Hala Taha: Unbeatable Marketing Strategies for Scaling a Multi-Million-Dollar Podcast | YAPLive

23:21So talking about ranking, you literally are in the top of the charts. Your podcast is number 65 out of all podcast in the U S which is crazy. Um, and you're number three in both business and entrepreneurship today. So what's the secret behind ranking high on Apple podcast? Tell me. Okay. Well, first of all, uh, it's a trending chart. All right. So you could be number one on the charts and be a brand new podcast with not a ton of followers, not a ton of downloads. It's all about the new listeners that you bring in daily, the new downloads that you have daily, okay? So in order for me to stay at the top of the charts, I have my team on LinkedIn.

24:00LinkedIn is a platform that I spend a lot of time on, literally sending DMs 24-7, very, very personalized DMs. On LinkedIn, you can send unlimited DMs. So the way that I drive new subscribers, and this could look different for everybody depending on where you have your following, is that we just DM every day. So if we'll look up titles. You're a social media manager. Hey, what's up? I've got this new episode with Jasmine star on how to go viral on Instagram. I'd love for you to check out the episode. They respond back. Oh my God, I learned so much. Great. Can you copy and paste this as an Apple podcast review?

24:32Right. And so we do that drip campaign literally 24, seven, 24 hours a day and bring new subs in. And it keeps me at the top of the charts. So some of you are like, oh my god that's a lot and also there is like this is a business you guys like podcasting can be a serious business that's why I wanted her to chat all about this is because a lot of you don't realize that it's not that crazy okay if you've been around for a while and you're really working on your numbers to make a quarter of a million dollars to well over a million dollars like would you not love that to learn how to hire VAs and some team to be able to slowly work on that in the background.

25:12Like it's been really, really eyeopening working with her to actually see what works and to, to I'm watching the deals come in and it's very exciting. So it's been a really beautiful ride of, you know what, I'm already doing this. Why don't I just really understand it and put my energy here? Because if I'm already doing it, I really, this is my, I'm eight years in, it's time for mama to get really paid. Like, do you know what I'm saying? And so that's why this is really important to me. And I also want you to see what's possible of, like I said, this is this is like a long-term or very like you can, you know, you're doing a lot of work, but it's paying off.

25:47For sure. Yes. Okay. So let's, let's switch gears to monetization. What are the best ways to monetize a show? Okay. So I'll start off from low downloads to high downloads. One of the best ways to monetize your show is to actually interview your target clients. I did, I ended up doing this by accident. My social agency happened by accident. It was just because I was getting that demand. I was getting all the requests to start a social and podcast production agency. But if you can interview your target clients, what happens is that you're selling without actually selling. You're building trust. You're building credibility.

26:22I never even pitched neither my social agency or my network. Did I pitch you? No. Lori reached out to me afterwards like, hey, I want to learn more about your network, right? So I never advertised my social agency. I never advertise my network. What happens is that people come to me from my podcast and that's my main lead generation source. So interview your target clients. You don't even need a single download for this to work. Okay. Once you have like a medium sized audience, you might try affiliates. You can sign up to like all these different affiliate programs. I'm not going to lie to you guys.

26:58You're not going to make a ton of money on affiliates, right? It's, it's, it might do pretty well. You could have your own products and services, do like Kristen does, sell your own courses. And that you just need like a medium-sized amount of downloads. And then sponsorships. This is where like the big bucks really come in. Really, you want to think about having at least 20 ,000 downloads a week to be eligible for being in a podcast network. So about 80 ,000 downloads a month or 100 ,000 downloads a month. That will put you in a decent spot. And the thing that you need to think about with sponsorships and commercials is the bigger the show, the more money you make.

27:35Everything's very standard when it comes to commercials. So it's CPM based. You get paid a certain amount of money per 1000 downloads. So usually it's like 25 to$35 per 1000 downloads that you get paid for. So the bigger your podcast is, the more money you'll make. Something else that people don't really think about is also the longer your podcast is, the more money you'll make. So it's all about stacking commercials on your podcast. So typically you can put one commercial per 10 to 15 minutes on your podcast comfortably. So if you have an hour long show, you can put six ads, five to six ads per show.

28:13The longer the show, the more money you make. This is why Joe Rogan has a two hour long show. He can pop 12 commercials on a show and you make that much more money. So when you're thinking about the monetizable downloads in your podcast, if you have an hour long show and you get 100 ,000 downloads a month, it's really like you're getting 600 ,000 downloads. because one listener listens to six commercials. And that's how you really compound and make money in your podcast. You got to think about the length and how many downloads you get. Okay, I love that. I also want to bring in for this room, you know, in the beginning for me, while I was getting like those numbers up and for a really long time, I just monetized through my personal brand, which is what Catherine does as well.

28:48So that's a really beautiful option, especially in the beginning, just to sell your own stuff. Like that's why having a course or a$22 thing or a$44 thing or launches, are really huge for when you have a podcast because what Catherine had said too is like, she's always sending them somewhere, right? Which means she's always sending them to something that she has. She's sending them to an option. So that's the same exact thing as sending them to an ad with a call to action on the ad. All you're doing is working in your stuff and sending them somewhere so that you can capture that email. So in the beginning, it doesn't matter if you have, you know, 20 listeners, if it's very niche, it doesn't matter if you have a hundred, like there are some people in here, my Jackie Koch back there who has an HR podcast, you guys, like that is so niche, but it's helped their business so much because you find a lot of great leads through that podcast.

29:42So it's growing, but it's growing, you know, it started small because it's such a niche thing, but it's, it can make such a big impact because it's attracting those very, very niche people. Okay. So I want to transition back to talking about how to leverage podcasts without actually hosting one. So at Yap Media, you're sold out. Tell me what that means, first of all, sold out until the end of the year. And why are brands so attracted to podcast or doing this? Yeah, so it's pretty unique. I have a podcast network with 30 shows, and every single show, including Lori's, has no more ad space till the end of the year, which is really unheard of, right?

30:19And the reason why is because there's not that many big podcasts out there that are available for sponsorships. And if you know how to create a sponsorship model that actually converts for brands, you'll get renewed and get more sponsors. So something to note with podcasts is that they're really top level awareness. When you are seeing a commercial on your podcast, you need to repeat it a lot so people actually convert. And people are highly engaged when they listen to podcasts. People are multitasking. They're driving. They're working out. they're doing dishes. They're doing something on autopilot with their body and their mind is completely focused on you.

30:58So they're super engaged. They're absorbing everything you're saying. They're remembering everything that you're saying. And after they hear it a bunch, they'll remember it so well that they might go online and search for it later, click and buy. However, they're not clicking and buying right there and then on the podcast. Again, they're doing dishes. They're working out. They're not scrolling, clicking and buying. They're not on a computer or a device to do that. They're just listening. So if you pair your commercials with an email blast, with ensuring the link is on your YouTube, with a social post, and so on, if you retarget your reels and DM them with your CTA link, you'll get direct conversions plus the long tail conversions for your sponsors or your own products and services, right?

31:44So really the key is to have a 360 approach. Again, people are not only listening on audio. Most people are also following you on social media. So you're going to want to ensure a 360 approach so that you can actually get the conversions. And that's the long answer of why we're still that at media. I make that mandatory. For every monthly flight of commercials, you've got to either do like an email blast or a social post. And that keeps the sponsors really happy. Okay. So I know that you do, we talked about this, but a lot of value add-ons. And I want to talk about that in a second, but I want everyone listening to think of it from a lens of even if you don't have a podcast, when I ask this question about adding extra value, because that's what she's all about, I want you to think of this in terms of someone that you want to work with in the future, like adding that value or a partner or a mentor that you want to get on their radar.

32:35So Hala, you are always like, okay, what's, you know, how can we add extra value to this? So tell me a little bit about what you do, what works, and what's the thought process behind that? Yeah. So basically, value add just means free promotion, right? So it's layering something on top of your podcast commercial. For us, we do email blasts, we do social posts, we'll do retargeting of the DMs with the CTA. Really, it's just up to you in terms of where your audience is and what do you think is going to be the most impactful so that you can increase the actual conversions that happen right away. Because like I mentioned, podcasting is long tail.

33:10You need to repeat the commercial over and over and over again before people take action. But that's not to say that podcasts don't work. It just, you need more repetition and people are really going to remember your brand. It's going to really increase your brand awareness, but you need more repetition for people to actually take that purchase action. Something else that we didn't mention before with your question about like why podcasts, why are they doing so well? Podcast hosts are so trusted, right? I read a stat that people trust podcast hosts 23 times more than social media influencers. So who's starting a podcast?

33:48Everybody next time is like, they come with headphones and a mic, like into the room. Okay. All right. Last topic before we go to Q &A, because I'm going to give you guys an opportunity. You guys want an opportunity to ask some questions? Okay. Amazing. How about get guesting on shows? How should we go about doing that? Okay. So I feel like there's two main avenues that you have when guesting on shows. Number one is like being highly relevant. Okay. You've got something to share with the world. You know, you're an expert. Let's say you're an expert on sales. Okay. What I want you guys to do is go on the chartable.com or the Apple charts.

34:23You can just Google it, Apple charts, and they have categories and subcategories. And you can literally go to business marketing and then go look at every top 250 sales podcast, right? You can then go see who hosted, either DM them on Instagram or get, you know, an extension and grab their email off LinkedIn. And you can reach out to these people and you want to tell them, hey, I look through your feed. You don't have an episode about X. I can speak directly to this. And you want to give them a new angle of what you can speak to related to your expertise. And you want to be highly relevant, highly personalized.

35:00And that's how you're going to approach it if you don't have a large following. The other thing that I'd say is like be realistic, right? I would say you want to punch above your weight maybe like four or five times like your number of followers. And right now, unfortunately, the only platform people still care about is Instagram. Everyone is going on your Instagram and seeing what is your social proof. Even if you have a big email list, even if you have a YouTube channel, really everyone's going to your Instagram. You of course want to mention any other platforms that you have, but your social proof is Instagram.

35:29And so you need to be realistic. If you have 20 ,000 followers, go, yes, go reach out to the host with 100 ,000 followers. But if you have 20 ,000 followers, the 2 million follower host is not going to have you on their show, right? So punch above your weight, but be realistic. I love that. And one of the things that, you know, I look at when I'm looking at, uh, for people on my show is also what are they saying when they're asking me to come on? If it's like, Hey, I can come on and talk to your audience about empowering women. I always try to make you guys remember, like nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I want to be an empowered woman.

36:03It's like, they're like, I have anxiety. This to-do list is overwhelming me. I don't know my next steps. Like I love when people come to me with, Hey, this is like the title that we would have this. Here's the three things I would talk on. And it's very pointed and it feels kind of fresh or it feels like a new perspective. and it's a benefit that the listener is going to get from it. It's like, I'm going to give your listener three tips on how to deal with all of their anxiety before 11 AM. Like, oh, do tell, because I'm the listener. So I also want to know that. So feeling like really, really pointed and clear on that is always huge for me.

36:39But the long, oh my God, the long pages of telling me everything that you have done and do, like you can't, you don't actually have time for it. So we delete them all. So it's like very quick, very concise. Yes. Okay. Let's do some Q and A because this girl's got some knowledge that we absolutely want to extract here. Okay. So who's up? Who's got the first question for me? Okay. I'm doing the front and then we're working our way back. Hi, Hala. I am curious about how you review your podcast data analytics to then make adjustments to podcasting. I have a podcast that I host on SoundCloud and Anchor slash Spotify and then on Apple.

37:19And I don't really understand how to look at those, the analytics to then go, okay, how should I tweak the way that I upload or post in order to help these podcasts grow? Yeah, it's a really good question. First of all, I'd say you definitely want to forget about SoundCloud off the bat because you can't monetize it. It's not connected to your RSS feed. It's something separate. Okay? So you're growing your SoundCloud. You're never going to really be able to monetize it super effectively with sponsors because they can't track it with pixel tracking. Okay? So SoundCloud is separate. It's not really, like, a place for you to focus.

37:56And then eventually you want to graduate off of Anchor because there's a whole lot of, like, in terms of growth. Right? But in terms of analyzing your podcast numbers, what you want to do is actually look at your user agents. So where are all the downloads coming from? Are they coming from Apple? Are they coming from Spotify? are they coming from, Podcast Addict, wherever it's coming from, and see if there is any sort of traction. You may want to advertise with some of those podcast platforms and try to see, like, is there any opportunity for you to kind of milk any sort of traction that you're already having on these platforms.

38:28The other thing that you might want to consider is that there's some new platforms like Cohost that let you see into your listener data, like, pretty cheaply, like, It's$50 a month. And you can see what their age is, what their income is, what are they searching on social media, what are their behaviors. Do they have pets? Do they have kids? And you can get some insight on your audience. You can also use Chartable to get some insight on your audience. And then you'll actually know, like, who am I talking to? If I want to attract younger people, what do I need to talk about? If I want to attract older people, or if this is, I just want to keep attracting the people who are interested in this content, then you can do that.

39:05but aside from that like there's not much like like I said it's not like things go viral on your podcast it's really all about bringing in a consistent flow of subscribers and then your downloads are always consistent for the most part they're not really going to spike based on like your topic it's all about like what subscribers you're bringing in unless you're going super viral on YouTube or social media okay you're welcome awesome who's next back here okay we're switching to in-person podcast recordings. So are you seeing hosts pay for the guests, like travel and lodging, or is it more of a, you're on the show and then they learn about you and learn about what you sell.

39:47And so it's more of a trade-off. Yeah. It just depends on how big you are. Right. And I would say, I would try to avoid, you know, it's going to get really expensive, really fast to pay for people to fly out lodging. I'm in the process of trans transitioning to in-person video. And what I found is that it's much easier to actually travel to other people. So what I'm going to be doing is like flying to LA, doing 10 interviews, getting an Airbnb, making it look nice, doing the interviews and flying to the next city and coordinating it that way. I also know a lot of friends who like have a studio in Miami or New York, and they just are constantly in advance.

40:26And it kind of takes a while to get there. But like, just like, hey, hey, when are you coming to Miami? Let me put you down. When are you coming to Vegas? Let me put you down. And you can kind of also have like an in-city studio where you're constantly telling people like, hey, I'm here. If you're going to be in the city, let's coordinate a time. I will say that it's one of the most difficult things, even with me having a big show, is actually getting people in person and it's way easier to go to them.

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44:30Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. Being a guest on a lot of podcasts, what have you seen as the most effective giveaway to really encourage people to reach out to you afterwards? words? So I have heard people doing things like a free call, right? Like if anybody who wants, you know, to learn more, get a free like consultation, you can just call me and they just like link people to a website where they can book a call. So like that works well. For me, when I guest on other podcasts and let's say I have like a LinkedIn course, a LinkedIn masterclass, I'll work with the host beforehand and be like, hey, like let's do a 30 % discount for your followers.

45:13And then on it, I'd be like, okay, everybody go to yapmedia.com slash course, use code Lori for 30 % off. Hey, we can do that right now. Right? Like, so basically, you could just like on the fly coordinate with the host and say, like, I'll have you as part of my affiliate, you'll get paid out X. And sometimes I have the conversation before the podcast. And sometimes I just do it live. And then afterwards, I'm like, hey, if you want to get an affiliate, like fee for for anybody who does it, this is what you do. So yeah. Yeah. Great question. Okay. You're going to help me pass the mic here. Hi. Hi.

45:45You're on camera also. Cool. I am not a podcaster, but I am a video creator. So I love to capture podcasters. And I've noticed that a lot of them find it pretty, pretty pricey to invest in video for every podcast episode. So what would you say to podcasters who are afraid to make that investment and don't quite see the ROI on getting video for every podcast episode? I think getting video for every podcast episode is absolutely essential. Audio has a discoverability problem. The way that you're going to get new fans, new subscribers, new listeners is by pulling them from social media to your audio app.

46:23It is one of the only ways to promote and market your podcast on social media. You need a visual element. So video is so key. Video is shareable. Video is engaging and super important to grow your show. So good. Who's next? I was just on Joe Ducey's podcast, ABC 15 News, and he's now at the BBB. And he said it's the most popular episode they've had, but I haven't even put it out. When I retransmit that episode, how do I do it on all the platforms in the best way and to get the most people to love the BBB and Joe Ducey and me? And what do I give them from me? What do I do to do better on all the platforms and market better?

47:01So is your question, you went on this podcast, you're getting the content, you want to figure out how you're going to disperse it to your followers. Yeah, everywhere. And I can even like ask all my friends in the DMs, hey, go like this and share this and, you know, whatever you want to do. Yeah. So I would chop it up into Instagram Reels and leverage the collab feature. So collab with the BBC so you can get double the exposure potentially. So that could be – so the collab feature, I'm sure a lot of you guys know about it. But if you don't know about it, basically you can invite people to be a collaborator and that Instagram reel will show up on their page and your page.

47:38So we, for example, we do that with all of our episodes so that our guests are also promoting it on their platforms as well. And we actually ask them in advance and you'll want to ask, you'll want to tell them in advance, hey, heads up, we're going to ask you for a collab on these days. Please make sure you accept. And then we DM them like, hey, can you please accept this collab? And we like annoy them until they do it so that we can get that double promotion. So I would recommend that. If you have an email list, you know, create an email blast specifically about this. And here's another hack that we didn't talk about.

48:10Is anybody here active on LinkedIn? Okay. So one of my, the best ways for me to grow my show and get subscribers is to actually play my fully recorded episodes on LinkedIn live. So you just download Restream, StreamYard. I put my fully episode pre, like it's not live. They're just my YouTube episodes and I play them on LinkedIn. And then anybody who likes and comments on it, I retarget in the DMs. Hey, thank you for watching my live stream. If you want more content like this, go subscribe to my podcast. Right. And I monetize those episodes as simulcasts, too. So like brands will pay for commercials on your live stream.

48:48OK, thank you. This has been so helpful. What would you say to someone who has been on a lot of podcasts, wants to start her own, but is afraid the niche is too saturated? Everybody told me that like when I started a podcast, people told me, what are you doing? This was six years ago. People told me it was saturated. Now I'm a top 100 podcaster. It is never too late to start. You don't want to listen to other people. Are you creative? Are you a good marketer? Are you going to try hard? Are you going to be consistent? Are you going to think outside the box? If so, you're like way ahead of everybody else who's starting, right?

49:22So as long as you're willing to really learn and put in the work, it's not going to happen overnight. But if you get creative, if you listen to people like me who have done it before, and you don't just cross your fingers and hope for the best, and you actually proactively are pulling listeners in and trying really hard, you're going to be successful. Thank you. I'm going to start one. Awesome. I love that. And that's so true. Do you know the stats by chance on people who quit podcasts? Yeah. I believe that 50 % of podcasters pod fade within the first year. And so a lot of people will quit. I believe that it's like more than 50 % of people don't even get to their 10th episode.

50:05There's so many podcasts out there that are no longer existent. There's only like 500 ,000 active podcasts. And I believe there's like 6 million published podcasts, but only 500 ,000 are about active. Yeah, I love that. So you guys really think of that because if you are someone who is consistent, this is like a really good thing for you to be in. Okay. What would you recommend as far as the cadence, like a weekly, daily, monthly, like what, what do you see for the best? If you want to compete with other podcasters, you got to post at least twice a week. All right. So once a week doesn't cut it for advertisers, the closer you get to a daily show, the less desirable you are.

50:44So you actually don't want to go over three episodes a week, and you want to do about two. So like two is the sweet spot. And one of the reasons is also because, again, the podcast charts are trending, right? So if you're getting a lot of downloads twice a week, you're going to rank higher than everybody who's posting once a week or once a month, even if they have a bigger show than you. So it's important for ranking, and it's important in general just to compete. Also, when you layer in a second episode per month, you'll get about 30 ,000 more downloads overall for the month. It's not going to double your downloads, but it immediately gives you a jump.

51:17So if you're doing four a month and you add a second episode, you'll immediately, uh, for the most part, from what I've seen, you get about 30 % more downloads. Okay. So you were talking about the categories of podcasts where it's like not as many downloads yet. So I would be in that category of my podcast. Um, but I am consistent and I'm regular with it. And I actually have a brand that's interested in being a sponsor and they're very aligned with my audience and my message. How do I go about doing my very first sponsorship with somebody? Well, first of all, congratulations. The best way to do it is to get out of, especially when you're small.

51:55So I used to get sponsorships even before I had like a huge show. And I would bundle things outside of my podcast and get really creative so that I wouldn't have to play this CPM game. Because if you don't have a lot of downloads, charging$30 per 1000 downloads, you might only make 200 bucks for your commercial and that sucks, right? So why not think of a branded series that you could do for them? Now suddenly you can charge what you want. It's not a commercial. You're gonna do a 10 minute series within your podcast feed, maybe every other week. And now you can charge$2 ,000 an episode and sell them six episodes, right?

52:32Or you can, you know, bundle in social media, bundle in an email blast. What I would do is I would make it a 360 campaign that includes branded content, which means like original content that you record that may include commercials. And then you can charge what you want for it. I took your LinkedIn class. And so I just want to tell everyone to take it. It was so helpful, especially if you're building a business on LinkedIn. And I have two questions. One, I think I know the answer to, but I just need you to break my heart. There's no like many chat feature for LinkedIn, right? Well. Are you going to save my life?

53:12Okay, so LinkedIn is very strict. So it is against terms of service to use automation. And if you use automation, you're at risk for getting your account deactivated and all this stuff. So PSA, right? However, there are lots of automation tools. Like Linked Helper is one, and a lot of people use that. There's like Octopus, which a lot of people use. and there's automation tools that you can use to grow your platform. So when I first started, I was using automation tools. And like Linked Helper, for example, will let you scrape everybody who likes and comments your posts or even lookalike profile posts.

53:49So I used to scrape Gary V's posts, all his likes and comments. And then I'd send automatic DMs 24-7, 24 hours a day. Hey, I noticed you follow Gary V. If you like his podcast and content, you're going to like mine too. and I had that automated before I had a team. Now I know better that you can get your account restricted and I've got too much money invested in LinkedIn that I use virtual assistants because you won't get in trouble the same way that you would with automation. You get more of like a slap on your wrist, you're not going to get your account deactivated. So I would highly recommend virtual assistants.

54:24If it wasn't for VAs, I would not be as successful as I am today. Now I have 60 people all over the world that work for free. Sorry, not for free. 60 people. Not for free, trust me. That was before. But I have 60 employees. Some are US employees, some are in the Philippines, India, whatever it is. But when I first started, I would just pay people like$500 a month in the Philippines to work eight hours a day for me. And that's how I really scaled before I had a lot of money. And so VAs to me are so powerful. I feel like they're so underutilized. People international international are, they work so hard.

54:59They're so appreciative. And so I would recommend getting a VA to help you with your DMs. Okay. Awesome. I do, I have a recruiting firm, so I can't lose LinkedIn. So I'll have to do that. Yeah. So then my second question is, I'm the one with the HR podcast and all of my episodes are very focused either on hiring, like being a good people manager or like compliance and systems. Is there any benefit to like rotating topics throughout the week or like doing eight in a row of hiring, like eight in a row of benefits or, you know, something like that. Do you think there's a benefits on like grouping topics?

55:34I don't think so. I don't think there's any benefit. I think generally if you're sticking within the topics of your podcast HR, I think it's actually more entertaining for your listeners. So again, like podcasting, you don't go viral. It's you've got the same listeners listening this week, next week, so on, and then new people kind of enter the flow. So if you're talking about the same thing, that actually might get boring. It might be better to like rotate the topics a bit so that it feels fresh. And the other thing you should realize is that people listen to about 10 to 15 episodes and then they drop off.

56:06So you might want to resurrect some of your old content because it's probably new listeners anyway. Hello. So I have a podcast where I do walk and talks in different cities and travel to their location and highlight their cities and all that. So it's a lot to, you know, on the know of in person, it's a lot to go to their cities, like set up everything. I was doing a walk and talk, like publishing one every single week. I backed down to one a month and then do three solo episodes. Is there a specific balance between doing solo episodes and guest interviews? Have you looked at your downloads to see what does better?

56:44Probably the same, right? Well, so far the guest episodes have because I just started like a month ago with the solos. Yeah, I mean, I would lean into the things that are getting you the best results. But what I've seen is that typically the downloads don't change that much depending on the format. And a lot of the times if you train people and if you are speaking valuable things, your listeners will want to hear you more than anybody else. And so your solo episodes, probably what I'll guess is, will end up doing better and better. So for example, when I play, sometimes I'll play me guesting on another podcast.

57:22And those will be my best performing episodes. Because my listeners are just like, you're always interviewing people. We want to hear from you, you know. And so I think your solo episodes will end up doing better overall. But in general, it doesn't really like, you're not going to see some like drastic increase. It will be like a slight increase for you to judge what's doing better. Okay, awesome. And then going off the VA, now I have to ask you, where do you find your VAs? I'm like super scrappy and I'll just go on LinkedIn. And so on LinkedIn, you can search for virtual assistant. You can search Philippines.

57:55You can search India. I can look at their profile. I can see the posts that they write. And honestly, guys, some of my best employees that I've had for like five years now are people that I just found on LinkedIn and shot them a DM, had a brief interview and was like, okay, I have to train you anyway. You seem like you've got the right personality and work ethic. And then, you know, we go from there. So just poach them off LinkedIn. LinkedIn, everybody. Thank you so much. So you guys go follow her because truly that's what happens for me. Like when I started working with her and Brianne and Danny, like I got very re-inspired working with people.

58:30And my biggest takeaway today was just like the underutilization of VAs. Like people can, you know, maybe when they get that first advertiser. They can just take that money and put it back into VAs to grow it and continue to do that. And it's crazy how quickly I'm sure that that could grow. So you guys, everybody on your feet, you know what's coming. You know that we give the best standing ovations of a lifetime. So let her know with your energy and your clapping and your screaming how great she was. Now, this was such an incredible experience to be on stage in front of hundreds of Women with Lori Harder, somebody who I idolize as a podcaster.

59:09She's totally crushed this world. And it was just so great to share my journey. If there's one thing that I hope that you took away from this conversation, it's that success in podcasting, just like any business, comes down to thinking strategically and refusing to accept any limitations. There's no glass ceilings in this world. And when I launched Young and Profiting, people told me I was crazy. They told me it was saturated, I'd never make it, but I didn't let that stop me. I learned that there was room at the top for creators who think differently and who take action. And even though I started my podcast now over seven years ago, I still believe that's true today.

59:44And here are some of my key strategies that turned my show into a multi-million dollar media empire. First, you got to treat your podcast like a 360 marketing engine. Podcasts mean anything this day. People watch your podcast on social media. People watch your podcast on YouTube, on audio. It doesn't mean audio anymore. So make sure that you're multi-channel and that once you're big enough to get sponsorships, that you sell that multi-channel as well. And also it gives your audience multiple ways to engage with your show. Second, you can interview your target clients. Your podcast can become a lead engine tool.

1:00:17I wasn't selling. I was building trust and demonstrating value and my guests became my clients. I also like to give the example that Lori had. Her guests became her investors in her brand. So there's multiple ways that you can leverage your guests aside from just creating content for your podcast. And third, invest in your team, interns, and virtual assistants early. My team, for example, sends out personalized LinkedIn DMs 24-7 that target job titles with relevant episodes. This consistent outreach keeps us at the top of the charts and growing every day. So yeah, fam, if you're dreaming about starting a podcast or scaling the one that you've got, stop thinking small.

1:00:53Dream big and boldly and back your ambition with consistent creative action. And don't you forget, the game will change for you the moment that you decide to play it differently. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you're ready to help somebody turn their podcast dreams into a reality, share this episode with somebody who needs to hear it. And if you learned something valuable, we'd always love a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. Guys, I'm addicted to checking out the reviews. I check every single day. I love getting new written reviews.

1:01:23especially on Apple. So if you love the show, do me a favor, drop us a five-star review. And if you'd like to watch your podcast instead, we're on YouTube or on Spotify Video. I love seeing your comments on YouTube. So drop us a comment. Tell us what you think about the show. What resonated most with you today? You guys can also connect with me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. It's Hala Taha. You can't really miss me on that platform. And big thanks to my incredible Yap production team. You guys make all the magic happen. This is your host, Halataha, a.k.a. the Podcast Princess, signing off.