure that that happens.

Like my, my audiences increase and so on. What do we need to be thinking about?

From our perspective, guests. So we find the most organic way to grow a podcast is guesting. So having a wish list of which guests that you want on your show. What is their reach? What is their social following? What is their email list? Can they do a dedicated email send to promote your episode that you’ve been on with them?

 I have a rule with every single one of my clients. You must be on minimum five shows a month. A month, five shows a month, so I don’t care how busy you are, I don’t care if you’re writing the next, New York Times bestselling book, you are on five shows a month to keep yourself in search engine, to keep yourself up to date on other people’s podcasts and what they’re working on, how you can you collaborate together, can you do a collaborative post on social to promote the episode.

It’s our light lift is what I call it. It’s a light lift. Um, but having a wish list for being on other people’s shows and having them on your show. So podcast swaps, to create those relationships. Once we get into some brand sponsorship or even affiliate sponsorship, so you don’t even have to be at a stage where you’re making, upfront dollars on your podcast.

So we have two types, right? We call them pay to play. And that’s where. A brand is giving you X amount of dollars to talk about them, and then we have our affiliate, so that’s our revenue share, or you’ve talked about it, you’re going to get a cut of every sale that you’ve done. So, if you’re working with a brand, finding out what is their ecosystem, how big is their email list.

How many Instagram followers do they have? Are you doing, can you do collaborative posts with them? Can they promote you in their email list or whatever they have coming up, do they have a webinar coming up? Can you be a part of that? Those are things that are what I would consider a light lift.

They’re very engaging and they create the best relationships. So once you are at the point where you can charge X amount of dollars for an advertising, deal. Those are the people that you’re going to go to. They’re your lowest hanging fruit because you’ve already been working with them for so many years, so much time.

They’ve promoted you, you’ve promoted them on an affiliate basis, on a very mutual relationship basis. Now they’re ready to go the next step with you.

Makes sense. So yeah, one of your, your biggest tips there for growth is guesting both appearing on other shows and having the right guests on your podcast is a great way to connect with people.

Yeah, and making things easy for people. So you have a guest on your show. How easy is it after the fact to send them an email and to say, thank you. Thank you for being on my show. Here’s some video clips, right? These are what I’m going to post on my social.

Here’s the episode. Here’s the link. Here’s some resources that we talked about. Thank you so much. If you can promote this on your social tag me, let’s collaborate. Put this in your email. That would be awesome, right? And would mean the world to me. And those little notes Go a long way for a lot of brands and other podcasters.

Right. I’ve heard people even going to send physical letters or a little something special in the mail. So there’s there’s that possibility as well. But But

One of my favorite things ever, sorry to cut you off, one of my favorite things ever was I worked on a wonderful podcast and we used to have this really beautiful PR box This beautiful FedEx e mailer box that we would send them a couple things attributed to the brand of the podcast that we were working on.

It would have swag, it would have a handwritten card, it would have a couple different things. So not only is the podcaster, health expert, influencer getting this, they’re also like, this is beautiful. They would do an unboxing video, they would post it, what an all star podcast this is that I was just on, like, who does this?

Right? And then it alerts that podcaster’s audience that, oh man, I gotta be on that show. How do I get on that show? It was a labor of love, but it went the extra mile for people. And so, given, It can be expensive, and so if you’re not doing sponsorships, if you’re not bringing in dollars for your podcast, maybe you’re not there yet, but something for the future.

the sky’s the limit there. It’s good to be aware of what the possibilities are. And we can contrast that with, if you’re not doing anything and you have a guest on your podcast and you do no amount of follow up, you never email them, you’re just missing out on so much that you have to be following up.

You can’t expect them to come try to figure out when the episode is published and where, how to share it. You got to make it super easy.

Yeah, you want to be in their mind, because if you’re not doing a swap with them, maybe they have a podcast, or they have a large Instagram following, so maybe you can do an IG live. to promote the episode that you guys just had together or you’re going to go on theirs, they’re not going to remember you.

You want to be in the forefront of their mind. And a lot of the podcasters that I work with are actually authors. So guess what? We’ve got a book launch coming. We need to be on these shows, right? We need to know that these relationships are strong that you have with these other podcasters and you are at the forefront of their mind.

And as soon as they know that you have a book coming, they want you on their show.

Absolutely. So in keeping with the theme of growth here, let’s talk a bit about consistency, because this can be an issue for some podcasters, they just kind of throw an episode out here and there, whenever they get around to it. And anyone that’s in this space, like you podcaster, are preaching.

You have to do it consistently. You can’t just do a few episodes when you want and let a year go by. So let me hear your opinion on this as well. How crucial is this to a podcaster to get results?

Oh my god, so many opinions about consistency. It’s literally the number one conversation that I have when I meet with a new client who I’m so excited, and I have this many downloads, and let’s sell some advertising. And I’m like, okay, no problem, but you posted five episodes last month and nothing the month before.

I can’t sell that.  Part of what We do with category three is we actually sell physical inventory, which maybe is a little bit different than some, some agencies, , some podcast agencies that sell advertising. They’ll go to a podcast and say, great, you’re going to do five ads with this brand.

Here you go. We don’t do that. We’re a little bit more concierge. So we actually have tracking documents of every single episode that is upcoming for a podcaster and we actually lock in dates. So. Brand ABC, you have an ad coming out September 5th, September 27th, October 5th, October 26th.

So we actually sell inventory. So that podcaster has to release those episodes, or else we’re in big trouble, right? And that helps them create consistency, where they go, okay, well, when am I going to air my episodes? You are going to air it on every Tuesday. We also have some podcasts that they are, they air every 10 days.

That’s their cadence is, is every 10 days. I’m okay with that. At least your audience knows that you’re going to have an episode out every 10 days. I have a podcaster who only releases once a month because that’s all that they have the time for. They’re super busy. They’re seeing, patients, they’re, busy on other things, traveling.

They can only do once a month. Sure. It means I’m not going to have a lot of inventory to sell, but if that’s all you can do, then start with what you can do and then scale up. It’s so hard to scale up and then try to scale back down.

Yeah, and people are expecting that show to come out, and if you’re not going to be consistent, you explained it here, like, if you want to play at that high level, you’ve got to be doing them consistently, and I do see that a lot, where people will come and inquire with me, how can I grow my show, or how can I improve it, that, and they’ll get kind of hung up in all these little details, and And I will look just kind of like you said, like you didn’t post anything last month post consistently for six months, one a week and come back and talk to me and then we’ll see where you’re at.

Because if you’re not doing that, not a whole lot matters. Like we can’t really get anywhere.

 We’re getting towards the end here. I got a couple more questions.

You’ve worked with some big brands and podcasts. Obviously you hinted with some of the numbers that you gave. You’ve done some big stuff. I know that. The type of entrepreneurs we’re speaking to aren’t necessarily quite on that level yet, and they don’t have to be, but could you think of some kind of lesson or overall thing that you’ve learned from working with larger podcasts and brands that would be applicable to smaller podcasters?

Um. Stay humble, stay humble from knowing that, you know, as you do grow, where you came from, I think is always really important and I’m, I’m very lucky that I’ve been able to work on some, some big shows and been able to watch people grow is one of the biggest enjoyments. And there are lots of podcasters I work with that, that’s their job.

They’re just podcasters now, and they make a majority of their money from podcasting at this point. And they pay their teams and they’re achieving their dreams. But as a smaller podcast, it’s, it’s keep going and do 1% better every day. Think of 1%, think of one thing that’s going to just move the notch a little bit.

Is that the title of your YouTube show? Is it, the guests that you are going to have on your show? Is it the content? Always be innovative and always be engaging, but not so much that your audience gets

Mm hmm. Okay.

So, right. Think of what are the small things that you can accomplish to move the dial.

 So you gave us some great advice. The last thing I want to ask you here is you gave us some insight on who your ideal clients are, like who you’re working with. Now, for someone who would fall into that category and is maybe listening and considering.

Going down that path. What do you commonly see among podcasters who want to work with you? And perhaps they’re ideal, but they’re just not quite there yet. Like, what are you usually having to tell people, Hey, go back and work on this and this, and then come chat to me again.

That come to me and say, I don’t care about the brand, just make me money. We don’t do that. We’re very thoughtful surrounding the brands and we don’t have a problem saying no. To, just because you have, you know, 100, 000, 200, 000, downloads a month doesn’t mean that we’re going to work with you. And doesn’t mean that anyone would work with you.

And I’m, I’m hoping that podcasters want to be more thoughtful surrounding the brands that they endorse and who they work with. Other things to think about is, just ask. Just ask. Majority of the clients that we work with, they came through referral. That’s how we work typically is also by referral, uh, through our other clients.

And, the majority of them, they came to me and said, Oh, you know, I don’t have enough followers. I don’t have enough downloads. I don’t have enough content. They’re clients and we sell advertising for them and we’ve put them on a cadence of consistency to do their show. And it, it works out very well for them.

So, always say, just because you think doesn’t mean it’s true.

great advice, Bev. Thank you so much for your time. Your website category three, the number three dot ca. Anything else people should be looking to to find you? Or is that that’s the place?

That’s Where to Find Us, yeah, is Category 3. We have, you know, 25 podcasts that we work with currently. We do specifically have a niche of female health. Um, and that doesn’t mean that you have to be a female podcaster. But just have an audience of women 40 to 60.

Health is, is really where we kind of chime in. Those are the brands that we work with, but I’m always happy to have a conversation with anyone, anytime, ever,

Great.

because people have great stories and they’ve got great ideas and they just need, they need somebody to believe in them.

All right, Bev. Thanks so much again. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

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