00:00

Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Hello, and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And today I am so excited to have Natalie Koussa on the show with me. Natalie Koussa is a podcast tour strategist who helps coaches and online entrepreneurs turn their message into a movement by speaking on podcast. She’s the founder of the speakeasy, a group program for the best kept secrets who want to go on a podcast tour that books clients on repeat, and podcast or tonic a done for you service for coaches and online entrepreneurs who want to go on a brand defining and movement making podcast tour without sending a single pitch. You are going to learn so much on in this episode. If you have been thinking about starting a podcast or whether to guest on a podcast. Whether right now is the time to be prioritising podcasts, you are going to learn so much. Listen closely. This is going to be a game changer of an episode for you. Welcome, Natalie, I’m so happy to have you on the show. Before I invite you to say anything I’m gonna give a little, little personal story as to why I’ve invited you here. Natalie is inside my program. Never have I evergreen, but she’s one of those people that came into my world. And as I learned more about what Natalie does, I just knew I had to share her magic with everyone, all my podcast listeners, because you have such a great story to share as well as such incredible skills. I feel it’s so relevant to probably nearly anyone listening to this episode right now. But Natalie, welcome.

02:23

One introduction.  Feel like it’s it’s a little tough to live up to now. No, thanks so much for having me. I mean, I’m just so excited. I mean, for one, one of the things that stood out to me when I kind of first saw your website was podcast tour.  Yep.

02:41

I’ve never heard anywhere else. So before we get into what podcast tours are, let’s learn a bit about you and why you do the work that you do. Like, why why is why are podcasts of so much interest to you? And why do you think they are so relevant to business owners? Like what’s been your personal experience that brought you to this? Yeah, so the people that I work with, aren’t just interested in marketing, they’re interested in creating a whole movement around their work, you know, they’re in it for personal change. They’re in it to support change with their clients. And they typically have some kind of bigger vision for the positioning of their work and the impact of their work on their own life. And then their clients lives and this kind of ripple effect going outwards. And

03:31

that’s my point of view. Because so my background is I started off as a social worker. So that’s all about understanding what makes people tick, how to support people to make change in their own lives. And then I moved into nonprofits and worked my way up to Director of Partnerships, and Director of Partnerships is all about influence. It’s all about taking the work that we were doing with everyday people are trying to create sustainable change in their lives. And then influencing policy and speaking in the media to galvanise the public. So when I started my business, actually didn’t start my business thinking that I would help people speak on podcasts. It was a lot more vague than that. You know, I knew I could help partnerships, visibility, something in that space. But I very quickly started speaking on podcasts because I loved it. And I remember from the very very first podcast I ever spoke on getting a DM straight afterwards saying, oh my god, your program sounds amazing. When can I join? And finding a client like that? From my very first interview, and I was like, Oh, my God, I’m onto something. And then at the same time, people kept coming to me and saying, Hey, I’m seeing you speaking on podcasts. Can you help me do it? And over time, I’ve just niched in a niche thing. And yeah, I mean, it’s it’s my focus. Now I just see how incredible it can be for marketing in a way that creates these incredible relationships around Yeah, and to go

05:00

Back to Basics. For anyone who’s listening to this, and this all sounds wildly new to them. Why do you think podcasts are as powerful as they are as as a kind of marketing tool to bringing new people into your world,  I think is the intimacy.  I think it’s that sense that so most podcast listeners are pretty loyal, you know. So you know, people listening to this, this probably isn’t their first episode, or if it is, they’ll go on to listen to tonnes more episodes. And it’s that sense of getting to listen to a conversation, or getting to listen to somebody’s thoughts that they would usually reserved for their clients, while you’re going about your day, and people tend to put it into their routine, right? Like, you’re listening in the car, when you’re going to pick up your kids or, as you’re folding laundry or going out on a walk. And it’s that real sense that once people have listened to you for 30 minutes, usually, you know, sometimes a lot more, there’s some really long podcasts out there, they feel like they know you, there’s some relationship there. That just takes so much longer, right? Imagine how many Instagram posts somebody has to see. And then typically, they maybe still haven’t even heard your voice, or they don’t really get a sense of the feeling of you. So it just kind of collapses that timeline of creating a relationship.

06:20

I think it’s really good that what you just spoke to in terms of Instagram posts, because that’s the challenge, right? When you start an online business, and you’re thinking about how to bring new clients into your world. Everyone knows about social media, everyone’s at least trying to be really present on one platform. Then there’s a whole whole got on, I need to have a mailing list as well. And how regularly do I email them? And oh, I need blogs for SEO. And so it’s really common for online business owners to get really overwhelmed by what channels to be focusing on. And of course, there’s so much information out there. So so much biassed information saying you need this or you need that. But I love hearing what you’re saying. And one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you on this podcast is because that’s been my experience, too. I have never been on someone else’s podcast and not attracted a client as a result. So I know they’re really powerful. And I know I’m equally guilty of not necessarily prioritising them. So in terms of if someone listening to this and thinking, Oh, I’m already spinning a lot of plates is now the time to prioritise getting on podcasts, you know, what would you say to them?

07:28

I would say that you need to have a couple of things in place to make podcasts guesting, you know, really to get the most out of doing it. And those couple of things are way simpler. You know, most people come to me and say, I’ve not got a freebie or if not got, I don’t know the perfect website yet, or an email sequence that welcomes people or you know, any of that. I don’t think you need any of that. The beauty of this is that your episodes are the freebie your episodes are there so that people can connect with you and naturally say, okay, cool. What’s next. And then what next? Typically, I say to people, just invite them onto your email list, or just invite them where you’re having conversations with people week by week. Yeah. And then there’s a kind of push push before the cush like to use your, your language that show there’s a little bit to get set up at the beginning. So you need to, you need to create your signature speaker topic. So something that you can really easily chat about over and over and over again, for 30 minutes or more. And then you need angles. So it used to be a couple of years ago used to be able to get booked on to tonnes of podcasts talking about exactly the same thing every time. But there’s the space is shifting is becoming more competitive. So get your angles sorted, get pitching. And then by the time you’ve got that kind of system going, once you’re just turning up and speaking on podcasts, that’s where it gets really cushy. That’s where it starts feeling really fun. You see the results coming in. And you’re kind of just rocking and rolling with, you know, with a marketing method that is working really nicely on evergreen in the background of your business. I love that you mentioned evergreen there, it’s the fact that this can be working for you at any time. And that’s what’s really potent. I do think there’s that pieces in there that when you stand for a particular thing, it doesn’t matter. When people find that episode, even if your offers may have evolved, it can still work really, really powerfully for you. That thing that you mentioned angles, I think is such an interesting conversation as well. Funnily enough, I was talking with a one to one this morning, and she’s in the health space. And I kind of equally was saying to house like, what’s your unique take on a particular area. But if someone’s listening to this and thinking, what is an angle? How do I find an angle? You know, how do I get clear on that? I mean, I know we can’t give everything away because that’s what people do when they work with you. But would you be kind of happy to kind of elaborate on angles? Absolutely. So the most effective angles meet that listener for that part.

10:00

Cost exactly where they are. And they think about what’s likely to be the kind of motivating trigger to get that person into action. What’s their big hesitation likely to be? And how can my unique point of view meet them there.

10:20

So I don’t know, if we think about a weight loss coach, you’re there’s a million different ways of thinking about weight loss. But typically, I don’t think that people are hiring a weight loss coach because they want to lose weight. That’s just the very surface level, what they really want is to feel great in their body. Or to be able to exercise more comfortably, or to have great sex or, you know, all of those things are actually not really to do with your weight. They’re to do with socialisation around your weight, typically. So if you can think of an angle that quickly knocks out people’s hesitations around, why now or will this work for me and really emphasises, this will work for you if you’re this kind of person. And this is the impact it can have on your life. And this is my take on how we’re gonna do this thing, then that becomes an incredibly powerful angle. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I know people talk often in this space about paradigm shifts and things like that. But it is, yeah, that whole piece, and I loved hearing what you just shared, because interestingly, when I chose my personal trainer, I chose to go to her because she seemed approachable, not intimidating. She talked more about put body positivity than weight loss. And at the time, I didn’t consciously know that I was adverse to people who were super competitive or weight loss driven. But when I found her, I knew she was my person. So I can totally see how with a podcast, not only does it make you more appealing as a guest to be bringing your own unique perspective, but equally for the person that listens to you and hears you. They’re going to quicker No, this is my human being this is a person that I would like to work with. Amazing. And what what has been your personal journey? You touched on it slightly in terms of, you know, your, your success with guesting on other people’s podcasts. But I’d love you to dive a bit deeper into that in terms of what that’s looked like for you. Yeah, so we’ve kind of touched on the cushy parts of it, to turn up have these really fun conversations, listeners come in. It’s brilliant for lead gen.

12:26

It’s also an incredible way of creating a peer network with hosts. So that was kind of overlooked piece. So there’s all that crushing us of course there is. But what we were talking about, just before we hit record was that podcasting truly saved my business last year. Last year, I had months and months where I was really unwell. All I could do was serve my clients. And then I’d pop up for, you know, for an hour, do a podcast interview, and then go back and have a nap. You know, that was enough for the day. And I didn’t even speak on that many podcasts last year. What am I think I posted on Instagram about 20 times over the entire year, like, you know, I just was not visible. But what saved my business and my business still grew last year, in all the ways in revenue in reputation. And what saved it was the podcast episodes that I’d already recorded previously, and me continuing to share those and continuing to invite people to listen to them. So there’s this real, I don’t know, I think being in business for yourself has all these incredible opportunities, doesn’t it? You know, we have a great lifestyle, and you can earn way more money than than you can in corporate often or definitely nonprofits.

13:44

But what we don’t touch on so much is what happens when life life’s which it’s going to. And for me, really focusing on building a movement around your work isn’t just this kind of nice to have, you know, sounds or fancy. It’s exactly what you were just saying about when people come in and they can see your values and they share your values. And they resonate with you and your personality and you’ll take on things they’ll stay around. They’re the kinds of people that come into your world. They become repeat clients, they become referral partners, they become a champion of of you and your contribution. And

14:27

honestly, for me, my experience was that carried my business when I couldn’t. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. I really love that. And you you’re so right when you mentioned how cushy it feels like, for me I enjoy being a podcast guest so much it feels very self indulgent because I can talk for hours on the things that I love.

14:48

It doesn’t feel like any effort at all. And you know when I think about you know, so as I listened to you, I’m like, Well how much time do I need to put aside to make this work for me and if someone were listening to you and feeling inspired and thinking I should be making an effort more to get on podcast because like you say it is noisy, and I will say that my inbox, I get several requests a week. And they’re always so formulaic that I will admit that I tend to ignore them, or leave it to my assistant to respond politely. And sometimes you don’t respond, because I feel the effort put into that email is so little, that it’s barely worth me even saying sorry, no. So it is really important. I think, obviously, you know, better you’re the expert, but I kind of feel like on the receiving end, I pay attention when someone goes, oh my gosh, I love this whole cushy philosophy about your business, I feel I have something really relevant to share, that’s going to really help your listener, I would like to come and talk to you about a bit taking the time to also develop a bit of a relationship with me. Now, obviously, I’m more accessible than some of the bigger podcast shows. But you know, what would you say, you know, if someone were to want to make this work? What kind of time would they need to be putting aside? Or what would they need to be doing in terms of getting support and help which obviously, we can lead into in terms of how you help people? But what would they need to be doing timewise to kind of make this work for them? Yeah, sure. But just before I say about timelines, I just want to pick up on this such a massive opportunity that is created by all of these crap pitches that are out there.

16:19

You know, I hear all the time hosts saying I get so many pitches, you can tell they don’t have a clue who I am, they don’t care about the podcast, they’re just in it for themselves. And what that means is, your pitch needs to be better than this to get noticed. But my God, what an opportunity, if you aren’t willing to do a bit of work a little bit of relationship building a little bit of thoughtfulness that will just shine across in your pitch. So in terms of timing, at the beginning, I would say if you can block out a couple of two hour slots in a week or over a couple of weeks, and use those two hour slots for really diving into what do I want to be known for? What’s What’s the signature speaker topic that’s gonna get me known. And then from there, think about, okay, cool, what are some angles that are going to get me noticed?

17:11

So that’s kind of session one done is there for you. And then session to really start thinking about what kind of podcasts do I want to pitch,  I use air table to run my entire business. So if you weren’t with me, you’ll get an Airtable hub. Because anything that you know that you want to just create a list and make sure that you’re tracking, which are the podcasts you want to pitch, and where then where they are in the booking process. So you can do your follow ups and that kind of thing. Once you’ve done that, and honestly, I think you can do that in four hours I would give yourself, then it becomes if you can set aside an hour, 90 minutes a week to be pitching, responding, and actually speaking on podcasts, then you’re rocking and rolling, you’re gonna be out there and buy a podcast or I just mean, speaking on lots of podcasts in a short amount of time. It’s you get way more bang for your buck than just popping up once and then going dark and then popping up again. So I’m glad you share that.

18:12

Yeah, I love that. I love that. No, that’s so yeah, to hear that. Yeah, I hadn’t asked you what the podcast tour is. So to hear that, like you say to do it, a lot of them together, rather than having one popping up here. And there. That makes a lot of sense to me. And one of the reasons why I was so excited to invite you on a few to share this amazing knowledge with people is because I’m very aware, you know, in the area that I work in you and I have the similarity that we both deeply passionate about helping people position themselves as something unique. And industry leading, you know, and like you say creating a movement around their message is something that you both both you and I in different means have in common. And obviously beyond that, once you have, in the case of the work I do building that core offer that is scalable that you can bring people into the next stage is visibility. And the things that people regularly ask me are, you know, should I be spending money on ads? Or should I be doing PR, and as someone who obviously has experienced all these pieces in terms I’ve advertised, I’ve done PR, I’m excited by everything you’re sharing, because it just seems so doable, and so effective and such great return and like you say so many multilayered benefits to it between getting better clarity around your messaging and how to communicate that that is going to be effective for you beyond being on podcast that’s going to help you feel more confident about speaking about getting on stages, about your in marketing messaging day to day on your social media channels. So it’s so effective for that. And beyond that, of course, the confidence of speaking to people and the relationships you create through those podcasts, which are also so powerful because again, the better people know you the more likely they are to refer you. I mean, I just think it’s so potent because with advertising I see a lot of people you know that there tends to be a wobbly patch with advertising where you’re spending in your

20:00

Not seeing the return immediately. Likewise, with PR, I’ve got some impressive trust apps at this stage. But they really it really didn’t do very much for me. I don’t want to, I don’t want to crap all over PR, but like it, you know, aside from getting those trust dumps, as soon as I had them, I stopped spending much time and energy on it, because actually, it was real hard work to kind of actually get on in a publication that I desired and write on something or share something that truly was meaningful to me, so much of it just felt so piecemeal and meaningless. Well, with what you’re talking about, it’s so easy to action, so powerful in terms of what you get back. I love it. So I’m just wanting to have as many people hear about the work you do as possible, because I can really believe how powerful that is. Okay, so we’ve talked about the time people need we’ve talked about if it’s the right time for them in terms of where they’re at in their business. We’ve probably touched on the other things they may be prioritising and why podcasting is such a powerful thing to do. Is there any advice? Any other advice? You’d layer on top of that, for somebody who’s thinking, This sounds of it? And also, I’ve got one really good question here. Someone said to me, should I be focusing on guesting on podcasts? Or should I just launch my own? And I bet someone listening right now is having that question, too. So let me put that one to you. I love this question. I get asked this all the time as well. They do two different things in in your business. So having your own podcast, of course is absolutely incredible. And most if you do it really well it becomes this incredible Sales Machine within your business. Podcast. guesting does something different. But I like to think about podcast guessing as the ultimate in social proof. So if you think about

21:46

if you think about ads that you’ve just mentioned, as long as the ads are working well, you are gonna get so many more people into your world from running Facebook ads than you are from podcasting. Typically, that’s what I see. But then once those people are in, they’re still pretty cold, they still don’t know who you are, they don’t have a relationship with you. And then it’s up to you to take them on that journey into working with you. Whereas when you’re speaking on podcasts, it’s the ultimate and social proof, because there’s a trust transfer that comes from so the host has spent all of this time building and nurturing this incredible audience of people. And even if you’re only speaking to a few 100 people, you know, some of the smaller podcasts, that might be how many listeners they have per episode. Imagine yourself standing in front of a room of a few 100 people. Before you start speaking. The host says, oh my god, I can’t wait for you to meet this person. This is where they’re so incredible. This is why what they’re talking about matters so much. The audience is already primed. Oh my god, if Polly loves this person, I bet I will do that already. They’re wanting to trust you, and wanting to get to know you in a way that Facebook ads just, it can’t mimic that No. Ship development. Yeah, no, you’re totally right. They kind of have very different functions. But in terms of kind of time investment and financial investment, it’s a much safer bet putting your time and energy into podcasts to begin with. And like you say later on, should you expand into advertising, your advertising will work a lot harder for you because you’ll have all these ways to nurture new people coming into your world. I know one person, one of my ex mentors, sometimes we had ex boyfriend ex mentor. She she never had her own podcast. But she had been guest she’d guested on so many. She just created her own little Spotify playlist of where she guessed it. And I loved that touch. Because when I started her link tree, I just went and I benched all of them back to back discovered all these new amazing people and just fell in love with her, which was, you know, which led to me then choosing to work with her. So, yes, it’s so powerful. And yeah, and can be utilised in so many amazing ways. Is there anything you feel would be valuable to add to this conversation before I asked more about how people can find you and work with you? And all that good stuff. Yeah, I suppose the only thing that that so this question about should I have my own podcast? Or should I do podcasting? The ultimate difference is that having your own podcast is about nurturing your own audience. And then you have to market the podcast and grow your audience in that way. Whereas podcasting is about getting in front of other people’s audio.

24:29

Podcasting is also about nurturing your own audience if you use it in that way. So you were talking at the beginning of the episode about should I start a blog? Should I do this? Should I do that? If you wanted to podcasting can be the hub for all of that. Yeah, speak on podcasts and then create reels from it and go on social media and share with the host and create blogs and all of that sort of stuff. And I typically see that when I’ve spoken on a podcast, I get it

25:00

People coming into my audience, which is amazing, and people joining my email list. But I also when I share that episode with my existing audience, I see an uptick in sales from people that have been sitting on my list for you know, a few months a year, however long, and they’re just waiting. They’re building that relationship, and they’re waiting to hear the thing. They’re like, okay, yeah, great. Now’s my moment. Yeah, often it’s speaking on somebody else’s podcast that does that for the people that are already in my audience. I just think there’s this really beautiful kind of relationship between new people and existing people that podcasting is just chef’s kiss for. Yes, yes. And I love how you just touched on repurposing because if there’s one thing I don’t think most people do enough of is repurposing content. Like I love it when people make the effort to share various reels around a podcast. So you have little snippets and ways to kind of learn as to whether it’s now with AI, you can, you can do amazing things where you barely even need to touch it, and it will find the best little you know, what’s a voice? I can remember when it’s not voice notes? What’s the audio audio bytes? That’s what’s called the Bessel audio bytes from the podcast. So there’s really no excuse. I mean, I say this, and I’m not doing this enough myself. But you know, like, like you said, there’s so much power behind a good conversation that you can make go so far. Oh, my gosh, well, I’m feeling sold. If anyone’s listening and thinking, How do I find out more about this wonderful, Natalie Kusa, where do I find her on the internet? What is it that you know they can do in terms of working with you please, please share it all. Yeah, thank you, Polly. So come over join my email list is that all the goods that

26:37

Nataliekoussa.com/visible will take you to a free private podcast, it’s called pod dam. It’s three mini episodes, all about how to go on a podcast tour that makes you the first choice for your favourite clients. So get started there. And then when you’re ready for more support, I have a group program called the speakeasy which is, you know, for you if you want to do it yourself, or you want to do it within your team, but you want support around specifically, I mean, it’s support through the whole process, of course, but specifically around really creating signature speaker topics and angles that are going to get you noticed unknown. That’s really the beauty within speakeasy. And then if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking sounds amazing, don’t want to do it myself. Or, you know, don’t want to ask my team to do this. They’ve already got their own priorities. I’ve got a new done for you service called podcast or tonic, where I’ll do the whole shebang for you. All of the signature speaker topics, the angles, the outreach, the bookings management, it’s a complete end to end service so please drop me a line to ask about that. Amazing and I will just follow up to say do go check out Natalie’s website because it’s an absolute masterclass in having a message that is a movement it’s just so captivating from from the moment you land on the website all the way to the bottom of the page. Like it’s a real masterclass and just incredible, incredible copywriting and yeah, it’s it’s amazing. I just moved when I landed on there just thinking oh my gosh, I cannot wait to work with this woman. What a vibe. So yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Natalie’s gonna be fine for the rest of the day.

28:22

Thank you for sharing all these nuggets of gold. To anyone listening. I hope if you’re not already guesting on podcast that Natalie has motivated you to do so. You will not regret it.  I’d love to see you.

28:39

Well, that was a Corker of a conversation. If I say so myself. I hope you learned as much as I did. I know I’m definitely prioritising podcast guesting towards the end of this year. And if you have anyone that you think I would be a good guest for DME, tell me about it. I would love to know who you’d love to hear me having conversations with. In the meantime, I will be back next week with a solar episode just me, I’m afraid and I will be finally recording the episode I promised a few weeks ago on how to create passive revenue over the summer. And yes, passive is a word that not everyone agrees with myself included. There’s no such thing as anything entirely passive, but there certainly are ways to be receiving sales notifications from your son bed while you’re having a nice time this summer and I will be sharing more on how I will be doing that. To allow myself to have a beautiful honeymoon in Sri Lanka three weeks of summer and not let it affect my bottom line. will be in euros then