0:00

Everybody , welcome back to Buzzsprout Conversations

0:02

. Today I'm joined by Sarah Lee Cade

0:04

. Sarah is a freelance writer

0:06

and podcaster . She's worked with a lot

0:08

of financial companies and institutions

0:11

that you would recognize , but if you're a Buzzsprout

0:13

YouTube watcher , you've been with us for

0:15

a while . You'll recognize Sarah from some of

0:17

our other videos , since we've had a chance to work

0:19

with her for many years now . We

0:22

talk a lot about Sarah's transition from

0:24

being a teacher to being

0:26

a freelancer , how she got started

0:29

in writing and then in podcasting

0:31

. We talk about whether or not brands should be podcasting

0:34

and what they should be thinking about when they enter

0:36

the podcasting space . We talk a lot about

0:38

repurposing content and the

0:40

appropriate strategies you should use

0:42

to make sure that content you're creating

0:44

performs well on each platform

0:46

. And then we talk a lot about the psychology

0:49

of creating content online

0:51

comparing ourselves to other creators

0:54

, the fears that we have when

0:56

we're first publishing something , or just some

0:58

of those intrusive thoughts that we may

1:00

have . I hope you really enjoy this conversation

1:03

. I always enjoy talking to Sarah , so

1:05

I hope you do as well . Sarah

1:13

, thank you so much for joining me .

1:14

Yeah , thanks so much for inviting me on , because I did a chat

1:16

with you today .

1:17

Yeah , we've been friends for a long time . We've met

1:19

through the Jacksonville Podcaster , so

1:21

you night meetup grew and

1:23

then we've done some work together with Buzzsprout

1:26

. But for everyone who doesn't know who you are

1:28

or doesn't recognize you from our channel , can

1:30

you tell us a little bit about your career ? We got you here

1:32

.

1:32

Yeah , so I was actually

1:35

a full-time elementary school teacher for

1:37

about a decade and then I transitioned into

1:39

freelance writing . I also now

1:42

produce podcasts for companies

1:44

, and so I mostly write and produce podcasts

1:47

in the finance and business industry . So I've been doing

1:49

that full-time since about 2016,

1:52

. So about seven years , which feels really long

1:54

in internet years it does .

1:56

Internet years are like dog years .

1:59

Yes , exactly .

2:01

What convinced you to

2:03

leave teaching and start a

2:05

freelancing career ?

2:06

So I was freelance writing

2:08

as a side hustle on the side

2:10

because I was just really bored . In

2:13

China , you have a lot of free

2:15

time , I feel like as an expat . This was before I had kids

2:18

, and so I really didn't have a big commute

2:20

. Things were really convenient , so running errands

2:22

was pretty quick , and

2:25

so it left me with a lot of free time , and so

2:27

I started freelance writing for fun , and so that was the

2:29

thing that I had going on for about four years

2:31

before my husband decided to move

2:33

to the US , and so really

2:35

what started the catalyst for full-time freelancing

2:38

was I wasn't sure

2:40

if my teaching license would actually work in

2:42

the US , and so I gave myself six months

2:44

to get settled in the country I

2:46

had . You know , my son was about one-ish at

2:48

the time , so I was a primary caretaker

2:51

, so it was really like setting things up for

2:53

myself in this country that I've never

2:55

lived in before , and so I

2:57

thought , okay , if this crashes and burns

3:00

like I just wanted to make up to pay rent , then

3:02

I'll go back to teach you how to figure it out . But if it

3:04

works , then it works . And six years or

3:06

seven years later , here I am .

3:08

That's awesome , you know . It's funny

3:10

. It's recently I realized like so many

3:12

of the people online who are like you should just start

3:14

a side hustle , like you could do this to 10X

3:17

your productivity . You can do this to , like you

3:19

know , get the body you've always wanted . They're

3:21

always like 24 and they're single

3:24

and they don't have a kid yet and I'm like

3:26

100% . Everything you're talking

3:28

about is very impressive . You're very driven , you're

3:30

very motivated . I'm very impressed

3:33

. I also know a lot

3:35

of the tips and tricks you're giving just are

3:38

very difficult to translate when

3:40

you have a one-year-old and you might be waking up

3:42

every few hours to take

3:44

care of them , or just like there's a lot of

3:46

obligations once you start having children .

3:48

I'm kind of fast-forwarding to like seven

3:50

years . There's a lot of work within those seven years , or

3:53

10 if you count the side hustle , and

3:55

so you know , I lived

3:57

in a country where services were

3:59

pretty cheap , so I had a nanny that

4:01

was watching my son five

4:03

days a week . I didn't

4:05

really have to cook dinner , so a lot of those things

4:07

were kind of taken off my plate and so I did have

4:09

time to devote to the side hustle

4:12

and before I moved to the US

4:14

I didn't actually spend a lot of time on it . I would

4:16

say like five hours a week , which is

4:18

which is still a lot of . You have young kids so you

4:20

know in retrospect I probably

4:22

could have not done as much

4:24

as I did . But again , like you said , I'm

4:27

a pretty driven type A person

4:29

and so it really was a lot of conversations

4:31

with my husband , like , especially before

4:34

we move back to the US , I'm like if I want to give it , have a go

4:36

at this , I do need to devote a little bit more time

4:38

or be more strategic , and so there's a lot of conversations

4:40

about our schedules , how that was going

4:42

to work . He took on some sort of extra like

4:45

errands . He watched my son

4:47

, sometimes when I really needed a nap in the middle

4:49

of the day . You know things like that . So

4:51

, again , it's just there's a lot of conversation

4:54

needs to happen and yeah , it does make

4:56

it easier if you're single , but you know you

4:58

can do it if you have a kid or

5:00

if you're married or your partnership

5:02

things like that , but it does require a lot of logistics

5:05

, it requires a lot

5:07

of discipline . It was really

5:09

really difficult when I first moved to the US

5:11

, because we knew no one in

5:13

the town that we lived in and so I

5:16

also was being very idealistic like , oh

5:18

, my baby will sleep in my lap and I'll just

5:20

type it . And yeah , you're laughing

5:23

Like I could laugh at it now

5:25

. But you know , seven years ago this

5:27

was like my ideal kind of work

5:29

day which didn't work , and so it was a lot of

5:31

like lessons of , ok

5:33

, this doesn't work , what can I do ? So it's a lot of

5:35

like self-reflection , being

5:37

observant of what was happening

5:39

or what was working , what was not , before

5:42

I really found my stride . I don't think in

5:45

total transparency , I don't think

5:47

I feel like I found my stride until maybe

5:49

like three years ago .

5:50

I think a lot of people will . I mean

5:52

, we're going to talk a lot about podcasts . A

5:55

lot of people who are watching probably watching this have

5:57

podcasts or starting podcasts . They

5:59

heard you just say you started freelancing

6:02

and the first thing you did was start devoting about

6:04

five hours a week to it . How did

6:06

you translate five hours of

6:08

focused time into actually making

6:10

money ? Because I mean , I think for

6:13

me , hearing five hours and then actually

6:15

turning that into any amount of money , let

6:17

alone an amount I was feeling

6:19

excited about , that seems like

6:21

a pretty tall order . So what did you do

6:23

to set yourself up for success there ?

6:25

The first thing I did was do everything that

6:27

I probably shouldn't have been doing under the sun , because

6:30

there's so many things you can do , right

6:32

, like freelancing there's just just , and then

6:35

, with podcasting , there's just the bazillion things you can do

6:37

. And so in the beginning

6:39

, it was a lot of things that I thought would move

6:41

the needle , like , oh , let me create a beautiful logo

6:43

, let me set up a website , things like that

6:45

. And so it was really learning what

6:48

were the actual things that move

6:50

the needle ? And so , at its core

6:52

, if you're freelancing , what makes it successful is

6:54

having a sale . Right , like you're

6:57

trying to offer your services whether it's writing

6:59

or podcast production , whatever it is to a client

7:01

and then say yes , and they pay you . That's really

7:03

basically at the core . And so it

7:06

took me a long time to think , okay , like , if

7:08

I want money , if I want someone to pay me , what is

7:10

it that I actually have to do ? And so

7:12

a lot of it was starting conversations with

7:14

potential clients , and so a lot of it was

7:16

cold emails at the time when I was

7:18

overseas , because the time differences were

7:20

a little too huge for me to call . But you can call

7:23

. I used to send physical postcards

7:25

to different content agencies . That

7:28

got a couple of responses . I'm not sure if that

7:30

would work now , but this was also a while

7:32

Again , a lot of years in OG

7:34

or in internet years , and

7:37

so I did a lot of that . It was a lot of like here's

7:39

a numbers game let me find people or

7:41

companies or editors that

7:43

were that I felt like would both likely say

7:45

yes or at least continue a conversation with

7:47

me and just keep doing that . And

7:49

then , yeah , it was just like one email

7:51

after another , one phone call after another , and then

7:53

pitching my services off

7:56

, like doing really good work , getting references

7:58

, things like that . So it was like a lot of the same

8:00

things over and over again . And then you do

8:02

get to a point where you can add in the things

8:05

. And so , you know , I did increase my work

8:07

hours . Five hours Sometimes it's just not

8:09

enough for what you want to do , and so I did

8:11

increase my work hours , mostly

8:14

because some projects demanded more

8:16

time than others . I also started

8:18

going to conferences or started getting on

8:20

Skype calls or Zoom calls with people

8:23

, just kind of networking that way Again

8:26

, just to build up that network of referrals

8:28

or people who are willing to

8:30

hire me , so a lot of that .

8:32

That's super interesting . I feel like one

8:34

of the things I've noticed is that you also

8:36

targeted a pretty lucrative

8:39

niche , like you've moved

8:41

right into financial services

8:44

, right ? Was that just

8:46

a natural fit ? Was that something that you knew about

8:48

, or was that by accident ?

8:50

Absolutely not , absolutely not

8:52

, yeah , yeah . So when I first

8:55

started as a side hustle

8:57

, I remember reading this website I

8:59

think it's called Make a Living Writing , and

9:02

so one of the tips was like find what

9:04

you are an expert at or what you already

9:06

do in your day job , to kind of transition

9:08

to writing . And so I was a teacher

9:11

and I was like , great , I can find some

9:13

way to use my teaching skills to write for

9:15

a company . And so I started writing for

9:17

textbook companies . I did like test prep quizzes

9:20

things , different things like that , and

9:22

so that worked out pretty well . And

9:25

so how I transitioned into finance writing

9:27

was , very accidentally , someone

9:29

reached out to me and said hey , you are overseas

9:31

, I need someone who's not living in the

9:33

US to write about PayPal and how to use

9:36

it to transfer money from

9:38

different currencies , and

9:40

so I wrote about that Again

9:43

. This was also the time when I was networking back , when

9:46

I used Facebook a lot more

9:48

. There's a lot of Facebook groups that you can kind of

9:50

network and chat with people , and

9:52

so a lot of the people that I was

9:54

chatting with , I noticed oh , you guys are doing

9:56

pretty well and you're writing about money , like maybe

9:58

. And I was really just kind of curious

10:01

. I'm like , okay , I don't really have any background

10:03

in this , but I'm curious enough

10:06

to figure out , like , is

10:08

there something from here ? Will someone be

10:10

willing to hire me ? And so I thought

10:12

, well , I already wrote an article about PayPal . Is

10:14

there something , somebody else

10:16

or another company that might be interested in my

10:18

experience overseas for

10:21

me to kind of to get an

10:23

it ? And so that's how I started with that

10:25

.

10:25

Yeah , one of the reasons it stands out to me

10:27

is a lot of times when I imagine

10:30

this like freelance lifestyle

10:32

. I think I'm going to be a travel blogger . Yeah

10:35

, I'm going to be talking about like all

10:37

the fun , cool , easy

10:39

things I'm doing while travel

10:42

, and food are like the two most

10:44

difficult things to make

10:46

a living blogging or doing video

10:49

or any kind of content around Because

10:51

so many people want to be doing it and

10:53

also there's not a ton of money

10:55

to be made selling more

10:57

travel services , selling more food

11:00

products or you know different

11:02

recipes or something . But

11:04

financial services , there's a lot

11:06

of margin there and that means the

11:08

budgets for getting really

11:10

talented writers on board are often

11:12

quite a bit better .

11:14

I think it also depends on the type of

11:16

content you want . There are

11:18

some companies that are in the financial

11:21

services industry that may not pay a lot . It could

11:23

be because you're just starting . It

11:25

could be they're losing money and they're

11:27

devoted more resources to something else

11:30

. But , yeah , there's definitely

11:32

niches that are more lucrative than others

11:34

Travel , I mean . Obviously the last couple

11:36

of years is probably not the best one , but

11:39

I think there are lots of industries that

11:41

kind of cycle , and

11:44

so food can be kind of one that goes up

11:47

and down . I'm trying to think of other ones . Parenting

11:49

can be like a good one , depending

11:51

on sort of whether you're at for magazines or companies

11:54

, and I do feel really

11:56

lucky . Like finance does have its cycles

11:58

too , but the cycles are more the

12:00

product . So I remember back in 2020

12:03

when interest rates were super low

12:05

for mortgages that's all I was writing was

12:07

about how to refinance or

12:09

when people were trying to

12:12

get loans for their business . There was a lot of that

12:14

. It depends on kind of what

12:16

you're doing products

12:19

within the industry as to what is

12:21

good and what it's not , but I think I

12:23

mean I don't want to obsess over the finance industry , but

12:25

I am at least aware , just because I'm

12:27

in it , that what's happening and what's not

12:29

. And so if I feel like I need to pivot or

12:32

kind of move a little bit in a different

12:34

direction , I can start to make

12:36

those moves .

12:37

That's a really good point . I would like

12:39

to before we move on . There

12:41

was a story that really stood out to me in another podcast

12:44

I listened to about you . Can you tell

12:46

me about the day that you resigned

12:48

from your job as a teacher and decided

12:51

you were going to give freelancing a go

12:53

?

12:53

Yes , oh my gosh . So

12:56

I had built up

12:58

a pretty steady recurring

13:01

income that would have almost replaced

13:03

my teacher's salary before I had quit . So

13:05

I was like this is a sign . This is a sign that I can

13:07

do this . The six months is going to go pretty

13:09

well . And so I handed in my

13:11

vaccination , or you

13:13

don't hand in your intent to renew your contract . So

13:16

I was going to end my contract and so after

13:18

that , I think two

13:20

or three of my regular clients basically decided

13:22

that they didn't need me anymore . So for

13:25

several reasons one of them , I think they were

13:27

restructuring . It was a lot

13:29

of different reasons , not anything to do with me . And

13:31

so then I remember freaking out

13:33

. This was at work . I got those emails and I freaked

13:35

out and

13:38

I was like , oh my god , this is it , I'm done

13:40

, I'm going to be broke , I'm going

13:42

to be homeless All

13:44

the worst case scenarios . And

13:47

so it was really scary . That was my first

13:50

experience realizing

13:52

, hey , freelancing is going to have these ups and

13:54

downs and this is literally

13:56

your first one . But I committed

13:59

to sticking out for

14:01

those first six months , partially because I didn't

14:03

have a choice . I couldn't work in the US quite

14:05

yet , and so

14:07

, yeah , I did stick it out . I'm happy I did

14:10

.

14:10

Yeah , I think so too . So how did you get

14:12

into podcasting ? You start with freelancing

14:15

, you're writing , you're building up a book of business

14:17

, you take it full time . Where

14:20

does podcasting enter the picture ?

14:22

It never really crossed my mind to do

14:24

it , probably until

14:26

I'd say end of 2017

14:29

or around that time . I've

14:31

always been really a fan of podcasts

14:33

. I think the first one I ever listened to was the Ricky

14:36

Gervais show . This was back in 2007

14:39

, I believe .

14:40

It was an OG podcast .

14:41

Yeah , and it was just like

14:43

I loved it . But

14:46

I never imagined doing it myself and I remember

14:48

beating Jared easily . So

14:50

one of the co-founders of the podcast we went at

14:52

another conference . He's like

14:54

, yeah , you should sort of podcast it . I'm like , haha

14:56

, no way . And so I remember

14:58

he has his own podcast and I

15:01

was a guest on it just very randomly

15:03

walked by his booth and put a mic in front of my face

15:05

and I started talking and it was really

15:07

fun . I was like , oh , that's a really fun experience and

15:11

I thought , okay , maybe I'll think about

15:13

it . I'll think about it Because at the time

15:15

I still had , I had a blog that's no longer

15:17

. I just wanted to kind of do something

15:19

other than writing . I felt like I was

15:21

burning out a little bit on it , and so it really

15:24

wasn't until I'd say 2017 , 2018

15:26

, until a friend started talking about wanting to

15:28

do a podcast and he

15:30

basically convinced me because he was

15:32

a sound engineer in his day

15:35

job , and so he's like I'll take care of all the tech and I'm like

15:37

, great . I'm like , because that

15:39

was actually the barrier for me was like I

15:41

don't want to have to figure out what mic to use

15:44

. I don't want to figure out what like recording equipment

15:46

to use , how to edit . That was not something that

15:48

I was necessarily interested in figuring

15:50

out , but I was really good at like planning

15:52

content , writing

15:55

outlines , coming up with ideas . That I

15:57

know are my strengths , and so it

15:59

was really great because he had the technical

16:02

kind of know-how and I had the content sort

16:04

of strategy know-how , and so we worked pretty well together

16:06

for about a year and a half

16:09

and he had to leave just for personal reasons

16:11

. So that was beyond the dollar , and so I continued

16:13

that for several years

16:15

and I remember when

16:18

he left I really had a long

16:20

think about what I wanted the show to be

16:22

, because before that we weren't really monetizing

16:24

. It was kind of an experiment into

16:27

podcasting and whether or not we liked

16:29

it , and so I immediately thought

16:31

, hey , why not use this as a portfolio

16:34

piece ? Because if I really

16:36

enjoy this , why not get paid for it ? Like

16:39

I'm sure there's companies that would want somebody to

16:41

pay me to podcast , and so that's

16:43

what I did , and

16:45

it turned into a kind of different

16:48

branch of my freelancing . So now

16:50

I'd say like half would be podcasting

16:52

stuff for clients and then half is writing stuff

16:54

for clients .

16:56

So tell us a little bit about some of these podcast

16:58

clients that you've landed . I

17:01

mean a few I know of you obviously have worked with

17:03

Buzzsprout . We've had the

17:05

opportunity to work together . We've done

17:07

some podcasts for SoFi . Can

17:09

you tell us a little bit about those ?

17:11

Yeah , so that one actually

17:13

it was through agency and

17:15

one of the community coordinators

17:18

actually reached out to me because one

17:20

of the first things I did when I was

17:22

more serious with wanting to

17:25

be a pay for podcasting was I put podcast

17:27

producer in my LinkedIn title . I was like , surely

17:29

this will legitimize me , right , even

17:32

though I've only done beyond the dollar , and so I think

17:34

that may have led to refining me . I'm not

17:36

really sure , but she's like hey , I'm really

17:38

. You have a lot of experience in writing

17:41

for finance brands

17:43

. I see , have your podcast , are you interested in

17:45

doing this ? And

17:47

so I really relied on the strength of

17:49

the clients that I had on the writing

17:51

side , because I worked with some pretty big names

17:53

and so I kind of use

17:55

that to my advantage . And so when I started

17:57

reaching out to other brands or I talked to existing

18:00

clients that I was writing articles

18:02

for , I'd be like hey , are you considering

18:04

podcasting or do you already have a content

18:06

team that's already starting

18:08

a podcast ? I have this experience

18:10

. We've already worked together and I think we worked

18:13

really well together . You know that I'm reliable

18:15

. Are you willing to kind of give me a chance

18:17

and be on this team ? And

18:19

so that's how I did that . And

18:23

yeah , working with SoFi was really great . It

18:26

was a really good experience to work

18:29

with the big , one of my first big brands that I've worked

18:31

with . It was a good experience to actually

18:33

look at what I did for Beyond the Dollar

18:35

and be like , hey , I actually kind of know what I'm doing

18:37

. It gave me a lot of confidence

18:39

to kind of pursue other

18:42

companies or existing clients

18:44

to produce their podcasts for

18:46

them .

18:46

I think if I was watching this right now , it

18:48

would be very easy for me to hear like step

18:51

one decide you want to be a freelancer . Step

18:53

two start targeting

18:55

some companies . Step

18:57

three something for profit

19:00

. It feels like there's a missing

19:02

step and , as somebody

19:04

who worked with you before

19:06

, I'll give you my side of

19:08

the story and what you did to convince

19:11

us like oh wow , we should definitely work

19:13

with Sarah . You came to the

19:15

Jack's Podcaster meetup and

19:17

I think I , just in front

19:19

of the 30 , 40 people who are there , said hey , and

19:21

if anybody knows somebody who wants to

19:23

be a writer , you know I'm writing all the

19:25

stuff on the blog and I'd like someone to help

19:27

, so if anyone knows somebody , let me know . Afterward

19:30

you came up and were like , hey , if you want , you don't need

19:32

to hire someone full-time , I could do

19:34

some freelancing for you . At that first

19:36

stage , often , like , a lot of people

19:38

will say I'm a good writer , and

19:40

a lot of people now will say I can do social

19:42

and I can do video and I know SEO . They

19:45

say the things that they maybe even put them

19:47

out of the like them profile , but you want to be able to

19:49

validate it and the thing that you had

19:51

that really convinced me was that you'd

19:53

been podcasting on beyond the dollar

19:55

and it sounded really good and

19:57

you really , you obviously

19:59

understood what you were talking about . And I

20:01

remember , probably 30 seconds in

20:04

to the first podcast I started listening to , I

20:06

went , oh yeah , she's really professional

20:08

, she knows what she's doing . And then

20:10

you had some things on your website

20:12

, the ad , a portfolio , where like , hey , here's

20:14

five things I've written I'm really proud of

20:17

, and I could click through and read

20:19

them until I went , oh , she's a really good writer

20:21

and there's something so important

20:23

. And I think , as a creator

20:25

, we can lose this and also because

20:27

we are very hard on ourselves but

20:30

creating some artifacts

20:32

, some proof of , hey

20:34

, here's what I'm capable of , whether

20:36

it's just a paper you wrote

20:39

in college or it's a

20:41

blog post you wrote for a family business

20:43

or a personal blog , no

20:45

matter what it is , having something

20:47

online you can say I'm proud of this , whether

20:50

it be a podcast or videos or written , be

20:52

able to put that out there is really excellent

20:55

proof that I know what I'm talking about

20:57

and I can actually do this , and that's

20:59

so much more valuable than having nothing

21:01

, even if it's not like the perfect

21:04

piece of writing or work you've ever done

21:06

.

21:07

Yeah , well , thank you , thank you appreciate that . I

21:09

was like , oh , what's he gonna say ? Yeah

21:14

, I think that's key . And I

21:16

remember I was mentoring someone last year

21:19

who had done sort

21:21

of the legwork and was ready to kind of launch

21:23

their freelancing sort of venture . And

21:25

they were really intimidated and I said it

21:27

doesn't matter what the company name is

21:30

. I mean , I honestly started

21:32

my podcast production , freelancing , with

21:34

my own podcast , right , like you were

21:36

saying , like there isn't sort of an outside

21:38

entity really validating that

21:40

show . But I made it the best that I could . I

21:42

knew what went into a good show . I

21:45

partnered with someone who was really good at the technical

21:47

side and knew how to make a sound good , knew

21:49

the right mics to use , and so I made

21:51

sure to make it sound as professional , just

21:54

as good , if not better , than some of the you know

21:56

the pay , the you know NPR offerings , let's

21:58

say out there . And with writing , I

22:00

didn't start with much . I remember writing my own

22:02

samples , like I remember when I pitched these

22:05

textbook companies I didn't have anything

22:07

and so I felt like , oh , chicken

22:09

or the egg , like what comes first , right , but I'm like , no

22:11

, I'll just write . I'll write like sample quiz questions

22:14

, or I had worksheets that I wrote

22:16

for my students back in the day and

22:18

I use those as portfolio pieces because

22:20

, at the end of the day , if you do want a freelance writing

22:23

or podcasting , what a potential client

22:25

really wants to look at is are you fit

22:28

, are you a good fit for the job ? And those are . There's

22:30

two things that I feel like where

22:32

you are a good fit . Number one do

22:35

you have subject matter expertise ? Like , are

22:37

you , let's say , for example , for me , like

22:39

I'm published in like

22:42

bank rate , I write a lot about mortgages

22:44

, like I said before , right , so that's kind of proof

22:46

that I am a subject matter expert in that topic

22:49

. So that's a good . That might be a good fit for another , like

22:51

another mortgage company . And

22:53

the number two is like do I have the skills

22:55

to be able to execute on a project

22:58

? Right , whatever the project may be . So

23:00

if it's you're creating social media posts

23:02

for a company , you're writing an article , you're trying

23:05

to produce a podcast or write a script , is

23:07

there some way you can prove that you have

23:09

those skills necessary ? And it could be a podcast

23:12

episode , it could be you write your own

23:14

script , you could

23:16

. This is what I did a

23:18

lot too to kind of grow . My freelance business was

23:20

name drop companies I used to work with

23:23

right . So , for example , lending

23:26

Tree is a pretty big name in the finance

23:28

space . So I worked for Lending Tree for a little

23:30

while , and so , at the mere

23:32

mention that I worked for them for a lot of other

23:34

finance companies , we were like , oh yeah , like she's pretty

23:36

legit If she can work well with

23:39

a big company such as that , then

23:41

yeah , maybe I will take a chance and hire her . So

23:44

that's really I would say

23:46

if you are looking to

23:48

freelance , if you're looking to grow your

23:51

freelance business , you wanna turn it from a side

23:53

hustle to a full-time thing . That's what I would

23:55

do .

23:55

So you've done podcasts , you've done written

23:57

work , you've also done webinars . How

24:00

in your mind especially

24:02

since you've done like the same type

24:05

of content and all these different areas in

24:07

your mind how do these fit together , especially

24:10

, maybe , from a brand perspective ?

24:12

I would say , because I'm in the

24:14

finance or business industry , all

24:16

of these tie together and

24:18

if you think about it , I think maybe

24:21

it's obvious to me because I kind of

24:23

have the insider knowledge . But a lot of these

24:25

companies use all these different pieces of content

24:28

as a goal to bring in

24:30

audience or potential clients

24:33

. And so there's clients that would prefer a

24:35

webinar , there's clients that prefer downloading

24:37

an ebook and reading it and then maybe reaching out

24:39

to the company , or they're

24:41

on a business trip but they prefer to listen to podcasts

24:43

. So all of these are just

24:45

pieces of the content pie to

24:48

draw in audience

24:50

. And so even let's say you're an indie podcaster

24:52

, maybe it's just not a podcast . Maybe

24:54

you do a webinar on I don't know

24:56

, like if you're doing a podcast on like knitting

24:59

cat sweaters , you know

25:01

you could do a webinar like here's how you make a pattern right

25:04

. Or here's an article , like you can use

25:06

your episode transcript to create an article . So

25:08

these are all kind of different parts of it . I

25:10

don't feel I feel like now with

25:12

content . I don't wanna limit myself to

25:14

the specific types of content

25:16

, because I think we live in such a like

25:18

multimedia world or a world where

25:21

companies are always trying

25:23

to get your attention in any way , shape or form

25:25

. It's really important to kind

25:28

of dabble in every little thing . You can specialize

25:31

in things eventually , but

25:33

I think it's really still important just to say like , hey

25:36

, I do webinars and they're live , but

25:38

we can also record this and stick it in a podcast

25:41

, right , things like that .

25:42

How do you , would you determine , maybe , which

25:44

of the pieces to start with I guess there is

25:46

gonna be overlap between you did a video

25:49

? Is that the script is gonna probably be similar

25:51

to the outline for the blog

25:54

post which has a , you know , similar

25:56

to the outline for maybe that webinar that you

25:58

may do later , but is there a place

26:00

that you start when you're trying to do repurposing

26:03

?

26:03

I first don't try to do everything at once

26:06

. I've made that mistake many , many times

26:08

and I've , like , regretted it

26:10

, and so I would say , even

26:12

before repurposing , get really good at one part

26:14

of it , and so I'm gonna assume

26:16

most people watching or listening to this are

26:18

into podcasting . So get really good at that first

26:21

and then think of , like what is one

26:23

thing I can repurpose from this , and it could be

26:25

a blog post , and so a

26:28

natural way to do that is to take

26:30

a transcript and then repurpose it

26:32

into a blog post , and then you get really

26:34

good at that . Maybe you create a good template

26:36

. You're pretty efficient at it , it's working

26:38

for you . Then you can think about maybe like webinars

26:41

, like okay , now this blog post got like

26:43

a lot of attention . There's more I

26:45

can say about this , and I really

26:47

think that having a community

26:50

discussion is much better than a podcast

26:52

. Let me create a webinar from this . So

26:54

I would take it one step at a time

26:57

. Again , like my mistake

26:59

was like I wanna do all the things all at the same time

27:01

, which , if you

27:03

can do that well , great

27:05

. That wasn't my case , and

27:08

so I really one of the biggest lessons

27:10

I learned was I had to like really scale back and then kind

27:12

of like step by step and kind of slowly move

27:14

towards different types of content creation

27:16

.

27:17

Yeah , I often hear people say like

27:19

oh , all you have to do is film a

27:21

video podcast , put that on YouTube

27:23

. Take the audio , now that's an audio

27:25

podcast . Transcribe that . Now

27:27

you've got a blog post . Send that blog

27:29

post out as a newsletter . Now

27:32

cut that up tweets . Then

27:35

next thing you do , turn those tweets

27:37

, that video piece , now that short

27:39

form video for TikTok , and Reels

27:41

and YouTube . And I'm like , just

27:43

repurposing that one

27:46

time is , if you're spending

27:48

five hours a week on your podcast or

27:50

on your free lay , it's like that's your five hours , like

27:52

that's not a inconsequential task

27:54

to be like , oh , I just throw that up on

27:57

YouTube and then I repurpose the audio as

27:59

a podcast and then I make that a blog . Like that's

28:01

your week . Your week is burned out .

28:02

Yeah , yeah , and I think one of the like

28:04

, a very common misconception

28:06

that I see is that , oh

28:09

yeah , like , a blog is just a text form of

28:11

your podcast . No , they're two different things

28:13

. There are strategies

28:15

that work for blogs that may not work for podcasts

28:18

, or something that may work for TikTok won't

28:20

work for Instagram , for example . And

28:22

so , yeah , you're repurposing content , which is

28:24

fine , but there still needs to be some sort

28:26

of thought into , like , how can I

28:28

make this transcript into a blog post ? And

28:30

it could require you putting in different you

28:33

know all these are gonna be like putting in different subheadings

28:35

, making a table of contents . If it's a really super

28:37

long piece of content , it could be breaking up to

28:39

like five part series , things

28:42

like that . And then , if you translate to a newsletter

28:44

, you can't just copy paste a blog post and stick

28:46

in a newsletter . There needs to be some other intention

28:48

behind it , cause I feel like the

28:50

attitude and the intention which

28:52

you put into a piece of content really kind of

28:54

comes through to the other person on the other side

28:57

, even though it may not be as obvious

28:59

to you . Like , I know , there are times when I'm

29:01

like you know , let me just get through this , let me post

29:03

it , or you know , whatever it is , it doesn't get

29:05

nearly as much engagement as if I put a

29:07

slightly more thought into it as to how someone's

29:10

gonna receive it on the other end , and

29:12

so that's why I would say , like , try

29:15

one thing at a time and see like there are

29:17

definitely lots of like programs that allow you

29:19

repurpose tweet like into tweets

29:21

or threads , if you're into that now , or

29:24

Instagram posts , but you know

29:26

I would . I would also encourage you to have

29:28

more , a little more intention behind the content

29:31

, especially if your

29:33

audience is in all these places

29:35

, if they read blogs and listen

29:38

to podcasts and are on all those social media

29:40

platforms . You don't want it to sound or

29:42

look the same , because then someone

29:44

will know and

29:46

they may not follow you much

29:48

longer .

29:49

I see this a lot . I think social is the place that

29:51

this becomes the most obvious to me . When

29:54

somebody is on LinkedIn

29:56

and they're posting something that's 280

29:59

characters , you're like , oh , that was a tweet that

30:01

you just copy and pasted over here Because

30:03

? But LinkedIn , like longer

30:05

content is much more common

30:08

. And then you were over on Instagram

30:10

and it's a screenshot of the tweet that

30:12

they put in their grid and

30:14

you start to feel like none

30:16

of this is repurposed but

30:19

none of it's native to the formats

30:21

. And if it's not native

30:23

, the downside is like you're not ever

30:25

going to get that big outsized return

30:27

. You know you're never going to be able to leverage

30:29

your domain expertise with

30:32

a piece of content that's created for

30:34

a specific audience . That's

30:36

why I really like the advice you gave . Like , get really

30:38

good at one of these . It's not like

30:40

you have to start totally from scratch the second

30:42

time , but you

30:45

want to be making sure . I'm tailoring

30:47

this thing to be a blog post

30:49

, and blog posts are easier to skim

30:51

than podcasts , and blog

30:53

posts have a little bit less of the personal

30:56

story , even if the personality

30:58

still comes through . Yeah , it's just not like a

31:00

complete copy paste from one place

31:02

that it gets dropped in somewhere else . It's super

31:04

, you know , drag and drop .

31:06

Yeah , and I do want to say , if

31:08

we're talking about , if you're a podcaster

31:10

and you want to grow your audience

31:12

right , like you , one of the big advice

31:15

is like , oh , I should be in all the places and yeah

31:17

, you can , but you don't have to

31:19

. I mean , I , if you

31:21

kind of look online in my social media presence

31:23

, like , my numbers are like small

31:26

, right , like compared to somebody who

31:28

I don't know , like Joe Rogan , or you

31:30

know somebody who , like who has tens of thousands of followers , I think

31:32

everybody's numbers are pretty small compared to

31:34

Joe right . Like I don't have tens of thousands

31:36

of followers . That's not like . Social media really

31:38

wasn't my priority , but I got really good at like

31:40

newsletters . I got really

31:42

good at blogging back

31:45

when I had a blog like I got really good at

31:47

those things and so I just chose

31:49

to focus my my

31:51

content on that . I

31:54

was not adamant . I didn't

31:57

want to be on YouTube for my podcast . I just

31:59

felt like videos are completely different medium

32:01

. Yeah , I could again slap a video on YouTube

32:03

or like slap my cover on YouTube and you

32:06

know that's fine . But I wanted

32:08

, like , for me , anything I create

32:10

, I want to have some sort of intention behind it

32:12

, whether it's for a client or my own stuff . And

32:14

so I knew that if I couldn't put

32:17

the time and energy into understanding

32:20

the platform and experimenting with

32:22

it and kind of getting feedback from it , then I wasn't

32:24

going to do it , and so that's

32:26

not for everyone . You know , if

32:28

you want to be on the places , that's great , but for me it

32:30

wasn't . It wasn't .

32:32

I really just want to be intentional over

32:34

the last few years We've seen a

32:36

lot more brands kind of enter

32:38

the podcasting space and you've helped a lot of these brands

32:41

enter the podcasting space . What

32:44

would you say to the business owner now

32:46

who's thinking I probably am

32:48

in my lay . I kind of been thinking about

32:51

it . What questions should they be asking themselves

32:53

as I think through ? Is podcasting

32:55

right for my business strategy

32:57

?

32:57

Yeah , the first question I

33:00

think anyone should consider is are you

33:02

? Are you creating a podcast

33:04

because you think you should , or are you creating

33:06

one because you do , you feel like it will help

33:08

in your overall business strategy

33:10

or marketing strategy ? So I

33:13

talked to quite a few people

33:16

in marketing and in other brands

33:18

where they just go oh yeah , because everyone's doing

33:20

it . I should do it too , but but if there's

33:22

no again intention behind it , if

33:25

there's no thought as to how this is going

33:27

to help , then I would say don't

33:29

, don't do a podcast . There's no point in that

33:31

sense . You're just kind of you're wasting money . You

33:33

might as well spend it on something else that's working in

33:35

your company . Because

33:37

for bigger brands , what I've seen is

33:40

podcasts are part of the overall

33:43

content marketing strategy

33:45

, and so there are ones where I

33:47

work on for CEOs

33:50

or like CFOs or kind of like the C suite

33:52

, and that's really a brand

33:54

building for their , for their like

33:57

personal brand , and so part

34:00

of it is an indirect benefit to

34:02

the company . So if their personal brand is really

34:04

good , it kind of goes hey , I'm associated

34:06

with this company . Therefore , this company is going

34:08

to look great . There's a lot

34:10

, there's some

34:12

that the podcasts are actually internal

34:14

, so they're for their members or for people

34:17

who subscribe to some sort of service or product

34:19

that they have , and so it's an additional benefit

34:21

as an educational resource . So that's

34:24

part of that content strategy . So it is it's

34:27

kind of like a paid , it's a it's part of a pay

34:29

overall paid offering right . There's other

34:32

ones where it's

34:34

an aspirational piece of content

34:36

. So , for example , I've helped

34:39

work on an investing one , another investing

34:41

podcast right now , and so part

34:43

of their strategy is to bring on some really

34:45

great guests , bring on some really great educational

34:48

content so that they

34:50

want to be the name that people think of

34:52

when they open a Berkridge account . And

34:54

so it's really thinking about like what is the

34:57

purpose of this particular piece

34:59

of this podcast and

35:01

how is it going to feed into other parts of your

35:03

business ? And that does sometimes

35:06

require a lot of thinking . But

35:09

if , if you want to take podcasting seriously

35:11

as part of your brain , as a part of , like you know , grow

35:14

your , you know your profits or whatever

35:16

it is , and you have to take it as I

35:18

feel like you

35:21

have to put that much thought into it , almost

35:23

as much as like coming up with the podcast name .

35:26

I think that a lot of times , when people

35:28

are asking questions about like , what category

35:31

should I be in , or what name should I have , or

35:33

what should my co host

35:35

be like , when you start pulling

35:37

a little bit more on those questions

35:40

, what you realize is they're

35:42

not 100% sure why they're

35:45

starting a podcast . And maybe

35:47

, if you even start pulling it even more

35:49

, you hear why . I heard

35:52

you can make a lot of money podcasting

35:54

, maybe , or every business

35:56

should be doing this . And so I just kind of keep

35:58

hearing I should do it and so I'm doing it

36:00

. And if

36:03

you step back up for you , okay , well , let's get step

36:05

one locked in , like what's the business

36:08

strategy here ? Or what's the personal

36:10

strategy , what's the value , what's

36:12

your why ? And once you have

36:14

that , the other things like the

36:16

branding and the name and the logo

36:18

and the co-hosts that there

36:20

are gonna be , all that stuff starts being a lot easier

36:23

once you have a clear , defined

36:25

goal in mind .

36:27

Yeah , for sure . I think , just

36:30

hearing you talk about that , there's kind of two things I think about

36:32

. Is

36:34

one is the podcast

36:36

cover art , or thinking about the host or

36:39

the name . It's like a tangible proof

36:41

that you're doing the work right

36:43

and that's great . Right , you

36:46

do need that . But

36:48

thinking about the idea , thinking about the strategy , they're

36:50

not necessarily as tangible as

36:53

those things I just talked about before , and

36:55

so I think a

36:57

lot of people myself included , I've done this in the

36:59

past where I go , okay , great , I need to come up with a

37:01

logo because that's what

37:03

you can see , and so

37:05

it's really again like peeling back , like what actually

37:07

? What is at the core of what I'm doing ? And

37:10

that is the strategy . How does it feed into this

37:12

overall content creation

37:15

kind of thing I'm doing ? Or how is this

37:17

gonna help me overall make money ? Am I gonna put ads

37:19

, sponsorship , whatever ? That may be right . And

37:22

number two and I see this a lot of indie

37:24

podcasters , I'd say more than businesses is that

37:26

there's an element of fear

37:29

and wanting that sense of control as

37:31

to why somebody would think

37:33

of a podcast name before , why

37:36

they want to create a podcast or the concept

37:38

of it . Because for

37:40

me . Anyways , if I'm gonna come up with a

37:42

concept and I'm gonna think of the audience that I want

37:44

to target , there's that element of fear of , like , what if

37:46

I'm wrong ? Or what if , like

37:48

, what I'm gonna create isn't actually gonna be targeting

37:51

this audience , or what I'm gonna create is not good

37:53

enough to be popular or create

37:55

a really engaged audience . So you know what ? Actually

37:57

it's more fun to think about the cover

37:59

art . It's more fun to think about who I'm gonna

38:01

be a co-host with , rather than the

38:03

kind of deeper stuff and not that there's anything

38:06

wrong with that . Like we're all nervous when

38:08

we release anything into the world , right

38:10

, especially companies who are putting really

38:13

like big dollars behind a podcast

38:15

, right , we wanna make sure that there

38:17

is some element of success , and so there's

38:19

always gonna be that level of fear . But

38:22

yeah , that's my two cents on that

38:24

.

38:25

Yeah , I know , the first time I started podcasting

38:27

I felt

38:29

so uncomfortable . And then the first time I

38:31

started doing any video content , I felt super

38:33

uncomfortable . Actually , I think also

38:35

when I first started writing on the internet

38:37

each one of them you feel

38:40

like I only want to do

38:42

it if it's going to be successful

38:44

, and it is very

38:46

uncomfortable to imagine . I'm

38:48

gonna put a lot , I'm gonna put my best foot forward

38:51

, I'm gonna write the best blog post I can

38:53

, I'm gonna send the very best email to this

38:55

client . But what if I get a rejection ? What

38:57

if my first and only comment I

39:00

get on my blog is this

39:02

stinks and that's it ? Or

39:04

, you know , people say that my podcast

39:06

cover art is bad and my audio is

39:08

doesn't work . Those fears pop , crop

39:11

up . At least . What I've noticed to myself

39:13

, at least through these three different times , has

39:15

been there's safer things

39:17

to consider , like what does the logo

39:20

look like ? Now I can spend a week working

39:22

on the logo , because that doesn't nothing's

39:24

out there to be critiqued . I can

39:26

spend two , three weeks looking

39:28

at equipment and I can watch all these

39:31

YouTube videos about equipment and it's

39:33

almost like . That's like akin to

39:35

saying I want to lose weight . So

39:37

I'm going to start going to the gym and spending

39:39

three , four weeks picking out my running shoes

39:42

or something . You want to get your feet into

39:44

this . You want to start the thing

39:46

that you say you're going to do , and no

39:48

amount of prep will ever make that

39:51

comfortable . At least , it's never made it comfortable

39:53

for me . Every time we're pressing

39:55

play or pressing record

39:57

or pressing publish , eventually I'm

39:59

like terrified that , oh

40:02

, this thing is not even close to good enough

40:04

. Every time I've been shocked at

40:06

how much kindness there is

40:08

on the internet because you see so much of the negativity

40:11

. There's also just a lot of people who are like , wow

40:13

, this is really good . I really enjoyed this video

40:15

. Thank you so much for putting it together , and you

40:17

realize there's a lot more positivity

40:19

out there than I , at least , was telling

40:22

myself beforehand .

40:23

Yeah , I'm pretty sure we

40:25

had this conversation a while back where

40:28

it was the idea about our skills

40:30

don't match our tastes . We have really good

40:32

taste in what we want to do . May our skills don't

40:34

quite match what we want to do yet

40:36

, and I was very much a victim of

40:38

that , where I'm like I want to do all the things . I remember

40:41

this kind of relates . I remember I

40:43

was in a sculpture class in college

40:45

and I wanted to work with sheet metal and I wanted

40:48

to create this really elaborate , massive

40:50

, six foot tall kind of structure . And

40:53

my professor was like I'm sure you can

40:55

do this , I've seen you work really hard

40:57

, but sheet metal is the most

40:59

difficult thing to weld , and

41:01

especially what you're trying to do . He's like maybe

41:04

start small , maybe , because one of

41:06

the aspects I want to do is actually like a well-dated , perfectly

41:08

symmetrical cube with sheet

41:11

metal . And

41:14

looking back I'm like what was I thinking ? But anyway , so

41:16

he's like , why don't you just start welding

41:18

a line and see how that works

41:20

? Get to that line , then

41:23

you can do a rectangle . Well

41:27

, two pieces of rectangle or squares together

41:29

. And so I was like , oh

41:31

okay , and so what I

41:33

really learned from that ? And that I kind of carry

41:35

to this day is it's fine to have really good

41:38

taste . I'm not going to have set the bar

41:40

really high , but let's kind of

41:42

maybe set the expectation of what

41:44

I can do a little bit lower , so not to

41:46

say I suck , but maybe just say

41:48

, okay , I can do this , but maybe at this

41:50

10% , and then kind of move up and up

41:52

and up and up . And I've approached this in my freelancer

41:54

crew where I kind of think of it as a step ladder

41:57

or a stairs , and

42:01

so when people talk about how I grew my freelance income , I go

42:03

okay , well , the bottom of the stairs was my

42:05

worksheets , and then the next step was

42:07

I got published somewhere . I'm going to use that as my portfolio

42:10

piece . And the next step was I'm going to aim to get work

42:12

with a big company . Next up is now use that

42:14

big company to get me bigger and bigger gigs . So

42:16

it was like one step at a time and I feel like you

42:19

can do that with podcasting as well or anything

42:21

that you create . So

42:24

for this , for Beyond the Dollar , it was

42:26

honestly like a six episode . It was supposed

42:28

to be a six episode experiment . My friend and

42:30

I were like we were really interested in this , we wanted to

42:32

try it out . But if by the end of six episodes

42:35

we hate it , we hate each other , we hate

42:37

the process , we can say we've

42:39

given it six episodes and then

42:41

we can move on with our lives , and so

42:43

it obviously became like three years

42:45

, like three years worth of shows , right . But

42:47

it really was that experiment or that thinking

42:49

of like let's just start small , give

42:52

ourselves that wind , and then we can kind of like keep

42:54

going if we need to .

42:56

The taste is always

42:58

ahead of our skill level is so

43:00

so true . Like we all listen to NPR

43:03

shows . You know people probably listen

43:05

to cereal . And then you kind of imagine

43:07

like that's the type of show I want to be making

43:09

. We go out to eat at really nice

43:11

restaurants , so that's the type of food I want to

43:13

be cooking . And then when you

43:15

get the reality of getting in a kitchen

43:18

and starting to cook and you're like this

43:20

doesn't taste anything like what I just

43:22

got out at this nice restaurant . Well

43:25

, there is a stair step

43:27

process you're going to go through

43:29

. You're going to iterate over time . You make lots of

43:31

meals and you'll learn little things . You're going to

43:33

make lots of podcasts . You'll learn little things

43:36

and you never

43:38

get better unless

43:40

you start polishing . You

43:42

never get better if you don't get

43:45

that first client , even though ultimately

43:47

you don't want to be doing worksheets for your entire

43:50

freelancing career or you don't want to be doing beginner

43:53

level podcasts and you don't want to be creating

43:55

beginner level food . But

43:58

all of those journeys are slowly

44:01

stair stepping up publishing your

44:03

work , getting feedback , learning

44:05

new things and eventually your

44:07

skill level does start to kind

44:10

of get to where your taste is .

44:12

And I will say this even if you think

44:14

you're doing something completely new , like

44:16

freelancing for me felt completely new , but

44:18

I found something that I already had an existing

44:21

skill in and kind of leveraged that into something

44:23

new . So even let's say you're

44:25

creating your own podcast from

44:27

scratch , surely

44:29

you have some sort of skill , even if it's like color

44:31

coding your calendar , that is a

44:33

skill , right , just go with that . And

44:36

I will say it's funny . People who I

44:39

talked to about Beyond the Dollar it sounds really great

44:41

, but I don't understand what

44:43

it actually took to even produce

44:45

that first episode . And I think of the

44:48

podcast interviews that I'd done before

44:51

my friend and I even

44:53

started that show . I remember having

44:55

no clue about microphones and I used my laptop microphone

44:57

for a podcast interview and then you could

44:59

hear my son screaming in the

45:01

background and

45:03

it was just . And it took a

45:06

friend who was editing that person's

45:08

podcast to be like listen , sarah , you

45:10

sound great , content wise

45:12

, but you got to buy a mic . He's

45:15

like I will tell you what mic to buy . So

45:17

it was a lot of like those fumbling things

45:20

. You're going to run into things that you

45:22

don't know . That you don't know , and

45:25

for me it was don't use your laptop mic . Find

45:27

a quiet spot , like little things like that , where

45:30

I can confidently say , yeah , do those

45:32

. But it took me

45:34

how many years to be able to confidently say

45:36

do this and this and this . It took me like

45:39

you know , I'm thinking about if I started when I started my

45:41

side hustle , like it was 10 years of like constantly

45:43

doing the same things and changing

45:46

my strategy , like looking at what

45:48

I completely bombed at and like how do

45:50

I fix you know what I need to fix to get

45:53

to where I am ?

45:53

Yeah , there's hundreds and hundreds of little

45:55

things that all go into

45:58

that final product and a lot

46:00

of them are not doing things

46:02

that don't work . So

46:04

it's very hard to teach unless you were doing

46:07

it . The first time I ever did a video

46:09

interview that we publish on YouTube , I

46:11

convinced myself to look . Natural

46:13

I should stare right at the

46:16

lens a whole time and

46:18

I look like a serial killer

46:20

. Like all the comments were saying

46:22

things like man interviewer

46:25

had some really good questions but like

46:27

why does he look so like intense

46:29

, so like what's going on ? Well

46:31

, it wasn't until I watched that video 30 seconds

46:33

did I go oh , you got to

46:35

like naturally need to look away sometimes

46:37

and that's how you are real life . Okay , I'll

46:40

do that . I did an interview

46:42

and one

46:44

of my friends she was like hey , I don't know what's

46:46

going on , but your audio , there's this like

46:48

snap sound . All of a sudden

46:51

she's like what is that ? And I listened to it

46:53

and I go , that's my AirPods case , for

46:55

sure . And I just sat there and I

46:57

idly kind of like fidgeted with it and

46:59

snapped it . And

47:02

you know now I'm really cautious

47:04

about making noises , I'm really

47:06

careful about what things I might be doing

47:08

with my hands , but

47:10

you really couldn't have taught me that

47:12

. I needed to kind of experience the pain of

47:14

going and editing all that out to

47:17

learn . Okay , I've never got to do that

47:19

again . Look away from the camera sometimes so you

47:21

don't look like a serial killer , like those . Things

47:23

start building up over time and

47:25

you'll get better and better .

47:27

Yeah , and , and I feel like there's

47:29

a lot of people who do share these types of stories and there's

47:31

also like a lot that don't . And

47:33

something I do when

47:35

I fly myself in comparison is I

47:37

go look at websites on the way

47:39

back machine . You ever

47:41

do that . I love this , where I go , okay , like

47:44

man , this podcast is so great . And then I'll like

47:46

look at their website from when they first started . I'm

47:48

like , oh , like their podcast art was

47:50

this . It wasn't . It doesn't

47:52

look like what it does now . It took them years to get

47:54

to that point . And so if

47:56

I look back at some of the things that I've created back

47:59

when I first started publishing on the internet , I probably

48:01

cringe at like how amateur it looks . But

48:03

you know , but it's one of those where everybody

48:06

starts with from scratch

48:08

, right , yeah , you may , some people may have more

48:10

advantages than others . You may be working , let's

48:13

say , with some really great podcasters and you kind

48:15

of get those skills , but but it's really helpful

48:17

to kind of see where people have come from , to

48:19

kind of go , okay , like I shouldn't compare what

48:22

I'm doing now to somebody who's

48:24

been doing this for 10 years , right , like , I

48:27

need to kind of not level

48:29

the playing field , but really but really kind of get that perspective

48:31

on , like , okay , my skills are here

48:33

, my taste is here , what am I going to do to get

48:35

to where I need to go ?

48:37

The thing I do . The version of

48:39

this is I will go find a

48:41

YouTube channel that I really like and

48:43

I'm really impressed by the quality and

48:45

especially if it's like a solo person , because you

48:47

can't compare yourself as an individual to

48:50

like a production team . You gotta remember

48:52

that's like a big group effort . But

48:54

if you find like an individual , go back

48:56

to you know , if you like Mr Beast

48:58

, go watch the first Mr Beast video and

49:01

it's terrible . And if you like

49:03

smart passive income with Pat Flynn , go

49:05

listen to the first episode . It's terrible

49:07

. If you like anything , especially

49:10

if the creator is confident

49:13

enough that they've left the old stuff

49:15

on there . It's really valuable

49:17

to remember to get to

49:19

this level they were not good

49:21

. They were not good at this when they started . They

49:24

were probably about the same level

49:26

you are now . Go watch their first

49:28

stuff and then just bring the drive

49:31

to get better and the

49:33

commitment to publishing and

49:35

those combined . You just keep getting better and better

49:37

and that's the path to getting to

49:40

be a great creator . It's not by

49:42

nailing it on the first try .

49:44

And if you're doing this by yourself or with

49:46

one other person . I

49:48

remember I was talking with a friend who's

49:50

kind of comparing herself to another I

49:52

think bigger brand and I go , you know , there's 10 people

49:55

on that team to create this

49:57

Like there's a show that I've been working on

49:59

and it's like me

50:01

, I'm the producer , I have an editor , I

50:03

have a podcast manager who manages

50:06

a schedule . Then I have another content

50:08

person that kind of like looks over my

50:10

stuff to make sure that , you

50:12

know , maybe it lies with the brand . Then I work with a compliance

50:15

person to make sure , like , all the legal

50:17

things are fine and we're not , you know . So

50:19

there's like all of these like things

50:21

that go into

50:24

sort of different productions , right

50:26

, and so there's a lot of companies or even

50:28

brands that have a lot of money and teams behind

50:31

them and we can't compare that

50:33

to them as well . Even if it's sound

50:35

or even if on the surface it seems

50:37

like it's a simple interview podcast

50:39

or a blog post , there's a lot of kind

50:42

of background stuff that you may not even

50:44

be aware of that they have . And

50:46

so if you are , you know , doing something by yourself

50:49

or again with somebody else , just give yourself

50:51

a lot of grace . Like I remember , I

50:54

was one who , like , created my WordPress website

50:57

, like I learned , like , how to use

50:59

Canva , like all of these things

51:01

I'd learned by myself , whereas other

51:03

people had , like teams

51:05

with like so many skills behind them

51:07

that , of course , I'm just going to spend 10 hours

51:10

making cover art , when this person can take

51:12

an hour because they've been devoting

51:14

time and energy for how many years

51:16

before ?

51:17

Yeah , I think that's great advice . Sarah

51:20

, thank you so much for spending time with

51:22

me today and chatting about all this different

51:25

stuff about freelancing and podcasting

51:28

and how to think about marketing . Is

51:31

there anything you'd like to leave the audience with ? Any places

51:33

they can follow up with you if they want to learn more

51:35

about you or connect with you .

51:37

Yeah , so you can

51:39

head to my website , sarahleakincom . I do

51:41

have some of the podcasts

51:43

I'm producing and some of the articles I write

51:45

. If you want to learn more about money , just Google

51:47

my name . I'm like pretty much in all the

51:49

major sort of publications US

51:52

money and then I'm on Instagram at

51:54

beyond the dollar .

51:55

All right , well , thank you so much , sarah , I really appreciate

51:58

it .

51:59

Thank you so much

52:01

for having me .