Quarter One Review: Inside My Podcast Monetization Strategy + Course Launch Wins

0:00If you've been feeling stuck in your business and wondering if you're the reason it's not growing faster, I have something for you. I'm hosting a free, no-pitch, live class called Three Money Beliefs That Made Me Millions. And I'm sharing the exact mindset shifts that helped me go from million-dollar years to million-dollar months. This isn't fluff. It is a surprising strategy that changed everything for me, and I want to share it with you. Like I said, no pitch, no fluff, just you and me talking about how we shift our beliefs around money to make you millions. Save your seat now at jasminestar.com forward slash millions.

0:32I can't wait to see you there. There is an importance of being in the trees and above the forest. When I'm in the trees, I'm doing the work. My ear is on the ground. I'm listening to what's going on. I'm talking to people. I'm doing the work. But if you're always doing the work, you actually lose sight of what is the big vision. And so this is our reminder on my very first laying bricks of 2025. Stay above the forest. Welcome back to the Jasmine Star Show. For those of you who are new here or would like a quick refresher, I am a law school dropout. I am a first-generation Latina, a first-generation business owner, and a first-generation podcast host.

1:09This show is a documenting of the process. I said I wanted to become a photographer back in 2006, and I didn't have a camera. And that led to a long and crazy career of becoming a creator of content, having other companies pay me to create content on their behalf, having other companies hire me to consult on building a brand and helping their marketing teams, which led me to want to help business owners, period. So I started creating courses around 2015 and 2016. And then around 2017, I created a membership. And then in 2021, debuted my own tech stack for a tech company called Social Curator. I have since gone on to build a holding company where I invest in other companies.

1:50I sit as an advisor and I am a mom and I'm a wife and I'm a daughter and I hope a really good friend. Welcome to the show because I want to be your really good friend. And so the kindest thing that I think friends do is they spit the truth, they tell it as it is, and they also share what it is they know. That is what is happening today. Today we are doing another installment of Laying Bricks. So what is Laying Bricks? As a quick reminder, these are my quarterly reviews. This is no frameworks. I am not teaching. I am showing up wholly as myself, even though I feel like it's a bunch of disparate pieces.

2:25So back in 2024, I started 2024 by creating a series called Laying Bricks. And I said, I want to show the foundation of the skyscraper I am building. Oftentimes in the business world, it's easy to talk about, oh, the things that we've done or the business that we built, but this is the nitty gritty. This is the brick by brick. And so sometimes I make decisions that might not make sense. Sometimes I pursue things that might not make sense. Sometimes I make mistakes. And then sometimes I place a really great bet. laying bricks breaks it all down so that in the future, should anything good come from a bet I might've placed or a decision that I might've made, or maybe a failure that I've openly documented.

3:03And then I can go back and say, that wasn't a failure. It was a lesson that led to something much bigger than you could have anticipated. So that's what laying bricks is. I take them quarter by quarter. Welcome to the episode that is January, 2025 to March, 2025. All I am doing is laying out the meetings I'm taking, where I'm going, who I'm speaking to, things that are happening in my life that change my perspective. I will be sure to link to the Laying Bricks episodes in the show notes if you want to go back and hear, quite honestly, how some of the things I'm doing now was called back a year ago and how some of the things I'm doing today will hopefully yield really great results in the next, I mean, if I'm being real, I mean, I hope that this yields results next week doesn't really work like that.

3:45So here's to hoping they yield results in a year or two or whenever the right time happens. Let's go back to January, 2025. We started the year very fast. We began training a sales team for the first time. I launched a course called Your Biggest Launch Ever. And at that point in time, we had one sales mechanism, which basically means we sell this in one way. We have a promotion. I teach live classes. I get people very excited. And one thing we wanted to add in as another sales component was the ability for people who were interested to take a sales call, but not with a classically trained salesperson.

4:19We actually got a group of alumni. So this is the second cohort that I've taught this live course experience, your biggest lunch ever. And people went through it last year and there was a group of really successful entrepreneurs who swear by the program and they were kind of staying up to date with me. And I said, do you think that you can commit to us for a nine day period to be on our alumni sales team? And so one of the first things that we had done is we hired a professional team of trainers to come in and train business owners in sales, specifically short form sales, in that we were gonna be closing the door and we were not offering your biggest launch ever for the rest of 2025.

4:57So how might we put sales in a container over a nine day period? Now, I learned so much through these trainings. We hired these training teams and I actually wanted to know what it is they were teaching. So I was either showing up to the live trainings or I was watching the recording. Now, I was watching it from two different perspectives. I'm watching it as the founder and CEO of the business that is promoting it, but I'm also watching it from the trainees' perspectives. Now, these are business owners who are getting sales training. Now, we went back and forth on the team to debate on how we compensate the sales team.

5:31A very classic sales structure with a sales team is that you are paying them a commission for what they close. Now, when these sales trainers came to us, they said, we have a suggestion and we think that you should pay per call. if they close or they don't. And at first I was like, nope, I love a good competition. I love keeping things going. And they had said, can you be open to the idea that it changes the energy? If somebody is incentivized for the sale, it might change the energy. And I said, no, you don't know these people. These are entrepreneurs and they're really great people and they're very smart.

6:02They're gonna sell it because they like it. And they said, true, but it's a very powerful thing to have your sales team say, I am not incentivized if you buy or not. I am simply here to guide you through what is the best decision for you. So I did something that was against the grain. I listened to professionals and then I watched. Now, some people, specifically, one of the things that I noticed is when our team was taking those sales calls, people who joined the sales call, they were always super skeptical. Well, why are you doing this? If you're such a successful business owner, why are you taking the sales call?

6:34Now, I understand that skepticism exists, but one of the things that I thought many people, we did make this offer to more people and some said no and some said yes. and I understand that if you're a busy business owner, you're not trying to get on somebody else's sales team, even if it is just for nine days. But I thought these business owners, they got the game on a different level. They said, I'm gonna get paid for the sales call that I'm taking. I'm gonna be receiving sales training from a professionally trained sales team that's going to help me in my sales for my business and they don't have to pay for it.

7:07And somebody else, aka us, is paying for their training and they get a front row seat to a behind the scenes of how we launch a product. They said, this training and those nine days is gonna be a masterclass. It's gonna be like a university class in watching how another business works from the inside. And so they were changing the energy of how the sales unfolded. And they were really excited to apply what they learned in their own business. In fact, at the time of this recording, just two days ago, I received a direct message from a small group of people on the sales team and they're still meeting together as accountability partners.

7:41They meet together twice a month and just by meeting on the sales team, applying their businesses, going through the sales mechanism, they're going with each other and they're saying, okay, where are you getting stuck in your sales? How can we help each other? They created a small group and think tank on the back of that. That was a win, win, win in my book. January 17th, okay, so we did something a little bit different here on the podcast and you probably have noticed. On January 17th, I decided to start taking podcast monetization calls. Now, the reason why is that I absolutely love this podcast.

8:13And in 2024, we made the decision to be video forward on the podcast, which means I am working with a professional video team, which means I have a podcast producer, I have a podcast booker, and I have a podcast PM. I am also writing all of my own content. And I think, and I'm very proud to say that the level of the podcast has improved, but that all comes at a cost. And I know that when we looked back at 2024, it cost the business more than six figures to produce the podcast. Now this is including when I am podcasting in different cities and different towns, this is accounting for the cost of my time and applied for it.

8:52But all of that is a serious cost to the business. Now, I did not want podcast sponsors. I didn't want to run ads. I didn't want to read nothing against Tostitos or what is it like a tummy gummy? Like I see all these influencers on TikTok doing these really cool things. I'm like, that's great. It's just not for me. I wanted partners. I wanted to highlight businesses I already use and love. And then I wanted to say, how can we become co-collaborators in empowering business owners to do something pretty magical in their business? And so I made a list of all the companies I use and I love. Then I asked myself, do I have personal connections to those companies?

9:27Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. So I started off with the companies that I had personal relationships with. And then I put together a proposal. The team and I laid out why would a partnership with the podcast be valuable to them? Obviously, it's going to be valuable to me because we can use the funds that we're getting from this to continue to produce the podcast at this level. But what's in it for them? How did we create a proposal that was valuable for them? And so we ended up doing is tailor making a proposal for each of their businesses and explained how we might be able to create synergistic relationships between the both of us.

9:59So for two weeks straight, like I just blocked significant hours in my schedule and I took these meetings and you know, the wide range of the businesses that I spoke to some business owners that I was speaking to didn't know that I was going to be pitching them. And then I was in the call and I would realize that there was like a flicker of recognition and they were like, Oh, she's pitching us. And so I'm learning what did I do to not prepare them for the call? I am learning how to best communicate what's the intention of the call. And all of this is literally fly by night. This is like, I am flying blind and I am just like, I'm creating this proposal that is valuable to them, but I probably could have learned a lot more on how to prepare them to know that I was planning on pitching.

10:41So we went from the range of, and here's the thing, I approached every business the same way. Some people were just like, I'm getting pitched. And then other people on the call said, we're all in, send us a contract. So I, you know, I don't know. Did my preparation work? Did it not work? I am not sure. However, I'm really proud to say that people were really excited and the people who were in was just the people. I didn't want to sell them into this idea. I wanted them to know and see the value from the podcast. And so I am continuing to make this show on the back of many amazing partnerships that we've lined up.

11:13You're going to hear more about the companies that I'm using and loving every day. This is all organic. These are all personal reach outs from me. And I'm going to continue to travel to meet incredible entrepreneurs and podcast on the road video forward. And I just want to turn to you. And I want to say thank you. Thank you for being on the journey of this podcast. It has been a learning lesson. I have done a billion things wrong and I'm just really proud that you've been on that journey with me. So thank you. January 22nd. This is a side note. It has nothing to do professionally, but I have to say our daughter turned five years old and I probably wouldn't bring it up except for the fact that we were in the YBLE, your biggest launch ever, promotion.

11:50And so we were in this promotional period and I asked myself, how can I live a life that I love while building a business that I love. And she told us she wanted to go to Disneyland for her birthday. So on January 22nd, we're in the middle of promotion. I'm like, baby girl, we're going to go see Mickey. So we went to Disneyland and I absolutely had the best stinking day. Just turned my day off from work and was fully present. And then on the 25th of January, I hosted a party. Now, listen, I do at my parties. Just don't judge me. Just this baby girl wanted a cat-tastic party. So we went all in with a Gabby dollhouse theme.

12:25We brought in balloons. We brought in cat plushies. We brought in cat ears. We brought in cat cake. It was cat-tastic. And it was wonderful. And it felt really good to say, I am building a business and a life in the intersection of the two. Now we are in January 27th, and this is when we are officially opening YBLE Cart. And all I knew is that I wanted flow. How can I be in a massive permissional period with a massive revenue generator and my word and focus was flow. How do I set up flow? So I practiced my master class, the class that I was teaching, I practiced it well over 30 times. This master class was about 53 minutes.

13:01So I spent a lot of time practicing and understanding what works, what doesn't, and how to stand confidently during the pitch. I envisioned how I wanted to feel. I know visualization sounds so Olympic champion, doesn't it? I wanted to know how do I want to feel after each masterclass? How do I want to feel in the middle of this launch? And how do I want to feel at the end? And having the idea and already telling my brain, I was priming my brain for what I wanted to feel and experience. And it literally set me up for those very things. And I wanted this launch to serve my life. I did not want to sacrifice my life for this launch.

13:36And so I taught three live classes and then I responded to DMs and then I watched responses. And based on responses, that's the type of content that I was creating to kind of pivot and make sure that we were answering in the way that people wanted answers. So my job during the promotion was to do one of two things. I am teaching or I am engaging. I'm carefully listening to what the market is saying, which empowered me to let the sales team do the sales team. They absolutely crushed it. Okay. The sales team had a 65 % close rate, a 65 % close rate. When I saw how well that sales team was closing, the entire messaging went from, hey, send me a DM to book a call, book a call, book a call.

14:19They were absolutely killing it. And it is proof that you can have a sales team without having compensation closed, attached to them closing. It wasn't. They got paid for the call that they took. And then it just became like, I want to serve these people. I want to get these people off the fence because YVLE is going to change their life. On January 31st, we are in the middle of a promotion. Like a few days later, we leave to Las Vegas and we left to Las Vegas and I left the business to the team. And I said, we have the sales team going. We have our ads running. I am not teaching any more live classes.

14:52So we took off on a Friday and we went and spent the weekend in Las Vegas. Now we closed launch on February 4th. And I have to tell you that that experience of us being in Las Vegas was peaceful. It was good. We went to the Mandalay Bay Aquarium. We went to it twice because my daughter was obsessed. We went and saw a show. We went and hung out by a pool. Why? Because we left on the 31st, but February 2nd is a day on our calendar that will forever be blocked to our daughter. February 2nd is the day, we call it Miracle Day. It is the day that we became a family. We adopted our daughter on February 2nd, 2020, and it's the best day of our lives, period.

15:34And we want to make sure that she understands how deeply she is loved and how important that day is. And we will celebrate her birthday. We will celebrate her first mom and her first dad. And then February 2nd is the day that we were celebrating becoming a family. So we want to mark these traditions. And when we saw the promotional calendar for the year and we said, oh, we have a business initiative that is very big and very serious to us. How do we celebrate? How do we keep our traditions? And how do we keep flow? Now, what we wanted to do is we told ourselves that we are creating ceremonies in our family that become sacred and we do not mess with the ceremonies.

16:08So February 2nd, I'm in a business launch and I'm like, no, the priority is absolutely her. I want my daughter to know that our family's priority will always be her. It will never be the business. However, I also want to show my daughter what it means to show up and build a life and a business that you love. I want to show my daughter a strong businesswoman. I want to show my daughter how true balance, sympathy, orchestra, like a synergy can exist. So it is February 5th. By this time, we close on the 4th. We are in Las Vegas feeling really, really, really great. And on the 5th, we're planning on headed home.

16:48So JD and Luna drive home and I fly home. So they're on their way out. I have a mastermind call on February 5th. Now, what I wanted to highlight here, and the reason why I'm talking about this is in January, we had a mastermind call and we called it the massive action workshop. And what we wanted to do is we wanted to join our networks together to see how might we be able to leverage introductions. So we call this massive action, action into connecting our group to other people. So what we wanted to do is say, we're, you're going to come in and you're going to ask for something specific. And then you're going to ask for people who can move you there.

17:24You don't need to know the people. You're just going to come in and say, I need this in my business. And I'm looking for this type of person specifically. And then the rest of the people in the call, there's 20 people in this mastermind. We're saying, I think I know a person who can make an introduction. I think I know a person who does the booking for that podcast. So these are the things that we did that was in January. So that by February 5th, a month later, they came in and they were like, thank you so much for that connection. I've already booked this. I've done this. They have a contract sending my way.

17:46And the key is get in the right rooms, get into rooms with people who will make those connections with strategy for you. If you are feeling stuck, I want you to get into a new right room. If you are feeling tired and overwhelmed, I need you to change your environment by doing that. It opens up so much for you. So I, during these massive action calls, there was a woman by the name of Nikki and she is in the mastermind. And it was by way of this connection. So Nikki, was talking about a program that she had launched that was profitable, but it's no longer in alignment for her business. And Valerie is on that call.

18:21Valerie has a SaaS company for dieticians and nutritionists to do meal planning for their clients. Those don't seem like they would have synergistic capabilities. However, Nikki says, I have a program that I want to sell. This is a course with all the deliverables, all the resources, all the ads. But she says, it's taking me and my team away from the thing that we're building. So Valerie makes an introduction to a friend who buys the course from Nikki. So Nikki comes in and says, I want to sell my course. Valerie makes her an introduction to somebody else. Nikki sells the course on terms that she is elated with.

18:55Valerie is ecstatic. And Valerie's friend is saying, thank you so much for bringing that deal flow my way. This is just like one of the massive things that had happened. Now, Heidi, Heidi creates a membership on how you can host paint parties and make money. So that's super niche. She hosts paint parties and then she teaches people how to host paint parties and make money. Now, she used our lead gen and our ad strategy so she can have her biggest launch. She came in and said, how do I look at this differently? And she's gonna be coming on the podcast to be talking about how she more than 3X'd her results based on what she had been learning.

19:32And what we're also talking about in this call amongst this massive actual workshop is how are we recruiting? Who are we looking for? How do we optimize our interest, our inbound? How are we looking at people who could possibly be teammates? All of this was happening in February. This all matters. Let me get to that in a second. Now we are excited for our live event that is gonna be happening in quarter two. That's gonna be happening in April. By April, our goal is to go back to what we did in January and say, what happened, what deployed, what connections happened so that we can say, look around the room.

20:02Everything you want is one ask away from the person that you are seated next to. So if you are a seven-figure entrepreneur and you would like to get more information, you can join the Mastermind wait list. It is not open right now. JasmineStar.com forward slash mastermind. It'll send you all of the details and you can get that information. Now, February 24th, this is like a few weeks later. We, behind the scenes, we do not make a big deal about it because we are hand-selecting a group of people that were on an interest list. So I want to get a little bit here and talk about the importance of what we have been learning on segmenting our newsletter list.

20:36What I'm trying to do is people, we have hundreds of thousands of people who subscribe to the newsletter, but I wanna know more about who is there. Why? I wanna create things, resources, classes, free bonuses, and offers that pertain to exactly where they are in their journey. So we started sending out small surveys and questionnaires. Where do you live? What kind of business do you have? How much money do you make? And so what happened was we were able to segment our list to a group of people who are making more than$500 ,000 and they were trying to scale to a million. We created First Million Framework, and this was an opportunity for us to take our wherewithal, our knowledge, and take the very system that we applied to other businesses.

21:16So on a side note, I have a holding company. I also sit as an advisor. I sit as a consultant. The team and I have also created a resource called an audit. When we are commissioned to sit on as a consultant in a business, well, before you go on, you're not like, oh, cool, I'm a consultant. Let's talk about what's happening here. No, no, no. You got to do a deep dive on the business to understand everything. So our audits are so comprehensive, we act as if we're going to buy that business. So if we're going to buy this business, we want to know all types of data. We want to go really deep. It is after we do this audit with our consulting clients that we can come back and say, okay, here are there's four levers that we're going to pull to really grow and change this business.

21:56What are we going to focus on first? And every business is different depending on what systems they have in place. So we decided to create the first million framework for entrepreneurs who want to set up their businesses to scale. Now, we are only taking a handful of people. We are currently not taking people right about now. However, we also have a wait list for that. You can go to jasminestar.com forward slash million. We won't be talking too much about it because we keep it behind closed doors. February 26th, this is two days later, I instated a deep work day. Back in January, I released a podcast called How I Plan My Year.

22:31Now, as I started 2025, I made sure that there were three big changes to my calendar in my schedule. Change number one was that I was going to have something called a deep work day. This means once a month, I have no meetings. I have no expectations. I have no tasks. This is do not disturb mode. And on these deep work days are when I focus on the vision of the company, not what we're going to do in quarter one, not what we're doing for the year. It is the big vision, what is getting in the way of us moving towards the big vision. That is a deep work day. The second big initiative that I had launched is what I call a dar day.

23:06I know in Spanish dar d-a-r means to give. And what I started realizing, there's a group of people who are like, hey, can I get 20 minutes of your time? Or hey, can you speak into this charity? Or can you do this? And I started realizing I was saying no to things because I was very overwhelmed. So I have a dar day, d-a-r, I would call it a dar day for people who don't speak Spanish. On my dar day means that I'm going to be taking calls that otherwise I wouldn't be taking because I'm going to give some of my business acumen to people who otherwise couldn't afford it or pay attention to it. No, I am not broadcasting this.