The Surprising Way to Drive More Traffic & Sales to Your Business

Welcome back. It's the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast and this is episode 121.

[INTRO]

Katie Collins 2:40  

I wanted to start off with the catch phrase that, is really brought into all of your branding, the effortless life, the effortless business, the effortless podcasting formula. And so the question is, Courtney Elmer, is it really possible to have that success that we want by actually working less than we are right now?

Courtney Elmer 3:00  

Yes, the short answer is yes. And people push back on me all the time. And they're like Courtney Elmer, work is hard. Work is not effortless. growing a business is not easy. In fact, it's the most difficult thing I've ever done. And I'm like, I get it, I hear you, I've been there. And the truth is that when you learn how to get the right systems and support and place in your business, not only does that help to lighten your load, but when you can learn and develop the discipline to work intentionally. And to begin structuring your companies so that more of your time is intentionally being freed up to focus in your zone of genius, the thing that you got into business to do in the first place. That's when work truly begins to feel effortless.

Courtney Elmer

I think for anyone listening right now we all can agree that when you're doing the thing that you love, it doesn't feel like work. When I sit down on a podcast and I get to connect with someone from across the world and have it in depth conversation with them. That to me, it energizes me It lights me up when I can sit across zoom nowadays it used to be across real table desk, but now it's zoom. But I can sit on zoom with someone and coach them through a difficult moment in their life or in their business and and facilitate that transformation. That fills me up for days. And when I am focusing the majority of my time doing that kind of work, it does feel effortless. It's the other stuff that bogs you down. That's the stuff that feels like hard work. And that is where we as a company are really dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get the systems and support in place to handle all of that stuff so that you can spend the bulk of your time doing what you love the most.

Jeffrey Samorano 4:53  

Love that Courtney Elmer! Stay in your zone of genius.

Katie Collins 4:59  

Courtney Elmer, how can you consistently make more money if you think you're going to do everything yourself all the time until you're a millionaire?

Courtney Elmer 5:26  

Yeah, 100% millionaires didn't get to be millionaires by doing everything themselves.

Jeffrey Samorano 6:06  

It's recognizing what's a cost and what's an investment. Right Courtney Elmer? A lot of people think of VA as a cost. But it's actually an investment. it's going to have returns if it can, like if you're if you're calculating your hours, how much you're you charge per hour, and these software's and these VAs and these things, save you hours, you're you're saving money, that's an investment, you're getting your time back, which ultimately is getting your money back.

Courtney Elmer 6:53  

it's funny, you bring this up, I did a podcast episode on this, this was a while back, I think off the top of my head was episode 43. You can go back and scroll back, you'll find it but it's all about how to value your time as an entrepreneur, because this is one of the things that can be really tough to figure out. And once you do have a value to your time, and when you start to recognize how much an hour of your time is actually worth. It shifted that perspective completely.

Katie Collins 7:55  

This is a good segue into another question I had for you Courtney Elmer, you've had a lot of success helping women break up with busyness and really start living that effortless life. What made you fall in love with systems so much as you are building your own business?

Courtney Elmer 9:15  

This is so interesting that you ask this question, because if I were to tell you that, like it's the one thing that's always come naturally to me in my life, but it's the one thing I always downplayed and ignored and was like, no, no, whatever. Like, I'm naturally an organized person, like, okay, , but it wasn't until much later in my entrepreneurial journey that I realized like, oh, wait, that is my thing. Like that is the thing that I can really help people with. And because it comes so naturally to me, I never saw it as a gift. I'd say maybe three or so years into my business, people kept asking me for help with various little organizational pieces of their business. And Courtney Elmer, how do you show up every day, I had an basically newborn at home at the time, I think he might have been six months a year old. They're like, and you're running your business, and you're a mom, and you've got all these things going on? And like how do you stay so organized? How are you growing the way you're growing? And not like losing it?

Jeffrey Samorano 11:26  

I've been saying the same thing Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer 11:28  

And I was like, well, truthfully, I'm not exactly saying 100% of the time, but I do absolutely have my moments. But it really got me thinking where I was like, , it all of my prior business experience when I was working for other business owners, I spent many years as an operations manager working for different businesses. And the one thing that I started to pick up on was that it wasn't a result of anything that they were doing wrong. It wasn't their product, it wasn't their angle. But it was simply due to a lack of systems on the back end of their business, that was causing them to spin their wheels and bogging them down and really preventing them from being able to spend their time in their zone of genius, which is the thing that would make them the money, right that they wanted to make.

Courtney Elmer

And so I started to connect these dots, and I realized, like, I have spent years going into other people's businesses, streamlining them, putting structure in place, organizing them developing systems and procedures for things so that those business owners could then either delegate that to someone to manage for them, or have a simpler process and way of doing it themselves. That's really where it started. And from there has evolved into now what we teach is the four main systems that every business owner needs, particularly online business owners, and helping them install those systems into their business. So again, that they could spend their time in their zone of genius, and focus on what they got into business for in the first place.

Jeffrey Samorano 13:40  

That's awesome. And I know we're gonna be talking about podcasting. But I really want to know Courtney Elmer, what are those four?

Courtney Elmer 13:48  

Yeah, The four systems are visibility, sales, deliverability, and operations. So on the front end of your business, we have visibility and sales that's leads and revenue. And what are your systems for generating leads, that has to do with your marketing, and has to do with your visibility as the leader, the face of your brand? And then your sales systems? What do you have in place in order to take those leads, and then lead them to a transaction, a call to action? So those two function together on the front end of your business, and then on the back end of your business? That has to do with what happens once that transaction takes place? deliverability How are you providing a white glove Disney level experience for your customers that they are going to want to refer you you're going to earn repeat business from them increasing that lifetime customer value, and how are you delivering on the promises that you've made to them? And then operations which I call the junk drawer of business, because nobody likes To open the door and deal with anything that's in there. But it has to do with, your accounting, your bookkeeping, the legal side of your business, the tools and software that you're using. But operations really is the glue that holds everything else together and keeps it moving smoothly.

Jeffrey Samorano 15:15  

I feel like that's the one that nobody wants to talk about Courtney Elmer.

Katie Collins 15:21  

It's not sexy, it's not salesy sales. On the other hand, let's talk about sales. Not true. As a sales coach, I found that not everyone wants to talk about sales, but everybody wants to make money in their business, right. But they they often as business coaches, we say focus on the income generating tasks. So often operations is not understood as an income generating task, although it is right?

Courtney Elmer 16:18  

And that's the other thing to consider here, which I will mention, the front end and the back end systems, as I described are really two sides of one coin, because they all function together as a cohesive whole to help you grow and scale. And so you might be really good on the sales side, you might have studied with a coach that has helped you improve your sales and all of these things, you might have a lot of money coming in. But if you don't have a good accounting system on the back end, then how do where you're losing money?

Jeffrey Samorano 17:29  

I've seen companies that were making almost a million dollars, like up or sit up or six figures, and not be profitable. Right, their expenses exceed all of that revenue. And it's like, that's, there's something there's something wrong there.So let's, let's shift and let's get into this podcast, because this is I know, a hot topic for people. And I know that there are a lot of people out there wondering how can I get into doing podcasts? And should this be something I'm doing so? So why are more people doing podcasts? I know they're growing. But there's a lot of people out there saying, Oh, I could never do that.

Courtney Elmer 18:30  

Yeah, I think there's a lot of resistance around how much time it would take. It's unclear as in terms of how can a podcast actually help me grow? I see how it could potentially help me get more visible. But I'm unclear as to what the steps are that go into it, how it all works together. I don't feel like I have an understanding of how it would directly impact my sales, my lead my revenue. So I'd love to clear up some of those mysteries today with you guys.

And the reason that I'm so passionate about podcasting is because it is one of the primary marketing system that we teach. We teach visibility as a whole. But podcasting is one of the few things out there that ticks all the boxes in terms of helping you generate credibility, brand awareness, helping you establish yourself and to be seen as an expert and an authority in your niche. And also a mechanism to drive leads and sales without having to constantly spin your wheels on the hamster wheel of social media where you put up a post and the next day you got to put up another post and the next day you wonder if anyone saw it, you put up another post and you're always creating content. With a podcast you're creating An evergreen library of content that people can consume into the indefinite future. People can go back to Episode one and start listening. And so many people do that. Which is why one of the reasons why it's such a powerful medium.

Jeffrey Samorano 20:36  

Yes, I love that. It is the it's the fact that they live on. And you can go back, because I know in my own journey, that's how I've discovered a lot as , I'll be on listening to somebody's podcast, they have a guest. I love what the guest is talking about. They mentioned they have a podcast, I go listen to one of their episodes. So I'm sure somebody out there heard that. And they're like, Oh, cool. Yeah, I totally want to start a podcast. What do we have to consider and prepare for?

Courtney Elmer 21:27  

Yeah, I will definitely walk you through that.

Jeffrey Samorano 33:28  

I've got about 100 questions Courtney Elmer. The first thing is, how do know your your podcast is doing good or not?

Courtney Elmer 33:43  

Let's talk about create, launch. And leverage. Let's start with create perfect, because I don't want to ignore that piece because we could talk about launching all day long. But if you don't have a podcast that's positioned well. And if you aren't creating what I call high converting content, then even your launch can only get you so far. Because really, at the end of the day, a successful podcast comes down to your content, because that's what keeps people coming back. It's what grabs people and hooks them in. And it's what keeps them listening week after week.

Courtney Elmer

So with your content, you want to be driving people to a clear call to action on every episode. And in my effortless podcasting formula. I teach a five part framework to set up every episode where , you've got your teaser, you've got your intro, you've got the body of your content, which is specifically designed to create desire and demand for whatever it is you're going to pitch them I'm putting that in air quotes at the end. It's not a hard sell, but your invitation at the end. And so you want to have clarity on what that is where are you leading them? I've listened to so many podcasts where they end and you're like, Okay, great. See you. I guess , like, you're they're not inviting you to take action unless you like in anything else with your marketing unless you tell someone what to do. They're not going to do it. So that really is a critical piece and component of high converting content.

Courtney Elmer

Another component, which is one that's often overlooked, is vocal authority. And vocal authority is something we could do a whole nother episode on. But this is something that when you understand how the tones in your voice are resonating, or not resonating with your listener, and when you learn how to, for lack of a better word, hack those tones and how to create and evoke the emotional connection that you're looking to create with your listener, you will see your conversions go up.

Courtney Elmer 36:53  

So that's with create, and then when we once you've created your show, and usually I tell people, the amount of episodes that you want to launch with is up to you. But the more episodes you launch with, the higher your chances of ranking. So we challenge our students to go, with whatever time you have available that you feel like you can honestly commit to do it. Like if you can record 10 episodes to launch with, do it. Now if you don't feel like you can do 10 That's okay, do five, do what you feel like you can do but know that the more episodes you launch with, the greater your chances of ranking. And the reason for that is because with the launch strategy, really the heart of it is leveraging your existing network, to drive traffic to your show on the day that you launch to help boost you up within the podcast platform on Apple and Google on Spotify. So that your show can rank and you can get more visible. People who are browsing that category, see your podcast.

Courtney Elmer

So, with the launch strategy, again, it really boils down to who do you have in your network? That already support you. Even if you're starting out, I have a lot of people who come to me and say, Courtney Elmer,I'm starting out, I don't have an audience. I don't have an email list, , but I want to launch a podcast, because you've told me that it can really help me generate leads and grow my list. So I'm intrigued about that. But I don't have a list to start with. And like, you don't need a list to start with. Do you have people in your network? who support you, friends, family, colleagues, maybe at your old job, , people that are supporting you in your business journey, people who would support you no matter what, because they like you for who you are, and what you do. All of those people can support your podcast launch.

Katie Collins 40:45  

What does it look like for them to support it? What are we asking them to do Courtney Elmer?

Courtney Elmer 40:48  

We're simply asking them to participate on launch day by subscribing and downloading your episodes.

Katie Collins 42:26  

So the question on my mind Courtney Elmer, that maybe on others is what if I've already started my podcast? And I'm 80 episodes in and I still have low downloads. Can I launch a podcast?

Courtney Elmer 42:39  

You absolutely can.

Jeffrey Samorano 45:08  

Okay, so this brings up the topic of how do you make money with a podcast Courtney Elmer?

Katie Collins 45:18  

The sales coach is dying to know. Is it advertising that makes it profitable? Is it your call to action? Is it both? Is it none?

Courtney Elmer 45:35  

Yeah!

Katie Collins 45:36  

Show me the money, Courtney Elmer!

Courtney Elmer 45:38  

I know, great question. So actually, I have a cheat sheet that I have put together, which I'm happy to share with your listeners on the three shortcuts to monetization.

There's really phases to monetization. Out of the over 20 ways that you can monetize the show, monetizing it through your own courses, and your own programs is one of the fastest ways to monetize. And you could do that from day one.

Courtney Elmer

Another layer of that is affiliate marketing. So even if you don't have products of your own, you can promote other people's products on your show, and earn a commission on that. That's another very viable option. And a third option, which a lot of people don't consider, but which is a good fit for many shows, is a donation based show. I like to look at monetization of podcasting is a very multifaceted layered approach. There's not one way to monetize, there's not one best way to monetize. But there are many ways to monetize and of those many ways. You can choose what works best for you with the goals of your specific show.

Jeffrey Samorano 48:37  

I love that Courtney Elmer. Tell us about the the free gift that three shortcus to monetize.

Courtney Elmer 48:42  

yeah, three shortcuts to monetize. So in that I walk you through the three easiest, quickest ways to monetize a podcast based on how many listeners you have, and what that looks like and kind of give you a breakdown as to like, what what are you doing on your show to drive traffic were right towards what call to action. So I'm happy to share that with your listeners. Because I think that's a great place to start, especially for those who are looking to leverage a podcast to make money with it. , I mean, it's one thing if you want to show up and do this out of the goodness of your heart and connect with people and share all of your amazing, incredible knowledge. But for many of us as business owners, it's gotta be more to it. I know, for me, I absolutely wanted a way to connect with my audience. And well, hey, if I can make some money doing that and add additional revenue, I'll be mad at that either.

Jeffrey Samorano 49:34  

So we'll take it, we'll take it, I'll take it Courtney Elmer. That's awesome. We're definitely gonna link that in the show notes for sure. So I did have a question about it. And maybe maybe you already answered this Courtney Elmer, like how do we know or how do we know our podcast is doing well? Like what what should we be watching on a daily or weekly basis?

Courtney Elmer 49:59  

I think you asked it? And I forgot to answer. But yeah, so as far as the metrics, and as far as what you want to be looking at, a lot of people have a tendency to look at the weekly episode downloads the number of downloads per episode, which is good. But what I encourage you to look at is the weekly total downloads. And the difference is that one episode, let's say one episode gets 100 downloads, it's the one that you released, it got 100 downloads, that's great. Okay, great, got 100 downloads. But there are people who are also listening that week, who might have gone back a few episodes to catch up, they might have there was a guest a few weeks ago, they wanted to go download that episode. And they happen to download that one this week. And so going based, of course, you want to see your episodes there at per episode downloads climbing.

Courtney Elmer

But what I really like to look at is the total weekly downloads, because one person might have downloaded three episodes that week, or, , another person might not listen to this week's but they went back and listened to the one from four weeks ago. And that still counts as download. So when you're tracking that weekly number, and when you use a hosting software, like Buzzsprout, they send you that report in an email every week. And you can easily look at that number. And as long as you see that number increasing. Okay, great. That's what we want to see.

Courtney Elmer

And then you could do some more math calculations and figure out like, what's the growth percentage week to week, and you could start to set that goal. So right now, if your show is growing at point 5%? Well, we really want to get that to 1%. And what can we do in terms of our content, you reverse engineer the process in terms of our content, in terms of our guests that we're bringing on? Can we bring on guests with bigger audiences, maybe who then share that show with their audience and get us in front of more people? And against kind of starting to nut out and reverse engineer? Okay, here's the goal. Now, how do we make that goal happen? Yeah, so that's the number one metric that I really liked to track, cumulative downloads mean nothing. They're great for bragging purposes. But if you hear a show that said, we're, , cross 7 million downloads, like good for you, we don't care, like, , and it's great. It's great, , for credibility, okay, it is kind of making a joke there. But, but it's not great in terms of like tracking the actual health of your podcast. So that weekly downloads numbers, what you really want to see.

Jeffrey Samorano 52:26  

Interesting Courtney Elmer.

Katie Collins 52:28  

I mean, I love your point Courtney Elmer of like, you want to see it growing? Because I think people get kind of bogged down with the process. I mean, you got to think about your content. And then you've got to record it, and then you've got to edit it, and you've got to get it right. And so sometimes it's a win, to do all those things. Yes. And they maybe forget or choose to put their head in the sand when it comes to looking at metrics, because it's like, well, at least I'm getting it out there. And , it's better than nothing kind of thing,

Courtney Elmer 52:58  

And this is why the leverage piece comes later on in the strategy as well, Because it's like, first, let's focus on creating high quality right casts, then we'll focus on launching it, then we'll focus on growing it, because you got to get it up and out there before you can even a have a metric to track and then be to know like, Okay, well, where's the lowest hanging fruit, , for me to focus what guests I should bring on and all of those things. And there's so there's a myriad of things you could do to grow a show. But at that point, you'll have a better understanding of what's going to be the best avenues for me, and for my show with my goals. Love it. Love it.

Katie Collins 53:38  

I love Oh my god, this has been amazing. I'm wondering if there's any other like, I mean, you've dropped about a million truth bombs in this episode. Is there anything else that you want to say Courtney Elmer that we haven't covered that way to kind of wrap this episode up with a big red bow?

Courtney Elmer 53:51  

The only other thing I think that I would love to share here, for those that are listening that are like, Alright, I'm sold on the podcast idea. This gets me excited. Maybe they're listening. And they're like, it's been on my heart to do a podcast for a while, but I haven't pulled the trigger. Maybe this is your sign. And so this is what I really want to leave listeners with today is that a podcast, not only is it an effective way to grow your business and effective way to grow your credibility, but it will replace all of the other content creation you're doing in your business right now. And that's another element that we touch on inside of my program, because I'm a Systems girl, and I can't not touch on this kind of stuff.

Courtney Elmer

How to repurpose your content, from your podcast for all of your marketing, for your social media posts for your weekly emails that are going out. So imagine, instead of trying to keep up with all the various aspects of your marketing that you're doing right now, posting scheduling content, even if someone's handling that for you, you're still the source of that content, right, you're coming up with that con, you're probably giving that content to someone, the podcast becomes your source. Yes. And imagine how much time that will free up for you in your business. If you can get that down to on average an hour a week, me, I like to batch my episodes, I'll spend a couple of hours on a day batching a few weeks out, whatever works for you.

Jeffrey Samorano 57:04  

Hear that Katie hear that?

Courtney Elmer 57:09  

So now my podcast manager, and my marketing assistant, they tag team, they take the content from each episode that I create. My marketing assistant plugs that into social media content that goes out on Instagram. My podcast Manager helps leverage the guest side of things and utilize is that in terms of like, what are we repurposing? we're repurposing content from programs like, oh, it's, it's amazing. I can sit here and talk about this for another 20 minutes. I won't. But there's so it could save you so much time. And I think that's one of the things people don't realize they see it as an upfront cost a time cost, yes. Because it's going to be , this hour of my time or two hours or 10 hours, I don't even know it sounds like it's going to take a lot of time. When really no, you have to look at it as this is a small investment of my time for something that I am building, I'm building an asset for my business, social media is not an asset for your business.

Courtney Elmer 58:13  

I'll say that again. Social Media is not an asset for your business. Oh, and by the way, if you want to get your hands on that free guide that I mentioned in this interview, simply go to the effortless life.co/monetize My podcast, and I'll give you instant access to it too. I'm happy to give you whatever guidance I can there but you got to reach out to me because otherwise I won't know that you're struggling. So DM me @theCourtneyElmer. And then join me back here next week because I have a special guest who's going to be here to show you why your programs aren't selling like you want them to and how to fix it. So we'll see you back here next week. And until then, go live your EffortLESS Life®.