How a Podcast Built a Global Community of Female Entrepreneurs with Renée Warren

Hey, Renee, welcome in.

Well, thanks for having me.

I like the balloons. We’ve got a big 3 0 0 behind you and that’s something I want to get into first actually. ’cause you are obviously, now at 300 episodes. Is it right that you started into the wild in 2020 April month, like during Covid?

April 27th, 2020, I kept talking about starting a podcast because Amy Porterfield said, blogging is dead. Podcasting’s the next thing. And I said, I got to do it. And I kept talking about it for months. And finally, my husband stopped me dead in my tracks as it was too late. talking yet again about starting a podcast.

And he’s like, pick a date or else you’re never talking about this again. And I was like, well, I don’t know. So I like put some arbitrary date on a calendar, two months out. And I was like, I got this. And here we are four and a half years later, 300 episodes in. I

Yeah. Okay. So aside from Amy Porterfield, bringing it up, what were some reasons or perhaps goals that you had in mind back then as to why you wanted to start a

I don’t even know what the motivation was back then. I thought it would be a hell of a lot easier than blogging. It turns out it’s not and it’s way more expensive. But I felt like through the pandemic recording all those episodes with these other female entrepreneurs was actually like therapy for me.

It was healing. I needed during those times when the world was just going crazy. There’s all this stuff was happening, but I also realized what it provided was a way for me to network. And I got to meet incredible women from all over the world. Some now I can call close friends. So the more I did it, the more I realized, not only do I get to create this community, grow my network, but have an impact on other people’s lives.

And every day I’ll get a couple DMS from people sharing the fact that they’re listening to the podcast. And that is just more incentive for me to keep going.  

We’ll get into PR a bit more later, but something that you mentioned there inspired me to ask a question here. Have you noticed that say all those connections that you made, they were made easier because of the podcast. Like I’m assuming just a cold outreach of a sales message or just trying to connect with someone maybe a little more difficult as opposed to when you have a podcast and you have an invite to bring someone on.

Would you say that that actually helped you facilitate a lot of those connections? Well,

the outreach we did, maybe 1 percent of the people said no. And I also was very strategic so anytime I landed like a bigger guest, I would leverage that to pitch somebody bigger and bigger.. And going on this whole pitching thing, I knew who I wanted eventually to be on my show.

I made this dream list and so far I’ve crushed it. Minus a couple of people, because like when you get these, when you, these people show up and you have these conversations, I think to myself, this is fun. This is actually quite easy and very therapeutic. I wonder who else I can have on my show.

And so far it’s been going really, really well.

It’s been fun to watch because we’ve worked together essentially from the beginning. We’ll talk about that. But I’ve watched that evolution of, you know, I get a new episode come in from you and I’d say, wow, that’s like, that’s a big name. You know, Renee’s really getting them on there.

 So that was one nice benefit. These connections that you’ve made, did the podcast eventually come to play a role in your business, noticeably in terms of sales and clients you were getting, or was it mainly just for networking or how did you see all

I think there’s been a handful of clients that came in through the podcast directly, and then there were quite a few people who didn’t know me before and actually listened to the show. And that was part of the sales process for them and deciding whether or not to work with me was through the podcast.

So they were, maybe we already had a sales call or they were thinking about working with me. They tuned in. They’re like, I like this girl. She’s, she knows what she’s talking about. Let’s work together. So we never, ever took outside advertisers. We’ve only ever promoted my services and products, which helped, but I think what it did for me and what I always, Encourage my clients to do is it helps position you in a more authoritative position. So it allows you to go on in front of other people in front of other people’s warmed up community to talk about something that you’re good at.

So being a guest in other people’s show is massive. And for me, it was also kind of the leverage I needed to ask for a bigger guest to come on my show, but for me to be on shows as well. Because as a podcast host, we want to know, are they articulate? Are they great at showing up online? Can they actually speak something that makes sense that I can learn from?

So I use it kind of as a resume to get on other bigger shows.

There’s some great insight because. Yeah, some people are going to maybe have a podcast to try to get sales directly. And that’s going to be their method. Others are going to want connections. Like you were saying, you’re trying to appear on other podcasts. We can all have different reasons or goals and how we actually use the podcast doesn’t have to be.

Like a sales funnel, necessarily. So it’s very interesting to hear how you’re using that. Let’s talk about early in your journey with podcasting. So I alluded to us connecting. I know from the beginning, you started out with the editing and the production all on your own, right?

And then is it correct that you realize this is not feasible or I don’t know what I’m doing. How did you end up seeking out an

did it all from the very beginning, everything from coming up with a name to getting all the assets for iTunes, Spotify, getting Libsyn set up, connecting all the tech in the background, lining up guests, coming up with the format, interviewing, editing every single episode,

and I think it was episode, do you know how many I was in before I reached out to you?

I think it was only a handful. I don’t think it was even 10.

And these, these were all these episodes I had, edited within the matter of like a couple of days because I had a launch date. And I remember talking with, Kelly, she had a podcast that I guess you were editing some of her stuff

and then she mentioned you and we had one phone call. I was like, oh my gosh, please get this off my hands. I did. Can’t do this. I hate listening to my voice all day. You’re good at this. And then I handed it off to you. But what I loved about that process too, is how much of appreciation I have for the work that you do and for the work that people behind the scenes do, because it is a lot now, I know in the past four and a half years, there’s been a lot of advancements with tech and AI.

That’s definitely helped. I don’t need to know how it works. I just need to know that it gets done.

I also was like, I’ve committed to launching this thing. I don’t know how far I’m going to take this, but I went to, I remember when I went to the alt summit. It’s a, like a summit that happened in Palm Springs in March of 2019. And I sat in on a podcasting workshop because I was interested in starting a podcast.

And the woman at the front who was an expert podcaster, do not remember her name. She said most podcasts don’t survive past eight episodes. And this was a stat back in 2019. So I said, well, then I’m going to launch with nine because then I already defied the odds. So my goal was to just publish nine episodes and then see where to go from there.

And then I built a little team and I said, Hey, maybe our cadence is one a week, one a week. And then I was working with you. And then I hired a podcasting coach and I said, how do we increase the reach? How do we get more downloads? What do we got to do? One of the things that came up was publishing more episodes.

So then we started doing two a week.

well, I want to talk about that because the 300 episodes in itself is a big deal. You mentioned the eight number. There’s definitely not that many people that make it to 300 and you’ve done that in four years. So that’s fascinating. But what I can tell you from my own experience is sustainably producing.

More than one a week. That is also very rare because I’ve seen many people try to make that leap and inevitably they just, they just get too overwhelmed and they, they stop completely or it just ruins everything. So I’m usually very cautious in that discussion. If people want to do more than one a week, you have successfully done it for a long period of time.

So we’re putting the stamp on there that you can actually do that. And I wanted to ask you about that. So you just told us why you were inspired to move to two a week. I want to learn about how you’ve actually made it. Happen or what systems you have in the background. I know you have an assistant as well Like what do you attribute this to you being able to keep this up

Well, first of all, you and my assistant Morgan keep mentioning, Renee, I need this episode from you. So you got to make it happen. Um, the two week I was like, fine, I’m going to do this. And the cadence is interviews published on Tuesdays, solo episodes on Thursdays. And I had to get over a lot inside myself to think.

Who’s going to want to listen to me? And then I kept reaching out to some people who do really great job at solo episodes, ask them, like, do you make notes? Like, how do you do this? They all just said, we just show up and start jamming. And so. We did it. And when I looked at the data, I realized that my solo episodes, if I had to compare them to my interviews, even with some very notable guests still did just as well, if not better.

So knowing that. We all have stories to share every day. There’s something that we’ve experienced today. I thought that we were trying to overcome in our head. That stuff is so easy to share. So I knew that if I give myself the capacity and the space in my calendar to record these solo episodes, I have so much content I can talk about.

I sat in on a team meeting at Martel media last week where the. C O O. Todd talked about the eight ways to accountability or something. And when we were done in the meeting, I said, Todd, can I use this for a podcast episode? Cause it’s really great content. He said, absolutely. So I literally ran into my studio and then pressed record and just jammed on what we talked about.

Because if I’m gleaning insight from something, it’s definitely going to help somebody else. And we’re, we’ve always been trying to get ahead, but the idea is that we record a couple solo episodes a week or so before they go live. So there are times when you’re like, this is tight, Renee, I need this from you like in the next hour or else we can’t make this happen.

And I’m so thankful that you always do. You always managed to pull it off but when you build a great team and you, you say, Hey, we’re an A and I want to get to like M and N and Z, help me get there. , then we’re doing this together. Cause like you can’t get to 300 episodes and have a life on your own.

There’s just no way. And so I thank you. And I think Morgan for that assistance. I know that I’m committed To you and committed to Morgan. Cause you guys are waiting on me to get this stuff done. Knowing that I’m accountable to somebody else is the forcing function for me to get it out the door.

It works every time.

That’s great to know yeah, and that’s it’s not a surprise that you’ve been able to maintain this Cadence of episodes with this kind of help. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s possible it’s probably where i’ve seen the issues before and people not being able to keep up with it and I never want a podcaster to feel pressured like it’s becoming a burden on your life. So I find when we are staying ahead, you don’t have that problem.

Everything lines up when you’re ahead. It allows you create space to create your promotion plan around the episodes to like, I had more capacity now. So we got this helium balloons at number 300 to celebrate the episode 300 that comes out in a couple of days with my husband, Dan Martell, who has been my 100th, my 200th episode guest.

And he was part of the motivation. Cause I remember when I decided to launch the show, I said, Hey, would you come on? And he was worried about my commitment. And he’s like, I’ll, I’ll come on after you have a hundred guests. And I go, why don’t you be my 100th guest? He’s like, all right. And that happened. And then it happened again.

And again, he’s also been a huge inspiration and motivation for me to keep going. But when it comes to like creating content, you got to kind of go out and live. That’s the thing is you get inspiration in places you wouldn’t least expect it. And like, go to events, go out for dinner, go watch movies, sit down at meetings. You wouldn’t normally sit in on read books.

You wouldn’t normally read, listen to podcasts. You wouldn’t normally listen to because just sitting at home or just doing the work that you always do, isn’t going to inspire you. So for me, it’s like. What do people in my community crave? They love to know about parenting. They love to know about how Dan and I have a balanced, integrated life.

They love to know about how we travel with kids and do we homeschool? All this stuff. There’s so much content. So I just sit down, I write a couple notes and I’m like, Maybe this will work and I look at people who are crushing it in the podcast game and I listen to their podcasts and sometimes the content isn’t the best.

But they’re still killing it because you know what? It’s helping somebody and they have the network. They have the community. So for me, I’m committed to this interview and then solo episodes twice a week.

That awareness too, that you can get inspiration from life is very important I found this when we were starting, I had to start becoming aware of that all the time, because there’s inspiration everywhere, but if you’re not thinking about it, you’re letting it slip by once you are actively thinking like, what can I take from this day to talk about, then all of a sudden you have a ton of topics.

Oh yeah. I didn’t think about that.

A couple examples on

that. One is today I was driving to my personal training and I got a text message from the dentist that my son Noah’s appointment this afternoon has been canceled but we can move him to Sunday

and I I was really angry for a second because my whole afternoon was actually scheduled around getting him from school early, bringing him to the dentist, waiting there and coming home. So now I got thinking, what can I actually do with this time freedom? That is actually a podcast episode. The next one is an example by Mel Robbins. I absolutely adore her. She’s one of my favorite people in the whole world. Can’t wait to have her on my show one day.

She had an episode about this owl. She talks for an hour and six minutes about how they were driving down this summer road, rain was coming down, it was pitch black, and a car in front of them hit this white owl. And they pulled over to help save this owl’s life and she goes on for an hour about the story and the intricacies of what happened and how now owls are just so significant in their family.

And I was captivated. It’s not like it was going to teach me a business lesson or anything, but I was so captivated how this one instant in Mel Robbins life has now been so significant in what owls mean to her and the family because they kept showing up. And it got me thinking, man, if that’s a banger of a podcast episode, what stories do I have that are like an owl?

Right. Yeah. It’s so unique too. And this is like, we talk about how to separate yourself from the noise and being like everyone else. Like you are having these unique experiences, you are forming them into a story or advice and putting it out there. This is great for anyone that’s wondering, how do I do that?

Like take that inspiration and something else too. I know with you, I don’t know if you’ve always had this skill, but your ability to just sit there and talk for an entire episode alone. A lot of people would be curious. How do I do that? Or I can’t do that. And I, you know, they stutter stumble, have to restart.

You just sit there and talk. Have you always been that way? Or is this, does this come from

no. I will put it this way. I would say according to Malcolm Gladwell, right? We’re experts at 10, 000 hours where I’m pretty much there. 300 episodes on my own podcast and hundreds on others, teaching webinars and masterclasses and coaching. I’d say I’m pretty confident on a mic, but Every single solo episode that I’ve ever published, I had notes written before that, and some of them are detailed.

Most of them are just bullet points because people remember stories. They want the framework, they want the lesson, but they remember how you made them feel. So it’s simple as saying, I want a 25 minute episode and here’s a topic and here are the three takeaways. You write down the takeaways and then you write one or two stories.

that relate to that takeaway. And before you know it, you can jam for 25 minutes. Cause most people don’t want to listen to you a Tim Ferriss three hour episode, and maybe there’s value in it too. Like some of those are great, but they just want like the quick nugget, give me something now motivate me now.

And then onto the next.

Love it. Okay. So that was great. We’ve got some good insight into how you’re being successful at your podcast, which I know you’re the 300 episodes. You’re the top 10, what was the category on Apple recently?

Oh my God. I got to share this story. You know, these moments in life when you’re going, you’re doing stuff, you’re working out, maybe trying to lose weight, or you’re, you’re a kid and you’re trying to make a soccer team, or you’re in business and you’re trying to make your first million dollar year and you’re losing, you’re failing.

But then the moment that you’re have that towel, you’re going to throw it in. Throw in the towel and you’re going to quit. That’s when God’s like, boom, and gives you a reason to keep going. Well, I’ve had these emotions around this podcast for four and a half years now. And every single time I was like that I’m done.

Let’s give this, like, let’s wrap this up. Mm. Something bigger and better happens. So a week and a half ago, maybe two weeks ago, my friend Jackie messaged me and it was a screenshot of my podcast above Dan’s podcast. And she’s like, this is so cute, congrats. And I thought it was just her library. I thought she was subscribed to both of us and it just so happened that the sequence of when our shows were published, they were close together.

And then the next morning I woke up and I looked at it again and I was like, but there was numbers next to those. Podcasts, which if I looked at my library, I was like, there’s no numbers next to these. And I had number 10 next to mine and I was next to Cody Sanchez, by the way. And I was like, wait a second.

And then I went onto Chartable and it showed me that I was number 10 in Canada for entrepreneurship. So then I went to Apple podcasts and sure enough, there I was sitting at number 10 for entrepreneurship in Canada. First thought went to my head. There must have been a glitch. They made a mistake.

Somebody screwed up. And then it was like 5 a. m. and my husband was reading his Kindle and I walked over to him and I showed him. I go, Babe, I am number 10 in Canada for entrepreneurship, next to Cody Sanchez, ahead of you. And he’s like, way to go. He’s like, that’s awesome. And I, and I got goosebumps and I kept refreshing, like, is this my, like, I couldn’t believe it.

And the thing about rankings shows is that they fluctuate like crazy, unless you’re like, Literally the top 20 shows in the world. So then I kind of slid out of the rankings. When I look at my listen score, my listen notes score, all the data keeps like trending up

it is crazy. The amount of episodes that I put out, the amount of content that I put out, the guests that I’ve had on my show, we’re in the top 1 percent in the world of all podcasts, which is awesome. My listen score is 44.

 To put things into perspective, like Lewis House is only in the seventies, to get a ranking of like 45 and 50 and above is actually considered pretty good. But I’m like. What’s it gonna take to get to 45 and to be in the top .5 percent podcast in the world? Because when that happens, I might buy myself a new car.

I don’t know. Seems to be a theme in my household.

Right. Well, it’s it’s well, well deserved. Like you mentioned, there’s been times that you felt like giving up, but you didn’t. I know you’ve been watching these things closely over the years, you take those numbers to heart. So it couldn’t have happened to a better person to finally get that top 10

Well, and you know, like we, we tweak things. Like you’ll, you’ll see. I’ll ask you questions like how can we make this better or all these things like what do we need to do to actually grow the show because things change trends change over time. , but you’ve been super patient and kind and testing things out with me and sometimes it was great.

Sometimes it’s not like yesterday at eight or nine PM I was like, can we make the intro music fade in sooner in the intro and then you did it. I was like, Oh, that was crap. Let’s not do that. And you’re like, okay. Okay. Okay. Coming back to this achievement is It absolutely takes team, like don’t go at this alone. If you have the intent of producing a show and growing it, you need people in your court to help you because you can’t do it alone.

I do want to get into some PR. So we know that you’ve had success. A lot of it’s due to your ability to delegate and your persistence of just hanging in there. I’m sure there’s more elements and a big part of that would be PR.

That’s where your expertise lies. So. When we think about PR and how it would apply to entrepreneurs with podcasts, what is the scope? Like, are we talking solely about pitching to other podcasts to be a guest, or is there more like, you know, your personal brand, that, that sort of thing? What does this

Yeah. So, I mean, there’s a lot, but let’s just go to what a good balance would be. So if you’re just starting out in the world of podcasting, I would spend most of your time, like 70 percent of your time pitching yourself to be on other people’s show so that you grow your community faster that way.

Because you’re essentially dipping into somebody else’s community, and then 30 percent of your time on your own. And as you get momentum behind your podcast, then that balance would, would switch. But we’re, this week, I’m recording three episodes for other people’s shows. And so our goal is to do one a week

however, if it doesn’t align that it’s the right show, we just won’t do it. Like, I’m not going to show up on a podcast for the sake of adding it to a number. I’ve been on 300 shows. Like, no, that’s not the point. But I think anybody that is, has a personal brand, wants to grow their brand, is the CEO or founder of a company, they need to be going on and sharing their stories, their journey.

We all have something to share. Like, I’m in this precarious moment in the seasons of my career right now, and I remember this one woman on LinkedIn, she’s awesome, and I can’t wait to work with her one day, but she’s a LinkedIn expert. And I just said, listen, I, I just, I don’t know what I need to be talking about right now.

Cause there’s this stuff that’s happening, transition in business. Um, so I don’t think it’s a now thing because I don’t really, I’m not leading you to a particular product or service. And she said to me, Renee. People want to be on board for the journey. They want to see what you’re doing to get to that next thing.

What, like, what are you doing? I said, fair enough. Fair enough. So for people that want to grow their podcast, I say, start by going on other people’s shows while you’re also simultaneously producing content for your own. And then when you get better, then you do better. It’s all practice. It’s a muscle. It’s all practice.

 Are you getting a lot of pitches now to where you don’t have to pitch yourself at all, or are you still at this level of having to pitch yourself to these other shows?

mix of both. We’re about like 75 percent people just reach out to us cold and then 25 percent we pitch other people. But what’s really cool and what’s happening now is, the intentionality of the guests that we’re bringing onto our show. A lot of these women have their own podcast. And now we’re just doing swaps where we’ll like, we’ll actually put two hours in our calendar and we’ll just do my episode, then your episode for their show.

But I think as you grow your influence, it just comes naturally that people will want to have those discussions with you. But four and a half years ago, it was me pitching and going for the, like the lower hanging fruits, the newer shows, the ones that have the fewer downloads, they’re more open to taking you as a guest.

And that’s okay. That’s where you get your practice.

 I like that a lot. It’s, it’s a great strategy. Uh, I know things evolve over time as well, like the actual strategies for pitching, but let’s, here’s some concrete tips from you on that as well. Like for someone that perhaps is more on the side of starting out and they want to make these appearances on other shows that they have to go out Basically shop themselves out to those shows.

What’s what’s working these days in terms of

Okay. To craft the ultimate email pitch is quite simple, which blows my mind because I get pitched all the time to be on my show. And I’d say 99 percent of these pitches are crap. Like they don’t even link to their website or their social media account. I’m like, dude, you’re missing out on an opportunity.

What’s working for me now and getting really cool people on my show are DMs, just reaching out to people on Instagram. Here’s why this platform works is because If you’re intentional about the content that you’re putting out there in the world through stories and posts and reels people get an insight into who you are very quickly and we become friends.

Maybe we’ll follow each other and we’ll connect and I’ll comment on their stuff. And eventually it’s like, I actually want this person on my show, slide into their DMS and I’ll say something as simple as, Hey, I’ve been a, you know, a fan for five years now, and I would love to have you as a guest on my show.

Is this something that you do? Boom, like that’s how I got Gabby Reese on the show. Somebody who I had posters of in my wall in high school. And she is a contact now. I’ve had Amy Porterfield on the show. She’s now become a friend. We exchange text messages. It’s crazy what can happen if you allow that energy to flow.

Now pitching, I actually have free resources on my website. Uh, we wild women. com it’s, it’s as simple as if you don’t have that relationship, the pitch needs to be very short, succinct, 180 words or less. Couple bullet points linked to maybe two things, your social media account that’s active and your website.

And going even further, the best cold pitches that we receive are people that have listened to several episodes. They have gone back to see the naming conventions of my show, meaning like how do we title the shows? Where is there a gap in the content and how can that person fill that, that void with their expertise?

They’ll come in and they’ll pitch a topic idea that is only suitable for my show and how, what they would talk about. That’s beautiful. So the pitching can be cold pitches, stick to email. Um, that if you’ve developed some sort of relationship on social, then you can connect there as well. I get a lot of pitches there. There’s some really cool people that are coming on the show because I’ve spent the time building a network, building those relationships, most important thing, providing value. Like,

when I met Amy Porterfield in person at an event a year ago we connected, but not really.

And, you know, at the end I was going to say my goodbyes and she said, you know what, Renee, I’d love to stay in touch with you. I was like, that’s cool. She’s like, here’s my phone number. You can text me anytime for funsies. And I was like, sweet. And I got in the cab with Dan, I was like, so Amy gave me her phone number and we’re supposed to stay connected for funsies.

What is funsies with Amy? And he’s like, I don’t know, you should just provide value. And I did. And I eventually, over the course of a month, made an introduction to her. To somebody that was going to help her with something that she was working on. And it ended up being the perfect solution to her problem.

And so that was kind of like, I want to be of service to you. And now we text and it’s pretty cool. It’s pretty fun.

Yeah, that’s how it’s done. You cannot go wrong having that in mind. How do I provide value to other people, whether it’s pitching or in that kind of situation?

 I know you’re in a bit of a transition phase right now, but you’ve had the PR agency. Let us know kind of where you’re at now and what you can do to help people, how they could perhaps work with you if they were

Yeah. So the transition is that, the company is going through, or as time of this recording is going through a concentric acquisition. So essentially I’m exiting my agency and the company is out of Denver. Is acquiring the agency, which is super cool. It’s the best home for it. And in this transition period, I’m helping spearhead their, their PR department to help make them a full service agency, fun activity.

And then going forward, really a lot of focus will be on growing my podcast. And in landing sponsorships for the show, but I’m also part of Martel media. So my husband and Martel’s company and helping them grow the media company here, because of my background and helping do some communications and PR work as well as events and the philanthropic side of the business.

Great. I love a good success story. great proof here of just what you can get out of persistence, hard work. And we’re 300 episodes in, it seems like, yeah, things are going better than ever. So I’ll put your links in the show notes. I know it’s, you’ve got renee warren. com, all your social media, anybody that wants to connect with you.

You’re very active on there. So we’ll have those links available and it’s been great to chat. I appreciate

So thanks for having me.