Okay. So I did a thing I wanted to share with you about my podcast journey, but I thought I'd get in the same loop of telling the same stories the same way, and if you've been listening to this podcast or watching me on YouTube for a while, you've likely heard a lot of these stories. So what I did is I put a prompt out to my friend, chat GBT, and I said okay, come up with some questions to interview myself about my podcast journey, but do it from the perspective of someone brand new to podcasting, a seasoned podcaster and someone that's looking for what they should do, like what is the next move for their podcast. And I actually have not read any of these questions yet, like I was like, okay, I just copied them, I pasted them into my Asana and we're going to go through these together. So I think I saw one in there about an intro. Like I was like oh no, no, no, don't look, don't look, don't peak, don't peak, cause I wanted to answer them on the spot, like I was for real getting interviewed. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the profit podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, crystal Prophet, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time saving shortcut. So let's get right to it. Shall we All right? Everyone welcome back to the show. And I am so excited about this because, like I said, there's three phases how this interview is going to go. And if you're just now like aware, like wait, interview. This is a completely solo only episode, but chat dbt did help me create this today and, like I said earlier, I wanted to interview myself, and this is going to be one of those meta moments where I'm teaching you something that you can do for your content too. You don't just have to have things where you're just teaching in your episodes, like make it fun, make it snazzy, like take this idea of telling chat dbt to come up with some questions that you can ask yourself that your audience would be interested in. I've been doing this for years and it's how I come up with most of my solo content is I am thinking of what is my audience wanting to know or what have you actually asked me, and then I kind of interview myself, but this is just a fun new way to do it. So here we go. I'm actually going to read these. I have my iPad here in front of me. So, from the curious new podcaster, we have five questions. The first one, okay. So I'm going to go to my sidebar real fast. I have programmed my chat to BT so I have the paid version right. I have the more advanced version. I use it probably every day. This is why I love it so much, but I have it call me KP. So for, like my insider circle, a lot of you call me KP. It's something that I have been called. I have other 1000 other nicknames, but this is the one that, like, I signed my emails this way, like, if you get a DM for me, I'm probably going to sign it like KP, and so my chat to BT calls me KP. So this is what it says. The curious new podcaster this is the first question that it came up with for me says KP. You make it look easy, but how hard was it to get your podcast off the ground? This is a really good question. So to get my podcast off the ground, I really when I first started. So I have told this story before. My show was the Ricky life podcast back in the day, and I would say it was hard in the context of just trying to figure out what the heck I was doing. I didn't know what I was doing. I had started following Pat Flynn and I watched like all of his videos right on YouTube and I was following a lot of his logic of what he was doing and he was creating, but I didn't really have a network online and I was just, you know, just like most of you, like how we all get started. I had my college friends and my high school friends and like people that I knew in the community, and those were the people that were following me on social media. Right, it was very small, very minimal, and what really changed for me and how I got things off the ground and I've talked about this several times is I found some strategic partnerships that would help me go from an invisible, like just figuring things out, to, all of a sudden, I'm getting featured in things and getting, you know, asked to come speak on stages and getting like interviews with people that are running startups. I was just on another podcast and I was talking about how, at the very beginning of my journey, I aligned with brands like Buzzsprout, squadcast, amy Porterfield, streamyard. Like those are partnerships from like 2020. Like, those have been around for a while and I still support them. I still promote a lot of those brands and it is just because, like, that's what I did to get my name out there. So, if you're listening to this and you're just getting started, yes, it is a little bit difficult to get going and get off the ground, but once you can find those strategic partnerships maybe it's a network collaboration, maybe it's, you know, up here in your industry that can help get your name out there. So that's why I highly encourage us get creative and look for some of those opportunities. All right, second question what's one piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting out? This is really funny because if you listen to any of my interviews, this is a question that I always ask all of my guests, so it's really funny. Like I said, I did not read these beforehand, so it's really funny to see that one specifically come up. What piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting? I would have to say you just gotta pull like rip off the band aid. You've got to rip off the band aid because there's so many of you that have been listening to this show for years, years, and you know who you are Like. I am calling you out. You've been listening to me, you've been following me on Instagram, looking at all my YouTube stuff for years, and you still haven't started a podcast. You have not started putting content out anywhere. You're just collecting data. You're collecting information. You're buying courses, you're doing all the things that can teach you how to do them, but you're not doing them, whether it's because you're not confident enough or you don't feel sure of yourself, or you have self-doubt and posture syndrome, like, oh, you go on and on about all the reasons why you're not. You just got to rip off the band aid. You're going to sound weird. You're going to sound awkward, you're going to sound stupid. You're going to look weird, like all the things. It will happen. Yes, I go back and I cringe at some of my earlier content, but now, holy moly, I would have never gotten to where I am today without that content that I started. I mean, I found stuff the other day that I was like oh my gosh, I forgot it's from 2017. So it's from before I ever even started podcasting stuff that I found and it was absolutely cringe worthy, but it's those things that lead to what you're creating five years from now, what you're doing 10 years from now. But you got to rip off the band aid and just get started. So there's my tough love for you, for you today. Maybe there's more coming. I don't know. Like I said, we'll see what the questions? All right. So, number three how did you decide on your podcast niche and target audience? So when I first started the rookie life so this was in 2018, I was really encouraged to share stories, like stories of entrepreneurs. You go back to the very beginning of this podcast. All the stories are there, but I wanted to. I was just really inspired. I was in this space of, and I haven't really shared too much about this story, but I wanted to be a writer. That's really what I wanted and I was going. I went to a few writing conferences. I had met some authors in person. Like I got a chance to meet Glennon Doyle and see her speak way back in the day and I just I got to meet some really Kayla Olson, like she's been on the podcast and actually met her again this year she put her second book out, which is super fun. But I was kind of wrapped up in this idea that I was going to be a writer. I have, like one of my big scary goals is I want to be a New York Times bestselling author and I've published two books and I remember thinking like, okay, what am I doing? Like, like, what am I really doing? Because I'm not really a writer, I'm not really an author. And so once I got into interviewing all these people that were entrepreneurs and people were asking me behind the scenes about my podcast, about this, and that I was thinking in my head from the beginning like, oh, I'm building this platform so that I can write a book and sell books. That was one of my initial goals, but then, as time went on, I was like I don't really love to just talk about general entrepreneur things. Now I do, of course I do. I still love learning about other people's businesses, but I specifically love to talk about marketing and content and podcasting and strategy and email and website. So it was like it all shifted from this really broad because it was very, very broad when I first started to a more niche topic of what I have today, which is all about creating with confidence, podcasting and content strategy. So it was trial and error, like long, long way around to answer the question. It was trial and error and the audience that I have today is built from this much broader audience that I started with, and then I just niche down to one specific piece of running an online business and content marketing. So it's so funny, cause I wanna say good question. This is, I don't know, it's so stupid. All right, question number four I've heard you've had some amazing guests. How did you land your first big interview? Ooh, I don't even know what I would quantify as like the first big interview. I've had incredible guests on the show the one that someone. Recently I just had a podcast interview for someone else's podcast and the big question was how in the world did you get Amy Porterfield on your show and how has she been on there four times? Like not just once, but she's been on my show four times, and so I would have to say her for sure like she's been probably one of the most notable people that are in the online space that I've had on the show. And how I did that was going back to strategic partnerships Like this is the I feel like my key phrase of the day. That I've said so many times already but strategic partnerships. Like I was an affiliate for her program, digital Course Academy. I've been in her space, like in her community, for a long time and so that really was what it was, as I was already like an evangelist for all the things that she did. I was helping her. Another like I was a B-School mentor for her community in 2020, which means I went through B-School with her in 2019. And then she and her team asked me and a few other people to be a mentor to the next group of B-School members. So I did that and it just kind of happened. Naturally, it was this organic thing that unfolded and it's been really cool to see how that relationship has gone on to yield so many other really amazing things with Amy. But at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to letting things happen organically, like, yes, land big guests, but also have it in you to have a long-term partnership with them, and not just oh, who can I get on my show that has millions of followers and I can leverage their audience. It's never gonna work out the way that you think it's going to. So instead, look for those long-term strategic partnerships, and those can be so fruitful for your content and your business. So, all right. Question number five your podcast intro is killer. Thank you, did actually listen to my podcast intro anyway. Any tips on creating a memorable podcast opening? Yeah, so I think this is a good question and one that's going to change over time, because if you've listened to podcasts the way that I've listened to podcasts in the last five plus years eight, nine, 10, however long you've been listening to podcasts you'll notice that things have changed over time. So it used to be where you would hear this big, booming voice and there was a whole other person that's introducing people and it had music and a whole production thing going on behind the scenes. That was happening in the early days of podcasting. Then it evolved into you would hear some shows that have an easy here's music at the beginning and then they just go right into it. Now I hear a lot of podcasts where they will take a really smart clip from the interview that they did or the solo episode, and it's like anywhere from 20 to 90 seconds, and they throw it at the very beginning and they put some music behind it and that's their introduction. Then they go into a main theme and then they go into their main episode. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but for me personally, I do a short introduction and I try to hook you in. I try to get you to understand why it's important. It's like today, I explained the reason why I was doing this episode this way and I give you some context and didn't just jump into hey, by the way, chat TBT is interviewing me, let's go, let's dive into it. So I do think that you should kind of lead in with why should your audience care? That's really how I like to start an episode, because you're hooking them in. You're letting them know hey, this is why this is relevant to you, or why you should care about it, and then they're going to be more likely to care about it. And then I go into my main theme and then into the main episode. That's how I structure my introduction. Tell me in the comments, like ping me on Instagram and let me know your thoughts on that or what you like to hear in a podcast introduction. But I don't know, who knows, I don't know over time, but that's what we're doing today, here and now, when I'm recording this. All right, so that's for the curious new podcaster. Those are five questions. Now we're moving into the seasoned podcaster. Now I would call a seasoned podcaster anyone that has, I would say, six to 12 months under their belt. I mean, that's arguable. It could be someone that's 24 months into it or five years, but anyone that is like they're not freaking out about. I don't understand how podcasting works. How do I do this? How do I do that? Like? You have a good grasp on what you're producing, how you're producing it. You know what a podcast host is. You know what your RSS feed it Like. That was what I would call a seasoned podcaster. You have a little bit more of that production knowledge under your belt, and now you're looking at more of those strategic moves of like how do I get bigger guests? How do I grow my show? That's who I would label a seasoned podcaster. So these questions were developed for you All right. Number one I've been the game for a while now. What keeps you inspired to keep podcasting? Oh, this is such a good question. I'm going to do this from now on where I'm going to have it come up. These are really good questions. So what inspires you? I honestly had just been. I look for fun, and I know that sounds like it sounds like a cop out, like it sounds like I'm cheating when I say that, but I really do. I look for fun. I look for fun new partnerships. I look for fun new people to interview. I look for fun topics I look for. I just have this and it's part of my business. Actually it's one of my principles is we chase fun, not we look for fun Like, oh, that could be like I chase fun, I will see it. I think of this like a dog chasing a bone or like a ball, like we play fetch with our dog Wally, all the time in the backyard and as soon as he sees that ball, he is like down, like he is ready to go, he's ready to run after it and he is so freaking excited. That's how I am about podcasting and if I'm not, that's a red flag for me that I need to change things up. Either I'm interviewing the wrong people or I don't have as good of an engagement with my audience, or like something is off. If I'm not having fun because I have a blast creating this content and I do? I genuinely get this question a lot. It's like why do you love it so much? Like, what are you even? What are you getting out of this? Because I don't have a top you know 100 show. I'm not making millions of dollars off this podcast, so what are you getting out of it? And I think for me it's just I have so much fun. I have so much fun creating this content because I got through all of those years of awkwardness and I don't know what I'm doing and what am I supposed to be like. I feel like I'm in the flow state of I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So that is what keeps me coming back. But also it's this community, the I mean inspiring stories of people like you know, chef Amanda. I've been giving her shout outs all the time, but you know she has baking for business and she will send me Instagram DMs we do voice memos all the time and she'll send me these incredible, just stories of oh my gosh, I had this person, like she had Tiffany Amber Thieson come on her show and she's had big name guests. She has really cool things that she's doing with her show and I mean it's just so inspiring. She is a student of profit podcasting. This is my digital course and from the time that she had no show to where she is now, she loves it. She loves it so much and that is what keeps you. So it's not only my idea of fun and how I keep things going, but it's also me seeing other people in this community having fun. It just inspires a crap out of me, so that's what keeps me going. Great question Okay, ooh, number two this is so funny because I feel like it's kind of creepy how much it knows about me because it says your show has won awards. What's your secret sauce for creating an award winning podcast? This is really funny. So, like I said, it's kind of creepy. I'm like, oh, it's a little weird. And so I won an award for a solo podcast award in 2020 at the Spark podcast conference. So it was so wild and unexpected. I did not know that I was going to win that award. But the secret sauce for creating an award winning podcast for that award specifically, we're going to get into the nitty gritty details Because of all the other podcasts that were around at that time, there weren't a lot of people doing solo, only episodes. They were all doing interviews. So I think that that was part of my secret sauce is how do I stand out and how do I differentiate what I'm doing to all the other shows that are out there? And I mean, I don't know how you can apply this to what you're creating. What you're doing but that would be my advice to you is like, how do you stand out, how do you give more of your personality to your show? How do you break through all the noise of whatever is going on in your industry and do something to stand out, like if you see everybody else doing this other thing, do the opposite of that. What is the opposite of that? Maybe that's the first question and kind of go down that rabbit hole of how can you stand out. But that is exactly what I did, without even knowing it, because I was just creating solo content and I happen to win the solo podcast award, but I'm very proud of it. So that's very, very, very cool. Like I'm like I got an award winning podcast. I should be like, really proud of that. I don't really say it because it feels braggadocious a lot, but I do. I have an award winning podcast. So thank you, chat to PT for reminding me of that. Okay, number three, tell us about a podcasting mistake you made that actually turned into a great learning experience. There are so many mistakes, so many mistakes. Um, I mean, I have to say, and I've said this so many times, my very first, really big mistake was my very first interview. My podcast Mike was not even plugged in. My Mike was not plugged in and I did a Skype interview. I will never forget that's how old this is y'all. Skype there was no, you know, let's do it over zoom or Riverside or wherever. There was none of that. It was Skype and it was, oh my gosh. So it was so embarrassing that this is what happened. Because here I am, I'm like, oh, I know what I'm doing, I watched all the videos, I did all the things and my microphone was not plugged in. So what did I learn from that is, always do a mic check and always check your settings. Always check it. Like even before I started recording this today, I went in. I'm in Hindenburg, so I'm recording on the back end. I'm also recording video. I made sure that my really good podcast Mike was selected, not my webcam, not some other random thing that I don't even know is connected to my computer that is recording. I made sure it was my really good microphone. I do this every single time. I record anything, anything. It's just one of those steps that I don't skip it, because I don't want to be sitting here talking to you for 30 minutes and then realize that was the wrong microphone and I just wasted 30 minutes and all of my energy and all of my time. It is so frustrating. I've been there and I'm kind of glad that it happened at the very beginning, instead of 50 episodes in. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh my gosh, like I have to, like I just I know it. So I know, do your mic checks. I always do my check. One, two, one, two. I still do that all the time. I know it's really dorky, but I do it. Okay, number four you've branched out with the book and courses. How do you manage to keep the quality high across different platforms? Gosh, these are great questions. Okay, so I have Published a book, start a binge worthy podcast. You can find it on Amazon, you know wherever, wherever you get your Amazon stuff. And then how do you manage high quality across different platforms? So I also have profit podcasting. So this is my course. If you're listening to it in real time, we actually have a promotion going on that you should go check out. Go to crystal profit, comm forward, slash course and you're gonna like find everything about it, but Keeping the quality high across different platforms. There are seasons for big projects. That's what I would say. So 2020 is when I wrote start a binge worthy podcast and I had it in my mind. So I'm a planner. If you're brand new to me, this is news to you. If you've been around here for a while, you're like oh yeah, here she goes. She's talking about planning. Again, I'm a big planner. It's the only way that I get things done. And so, with profit, podcasting or sorry, let me go back to start a binge worthy podcast. I planned when I was gonna write the book, when I was gonna publish the book and when I was gonna promote the book. So it was like a three-step process. It's like you got to create the thing. It's like my prep of method. Right, we talk about prep them all the time plan, record, edit, publish and market. It's the same thing that I did for the book and the only way that it happened was I set a deadline. I still remember to this day. I picked October 20th of 2020 because it was easy. It was 10, 20, 20. That was the easiest date. It was on a Tuesday, worked out well for everybody. But I picked that date and I said, alright, come hell or high water, this thing is going out. And I just stuck to it same thing this year which is why I brought up profit podcasting earlier is I Redid it. I redid the entire program. I restructured it, I added new things, I took out some other things, I Rerecorded all of the videos and I'm like so freakin proud of it. It's the best version. I think it's version Three or four, I don't ever remember. I think there's one in there that we don't really talk about Recorded and that is like like let's not talk about that one ever again. But it took a while, like I did so much planning on the back end. Shout out to Sydney Eve. So Sydney Eve matrix was my graphic designer that I hired to help me Create the high quality version that it is today, because what you're seeing now is not version 1.0. So this is advice to anybody that is creating something right now you want to do books, you want to do courses, you want to do a podcast, youtube channel, whatever? Just know that what you're launching today can be your version 1. The book that I published started Benjware, the podcast. It wasn't my first book. It was the second book launch that I had done and I had been a part of Several other people's book launches, so I knew what I was doing. So don't be afraid to learn from other people and see what they're doing, but also don't tell yourself Well, this is version one, it needs to be the end, all be all. No, it could just be version one and you can keep iterating and make it better and better over time. So to answer the question like, how do you manage to keep the high or the quality high across different platforms? Just know that there's seasons for when you can improve something, when you can make it better and give yourself that grace and white space that you don't have to do like I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, launch a course and a podcast in your website and grow your email list. No, there's seasons for everything, all right. And then the last question for a seasoned podcaster is what's your strategy for keeping your audience engaged, not just episode to episode, but year to year? Oh my gosh, these questions. They're amazing. Okay, not just episode to episode, but year to year. You have to evolve with your audience. You do, like I. Okay, here's the story. I was actually thinking about telling this for another reason earlier today, but I Kind of pivoted in 2022 and it was a mistake. Okay, let's just throw that out there. I Started creating content all about content repurposing. I even created a whole program around Content repurposing because that's where I thought my audience wanted me to go. Everyone was asking me about repurposing content. They're like well, how do you do this and how does this work? And so I created a whole program for it. I actually shifted my brand to be more about. I didn't change my brand name. I didn't change this show name or my YouTube, like I didn't change that. I'd still like kind of under a personal brand, but I shifted everything that I was talking about. It was like no, I'm a content strategist, I talk about repurposing content and it wasn't what you needed I. That's really what I thought and it's what I wanted to talk about, because I got excited about oh, there's so many different things. You could go this way, you could go that way, but at the end of the day, it wasn't the right move and I knew that because y'all told me, y'all, let me know. I was like, yeah, well, crystal, that's great, but we came to you for podcasting. Like, I want to know about podcasting either, podcasting on YouTube, podcasting audio only. I want to know about solo podcasts. I want to know about interviews. I want to know how to grow my email list and my podcast. I want to know about website. Like you kept coming back to me and saying, but, crystal, I want to know about podcasting. So the way that I keep people coming back, not just episode to episode, but year over year, is I continue to listen to you and listen. I do surveys, I send emails and I say, hey, here, reply, let me know what you think about this. But I listen to my audience and I try to get in the DMs with you as much as possible. I try to engage with this community because it's so important to me, like you are the only thing that matters. You are the reason why I keep showing up, I keep doing all this and it's just so important to me to really make this happen and I am just I'm so encouraged and inspired by you. So that is really what keeps everything happening year to year and everyone keeps showing up and, yeah, it's just incredible, okay. So now let's go and switch gears a little bit for the On the Fence podcast term. So, on the fence KP, I'm thinking about either revamping my current show or starting a new one. How do you know when it's time for a change? I've been getting this question a lot more recently where people are saying I don't know if I love the name of my show, or I don't know if I should keep my artwork, I don't know if I should niche down, or I don't know if I should broaden my show. Like there's been a lot of what should I do? Like do I keep going down this route or do I just scrap the whole thing and start something new? And I actually have some podcast episodes and YouTube videos about this. But I would say you know when it's time for a change if you are not having fun okay, we're circling back around to having fun or if you are just not excited about the thing that you originally started. So I rebranded my podcast. It was the Rookie Life. No, it's a profit podcast and I made that switch because one I wanted it to be more of a personal brand. It made sense for me and, marketing wise, it was really easy to remember the name and to talk about the show. So that's one of the reasons why I rebranded. But also I wanted a fresh start. But I rebranded the existing show. I didn't say, oh well, that's that, that's that RSS feed. There's actually some places where I will still like my show will show up and it'll say the Rookie Life, like in the URL, which is funny. But I just wanted to keep my existing audience and just shift gears because they were the ones asking me about everything. So there wasn't a reason to just burn that down and start something new. I wanted to keep going with the existing audience. I had started building and work from there. So if you're thinking about, like if you're asking, how do you know when it's time for a change, if you're not excited about what you're doing, if you're not excited about the audience or the topic that you chose, that's okay. It's okay to pivot and switch gears, but don't do anything until you talk to your audience. Send out a survey, ask your audience, give them like five questions, because what I've seen lately and this has been really interesting I've been seeing people ask in Facebook groups. They're like I'm thinking about changing that name of my podcast. This is what it is now and here are five things that I'm considering changing it to. And then they throw out these options and people in the audience are like I love your current show, like the true fans come out and they're like no, don't change the name of your show, I like what you have. It's easy to remember, it's easy to say whatever reason, they just share all about why they love it. So get feedback from your audience before you make any big changes, because they'll give you that helpful insight to know, like, which direction to go or if you need to make any changes. All right. So question number two how do you measure the success of your podcast, which is really fun. I'm so glad that this question is in here because I'm doing a training. If you're listening to this in real time, I'm doing a training on October 24th and on October 26th. This episode actually goes out on the 24th. So if you're listening to this, who knows, you may have time to like, sneak in, like grab a seat and join us today, or come join us on the 26th of October because we're going to talk about measuring success beyond just the downloads. So I'm doing a free training. It's called how to get your first or next 1000 podcast downloads, but sneak peek for anybody that's registered and you're going to join us. We're going to talk about how do you measure success outside of just your downloads, and what I have found is there's just so many additional ways that success can be measured, but it's individual to each podcast host. So for me, what I define as success is am I getting considered as a expert in the podcast space? Yes. Am I getting asked to speak on podcast stages? Yes. Am I getting strategic partnerships and having sponsorships that align with the principles of my business? Yes and yes. So this is a different way that I measure podcast success outside of podcast downloads and being at the top of the charts. Those things are great for credibility and, like that, street cred, bragging rights, all of those things, but it's not the only way to measure success. So I want people to get away from just measuring by downloads. There are absolutely other ways that you can measure success, because I know podcasters that are small in the like relative terms of like oh, I have a big pod, I have a successful podcast, but they're making six, seven figures a year and they have a small show. They are absolutely successful. So I just I want to throw that out there, that there are other ways to measure success beyond the downloads of your podcast. I want you to come to my free training too. I'm going to have a link in the show notes. Go to crystalprofitcom, forward, slash 1000 dash downloads, so the number 1000, 1000 dash downloads and join us. Like I said, october 24th, october 26th, it's going to be so much fun. Okay, number three Okay, this is for the on the fence podcaster again, remember. So it says I'm stuck in a content rut. How do you come up with fresh ideas for episodes? Okay, I have to be really honest about this one. This is my jam, like this is my superpower and I don't know where it comes from. But after I first started with podcasting, I've never had an issue coming up with ideas, and I think it's not that I'm anything special, it's just that I've changed the perspective of how I see content and how I define content. So let me break this down for you. So, if you're listening to this, it's likely that you have favorite podcast. It's likely that you have favorite TV shows or movies or things in your life that you could talk about for hours and hours and hours. My goal for you is to see how can I incorporate those things into my podcast and that is how I've been able to zoom out Like, because I think we all get so much in the weeds of like, yeah, but I teach this thing and I need to speak about this specific thing, and I have just kind of zoomed everything out completely and said wait, what does my audience care about and what is the umbrella topic that I talk about? Actually, teach this in my course profit podcasting, where we talk about having that sweet spot between like being a broad audience and a super like sweet niche that you can find. And that sweet spot is in the middle of that. And whenever you can find that and blend it into pop culture or your favorite things, you're going to be more excited to talk about it because you're interested in it. But just finding that sweet spot can help you keep coming up with ideas. But again, we've talked about engaging with your audience. Ask your audience what do y'all want me to talk about more Like, tell me in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube, like, tell me. What do you want me to talk about? And I will ask my audience this all the time. I will survey you on Instagram, I will survey you in email and I want to know what do you want to hear from me. So that's how I kind of just keep a full, constant calendar of all the content ideas. But also I'm always listening. I'm listening to other people's podcasts, I'm listening in Facebook groups. I am very connected to this audience and I am listening to what you want and that is what helps me really stay in touch with what you want to hear from me. So, great question, all right. Number four what's your take on podcast monetization? Is it better to start thinking about it from the get go or let it develop organically? I think that it's something that you should think about from the beginning, because you're going to have expenses. If you are, let's say, your brand new podcaster and you want to do interviews and you want to do your own editing you don't have the means to hire out your editing to like a service or an agency then you're going to have expenses. So that can either come out of your personal pocket, like as a hobby, like you pay for a hobby or it could come out of your business expenses, which is what I do here at Profit Media. My business pays for all of these expenses and that only happens because I've monetized my content, so I'm able to pay for. Well, there's certain things that I don't pay for. I'll just be very transparent. Because I have either affiliations or I have partnerships with them. I don't pay for Buzzsprout. I've been a Buzzsprout creator since 2018, 2019, I guess, 2019. So I haven't paid for Buzzsprout for a long time because I have a partnership with them. But there's other things I pay for StreamYard. I paid for Hindenburg. I pay for Asana. I pay for, you know, otter, not Otter chat, gpt I was thinking transcripts, so I used to pay for Otter, and now I pay for chat, gpt and all these other things. So there are expenses and I don't want that coming out of my personal pocket. So I have been thinking about monetization from the beginning and I got started with affiliate marketing. Now I've moved into partnerships, other types of affiliate marketing, I've moved into sponsorships, I create digital courses, I've created my book, I do coaching packages, like there's a lot of things that you can explore for monetization. But unless you want to pay for this out of your personal pocket. I highly recommend that you get into podcast monetization as quickly as possible and get started with affiliate marketing. If you use Buzzsprout, you can be an affiliate for Buzzsprout. If you use let me see, there's, just like so many other ones squadcast, descript, asana, streamyard, riverside. I mean there's just all of these great podcasting tools that you can get started with from the beginning. I have people that are affiliates of mine now, like they're an affiliate for my program and they promote what I'm doing and I pay them a commission. So there are absolutely ways to really get in touch with what aligns with you and your content. But if you're listening to this, you want to know. You're like Crystal, how can I be an affiliate of what you're doing? Send me a DM Like let's chat about it, because that's something else that I'm exploring how I can get more people connected into promoting what I'm doing, because it's going to help them make money as well. All right, last final question for an On the Fence Podcaster I'm contemplating taking a podcast break. What are the pros and cons of hitting pause on your content or your podcast journey? This is a really good one to end on. So I recently like in the last I mean it's almost been three and a half, four weeks I paused, I stopped doing I don't know if I want to use paused or stopped, like whatever is in the middle split the difference. I have been doing the potty report, which is my daily show. I've been doing that since 2020. And I just recently paused it because I don't know if I'm going back. I don't know, and I let my listeners know I don't know if I'm coming back for another season, another round. I could decide, hey, you know, taking a break was so stupid Like I don't want to break up with you, I'm coming back, like one of those things I could decide. I want to go back to it in January, but for now I'm taking a break. And the way that I came to that decision is I knew for bandwidth and capacity. It was just not there and it wasn't something that was generating revenue, it wasn't something bringing new leads into my business and it wasn't something that was helping me create deeper connections with my audience. So it had to go. It was one of those things that I finally just said. You know what? I need to pause this for now. It's not serving some of the bigger initiatives that I had in my business and in my content. So that's how I made that decision. Like this was a pro was I got a lot more time back. One of the cons is I heard from many of you Many of you were very upset with me, which I was so flattered by, because some of y'all were like but I love that podcast, it is my favorite. You actually listen to that more than you listen to this. Hopefully you came over here to listen to this podcast because you were missing the body report. But the pros and cons are. The pros is it gives you a break. Sometimes we need that creative space to just like take a deep breath, relax, recalibrate, whatever else you need to do. But one of the cons is and this is what I see where people just hit pod fade and they don't come back is if you don't tell your audience when you will come back. So if you're going to take a break, let's give an example of the summer. You're like, okay, I know summers are crazy. It's chaotic with kids at home and we're going to have a lot of fun. It's chaotic with kids at home and we're traveling, we're going to see family, we're doing this, we're doing that. Like you have a lot of stuff going on in the summer and you're like I need a break, let's go on hiatus for a few months Awesome, take the entire months of June, july and August off. But tell people in May and say, hey, we're taking a break for the summer. I will see you back here in September. We'll be back on this date. I'm going to be back with new episodes, new interviews, like whatever it is. Don't just ghost your people and then expect them to be there for you when you do come back, because you're going to have some churn in your audience. You're going to have people that won't come back because you kind of broke like that contract in the cycle of you creating the content and then now they need to replace that hour or whatever time they spent listening to you with something else, and they will. They will find something else to do during that time. So if you're going to take a break, I highly recommend you plan it and make it very reasonable for you and your audience to be held accountable. It's like an unspoken contract where you say, hey, I'm leaving in May, but I'll be back in September, so we'll see you. Then Just let people know. Like, at the end of the day, just let people know that that's what you're doing, and they will be so much more receptive than if you just stop publishing content for several months and then you come back and then you're disappointed that they're not there. They didn't know where you went. Like, you're kind of like the person that ghosted them. You didn't call them back, you didn't let them know that you're going to be out of town, like, and then it's like turns into some weird relationship stuff, right, like we don't want toxic relationships around here. No, I don't know, we're not going to do that. So this was incredible. This was so much. I'm actually going to have to do this again because this was so much fun, it was so easy. So, like I said earlier, all I did was I put into chat GPT as it hey, go to my website, look at my stuff and give me like 10, or I didn't even say 10. I think I said give me questions for curious new podcaster, a seasoned podcaster and someone that's thinking about starting a podcast, and like give, give me questions. And it came up with 15. And this was so fun, so easy and I loved it. But, as a reminder, if you're listening to this in real time, october 24th. In October 26th, we're doing a free training that I don't want you to miss. It's called how to get your first or next 1000 podcast downloads. Go to crystalprofitcom forward slash 1000 dash downloads to check it out. I'm not going to be doing any other free trainings for the rest of 2023. So do not miss this. It's going to be so good, but that's all I have for you today. So if you are, you know, finding this for the first time, I'm so glad that you are here. What a fantastic episode to join the conversation. I am grateful for everybody in this community that is a podcaster, a content creator. If you're watching on the YouTube channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button. If you're listening on the podcast, hit that follow button wherever you are listening and, as always, remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.