
Could your health-focused podcast be missing out on lead generation and growth opportunities due to commonly overlooked mistakes?
I’m sharing the story of a medical professional and entrepreneur who is navigating the rocky terrain of growing her online business with her podcast. Facing challenges like ineffective marketing hires and the pressure of producing quality content, she represents many who tread this path. During our call, she told me she was spending OVER 10 HOURS editing each of her episodes, and that was only the beginning. She was even worried about not being able to fund her retirement unless her online business began producing results!
Despite all of this, I told her a podcast editing company like ours would not be suitable to help her right now. Listen to learn six thoughtful fixes I recommended to her that focus on sustainable growth, helping to realign her podcasting efforts toward generating more leads and revenue.
Today’s episode includes:
- Why medical professionals face unique podcasting challenges + how to overcome them.
- What makes sustainable growth more important than seeking overnight success.
- Why high-quality presentation is especially important in the health and wellness podcasting space.
- How to make podcast production more efficient without spending a cent.
- The proper way you must embed episodes on a website that can make or break your SEO results.
- Why a lack of follow-up email sequences can wreck your lead conversion efforts.
- Using podcast guesting as an effective and free strategy for growth and exposure.
- Why focusing on fundamental business aspects is required before investing in podcasting.
- My rationale for turning away business, and why honesty leads to better client relationships and success.
Are you pouring your heart into your podcast but still not seeing the growth you deserve? Download our free guide to unlock your podcast’s full potential and expand your impact: https://eastcoaststudio.com/5mistakes
Our LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eastcoaststudio/
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View unedited episode transcript
[00:00:00] I am not going to be able to retire unless I get this business going. That was a direct quote from a medical professional slash entrepreneur, who I had a call with the other day. And I want to share with you that story. And then the six simple and free fixes.
I told her that she needs to make right now to start pointing her in the right direction, to create more revenue for her business, with the help of podcasting. This is profits through podcasting, where we help health focused entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver. So let’s get into a bit of backstory here about this entrepreneur and the conversation that we had. typically here at east coast studio, when I’m having what we’ll call, I call a podcast vitality call AKA discovery, call. I don’t like to use the word sales call. Cause it’s not what it is. But typically when we have those conversations, we’re speaking with entrepreneurs and [00:01:00] podcasters who are a little further along by the time they come to chat with us because our offering is a little more high ticket.
So anyone that will be interested or able to take advantage of that offer would be. Uh, somewhat established in their entrepreneurship and podcasting journey, likely doing their business full time. They’ve been podcasting for a while, or at the very least they’ve got a budget to pay for production. Okay.
So one thing that is different or more rare about this call that I had is that it was with a struggling entrepreneur. So she’s working in a medical profession, multiple jobs, actually at this point, trying to get a side hustle, going with some online courses and wants to eventually transition fully. Into that.
And she’s feeling extremely stuck, burned out. Like I mentioned, she actually said, if I don’t get this going, I’m not going to be able to retire. I’m just going to have to keep working. I don’t have enough income. And through all this sheet for the business, just hasn’t been able to get proper help. [00:02:00] Everyone seems to have an answer who she speaks to, but nothing is working.
It’s just stalled. She’s feeling like she’s on a treadmill. Nothing is happening. Stuck is really the best word to describe it. And. I know I have felt that way. I still do from time to time. And Highly likely you felt that way also. And if you have never felt stuck in life or as an entrepreneur, I’d love to chat. To find out how that happened. So some of the key things that she expressed to me. Especially when it comes to some things relating to the podcast. She was struggling with the time and effort required to create the podcast episodes. And she was spending what I will call an astronomical amount of time. On each episode, they were relatively short and she was spending almost 10 hours per episode. Working on what I’m not really fully.
Sure. I try to understand. I know a lot of it had to do with editing. There wasn’t a whole lot of shownotes to even write. So it was a lot to do with editing and [00:03:00] the preparation process to some degree. So that was a big problem. She’s also, like I mentioned, limited on budget, so very uncertain about what to prioritize.
Like what’s going to give me the most bang for my buck right now. What should get my attention next? She’s also working with a company who does marketing for her and feeling like they’re really not doing much. So she spending the little bit of budget that she does have. She’s spending that mostly on this company and they’re not really doing anything.
And I even saw that myself, I checked her social media. Hadn’t been updated in months. The websites. Really needed a lot of updating and changes. I heard that the company is giving her the run around. Really not a good situation to be in, especially locked in a contract there. I’m not able to leave that.
So of course, she’s just feeling overwhelmed, trying to manage the podcast, her websites. Her other jobs and responsibilities in life. When we look at the podcast specifically, she has been podcasting for a while. She actually thought this. [00:04:00] Was the next thing, growing her podcast that was going to be the secret to unlock business success.
And that’s actually how we ended up talking was she saw our company saw that we can help grow. The podcast, helped take tasks off her plate to free up her time. So she was thinking after trying other things that didn’t work, maybe this is finally key to my problems and I can finally start generating leads and revenue for the business.
If I just improve and grow this podcast.
Now the issue with being in a place like this is depending on who you talk to, you’re going to get different answers and. I really have a problem with taking someone’s money even if you know your business, isn’t the right solution Not only is that dishonest, but I think it often screws you over as a business owner. Because then you have to deal with a bad client.
Who’s not a good fit, and that can bring all sorts of headaches. Now that said, it’s not necessarily. Always black and white. ’cause like I saw in this case. Me for example, I can help her improve this podcast. [00:05:00] I can absolutely make things better. So it’s more set up to generate leads and revenue for the business.
However, We’re still not going to be seeing results because there are too many other issues. And then she’s got no budget, no results. Frustrated, again, stops podcasting, maybe shuts down the business, goes to try something else.
And this loop just, just goes and goes and goes. And having been in this situation myself. I don’t like that. I can totally relate to it. And so if someone comes on a call with me, I’m not going to just try to sell them what we offer, just to make a buck. Okay. I really do want to help, and I don’t want to have any clients that are not a good fit because they’re just going to be disappointed.
And that’s not a good reputation for our company. Now, all this, what I’ve just mentioned, that’s just business. There’s no overnight fix. Okay. And I tell that to every single person I work with. don’t have a magic secret and nobody else does either. That’s just going to skyrocket your results overnight. It takes time. It takes dedication, same thing in business. You’re going to be working on it over time. You’re going to collect knowledge tidbits here and [00:06:00] there. You’re going to work with someone that’s going to help you.
And it just takes that process of iterating a little bit better every day, implementing little new things. Things that you figure out. And over time. Look you one day realize you have a pretty successful business or something that’s working a lot better than when you started out.
Okay. And if you don’t have some of these foundational, fundamental things in place. No amount of marketing is going to help. And I put podcasting in that marketing bucket. You can’t just expect your podcast to be successful on that will solve all your problems. If you aren’t converting your leads. Or you’re losing customers, that kind of thing.
Then what’s the point of any marketing? There’s no point. So we really need to get those basics taken care of first. And that was really what I saw when I looked into her offerings here in her website and ask some questions. I saw a lot of problems. it was overwhelming for her, but also for me, of course, I know a little about business or perhaps more than a little, but. [00:07:00] I’m not a business consultant.
I focus on podcasting, so I’m really equipped to help with those types of things. But if I see someone who just has a complete mess of a business, what am I supposed to do there? I really, I can’t dig in that deep with them. They need other help. I can see that, but they’re not. They’ve not been getting the help that they need.
So yeah, I definitely want to help as much as I could by pointing them in the right direction. And doing what I know how to do and talk about podcasting so we can at least get that aspect figured out or get her headed in the right direction. So, what I told her was, listen, there’s a whole bunch of stuff here that you can fix starting today.
You don’t need to pay anyone. You don’t need to pay me. Because why even think about spending money. If we have these basic things that you can fix on your own, right. Especially as someone with a limited budget right now. So I offered to give her some of my starting points that I think are a high priority in terms of the podcast, allowing her to keep the budget for what I think are [00:08:00] some other higher priority things in the business that really need attention.
Before we focus on spending more on podcasting, so, let me tell you the things that I told her to address, and hopefully this gives you some insight into your own business as well, and your podcast. And perhaps you can apply some of this to your situation to make things even better. If you’re confused right now about what do I do?
How do I grow my business? How do I generate more leads and sales? I’m not sure where to turn next. Well, this is going to help.
So first thing I noticed is that overall the podcast was not giving a good professional impression. Now, this is almost always important, but when we’re talking about the medical healthcare type space, it’s really important quality presentation. It’s got to look good. You don’t want to break trust. I mean the whole point or a big point of podcasting is to build trust. If someone comes across your podcast and the artwork doesn’t look good, the sound quality is bad.
The description is just not [00:09:00] written well, those sorts of things that’s, they’re not going to take it seriously. So we really need to get those basics. In order with the podcast. I just wasn’t getting a good vibe from it. So I gave her a bunch of things to work on there. In terms of the artwork beefing up the show notes, making it sound better, that type of thing.
So very simple, but often overlooked and especially in this case. So that’s just causing her to spin our wheels.
Next thing was the podcast workflow. It was taking her, as I mentioned earlier, way, way too long to create podcast episodes. And I just can’t figure out how it was actually taking this long. Obviously my job. What my company does is offer this service, but not everybody’s in a place to afford that. Obviously it’s not the right solution for everyone.
So, I’m not just going to try to push this on anyone. I’m going to evaluate the situation that she was in. And based on that, I see, okay, you maybe need to continue working on this on your own for now. If you don’t have a budget to [00:10:00] outsource, but we’ve got to make this way more efficient.
Otherwise there’s just no way this makes sense for you to be spending this much time per episode. It was like eight to 10 hours. Ours for a very short episodes. That’s so many hours, she could be spending doing other more important things in a business, which was struggling. So some tips I gave quickly to help fix this problem. Editing was taking a big part, doing her editing on her own.
I really don’t like to see that, but some, I understand there’s some cases where it just has to be that way, at least for a while. We’re spending a lot of time in doing that. . Tidying up the ums tidying up tangents, that sort of thing. My biggest recommendation there, just stop saying, um, It’s obviously difficult. We all have crutch, words and phrases that we say, but if you can just focus on that and your day to day activities, just remove those words from your vocabulary.
Then you’re going to save a whole bunch of editing time because you don’t need to cut those out. Also preparing a bit of an outline. So it’s less likely that the podcast goes on some tangents that then have to be cut out [00:11:00] later. Just keep focused, realize in the moment, if what you’re saying is about to add or detract from the podcast, if you’re going to have to cut it out, try to get it to the point where essentially what you record is going to be very close to what goes out with very minimal editing.
One of the next things is better promote the website and lead magnets in her episodes, in her show notes.
So when we’re thinking about generating leads and sales for your business through podcasting, I’ve got to promote the business. That’s a big one. It’s free. It’s simple. I noticed in her episodes, she wasn’t giving a direct call to action about any specific freebie that she offered.
She had a whole bunch of lead magnets, I said, how about you? Recommend a specific freebie instead of just the general website. So being very clear and intentional on what the call to action is, let listeners know exactly what you want them to do. And put a link in the show notes.
It’s going to be more difficult for them to go find this. If you don’t put the link in the show [00:12:00] notes and we need to make it as easy as possible.
Making sure we’ve got a very clear path from the podcast into the business.
And that could be either directly selling something or going into a lead magnet funnel where you nurture the leads and eventually they become customers through emails.
And on that note, I will mention that one of the questions I asked her, and this is something that was a huge indication to me, that we needed to not focus on the podcast just yet. Was no follow up email sequence from those lead magnets. So she’s getting traffic to the lead magnets. People were downloading these freebies. And there was no follow-up emails. And she expressed frustration that, well, they’re getting all the free things, but nobody’s buying anything.
And I said, you know, this is very common. People need more touch points. They need more time. Before they trust you and want to buy something from you. You’ve got to have, uh, an email followup sequence for these things.
And this is why I cannot say that focusing on the [00:13:00] podcast just yet. Is your biggest priority because you’re already getting leads coming in and you’re not doing anything to convert them. So that’s a huge problem. Focus on that first. So try to make that very clear, but of course, continue on with my free podcast advice.
The next thing that she could implement almost right away was fixing some website issues, some shortcomings on her website.
There were no links to subscribe to the podcast. That’s not good. People are landing on your site. They see that your podcast exists. You want them to be able to subscribe if they desire and to make that easy, you’ve got to have subscribed links there. Very very basic thing.
And there were none on the website or maybe there was only one or something like that, but that was an easy thing to implement. Also something that’s a little more difficult to implement, but highly, highly important. Was proper episodes on the website. Embedding these properly. On the site. Now, the reason here without getting too deep into it is for [00:14:00] SEO search engine optimization, ranking higher in Google.
You can do this. If you have more quality content on your website. And the great thing about podcasting is when you write those show notes, those summaries, which should be 200 to 300 words, at least. That can count as content for Google. You just need to put it on your website and it’ll just benefit your SEO.
And you’re really not doing any extra work. You’re just making the episode and doing the show notes, which you would have anyway. The problem is if you don’t set this up on your website properly, you won’t actually get the SEO benefits and that was happening in this case, it wasn’t properly embedded on her site as a post for each episode. So the show notes did exist.
Although, as I mentioned, they were kind of light. But they weren’t even actually on her website. When you look at it through Google’s eyes. And that’s a bit more of a technical thing. I can’t get too deep into here, but huge, huge missed opportunity. And I see this quite frequently when I do podcast audits that it’s just not actually on a [00:15:00] website, on a domain name, that the site. Owner the podcast or owns themselves.
The next thing I recommended was do more podcast guesting. So this is a great way to grow your own podcast and just get yourself out there.
Grow your confidence, get awareness of your business, your products, your services. So when she goes and does that, she should have a lead magnet or very the various lead magnets that she’s got prepared. Have one of those ready, whatever is relevant to the audience. She’s talking to books, some podcast appearances use pod match, or podcast guests.com or some of the Facebook groups out there.
Just start doing this and slowly exposure will build. And the nice thing I liked about this for her situation is there is much less time required. Per appearance. So when she was having trouble preparing her own episodes, it was taking a long time. If you think about a podcast appearance, there might be a little prep beforehand, but otherwise you’re just showing up for that 30 to 60 minute appearance.
You’re talking about things. You already are an [00:16:00] expert in, so there’s not really much preparation to do. Then you get a back link for SEO. You get exposure to that podcasters audience. They hopefully promote it on social media, builds, credibility, all sorts of things. So there are huge benefits in her making guest appearances on other. Other shows. If you’re not doing that now, that’s a great one to consider as well, to help grow your show and your brand.
So those are the six things that I suggested to the struggling doctor to do immediately for virtually no cost to get her on the right track for generating sales and leads for her business through podcasting. there’s a lot more business specific stuff involved that was outside of my wheelhouse. I actually did refer her to someone who I trust, who specializes in that, in this case.
So I think that’s really good as well, but I totally get that mindset of just overwhelmed talk to too many people. Nothing seems to be working. Everyone’s telling me they have a solution. I’ve spent money on it. And nothing is happening. What do I do? If I [00:17:00] could just find someone to give me proper advice and.
We just have to keep in mind that it is a slow process.
Don’t spread yourself too thin, trying to do everything at once. Everything that everybody tells you. You can hear conflicting advice saying, do one thing. No, actually don’t do that. The fundamentals need to be solid. Okay.
Try your best to get in touch with people you trust. That can be watching content on YouTube, asking in your circles, joining some free Facebook groups try to get the best direction that you can then focus in on a minimal amount of things. Don’t think you need to be everywhere on every social platform, doing everything.
We want the basics
so I hope this was useful to you in terms of how you have your podcast set up and how you prioritize in your business to generate leads, grow your revenue, and build the business that you’re dreaming of. If you want something in writing that you can reference for helping your podcasts similar to some of the things I outlined today, I [00:18:00] highly suggest our free guide five growth killing mistakes, holding back your health focused podcast and business.