Lesson Info
28. Defining "Success" for your Business
Lessons
Class Introduction: Build Trust and Increase Sales
03:12 2Why your Handmade Business Needs a Podcast
06:42 3What is a Podcast?
03:13 4How to Set up your Studio in 5 Minutes
04:48 5How to Launch a Podcast in 1 Week
05:58 6What Kind of Show will you Have?
03:02 7About the Interview Format
06:39 8About the Solo-Show Format
16:41About the Roundtable Discussion Format
07:55 10Which Format is Right for You
21:40 11Challenge: FInd What's Out There
03:25 12Choosing the Right Topic for your Podcast
14:19 13How to Make your Show Special
02:23 14Make Magic: Combine for a Unique Show
07:46 15Content Development Strategies
16:12 16Naming your Podcast Best Practices
07:34 17How to Introduce Yourself
11:34 18How to Write your Intro
03:48 19How to Exit with Confidence
09:00 20Where does your Podcast Live and Why iTunes Matters
20:06 21DEMO:How to Get your Podcast on iTunes
07:18 22How a Listener Becomes a Customer: The Customer Path
07:58 23Your Home Base: How to Set it up for Podcast Listeners
15:19 24How to Generate Content Upgrades
12:39 25How to Leverage your Podcasts to Sell your Product
04:53 26Question And Answer
06:58 27How to Launch your Podcast Successfully
18:06 28Defining "Success" for your Business
07:41 29Other Ways to Make Money from your Podcast
08:25 30How to Find Time for it all: Tara's Exact Workflow
25:19 31Wrapping it all Up
02:03Lesson Info
Defining "Success" for your Business
As we're talking about launching successfully, I have to say that it's important for you to define what success means for yourself. I've got a whole page on this in the workbook on page 14, because it's really, really important not to look at big podcasts or super, super rockstars and think, 'My podcast has to reach that level of total awesomeness. 'If it doesn't, I'm a total failure.' That's what holds people back, is that they decide that they're gonna measure their success by somebody else's success, or their success by someone else's standards, and then they feel bad about it, and then they stop doing it, and then you pod fade. We wanna keep you around for a long time. The only way to do that is to decide, like we talked about at the beginning of the day, what are your goals? And how is this show gonna help those goals? And along with that, when will you consider the show a success? I got a question a couple weeks ago for me to answer in a Q&A episode that said, 'When can I con...
sider,' I think it was her business, but like, 'When can I consider my project a success?' It's like girl, as soon as you want to. You can decide that it's a success as soon as you want to, but it will help you if you set some definitions, if you set some parameters. 'This is what I wanna create.' I wouldn't actually focus on number of listeners, or number of downloads. I would instead focus on an outcome that relates to your actual business goals. So a lot of people get wrapped up in, 'This podcast has this many listens,' and 'This podcast has this many listens.' And that doesn't matter... Or 'this many downloads.' That doesn't matter if it doesn't give them what they want, right? So, I mentioned earlier that I had a friend that created an awesome podcast that didn't get sales, so she couldn't keep doing it because it wasn't sustaining her life. And it wasn't sustaining her business. And it just was super frustrating. So, if you need your podcast to lead to sales for your business, that's your definition of success. Does it do that or not? If you want your podcast to grow a big email list so that you can get a book deal with a publisher, does it do that or not? Whatever your goals are, is it moving you towards it or not? That's how you're gonna define success for yourself. So I ask you on page 14, what do you want in your business? How will a podcast help you with that? And then what will success look like for you? At what point will you decide, 'This is a great project I'm spending my time on?' For me, it was an increase in sales, it was an increase in emails. I get such more personal stories and emails and interactions with people now that I've started the show because they're hearing my voice. And now that I do a video too, they're seeing my face. And that's just different than what it was when it was just text on a screen. So my business has grown a lot, but more importantly than that, the connection I'm having with my people I'm serving has grown a lot. And so, I consider it a success. Every time somebody comes up to me and is like, 'Oh I listen to your podcast and I just have to tell you,' and then they tell me their whole life story, I'm like, 'success!' Because they wouldn't have done that before because they didn't feel like they knew me that well. Your definition might be different, you might not want people to tell you their whole life story. Or you might want people to come up and say, 'You know, you helped me do xyx.' Or you might want the phone to ring, and it be like a yarn shop ordering more yarn from you, or ordering for the first time. 'You know what, three of your podcast listeners came in 'and said I had to buy yarn from you, so I'm... 'How do I do that?' Whatever is going to tie into your goals, that's how you're gonna define success for yourself. So, I would love to hear them share in the chatroom how they're gonna define the success for their podcast. This is really important if you're gonna keep going day after day, week after week. If you don't have this clearly defined, it will be so easy to fall into the comparison trap and compare yourself to other people. Say, 'She has a bigger podcast, she seems fancier, 'her website's prettier, her episodes are better-edited.' And that's just not gonna lead to any kind of success, or contentment, or reaching your goals at all. Because those other people, their definition of success might be totally different than yours. I haven't really said what my podcast is going to be about, but my main goal is to reach more people so they're empowering families to take care of themselves with their health and life issues. So, solutions for their problems concerning their health is really my goal. So, little kids all the way to grown adults and anybody in-between is just having... Educating them so that they're empowered to help themselves. And through like, my life experiences and talking about it, how I take care of my kids, or what we do kind of on the daily, I think will give people an idea of 'Oh this is real, I can do these things, 'it's not as hard or over-complicated as it could be.' [Featured Speaker] Exactly. It just breaks it down and shows them this is doable. So success would be somebody coming to you and being like, 'I really thought that was going to be hard, 'and then I listened to your episode about this 'and about this, and it's like not that hard!' Right. Like I could, that's totally doable! Yeah. Like, that would be success. People just having those stories and experiences, I love that. Because it's not based on numbers, and it's not even necessarily based on sales. It's just, I'm having the impact I want to have, and that will keep you going. Even if you get just one of those stories. When your kids are running around screaming and you haven't recorded that week's podcast, you'll be like, 'But I'm helping one person, 'she told me I have to record.' Right, yeah, my end goal is to have people have better quality of life. So if I can help one individual do that for my podcast, that's a success. [Featured Speaker] Yeah, I love that. I have a range of thoughts on this from the online viewers. Dawn says, "One, have customers at shows "that say they listen," so to interact with people that say that they do listen. "Two, reach more wholesale shops. "And three, when I start clubs for listeners, "to sign up and be excited about them." Yes, so that's like launching a new product, is what she's talking about. Having immediate sign-ups from her launches. And then MT says "Success equals more pattern sales, and eventually online students." [Featured Speaker] Awesome. And Annie says, "If I get at least one listener "that's not my mum, that will be a great success." (they laugh) Awesome, that's awesome, well you will probably scale up your definition of success after you get that second or third listener. You'll be like, "Maybe I should shoot a little higher.) (laughter) But I wanted to go back to, you said MT said increase in pattern sales. So I would recommend that you get more specific about what that means. Because often when I work with clients, we'll be doing some marketing thing, and they'll be like 'Well I want more sales.' Well, so this month you sold three more than you did last month, and they're like, 'But that's not what I meant.' (laughs) So really specifically, what do you mean by more? And it might just be five next month, it might be five over the next year. What do you mean by more? Because as we work on our business, it's really easy to get, 'I'm not growing fast enough, 'I'm not growing as much as I want.' But if you only set the goal more, you never know when you've reached it, and you've never reached it. So you always feel bad like, 'Well it's not enough, it's not going enough.' So I always, when I work with people, I make them put a number on it, and then like a deadline, a date. When do they wanna be there by? And if they're not there, fine. If you wanted to sell 10 more by the end of December, and you've only sold five more than last year, that's five more than you did before. But at least now you've got some measurement. And you know if you're making progress towards it, or you're not making progress. Otherwise you need to celebrate when you even sell one more than you did before. Because that's more.
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Ratings and Reviews
Tess
I design embroidery patterns and I love podcasts but I wasn't sure what I would talk about in my own podcast without being able to show pictures. After watching this course I already have 20+ ideas for podcast topics, plus I now know how to get a podcast up and running, step-by-step, AND how it fits with my business goals. Tara Swiger is an excellent teacher and coach. I filled page after page with notes!
Rhonda M.
Excellent, practical information.
Dawn Craig
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