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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome to the show, right? We’re talking about podcasting today. Should you have one? How long should you have it for? No, I’m not going to go into that, but what I am going to share with you is I have now recorded well over 150 episodes. Now the eagle eyed among you may have spotted that. Yes, I think this is episode 140 446 but because I batch my guest episodes and solo episodes, I mean, my team will be able to tell you there’s more than 160 episodes in the vault. So it felt high time to share some learnings about having a podcast. Because if there is one decision in my business, I massively dragged my feet over it was starting a podcast, and now I think it must be at least two years now that I’ve been recording this. I mean, if it’s been about one episode a week, and I’m 150 I think it might be approaching three years. I mean, that’s longer than my average romantic relationship, much longer, at least those in my 20s, anyhow. So the commitment, guys, is strong. And you know, am I like a top 1% top 3% No, I’m top 10% very proud of that. But you know, it’s not like I’m Diary of a CEO, or begin again, or anything like that, two of my faves. I mean, begrudgingly, but anyway, you know, it’s not like it’s any of that, but, but it there. There have been various advantages, various learnings, mistakes that I’ve made, and things I just felt like, let’s just record an episode and share all the good stuff with you. So I feel like we should start with priorities. Well, you know what I’m going to say? The first thing actually, like, because I mentioned that I was dragging my feet before I even get into the four lessons I want to share with you. Let me share a little Brucey bonus, which is I struggled to get started because, bit like writing a book, bit like getting on a stage, any of those things, it brings out the imposter syndrome. 

There’s that sense of like, oh, there’s already other people talking about online businesses, digital marketing, scaling. What’s the point in adding another voice, even when it came to promoting the podcast? Actually, I mean, even now I’m a bit half assed about it, because I guess maybe the introvert in me slightly still holds the handles over how I manage this podcast, but I am so glad I got started. And actually, probably, for some reasons, I’m going to go into, you know, actually, I’m going to get into it right now. It’s meant to be lesson number three, but let’s, let’s stick it front and center. This podcast has attracted the most aligned clients. I hate the word aligned. It’s a bit naff, isn’t it? Bit coachy, bestie, energy clients, not even that, to be honest with you, but just phenomenal human beings, human beings that have just come in and already, you know, the the trust, the connection, the understanding. It’s just already there because they’ve been listening to this podcast. They have a strong sense of who I am. They have a strong understanding of my moral compass. There’s a whole load of values I’ve not had to say I have. They’ve heard it through the way I speak, the way I see the world, the way I talk about it in my podcast. And a lot of those clients have come in and paid me in full. So I think last year alone, in three clients who paid me in full, I made 30k off the back of this podcast. One of them even said they found me via the podcast because they were looking up evergreen and found my episodes, I made a very strong, intentional decision to put evergreen in a lot of my podcast episode titles, which I should probably do more of again, to ensure that people who are interested in scaling and doing it sustainably through evergreen marketing that they could find me easily. So that has been absolutely joyous, and not just in one to ones. I see it in my accelerator clients too. There’s a real trust, I mean, just all the stuff, so a bit like you’re going on a first date.

04:53

No, we can’t even use that analogy, because it’s so much better, but it is. It’s that trust of a really established relationship. You. You know, right from the get go, it’s just so good. And of course, if they really like me, that means I generally, well, not generally. I’ve always really liked them too, because what they see in me, that they like about me is often, well, not often, always a reflection and something about themselves. So sometimes people are like, wow, I really know the fact that you have two small children with additional needs that tells me you’re going to understand me. Wow, you balance your business with neurodivergency That tells me you’re going to understand me you were once on I mean, there’s so many stories that they’ve heard through this podcast that connect their story to mine, where I shine a light for what’s possible in a way that they’ve not seen. So honestly, you can’t put a price on that. You really can’t like. One thing I can really say about the spaces I hold now in my business is that they nourish and fill me up, like I feel better after hosting a group coaching call, where before I could sometimes feel depleted, and sometimes I would feel like the main job I was doing on a group coaching call was balancing energies to manage just, just all the kind of mixed stuff that could come into the room, which I don’t feel I attract anymore, because I believe I attract the doers and the people Who know we’ve all of us, we all know we’ve always got work to do. But they’re not unaware of the mindset work. They’re not unself aware. They’re bringing self awareness to calls. They’re bringing accountability to calls. 

They’re asking those big, juicy questions, and honestly, the community as well inside, the way they support one another just phenomenal, like, just the very best in humans, is what I see now in my like, honestly, two years ago, I almost wanted to stop doing group coaching calls and running group programs, which was pretty big for somebody who helps people scale with group programs. I genuinely started to question, do I want this anymore? Because there would often just be one bad apple on a call that would just sour the taste of the entire call, and I’d feel so defensive and protective of everyone else on there who was having to sit in that energy. It was so repellent, and that energy just cannot, cannot thrive in a space where, like 19, like this, is no oxygen to breathe. You know what I mean? Like, in a good way, like the bad stuff, it has nothing to kind of cling on, like a like one of those vines, it’s got nothing to grow on, because everything else in there is so strong and so healthy that there’s anyway I’m going off on one eye, but it, you know, it makes what you do joyous. It brings meaning and purpose to what you’re doing. And of course, it means that people in your space tell other people what a great space it’s to be in, you know? So, yeah, that is amazing. You know, you don’t need to be a top 1% podcast like host, to make a huge difference to your business, just perhaps not in the ways that you imagine. Like, has it bought me 1000s of fresh eyeballs? No, but has it bought me the most amazing human beings? Yes. Because what do people tend to do after they find me online? They’ll nearly always go and check out my podcast. Or, if they’re thinking about working with me, what’s the first thing they do? They’ll go and listen to my podcast. It’s the thing that gives them the reassurance, like, is she my vibe? Is she not my vibe? Will I want to listen to her on group coaching calls? It’s fabulous. And I bet in the same way, it’s brought in the most aligned clients, I similarly imagine some people have come on and gone. Who is this rambling chick? No thank you, and shown themselves out the door, so I’ve not had to deal with them in a sales call or a group coaching environment. So it’s just fabulous all round, right? That’s a bit I don’t see, but I bet it’s there too. Let’s go to another lesson. Okay, I’m just gonna see if there’s anything. Yeah, let’s go to the next thing that like came up for me was I got a kind of sense of episode paralysis. When I first started running this podcast. I kept on trying to be clever. I kept on trying to be imaginative. I kept on doing things like, you know, obviously going on, to ask the public and SEO kind of research to understand, like, what questions are people asking? But I don’t know, I found it really overwhelming to know what to talk about, until somebody gave me, in fact, weirdly enough, it was my PT, she gave me the most basic and simple nugget that just simplified it for me immensely, which was she just said, anytime anyone asks me a question, I just record a podcast on it. And she said, and it’s great because it means they’re getting a more comprehensive answer. If they’ve had that question. 

Somebody else probably has it too. So I can just send it, you know, for example, even this podcast, if someone says, probably what’s the pros and cons of running a podcast? Or what have you learned, rather than me, like, you know, trying to squeeze everything into five minutes, I can now say, Oh yeah, I’ve got an episode on that. Just search, you know, make more money without selling yourself. Podcast where. Know, I wouldn’t say that, because that would not bring them to it. But anyway, I could just send them this link. So it’s a really powerful thing to have, you know, ultimately, I know if someone binged all my episodes, they could probably learn, I mean, not as much as you can for my accelerator, but you could definitely have a lot of success just based on listening to this podcast alone, which I love. So it’s very much inspired by, you know, and I’ll often think about, what did people bring to the last group coaching call? And it means you’re never, ever, ever out of ideas. The other thing, of course, is now my podcast is almost three years old. There are themes I returned to that were really popular anytime I record an episode that connects to what it’s like to be an ADHD business owner, or a single parent business owner, or any of those things, they tend to get really good lessons, really sure. If I was being more strategic, I’d probably capitalize on more. But no for me again, it’s really about ensuring that my ideal client is hearing what they need to hear. But I do strategically record an episode on that theme every so often, because I know it’s going to help more people discover my podcast, and then more people listen to the episodes I actually want them to listen to outside of those more emotive pieces, right? But those pieces, you know, those episodes, it makes sense why they do well, because, again, they connect to other people’s stories, and they speak to something where they want to hear other people’s lived experiences, right? The other thing I’d say about, you know, helping you not feel too overwhelmed about what to record in an episode is to do similar to what I’m doing now, which is like, what’s the theme? Or the question? The question is like, what have I learned from 150 recording, 150 episodes? And what can you learn, too? And then thinking about the three or four, up to five, Max core core takeaways I want you to have so like, one of them is it’s amazing for bringing in the most aligned clients. The other one is, don’t worry about not having ideas about what to record. Just base it on the questions you’re being asked, because you will then be answering questions guaranteed other people are asking too, and therefore they’re going to tune in and listen. Now I’m going to talk about strategy and marketing and the role your podcast plays in that. So one thing I’ve decided to do is I, back in March, put an invitation out my personal Facebook account, which does actually have quite a few business owners connected to it. I’m not actually very present on that platform. But for some reason, and probably because I’m not very present, when I put this invitation, I didn’t think it would get a huge response, but I was a bit low on guests that were on the show, so I simply said, you know, who wants to come on? Next thing I know, I had about, I mean, this for me, is a lot, I know for the average human being, maybe not, but I had about 50 people saying, yes, yes, give me the link. And next thing I know, I had a crazy amount of people who’d filled in the very extensive form to repel anyone who wasn’t really serious. And next thing I knew, I had, I mean, this was back in March or February, and we basically have had guests all the way Now up until November or December, and because we had so many people come in, I changed how regularly I have a guest on the show and moved it to being every other week, rather than once a month or every three weeks.

13:09

And that has impacted my sales negatively. So I’m going to go back to the ratio of two solo episodes to one guest episode, because I’ll also say that for people who do become clients when they reference their podcast. The podcast to me, they nearly always lead with I really enjoy your solo episodes. Some of them even say I don’t really listen to your guest episodes. Statistically, I will say my guest episodes get the same level of listenership. So it hasn’t harmed my podcast in that way, and equally, it’s obviously brought in a few new listeners, but not massively. So considering the number of guest episodes I’ve had this year, it’s not like, doubled or tripled my listenership. It’s probably increased by like maybe 10% so nothing revolutionary. And while I’m still bringing in the really aligned clients, I’m getting less of my kind of I’m all in. When do I start typing queries, or the ones that came from SEO, where people were looking up the theme I was speaking to and, you know, then found me. So I will be slowing that part down. And I often say to my clients, if you are taking the time to think about what is going to move the needle for you in terms of sales, whether it’s finding big guests for your show or getting on other people’s shows, even if they’re not particularly big, I would always prioritize the latter. I would always prioritize getting in front of other people’s audiences, because then they can discover your podcast you know, through you mentioning it on somebody else’s show, but ultimately, when we have a guest on our show, you know they are in the spotlight, and quite rightly so, that’s the energy, right? But ultimately, they’re, generally, speaking, from what I’ve experienced on my podcast, they tend to gain a hell of a lot more than you do as the host. I mean, one of the really positive things I found about having guests. 

On is they very often do turn into clients, which is lovely. It’s a great way to accelerate relationships with people. You know, if there’s a peer you’re particularly keen to collaborate with or have a connection with, it can be a great way to get them in the same room as you so there are, you know, if you think about it strategically and intentionally, there’s a lot you can do with it. I think the mistake I made was I stopped making direct invitations at the beginning of the year and instead allowed people to raise their own hands and put themselves in the arena, to work, to come on to my podcast, which meant there was less of that. I mean, so don’t get me wrong, I love the guests I’ve had on my show. They’ve been amazing. But in terms of when I’m looking at, how do we keep businesses cushy and as profitable as possible? These solar episodes are much easier to knock out. Really flow. Require minimal preparation. Don’t require intros, outros, you know, the admin of chasing, you know, bio photos and bios and all the things. I mean, admittedly, a lot of that’s automated with dubsado, but there’s still often some, you know, chasing involved, if they you know, so that there’s this stuff involved that when you look at your profitability at the end of the year, and you look at what’s driving that, yeah, it raises questions as to how much energy you want to be plowing into guest episodes. So that’s, that’s a thing, and something to think about. So actually, that’s, I think, two lessons I’ve kind of blended into one here, which is one balance your solo versus guest episodes intentionally, like I say mine will not be one on one off anymore. It’ll be two on solo, one guest episode. And the other one is, you know, to put more energy into guesting rather than getting guests onto your show, unless you know where you are prioritizing that just be super intentional about it. You know, there’s some people who are heroes to me who I’ve invited onto this podcast, and that was so exciting. And I can’t think of any other context where I would have been able to pick their brains for an hour like that. And that was really, really special. 

People like Annie Ridout, like I was just so blown away getting to have a conversation with her. I think that’s mostly it. So I’m just going to check my notes, so I’m like, you know, so the things you want to remember, essentially, based on what I’ve just shared, is to guard your solo to guest ratio. Focus on guesting strategically yourself. Trust that the right podcast will attract the right clients and never run out of ideas by building episodes around real questions and SEO friendly topics. In fact, I want to drop something else in there and say that because I have ensured that I use keywords and phrases I know my ideal client is searching for at least two of my most recent inquiries, said that they looked up, you know, something about, how do I turn my business evergreen? Or how do I make more group, program sales? And found me that way. And like I say, by the time we were having a conversation, it was so easy, and it was kind of almost like job done in terms of making a sale. In fact, it’s I’ve done so few sales calls this year, and yet made more sales because I’m not needing to have as many conversations, because people get so much already from listening to this podcast. They don’t, they don’t feel like, you know, like a simple DM can be more than enough, because they already feel like they know me, like me, hopefully, and trust me, just from taking the time to listen to these episodes regularly. So yeah, I think one thing I’ll be doing as well moving forward a bit more, is one thing that worked really, really well for me a while ago and that I got a bit lazy at, was inviting clients onto this podcast. I think it’s a really great way. I mean, testimonials are one thing, right? But it’s another thing to a I mean, it’s great advantage to your clients that you can showcase their results. It’s always going to be a win for them. 

But secondly, it’s an opportunity for your listeners to witness the rapport between yourself and your client firsthand, and that’s really powerful. And of course, is an opportunity to kind of share their story with a level of depth that a testimonial can’t convey, talking about where they were at, talking about what they tried, talking about, you know why that didn’t work for them, and any hesitations they might have had around working with you, and then you know what it was like to actually be in the process of working with you, like, were there any surprises, anything that delighted them that they weren’t expecting, anything they found more challenging than they you know, previously assumed, and the results you know that they’re happy with, and then the kind of unexpected results that are also that they’re happy with, and anyone who you know, so like, all the kind of things you’d ask in a testimonial, essentially, but having that as a very natural conversation on a podcast is, like, I say, one of the nicest ways, and definitely like, I’ve done that as an Instagram Live, and I’ve done that as a podcast. And if there’s one thing I ever want to do, and this is something I always recommend to my clients, too, if there’s ever you know, if. Ever want to get more inquiries, like hitting my stories hard with testimonials, or doing a live like that, or recording a podcast episode like that, where people get to kind of see themselves in your own client’s story always, always results in sales, always. So if your sales are a bit slow, get some of those scheduled in and come back and tell me how it went later, because I know I’ll be celebrating. You. Cool. Okay, so that’s it. 

That’s what I’ve learned over recording 150 episodes, one of my longest marketing relationships to date. And I don’t see myself changing at any time soon. I know there are some people who kind of stop, who run in seasons. I personally think there’s a real potency to being consistent, to showing up. I feel like if I ever stopped, I’d overthink starting again. And I think the most important thing, like any marketing strategy, is to take a moment to pause, reflect and think about how you can be doing better, so that you’re always bringing something slightly different. So one thing I’m looking to do relatively soon is to kind of run mini series on this, on this podcast. I think that’s what I’ll be doing in October 2025, so rather than having a private podcast, instead just doing a series of episodes that when you listen to them, collectively, they support you, I did one in August, and again, my listenership went up alongside that because people wanted to listen to part one, two and three on how they need to update their marketing in 2025 to stay relevant, to keep making sales and to have a cushy business. So yeah, the next one’s gonna be all about, Well, I’ll tell you more soon, but it’s about cash flow. It’s gonna be fun, all right. So if you found this episode helpful, please share it with any other budding, aspiring podcast hosts. Please subscribe, please review, please do any of those good things to help this podcast reach as many ears as possible. I mean, come on, I’m showing up for you approaching 150 episodes published. So please return that love. I’m always so, so grateful, and I’ll be in your ears next week talking about the five things I’ve learned in five years of running my business. That’s going to be a fun one.