Coaching Session! A Look at Zoa Conner’s Wellness Business and Podcast

HAve you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down one-on-one with a coach to help determine how to better use podcasting to generate sales for your business? That is what we’re doing on today’s episode. Our guest is Zoa Connor. She’s been kind enough to do this and share her experience with others as we go through.

So you’re gonna learn firsthand some tips and things to consider that you can apply to your own podcast and business. As we look through Zoa’s, we’re gonna take a look at her relatively new podcast, sustain Your Vitality, along with her businesses, which combine online and in-person wellness, along with a new addition of wellness retreats.

I am sure you’ll find it useful. So let’s get into it. I’m Joel Oliver and this is Profits Through Podcasting. Zoa, welcome in.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, and thank you. I’m really appreciative of your willingness to do this both for yourself, but also to actually help others learn as well. You know, as we, we go through this and what we’re gonna do is go through it through the lens of how to optimize your podcast and your business so that your podcast can help you bring in more leads.

And ideally turn into customers

That will be cool.

Let’s start with a brief overview of your business and now I know that’s a bit of a loaded question for you ’cause you’ve got multiple things going on, we’ve got the Intentional Vitality Retreats and the Zen and Vitality with zoa.

Tell us about those two.

So the Zen and Vitality is my functional wellness studio, which is a brick and mortar and online place, and it’s five and a half years old. Each year, I add something new to the business, right, to kind of expand the breadth of what I offer. And this year’s task was to add retreats, so wellness retreats that are for small groups or private, on-demand retreats for individuals in need of some serious help with changing their lifestyle in order to support their optimal health and functioning in the world. When I decided to add retreats, I knew that I was gonna need to expand who I was talking to and give some more options for how to tell people what I did. And nurture people in a different way than I do with my functional wellness studio.

My functional wellness studio has got, you know, this awesome website with long articles, scientific and uh, application oriented for your health and wellness. But for retreats, that’s not really the vibe that I think is gonna work. Those articles are more of resources for clients and a way of building trust with potential clients, because a lot of my potential clients have told me that they’ve spent, you know, hours hanging out on my website, getting to know me, getting to know the kind of things I can offer them, and then they schedule time with me and then we fix all the things.

But for retreats, especially for anyone who doesn’t already know me, they need to get to know me in a way that is different, right? Because here we are talking about taking them to someplace awesome around the world or within the US for multiple days. And there’s quite a commitment both time-wise and financially.

And so if I was paying someone else to do that, I would wanna really. Have a really good idea of what it was like to be with that person and what those interactions were gonna be like. You know, I want them to be happy and really comfortable in order to say yes. So I added a podcast.

Okay. Great. I was gonna, I wanted to ask about that. So that’s part of the reason why you thought this is gonna be a, a good trust builder for something like these, these retreats then they get to listen to how I talk. I know when I listen to podcasts, I can tell right away whether I’m gonna listen to the whole episode if it’s the first time,

Mm-hmm.

you know, like, if I can’t stand your voice, you know, or just like the way you’re talking or the style of your talking, I, I know that’s not the right place for me.

Right. So I wanted people to be able to feel the way that my yoga students do, which is, could you just talk to me all the time,

talk? Right.

Okay. Yeah. Your voice is very calming, I noticed in your episodes.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s my yoga voice. Right? And my Pilates voice is a little more energizing because the goal was a little different, right?

Yeah. That’s a great, that’s a great point because yes, you know, and, and that happens in person too. You just feel that energy from someone and you, you kind of just know either this is someone I want to be around or I don’t. So your podcast is an extension of that.

Yeah. And you can’t tell that from reading their words, but you can tell it from talking to them. So that’s, that’s my way of, you know, giving people an idea of what it’s like to listen to me is the podcast.

I’m curious too, just to be clear, you do some in-person work, right? Like your studio is actually something people can walk into. You’re not just online.

I have a

I have a brick and mortar place. Yeah. I’m not currently there. But I was there this morning. Yes.

Okay. Nice. How is that? Do you, I know a lot of people have this goal to not be doing brick and mortar anymore, but how do you feel about that? Are you, you

I really like the blend, and perhaps that’s, you know, I mean it’s, it’s evolved. When I opened, it was three months before the pandemic, which means that I had this awesome place and I had this visions of people flowing in and out and doing all the things. And then three months later, nobody was walking in the doors at all. And so the idea of being able to have both options is really, really helpful to me now because, , people who, you know, get home late, have a sick kid, are taking care of an elder and feel like today’s not a day where I can leave them for an hour and a half and come, they still get to do their thing from home, whether it’s a class or a session.

Right. So it’s, it’s fluid, it’s flexible.

flexible.

All right. So I like having both, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to grow, in both people walking in my door and people doing online because a lot of the services that I offer do not require you to be in person. They’re just perhaps a little more enjoyable in person.

absolutely. Being there is a totally different experience, but it’s good to have that flexibility. Yeah. Well, I’m glad that, you know, despite that COID hiccup there, you’re able to keep things going and, and everything’s good.

Absolutely.

it’s interesting you mentioned you like to add things to your businesses and expand, which is, is great of all of this that you’re doing, I know the, the retreats is a newer thing.

Is there something that you really have your mind on now that you want to give your attention to, that you’re trying to focus on? Or is it just that expansion and adding new things of, of everything that you’ve got here?

I, I think after this addition, I, I might be done with adding things.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

then it’s just a matter of combining things together in ways that make more sense. You know, for example, I’ve got this program for people who are dealing with a surgery, you know, either pre-surgery or post-surgery, and that’s nutrition and wellness and exercise and meditation and all kinds of holistic looks at the body.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re walking in my door for that or not. You know, if you’re, if you’ve scheduled yourself a knee replacement in three months, I wanna work with you,

Because

your surgeon’s gonna pay attention to your knee. Your physical therapist is gonna pay attention to your knee, and then I’m gonna pay attention to all of the rest of you that’s gonna put you in a healing state, so that this is the easiest possible surgery that you ever had.

You’re not thinking about the fact that you’re gonna wreck your gut health from those antibiotics they, they’re gonna give you. And that you’re gonna be crooked. And you already are crooked because your knee’s been hurting and you’ve been favoring your other leg, right?

And that you’re gonna be stuck sitting and laying more than often. And so the rest of your body’s gonna get achy. Your appetite’s gonna go down and you’re gonna have a hard time sleeping ’cause you’re uncomfortable. And all of that makes you heal slowly,

Absolutely. So you’re, you’re, you’re making people aware that, hey, you need this kind of assistance that I offer, and people might not have even known about that previously.

Correct.

Okay. we know you’ve, you’ve got a lot here that you offer a lot of really interesting services.

Of

all these, if you could even say one ideal person, like do you have an ideal client for all these businesses that you could broadly describe, or who would you say is your most ideal person that you’re working with commonly?

Well, I feel like the people who need the services for the functional wellness have some overlap. With the people who are gonna want to take retreat with me, but it’s not a complete overlap. Right. So I might have the retreats focused on, you know, midlife women dealing with the fact that their body is rebelling against what they’ve been doing for the last two decades.

Right? And they’ve been pushing their career, taking care of family, and putting everyone else first. But now their body’s like, we’re no longer gonna do this. Now you’re going to be achy and whiny and not sleep well. And yeah, you can blame it on hormones, but really it’s like a whole body, whole brain kind of a thing.

Right? So it’s a, it’s a lifestyle thing and a priorities thing. So those people are who I’m gonna wanna talk to for the retreats. But the people who need help with this, you know, surgery aspect or pelvic floor so you don’t pee when you sneeze, like that’s a larger group of people,

right? But those people are ones who want to take care of themselves, who don’t wanna rely on surgery and medications, and also don’t wanna put up with feeling bad.

Right. So they’re a little more naturally minded, a little more independent but not necessarily midlife professional women.

Right. Got it. Okay. So you told us a bit about why you started the podcast, and that’s relatively new compared to your business as a whole. What were you doing prior to the podcast or perhaps even still doing for your marketing? Uh, what were your main channels for getting new people in the door, either virtually or in real life?

So since the timing of when I opened my business was so fabulous, shall we say, most of the options that I was aware of for marketing that I had done as employees for other businesses were no longer available. You know, these in-person things, the open house, you know, the, the shop, small events on the Black Friday, you know, all those kind of things were not available to me.

So I just decided that I was gonna focus on SEO and my website. Things I could do from my house at any time of the day or night. So that blended in with life. And so then I just worked on SEO and my website. And of course part of that was local SEO because I wanted to have people walking in my doors.

I focused on word of mouth for my current clients, but I often heard that from my clients that I’m a little more introverted. Or, they didn’t feel like they had a big network. The other thing that I heard was, I feel like an island in my community.

You know, my family, my friends, like I’m the person who thinks about wellness and the rest of them don’t care in the same way that I do. So that whole word of mouth thing sounds good, but that wasn’t working for my small group of clients. Right, and I don’t have tons of clients because I don’t need a large volume.

What I need is those right people who are consistent and committed,

So that’s great. We’ve got a good background of your business, where you’re coming from, what’s working there. I would like to shift to the podcast a bit more. Now I’m gonna talk about that and get into the, the lead So you’ve already explained one of the biggest reasons for starting a podcast was that trust builder for the retreats.

And in these cases, I mean for everyone really, you know. Audience download numbers are not necessarily the best metric look but overall, the vibe that you’re getting from your podcast so far being, uh, early on here, how would you describe it at this point? Are you feeling that it’s, it’s growing at a steady pace?

Are you frustrated that it’s not growing or is it better than expected or you’re just kind of happy to be doing it and it’s serving its role?

I am not sure I know how to have appropriate expectations. I know that my current clients are really happy that there’s a podcast. They’re really happy with the length of the episodes. They’re short, they’re 10 or 15 minutes which I like to say like that’s how long it takes me to get from my business to my house.

And so if I’m listening to a 40 or 50 minute episode, that’s a lot of trips and I’m, I’m not gonna remember what the happened last trip. And also, you know, if it fits into your life, you can binge six or seven episodes, no problem.

Right? There’s, there’s your hour but you don’t have to, you’re not committed to that length. I often hear people in my current world talking about like, I need a reframe of the day. Oh, I’ll go listen to a podcast episode of yours. That’s magic to my ears. I love hearing that. And the public podcast has only been in existence for two and a half months.

So really what kind of growth is fair to expect in that?

Yeah, exactly. And that’s, uh, that’s a great point.

It does take time depending on the, uh, the size of following that you start with. Like, that can affect things as well. You know, you already had some clients, which is great,

so you can get the, you know, they’re, they’re on board right away. But yeah, I mean, when you think about numbers like. If you had a hundred clients, that would be probably a lot, you know, if a hundred came all at once. So people see these massive download numbers and view counts and think maybe I need to do that. But we don’t want to get wrapped up in that too much. It’s more about that feeling. And it sounds like, like you said, you’re getting great feedback there and it’s going well so far.

on a practical level, I’m just happy that someone’s listening to it at all.

that’s a great attitude. Uh, yes. But of course we do want to, we want to help make sure that you’re able to market through it and, and generate some leads. But

yes, especially starting out, that’s a great way to look at it

right. It would be concerning if the people who are already in my world were like, eh, this is not worth listening to. Right. That would be a message that something needs to be different.

Absolutely.

And a great, great example there for people who think, you know, the, the space is too crowded. I can never start now. No one wants to listen. Like everyone can have their audience, your clients like you for, for what you are and the way that you speak. There’s always people out there that are gonna resonate with you, and that’s a great example of what you’re showing here. what I’d like to run through next is a quick audit. So I do these for people where I just look through the basics. ’cause before we’re gonna talk about serious strategies on how to, how to generate leads through a podcast. I always wanna make sure there’s nothing severe going on that’s just gonna ruin the results completely.

So what I see with yours overall quite good. You’re doing all this yourself, right? You did everything? Yep.

Yep. Me and my Mac.

Got it. Okay. So to run through quickly, the description I think is great. So that’s on the, just imagine we’re looking at your Apple Podcast page here. You’ve got your artwork, your title, your description, the episodes description looks great to me. One thing I would always like to point out to people here is if you have any specific keywords, and you mentioned SEO that you’ve been doing on your website, any specific keywords that are relevant to the people that you want to find you. Always be sure to get those in the description and they might be there for you.

I’m just pointing it out that, uh, you might want to think about it get that into the description is a great way to, uh, provide some benefits, but the actual description looks great to me.

Okay, thanks.

The artwork, uh, it’s good. Very clear what it’s about. One thing I really like about it is the colors and the fonts.

It stands out. You kind of get this vibe, like this is a wellness podcast, which is something we want. With the artwork, we want people that are scrolling to know exactly what it is, and they’re gonna determine, do I.

wanna listen to this or not? So you should give a professional impression as well is useful.

So I like that. I’m curious about the photo. Now, this maybe is just your style, but I was wondering, like, you’re not smiling much in this photo, but maybe that’s kind of your, your vibe. You like that?

So I feel like a lot of people in the wellness space are focused on energy

and so they’re looking for, you know, higher vibe, you know. Peppy, positive, happy. And I want that to happen because you have that energy, not because you’re forcing it. So I was actually going for more of a calming kind of sedate.

I often say, uh, let’s get you into a healing state. You’re gonna feel so much better when you can clean up the trash in your body, sleep well, and be in a healing state. So, calm, calm colors. Calm

Got it. As long as there’s an explanation, there’s a reason for it, then yeah. You know, especially with this stuff, it’s, it is subjective, it’s art. There’s no wrong or right necessarily. The artwork, I would say, I think it could give a little more of a professional impression.

There’s a couple things with the fonts, I just. It’s a little DIY ish, but again, that’s subjective. So that’s just one person’s opinion.

And that’s what happens when it is DIY, right?

right.

you’re not a, if you’re not actually a great graphic person, then you kind of have to go with simple, which is what I was trying for. It doesn’t mean that there’s not space to improve. I’m sure there is.

yeah. And I like to point these things out as well because it’s not like, Hey, you’ve gotta go out and do everything that I am mentioning right now. But it’s like, over time, you know what, in a year. Yeah, maybe it’s time to refresh this. Or maybe I could, I have a bit of money I could invest in, in a designer and okay, what can we do with that?

So those kind of things are great to keep in mind, but it’s

not like, it, it, you know, it’s a big issue right now or anything.

Yeah, it’s not horrible.

No, definitely not. If it was, I would have to tell you, but, uh, it’s not

You would, I would expect you to.

The next thing, the episode, the titles, uh, the descriptions, the call to actions. with your show notes, are you writing those or using ai.

Yes and no. So I use Captivate and there is an AI option and sometimes I go, oh, that amuses me today. We’ll go with that. And sometimes I go, oh yeah, no, that needs to be totally different. So. You can probably tell that some of them are a little more AI ish and some of them are a little more not,

probably mm-hmm.

Yes. Okay. And, and nothing, nothing wrong there necessarily. Just the only thing that I noticed. That I would point out is exactly what you just said. Some of them I thought, that doesn’t really sound like Zoa voice based on how you’ve spoken in the episode or the copy on your website.

It’s like it was too happy and it was using certain phrases and I thought, that’s interesting. So yeah, brand alignment is important and just kind of having you show up as yourself everywhere. Again, this is not a deal breaker, it’s just something I notice, like I think it could be more congruent with you, like everything.

So.

Yes, that’s something that could go back and be adjusted, right? Even post publication.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, it, it’s not gonna make or break things like I said, but it’s just when we’re looking at these little details, especially someone like you who I don’t have a bunch of, uh, broad problems to point out.

I gotta get down to the little nitty gritty stuff and like the more

I am all for it ’cause because I am doing it all myself, which is why sometimes it’s like, this is the easiest path. Let me just take that and it’s fine. It’s done.

Yep.

You know, like the goal for today was to get this entire season, all seven episodes done, loaded, and scheduled. Okay. I’ve accomplished that.

Is it perfect? No, maybe not.

right, and over time you can develop it further. Hey.

Okay. So you do batches like that, like you would do seven in one day.

Yep,

yep,

With the intentional vitality. I have this thing about the number seven. And so I have these seasons that are seven episodes long. Which is why I’m like, you know, it’s kind of like an hour and a half total ish in terms of timing, right? And it’s like one little thought or concept in each episode.

All about the same. Like I have one season, , which is all about functional wellness one season, which is all about Ayurveda. And so then, yeah, once I figured out like, what’s the plan? Then I will record them all put them all together with the intro and the outro and everything else. Upload it. Do the ai, decide if the AI stinks or not. You know, get the dates, cover art, everything all at once because that way it’s accomplished and I’m not spreading it out. And then like, there’s a different version of ZOA for each step.

I love it. Whatever is the ideal workflow for you is what you should do. So if you find doing them all like that in a batch is best, then that’s great. ’cause the most important thing is we want to have them going out consistently. Or you know, if you’re doing seasons and you take breaks, that’s fine. We want that and we, we just wanna make sure that we aren’t getting frustrated or there’s friction, or we stop doing it. ’cause consistency is important. So if you’re doing them all in once and you’re scheduling them out, that’s great.

 And it was important to me because of the way that I constructed these seasons with like the themes that there be consistency between all seven episodes. And so for me that’s easiest. Like if I’ve, if I’ve got the right vibe and that’s the day for the podcast stuff and I’ve got the time and the space, then they’re all gonna be consistent and I don’t have to worry about trying to get myself back into the same head space as I did for the last episode.

Absolutely. You got that flow.

So keep going. Do them all at

Yep.

Okay. So yeah, that stuff is looking great. One thing I would suggest to consider for your show notes is a specific call to action. So first of all, it’s great. You typically have your websites linked in there, which is fantastic you.

That’s highly important. Since you’re offering so much, and sometimes you might have something that’s a priority, like the retreat, for example, what I see other people often do if they have a big event coming up, they will specifically put that in their show notes. Hey, I’ve got this Iceland retreat coming up.

Here are the dates. Click here to book. And it just makes it a little easier for people to get through and find it as opposed to have to go through the website and perhaps just drop off ’cause they couldn’t find it. But not only that, if you have an episode about a certain thing or you said you do series on these, you have all these free tips. And perhaps you could introduce a lead magnet, having a specific link click right here to go get this thing that can help optimize just getting people into your funnel. So something to think about, but the fact that you have the website’s link there is fantastic to begin with. Anyway,

in preparation for this recording, I was actually thinking about that. ’cause I was looking at other people’s show notes they seem to like. Fairly consistently have the same call to action for quite a while, right? And I have so many things, like, should I have a different call to action for each season that seems most relevant?

Or should I just basically say, you know, make the call to action, just book time to talk to me, or should I be pushing like a particular service? So I was thinking about that. Not really sure what the best way in terms of podcasts show notes would be.

This is great. We actually, okay, we’re gonna get to a section on this about your offer and what to promote. So

you’re definitely onto something here by thinking about that. to round out the audit, the audio quality, I have no problems there.

I think it’s, it’s totally fine. On the outro. So, we’ll, we’ll get into this in more in depth, but the outro in the podcast, similar to what we were just chatting about in, in terms of choosing a call to action. I would whatever it happens to be for that episode, that should be the focus of the outro. People got short attention spans, they’re gonna turn it off, whatever that one thing is that we, we decide, have that in the outro. you can still have those credits there where you mention that you produce the show but what do you want them to do? How can we ultimately get them to go and take an action?

That should be the very first. Thing in the outro,

would say it took me quite a few recordings to remember to say something about. Anything that involved paying me at the end,

Yeah. Well, okay. That’s

I was thinking that. I was thinking, ah, yes, here I am in university professor mode. I’m educating, I’m telling you, you’re getting to know me. Oh yeah. The point of this was ultimately I’d like you to pay me some money.

Let me remember to say, you could book a call. You could do this. And so, yeah, it took me a while to remember.

that’s an interesting thing that you brought up. ’cause yes, I do see that commonly, like especially in this space, people like you are so they just want to help. Like your passion is helping people with their wellness in all these different ways that you have. So it’s not always top of mind to be trying to sell or some people even feels uncomfortable.

But of course there’s nothing wrong with doing that. And yeah, you need to remember.

that and put that in there. ’cause that ultimately is how you help people. Right.

Right.

And you, you mentioned the education too. I have this on my list to bring up. I love that you’re using the PhD title whenever possible because that’s a big one that not everyone necessarily has.

 So you’re using that and I, I think that’s fantastic.

Yeah. You, you work hard for those things I’ve debated on it because it’s not actually a field related to wellness per se, except it really is related to how I approach wellness, right? My PhD is in physics,

 And I joke with my clients, you can call me doctor, but I’m not a medical doctor, so let’s not get confused about that.

right? Yeah. Yeah. So you’ve got such, you’ve got great qualifications, very knowledgeable. You’ve got this PhD, which yes, it’s okay. It’s in physics, but that’s all good. So I’m glad you’re highlighting it. I would say too, the website itself, did you do the website yourself

Oh, what do you think?

think? Probably DIY. It seems like you enjoy

that.

yeah, yeah, I do.

I have gotten help, but I do not, I do not yield those things to other people easily.

Oh, yeah. I feel that too, except I try to get better at it. But yeah. The only thing I noticed there, and you were talking about this development of trust and wanting people to trust us, uh, it could, it could be a little more refined, I think, a little sharper, professional looking, but that’s, again, something you can kind of keep in your pocket for when you’re ready.

But that’s just an impression that I got off the, the site. And finally your social media, you’re just focusing on LinkedIn?

Yep. And that’s new for this year too. I’m generally speaking, not very, not really on social media much. I occasionally will, pop open something on my phone for amusement, but that’s not how I find people and it’s not how any of my clients have found me. So I’m just gonna focus on the things that seem to resonate better with the people that I want.

Right. But with these retreats, I know I need to find the right people. And figure out where they’re hanging out and if they are, you know, kind of mid-level professional people who want, you know, something like this on demand private retreat or to go internationally with me with a group that they’re not looking to, uh, just get a cheap yoga class locally.

Yep.

That’s good. Ultimately, you want to be where your audience is. You don’t need to be everywhere. So I like that you’re not caving into that pressure that I need to be on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know? But if LinkedIn is the start, that’s, that’s cool. If you can do without any of it and you don’t like to do any of it, that’s great as Well, so

Well, wouldn’t that be nice? But I, I don’t think I’m quite there yet.

Yeah, well it’s, LinkedIn is respectable, so yeah, put the effort in there and don’t have that pressure that you’ve gotta be everywhere. I think you already know that, so that’s good.

Okay, so rounding this out. Now we’ve got essentially four pillars that I like to go by in terms of generating the leads, optimizing everything, bringing people into your business through your podcast. So first one is content. I think you’re pretty much good there. It’s sounding good. Your episodes are concise. You know what you’re talking about. Uh, there’s nothing really to say there except to consider who your most ideal client is. And run all your content through that lens. Uh, so to give an example, I’ve seen doctors before who are putting out content for both patients and then also medical professionals.

And I had to ask, who are you talking to here? Because we need to know like, who is your business for and make content for them. So I think you’ve got that down already, but it’s always good to keep in mind, especially as, as some of us evolve and move forward, we might change that up and focus on a different aspect of the business and then think, well, I need to adjust my content. But I think you’re, you’re good in that aspect. Any thoughts on that?

Uh, so I think the first couple seasons for me were just a kind of about establishing a baseline that could be used for either my functional wellness people or for retreats. And then I’m gonna kind of have seasons that are either focused more on the retreat people or more on the wellness people so that it can be a little more clear who the audience is.

mm-hmm.

But not, ignoring either group of people for the podcast and I might change my mind. I might just make it all about travel and retreats and that kind of aspect because I do have all of these long form articles on my website for the wellness people who are researching and sitting in front and, you know, coming back to the articles.

And the podcast is different.

Yes. You can look at this, you can see what data shows you as you do these different.

seasons. Like maybe something seems to really resonate with people. So keeping all of that in mind, consistency is good over time. If you’re doing this for trust, it’s great.

’cause you can just say, here’s the season about the travel, go check this out. You’re not necessarily trying to build a huge audience over time of all similar content for just those people. You know, once a year come back and assess like, how is this working? What’s my goal right now? That sort of thing. In terms of the audience we talked about, that doesn’t need to be giant.

So whatever works for you is great. Promoting things to grow the podcast is always useful. Are you doing guest appearances on other shows right now?

I am, that’s actually where I started. I started using Pod Match to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. And that’s actually what led me to think, ah, maybe in order for me to have. my own podcast where I can like really curate and cover like all the topics that I want, And also then of course it’s nice to ch to exchange, right?

So if you’re a guest on someone else’s and you wanna continue that conversation, now I have a podcast, I could invite them to join me. And I did that for my third season actually. I had two other people and. Between the two of them. We recorded the seven episodes for the season. And you know, their audiences aren’t big, but they’re people who are clearly aligned with what I do.

But no competition in terms of like, they do the exact same thing. They are, you know, walking beside me, not in front of me.

Right. Yep. That’s a great strategy and especially starting out, it’s okay to to work with smaller, and it could always be okay, like work with smaller creators doesn’t have to be big, but there might come a point where you’re thinking, I don’t want to. Be getting nothing from this, so I need to have a minimum, you know what I mean?

I want to get something from this time if I’m doing guesting, but that is great. Make sure you’re following up with the guests, giving them what they need to help you promote it. Sounds like you did. Sounds like you work closely together. So that’s a great strategy. And overall the message on this is, is the promotion.

So a podcast can somewhat grow on its own. But we wanna be promoting it actively to really get people in there. And it sounds like with your community, you’re doing that already. I see you post on LinkedIn about it all the time. So it seems like you’re really well aware of that,

and

I’ve been happy to find out that people who have seen it on LinkedIn who aren’t already part of my email list or my clientele have also been listening to the episodes. Right? Or at least some of them. So this is a good thing.

It’s always nice to hear that and actually see that what you’re putting out there isn’t just going into a void and people are resonating with it and checking it out. That’s, that’s a

great feeling. Okay.

so let’s spend a couple minutes here on this, uh, this thing that we were talking about earlier. ’cause this is important, the offer, so. You’ve definitely got a lot of services, a lot of offerings. The standard advice, like the people that I’m working with is we’re trying to find a single high ticket thing, recurring revenue if possible, that provides great margins, of course, as opposed to smaller, like $10 books for example. Now, I love the retreats for this. They may not be recurring necessarily, but it’s higher ticket, but. Of everything that you do.

Is there one or two that you find are like the best sellers or you’re the most passionate about, or your ideal client is coming around a lot for it?

How does that look in terms of everything that you have there?

I would say that in terms of the most taken advantage of service, it is definitely the movement classes,

Where you can either do, you know, one a week, two a week or unlimited, and that can be for either, uh, virtual classes or in studio. So those are the people that are just, you know, doing the same thing every month.

That would be a recurring revenue if I did it that way, right? In terms of like automatic and all that sort of stuff. The other things currently are either a three month package, which are targeting a particular problem, which means that once we fix the problem, we shouldn’t need to do that again.

If I did my job well.

Mm-hmm.

Right now we get into maintenance mode. So the maintenance mode is the movement,

And then the other things come in as needed. So for the wellness part of the business, I would say the, the, the proper thing would be getting them into that expectation of. Regular movement classes with me. And so that would be the thing for the retreats and travel Yeah, absolutely. The next retreat. Right. That would be the thing.

Right? yeah, you’re, you have a bit of a unique situation too, considering you’ve got this in-person studio, Right.

And you can have people come back regularly for those classes and things like that. So that’s, that’s a little unique. What we’re typically looking at, let’s say, let’s just take the case of an online entrepreneur who’s trying to streamline and just help people but also have some reliable revenue.

We’re typically pairing it down to a single offer. So I’m not saying that’s what you would have to do here, but you might consider over time thinking of like, what are the top couple or three things in terms of my services, like my three month packages that people are really liking. They resonate with the content in a, a podcast season, and I could really develop a nice streamlined funnel for that.

Maybe even a new website, like, here’s this big offering, this is what I help with.

It could be, you know, post-surgery, check this out because yeah. One thing that you may, that may be holding you back a little is having so many services people might not even always know what are all the things you

can help them with?

Like, like you talked about, they just go to your website. You have so much there. And if they, they’re not being, say, really hammered with that message in your podcast, I do this, check this out, I can help you come check this out and,

you know, sign up for a call. That’s really what we want to do. So if we’re not super clear on a single thing,

you could not be reaching your full potential there.

I’ll

so I was thinking that maybe a good idea both in terms of the podcast call to action and in terms of kind of helping my clients get to where I think they should be is creating a membership. Kind of a thing, which is a blend of wellness consults with me, which means that every one of my clients has something that they need to talk to me about every three months.

Right. Right. It doesn’t matter what it is, there’s always something that comes up, something that has changed in their life, something that has changed in their body. And so a combination of consults with me and these movement classes, you know, and maybe some other attractive feature, right? where it is this membership and you know, partake of it as you will, but it becomes that recurring revenue thing where then it’s easy.

They don’t have to decide, is this worth talking to her about You have a consult, use it

right?

Yeah.

that’s a very interesting idea, especially considering you offer so many different things. People are in your membership, they’re always getting value. You can kind of assess with them what they need from you. You’re getting that recurring revenue,

uh, that could come in person. Yeah. Something like that is a great, great idea. So I’m not a business coach myself. But I, I speak with a lot of, say, health and wellness business coaches, and this is the type of thing that they’re talking about. And I typically recommend, uh, it’s a great idea depending on the situation. If you eventually decide like, I want to build this out more, or really, I. Take this up a notch, that’s a great type of person to work with because they can help you find that clarity.

And, uh, yeah, I mean that, that’s typical advice and I never want to tell people like, what you’re doing is wrong. ’cause of course it’s, it isn’t. It’s just if someone has a goal of changing their situation, then they might need to look deeper into, okay, you know what, maybe I need to remove some of these services, or I need to clarify or decide which one to really promote.

So

that might be a consideration for you at some point, just depending on your goals and the results that you’re getting.

right. But it does make more sense for the podcast to focus on getting people into either the on demand private retreat or the group retreat.

Absolutely.

be the easiest consistent call to action to offer,

Yes. It makes so much sense when you think about, you know, you mentioned you had, you had forgotten to even promote yourself. If you have your episodes and people are listening, and the last thing you’re saying is, Hey, I have a retreat. Here’s what it does, then people are gonna hear about that, that wouldn’t have otherwise, right?

If you didn’t promote it. So it’s

really important to pick that and promote it. think about even in your own life, like if you just hear about that once, something that interests you, you might not even, you know, you’re busy or you’re driving, you forget about it. You might have needed to be, be reminded of it several times before you finally go, I’m gonna click on that website for that retreat today.

So the repetition comes in as well and just keeping that message going. So that’s all the benefits there, Uh, you mentioned you have an email list, you have lead magnets set up where you’re collecting emails and bringing people into that, or how do you get them signed up?

Uh,

Yes and no. I have a few options for getting people onto the email list, I have a couple of opt-ins that I have used for when I’ve been a guest on podcasts.

And those add you to my email list. And then I within the next couple weeks we’ll have a book. Which will then also give you another way of getting onto my list.

Okay, great. Yep.

You want to be definitely collecting emails, there’s huge potential there in sales. Uh, lead magnet for your podcast is fine. And when you’re guesting as well, it’s great to have. So as long as you’re collecting those some way I. cause Yeah, people are not necessarily gonna jump right into a sale either.

We want to be nurturing those people. So consider that if you think about focusing in on certain offers, moving forward, building a funnel, have a specific sequence for those people. That’s a lot. But I’m giving you the, the basics here. And then finally the last step is commitment. The last pillar rather.

And I think you’re good there. You, I was. You’re seeing the value in doing it consistently. You’ve got your system, the way you work. Uh, are you taking breaks between seasons?

My concept was that I had a couple of basic ideas for the seasons that I wanted to kind of get out there so that people then could find them and listen to them, and they already exist. So the first couple seasons I would put out like two a week just so that they existed, right? But the plan going forward is one a week.

Release for the seasons and taking a break between would kind of depend on whether the seasons are gonna be only solo, which means that I can batch them and get them all in Monday, or whether they’re gonna involve guests, because that might be a little more complicated and I might want to have a little break to kind of get all that worked out.

Consistency is important. And if you do take a break between seasons, I would just suggest on the final one of the season, just leave a reminder there that, Hey, I’m taking a break for a bit. I’ll be back soon. You just don’t want to end up, say, being gone for two months and people think you just quit and they unsubscribe like that momentum is

really

right. Well, I also feel with my seasons only being seven episodes, like do I need a break at the end?

Right, it sounds like you’re, you’re, you have a good handle on it. So that’s. That’s your decision? Commitment and consistency is important. And you, you know, that, uh, if you find

that things get to be too much of a burden or the workload is too high, that’s a bit of a cause for concern because most people I see quit. That was one of the reasons is like, they were trying to do it all on their own. It got too much and they’re like, ah, the first thing to go is the podcast. I’m too busy. They stop doing it. They never do it again. So keep that in mind as you move forward.

Well, that was actually a factor in deciding to do the seasons. Right, because in my mind I was thinking every week I have to do something every week. You know, like what happens if I have a, you know, a bad week or a busy week and like, then there’s no podcast, you know? So that’s why I was like, okay, but if I, if I have these chunks, I can make sure the chunk is done, then if I need a break in between, but the next season I can have that break, right?

And so for me then it made it manageable that I could say yes to the podcast.

Yep. That’s, that’s a great benefit of doing that.

So I think for your priorities moving forward, consider some focus on specific product services funnels.

Something that you can really highlight for people. Uh, it doesn’t have to be right away, but even just the retreat, for example, like if we want to put some focus on that. We would add a call to action in the outro so that people are driven to go check it out, a link to it, specifically in the show notes or something relevant to that episode. And just keeping consistent as we talked about. Keep It going. ’cause you’ve got, you’re off to a great start to, but we don’t want to see it ever fall apart and stop because it got difficult the benefit of podcasting comes over time with consistency. So now that you’ve started, just keep it going.

It is kind of fun to do it, but you know, at some point it needs to be. Doing its job better, right? So the call to actions should help.

Yes. Well, that’s a great start. We can always reconnect sometime in the future, there’s phases to this and depending on your current situation, what you want to think about now versus in six months. But I think that’s a great start. So thank you again for, for joining and letting this happen and sharing with people. Your podcast is sustain your Vitality. You’ve got zen and vitality.com, you’ve got intentional- vitality.com, and we’ll have everything in the show notes for people to find and get in touch with you.

Thanks so much, Joel.