Business & Podcasting: The 4-Part Framework for Growth

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0:32I can't wait to see you there. Want to go deep behind the scenes of the Jasmine Starr Show? Hi, I'm Rosie, Customer Success Manager at Social Curator. And in this episode that originally aired on Podcasting Made Simple with Alex Sanfilippo, you'll hear Jasmine's personal, and I mean her personal, podcasting lessons along with a simple four-part framework for finding clarity. Enjoy this episode. Hey everyone, Alex Sanfilippo here. Welcome back to Podcasting Made Simple. And Jasmine, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. I think you should say welcome back, brother, because I've been on the pod before and I'm so honored.

1:07I'm a little nervous. You always raise the bar. So I'm happy to be here. Yeah. Welcome back. Yes, this is your third time here. And it's funny. I was thinking about this the other day and I was telling Alicia, my wife, I was like, I really want to bring Jasmine back. We just had her on the podcast. And she's like, are you sure? I was like, yeah. I went and looked and it's been exactly at time of recording two years. And I was like, wait a minute, that's not just brought Jasmine. Not at all. We should do this every two weeks, but you know, I'm just gonna put that out there. Maybe. We'll see what anyone who's listening, watching later on, let us know.

1:35Should Jasmine come back every two weeks? We're doing a little real poll here. Oh, my God. Anyway, super excited you're here today. And here's the thing. This conversation, I want to frame a little bit differently than I typically do this type of interview, which is what it historically has been. And when I've had you on the past, Jasmine, it's been more of an interview. But we have the opportunity to spend a lot more time together. And sometimes what we share is really valuable. And so I wanted to bring others, our communities into the conversation just because some of the last times we talked recently, I'm like, man, we probably should have hit record, right?

2:07Like we probably should have been able to share this because a lot of people, especially look at you, Jasmine, like I want to be where Jasmine is. And we forget that you're human and stuff happens with you, right? That like you have to make some shifts and all and same with me. So it's funny. I sent you a five minute prep for today because it's going to be a conversation. You did not check that out. I didn't, dude. I didn't. I didn't check it out. I didn't check it out. You know, here's the thing though, Alex, I like showing up a hundred percent as myself. And sometimes if I get in my head, not always, but sometimes if I get in my head, it becomes too rehearsed.

2:37And I want people to actually hear and see me exactly in this space. And if I might, you know, we've been working together about every five, six weeks, you and I have the opportunity to connect and it is a true honor. It is a true privilege because I think that you are a guide's guide. And so how you've been able to speak into my journey and how you've been able to speak into my podcast has been very transformative. And I actually made a podcast episode and I released it just a few weeks ago. And I recounted the story of how you and I were having a conversation and we were talking in relation to the podcast and you had said, well, it's just because you're just so confident.

3:14And then you said like two or three things after that, none of which I heard because my brain was fully stuck on, well, it's just that you're confident. And to tie this back to something that you had said, well, you're human and you go through things and we grow and we change. And one of the things that came up for me is in that conversation, I said, well, Alex, I'm not confident. I show up as confident. I think it's a version of me. There's a version of me that is confident. And that's the version that's always shown on the podcast. And I said, for better, for worse, it's a hundred percent me.

3:46But I also think that it could be really repelling to a lot of people. It's a lot of straight edges. And then, you know, at the end of the conversation, you simply asked me, are you going to be any other version than the version who you are? And I said, nope. Even if, even if it comes on the back of having a smaller listenership, a smaller TAM, a smaller total addressable market, even if my podcast may or may not be destined for top of the charts, one of the things that you've come back down and grounded me in again and again is 100 % be you, serve the audience who will resonate with you and understand that unless your ambition is to be a top podcaster, then the goal of the podcast should be to connect with the right audience at the right time.

4:37And for me, that has been the biggest shift for me and my podcast in 2024. And I wanna say thank you. Wow, Jasmine, we could just end right here. Maybe this should have just been like a, just a solo talk from Jasmine would have been perfectly fine. Not at all, homie. Not at all. Not at all. Definitely honored to be able to help kind of bring that out. That was always in there, right? Like you always had that. It was just like kind of helping draw it out. And that's actually where this conversation is going to go quite a bit. Before we get to that, I want to backtrack just for a second to explain why, like this even came up in our conversation, why it's coming up today.

5:06And I took some notes here. So I'm actually going to be reading this because I want to be really quick. I'm going to pass it over to you. But when I was thinking about building an online business, building a podcast, being a podcast guest, because we've got all those people in this group here, right? People that are trying to make it online or are making it, but want to make it further, want to take it further, faster, all those type of things, right? And I was thinking about just the general culture of online creation, business, all things, right? I thought of three things, the hustle, the madness, and the lie.

5:34And the hustle is that it has to be busy, right? And that really is the core of the culture. It's got to be busy. It's full of opportunity, full of promises, and a lot of habit-forming bad practices to just kind of keep you involved, reaching milestones, right? I think of, we need to grow social media followers. We need more podcast downloads. We need more podcast guesting opportunities. We need more website visitors. We need more email opt-ins. And that list could go on forever, right? Like that's the hustle that so many of us subscribe to. And it goes straight into, like that culture goes straight into what I call the trap, which is when we don't get traction, it means we're not doing enough.

6:07It means that we have to go wider instead of deeper. So you need to be trying more things You need to find the quick win if you don't jump to the next thing and keep on trying it Something will click something will will win and that's that last piece I want the lie Which is you can do it as long as you work hard on everyone else and keep on going and try everything and find ways to do more Cut things out of your life for now. You'll get them back later You got to get rich. You got to get famous if you're gonna make it in this space And many of us we might not say all those things, but that really is that's what we've kind of created in the way that we act.

6:36And I'm just realizing more and more people seem almost frantic online when I'm meeting them. I have phone calls with people or even exchanging emails. And they're just like, how do I grow my followers? Because I get more followers and get more money. When I get more money, I can use that money to get more followers. I can get more famous. And it's like, man, like that's like the whole system. So that's really where I'm going to go to a really, we're not going to focus too much on this. We're going to focus on the healthy side, kind of the solution to this. But Jasmine, do you have any thoughts around this?

6:59Because you have been a core creator in the online space, on social media, and in podcasting. You've done exceptionally well. Do you have any thoughts about what I just shared here? Well, one thing that I want to hone in, you had said, we don't necessarily say this. You're right. But there's two frequencies that are constantly going on in our brain. We have the conscious and we have the subconscious. And the conscious stuff is, oh, well, we don't really say this. That's the conscious level. I don't walk around thinking, you know what I need to be? Famous. You know what I need to do? More. You want to know what I need to do less of?

7:30Sleep. Do you want to know more of a podcast? No, we don't actually say that. But our behaviors betray a subconscious consumption. Because if what we see is the more, more, more do, do, do, then the subconscious, the thoughts that our thoughts are thinking in our mind is, well, if I want that level of success, then that's how I need to act. And that's how I need to behave. And, you know, I mean, I'm falling prey to it. We started the conversation simply by saying what the truth was, was me accepting maybe I won't ever have a top 10 business podcast. Am I okay with that? Maybe I will. But what is the price I'm willing to pay for that?

8:16And it felt very freeing. It felt so freeing when Alex had said the same thing I say to people as they grow their business. It is one thing to be popular and it is one thing to be profitable. And he simply asked me, Jasmine, what is your driving ambition? And I said, profitable. Now that's not everybody's answer. If your answer is to be popular, well then great, you're going to be on a different path and that's totally awesome. That active pursuit of that will require a different skill set, but the desire and the satisfaction of it will be the compensation. I have zero ambition to be popular. I have zero ambition to be famous.

8:51I have every ambition to grow a wildly profitable business to show what is possible, not just for daughters of immigrants, not just for females, not just for women of color, but for anybody who has had the odds stacked against them. This is not a color thing. It's not a gender thing. It's not a belief thing. I just want to prove that somebody with a tiny bit can actually build a very successful business, not after going the masses, but after going after a very specific group of people and serving them well. And I think that you came in and you just hammered that down as like a regrounding for me this year to be like, you know what?

9:22That is my objective. I got caught up. And so, yeah, that's my thoughts on the hustle. It's good to hear from your perspective. And I really appreciate some of that you said that conscious and subconscious level is so powerful. And what we want to do is get those things to align, right? And so today we really want to help people get free from that. And both of us, the reason Jasmine shared that story right at the start, and I'll have some stories along the way as well, is because we're not immune to this. We're not like, we're above this, follow us. We might be one step ahead right now, and we might fall back and do at some point and need that person in our life to help us get there.

9:51But the solution I want to talk about today, and it's how we get freedom and more results, is we have to start to walk in clarity. We have to walk in clarity. And it's not just gain clarity, it's to walk in clarity. And here's what I mean by that. It's very clear to almost all of us that if we want to be in better shape, we need to work out. But we don't walk in that, right? Most of us are like, eh, I know that's what I need to do, but I'm not going to do it, right? Like, it's clearly there, but we're not walking in it. And that's what we want to talk about today. And Jasmine, I think you go to the gym six days a week.

10:19I go five. So I got a little stepping up to do here, right? But any thoughts around this before we kind of get into four points around this idea of clarity and learning to really walk in it? More than anything, Alex said it, and I'm just going to say it again. I am a broken person trying to find the path that is best for me. And so I don't think that Alex and I are ever saying, well, follow us because we are beacons of light and knowledge and wisdom. That was a very AI common of you, by the way, beacon of light. Like that's clearly you've been influenced by AI. That's funny. And I think more than anything is beyond being a separatist, we are definitely a lot more together.

10:55And what works for Alex works for Alex. And what has worked for me is working for me. However, somewhere in the spectrum of that, you're going to find what works for you and to have the courage to step into your version of clarity because it looks very different for all of us. So when you and I talked about this, I came up with like four steps to gain this clarity, to learning to walk in it, to stepping in it. And again, I myself am learning to apply this and I will share some stories on the way of where I'm getting it wrong and where I'm getting it right. But the four steps to kind of give everyone the full view of this is internal clarity, external clarity, projected clarity, and perceived clarity.

11:27And so I want to jump straight in the first one there, which is internal clarity. This is yourself. What do you want? Like, why are you here? Like, you have to look internally. And I think so many of us, we skip this one. We immediately look externally for why we should be doing what we're doing. And Jasmine, I want to turn over to you and see if you have any thoughts on this idea of internal clarity and beginning with that. Just as a side note, because Alex knows that I go in a thousand different directions. There's like 10 ,000 rabbits in my mind, and we all meet at the same point. So please know that the madness that is inside of my brain will all meet up in this perfect little Easter basket of goodness.

11:57A lot of Easter eggs, okay? Surprises along the way. So when Alex is talking about the internal, we all acknowledge and know that the reason we started our business, our podcast, was for an internal desire. But oftentimes it gets convoluted by external variations of success. That if we aren't at a certain ranking, if we didn't debut at a certain place, if we haven't had this many podcast downloads, that the external factors will impact the internal clarity and whatever it takes for you to be grounded in your clarity. And I have to say, it took me months of actually being super conscious of it.

12:34And here's like a real example. So for the podcast for the last few years, we were dropping two episodes a week. And then we decided to experiment sometime in the summer, dropping three podcasts per week. Well, as a result of that, we started going up in the rankings. In fact, like our podcast PM was posting them in Slack. This week, we're this, this week, we're this. And we started climbing. And I have to tell you, the dopamine factory in my brain was like, Ooh, girl, look at you like climb, climb, climb. And I started looking at the ranking climbing as a thing. However, what we just did was use a steroid for growth.

13:13I didn't have more singular downloads. I had more total downloads, which yes, did impact. So it's not like the podcast got better per se. It was just that the same people continued to listen. So did I get better as a podcaster? Did more listeners find what I had to say valuable? No, because we didn't see an increase in individual downloads to result in that. So then once we decided to go back down to two episodes per week, what happened? I dropped in the rankings and I realized that the external ranking was impacting my internal satisfaction and worse, my internal purpose. That is so broken. And it's in the power of acknowledging, whoa, that brokenness, that comes from this lack or want or desire.

14:06And the minute I said, you know what, this thought doesn't serve me. And when the minute I went to my internal driver that you're using your podcast to help people not make the same mistakes you did, that whatever growth you had, you're gonna teach people everything you know so that they can get results faster. That's your driver. And if that's what's actually happening, on a small scale, clap that up. That was the internal alignment for clarity for me. That's so good. I'm going to share something from a conversation we had about this when the decision went from three back to two. I asked you a question.

14:35I said, are you happy and do you like what you do? I didn't know what to expect when I got that. Sorry, Jasmine, I'm going to just transparently put you out here. You didn't cry. You did what you call gangster cry. It was a gangster tear. It kind of hung at the edge of my eye. It was just just one right and uh, but the thing is you're like I I love this and I could just hear the passion And I think that so many of us Myself included I learned so much from our conversation when you said that and when that like just that moment Like I went back i'm like do I do I love Everything i'm doing like like there was all the passion I could feel it.

15:08I was like, wait I where do I have that like I want that too, right? I want to feel that way And I bring that up not just to call jasmine out but for all of us here We have to go back to what we're doing to internally decide, like, do we have clarity? And just, is there something that you love so much it drives an emotion? Even if it's not crying, is it laughing? Like, what is it? Does a problem in the world make you angry? Like, if there's something there, we've got to be willing to take the time to explore that. And I know I say it a lot. It's like kind of returning to your why, the whole purpose.

15:38But without this level of clarity, this internal clarity we're talking about, I don't think you can get the next three steps we're gonna cover right. Like, you've got to be willing to take the time to do this. Absolutely. Amen. I often joke that for me, I kind of grew up having a hard time identifying an emotion or expressing emotion. I'm very expressive, but for some reason, tears. I would joke like, oh, I don't cry. I leak. And I think that what happened, that came out of left field for me is when you asked me that question and I very much got choked up. I had to pause and I said, I love it so much it hurts.

16:12And when you love something so much, you want the results to validate your love. You want the results to validate your ability. You want the results to validate your skill. And sometimes they don't, despite your best efforts. I think I have become a better interviewer over the years. And has the downloads reflected that? No. So what does that mean about my skill? What does that mean about me? and the internal work is deeply knowing jack squat. The way you interview a person, your downloads, the way that somebody assesses your skill means jack squat because if you're doing what you have been called to do, external factors should not impact your internal clarity.

17:02But that level of depth and knowing it and then feeling it are oftentimes at counterbalances. But this year it has been, oh man, I know who I'm serving. I'm okay and I love where I'm at if in the future we go higher in the rankings well bless But it has nothing to do nor does have an impact on what I am intended to do with my internal clarity Jasmine that's so good. It brings us right into the second point external clarity, which you just said that that's who we serve Right who do we show up to serve like if it's all internal all us I don't know if people are really going to resonate with it, right?

17:37It's got to have some sort of external factor And again, this is what we do for others, what we want others to experience by engaging with our brand, our podcast, if we're the guest, what they feel after they got to hear us on their favorite show, all these different things. Can you speak a little bit about the role that who we serve, this external clarity place? I mean, yeah. I mean, I think you probably have some notes to be like, I'm going to spill some tea about the conversations we've had because I definitely have had an identity crisis with who I know I'm intended to serve. And then who I know is currently listening to the podcast and the business I have built.

18:11So my husband and I co-founded a SaaS offering called Social Curator. And we know that we serve SMBs and most of the people that we serve are earning in their business less than$100 ,000. And that is incredible. There are people in there who are making$40 ,000 or$50 ,000 doing something they're wildly passionate about and they avoid a desk job, but it's not necessarily perhaps their ambition or their skillset or even like total addressable market growth capacity to do something that's over a million. And so a lot of the content that I had created early with the podcast was to serve the people who are becoming members of Social Curator.

18:44And then over the past year, I've really stepped into, I know who I'm intended to serve, even if that is not in direct alignment to what social curator is offering. And so the separation or the divorcing of the content I'm creating on my podcast versus the funnel that's leading into a business, they had to become separated. And a lot of the content that made the podcast as popular as it was, was focused on social media marketing, which is fine and it's beautiful, but it is such a small sliver of who I know I'm supposed to serve. And you and I have had this conversation at the top of the year and I'm like, I know I'm supposed to serve seven figure founders moving on to eight.

19:22And I know it beyond all knowing it, but I said, Alex, let's just do some basic math. Anybody who starts a business, anybody who starts a business, only 4 % of them will actually cross into the seven figure mark. So I'm like, so we have a very small market of potential listeners. I'm like, but beyond that, I have a tendency to attract female listeners. And so if I'm going after female entrepreneurs making seven figures, that's only 0.7 % of all entrepreneurs, period. I was like, Alex, you want me to say that I wanna build a podcast for 0.7 % of entrepreneurs and somehow make it into the top 10 business category.

20:03Does anybody notice a pattern here? I keep on talking about those freaking rankings because at the top of the year, I was like, rankings. And now I care and I totally don't care. I just don't care because I think we've done the work to actually say, when we build a business on the back of doing something we love, podcasting, creating awareness, likability, trust, funnels into whatever the offer it will be, we have to trust the process. And I'm going to close it by saying this. Alex had said, Jasmine, is there any way that you could start changing your content to start attracting the person that you want to serve that you're currently not serving?

20:39And I said, okay, I'm going to go all in. And he had said, well, how do we measure this, right? How do we measure the effectiveness of the working content, how it's changing? Because you're going to be slashing a lot of the listeners. A lot of the listeners who are at your podcast party for social media marketing, as you start talking about strategy and operations and systemization, you're going to lose a lot of people. And boy, did I. And that's been a fun ride, tongue in cheek. However, I recently hosted a mastermind for seven-figure entrepreneurs. And we have 16 people in our mastermind. and at minimum, at minimum, half of them during the interview had said, oh, on your podcast, at minimum.

21:19And the mastermind is$25 ,000. On the back of changing, really leaning into, I can, without a shadow of a doubt, point back hundreds of thousands of dollars to changing the content on the podcast just this year. And we're just getting started. Alex and I started meeting in around March or April of 2024. Then we had to actually change the direction of the ship. But because we had produced many podcast episodes, the actual strategy deployment of when we actually changed that avatar and said, we're going all in, didn't happen until the summer. We closed registration in September for a mastermind.

21:57So you want to tell me that I'm not being popular, but I can completely cite without a shadow of a doubt, people who actually use these words without being prompted. Because I think that if I were to ask the people in my mastermind, have you listened to my podcast in the last six months? I think that the vast majority would say yes. But what they said, half of them, I could say multi six figures came back on the back of content that I had been creating. And so to me, the external who I serve got very clear. And I got an ROI within less than six months as if on the back of that. Congrats, Jasmine.

22:27Like so cool to fill up a mastermind like that. Like I remember seeing your initial post about it and it wasn't that long ago. Like just so cool that just like it clicked and great job. That's a perfect example on top of all that external clarity. It's funny. I feel like you just shined with both of these things, but where you're really going to shine to the next two pieces. So that's internal, that's external we're looking at. And then we kind of flip this next part. The next two points are really around where our brand comes in. And I think that you're the leading expert in this. So the third point here is our projected clarity.