Part 2 of Building Authority and Attracting Clients: Tony Rulli interviews Charlotte

In this episode, Tony Rulli flips the script and interviews Charlotte about the real value of building authority as a business owner. 

They dive into why starting a podcast can be a game-changer for consultants, coaches, and agency owners—especially those looking to grow without burning out. 

Charlotte shares practical tips on leveraging existing relationships, batching content, and using podcasts to stay front of mind with clients and prospects. 

They discuss the importance of consistency over perfection, how to repurpose podcast content across multiple platforms, and why visibility is crucial in today’s distracted world. 

The conversation also covers common mistakes to avoid, the power of human connection in marketing, and actionable steps for launching your own authority platform. 

Whether you’re considering a podcast, a book, or simply want to improve your marketing, this episode is packed with honest advice and inspiration to help you take the next step.

Transcript

0:00

Hello, hello, Sharla here. Just interjecting for a quick moment before I, um, rampage off on another monologue, but I just wanted to share with you that this is the second half of a super long podcast episode with my business buddy, Tony Ruiz. So if you haven't listened to the first half already, I really recommend you go do that. It should be the last published episode before this one, and it will really lay the ground for. What we are gonna get into in this section, which is much more kind of applicable process, but it's gonna make so much more sense if you've watched the first half. So, uh, I'm gonna, uh, shut up now and encourage you if you haven't already, go listen to the previous episode and if not, get stuck in and listen to me and Tony apply Authority builder to his program and to other businesses that I work with.

Audio Only - All Participants 0:53

So I am on a massive monologue, but I just wanna bring it back to you, Tony,'cause you said I have so many questions already. So, yeah. Well, I just wanna say something to you because I know you, selfishly said, you said selfishly I want, I'm a good example. I feel like I'm a good example. So I can be selfish and be the Well, you know, for me, with, with you, Tony is like, you are not emailing people enough. You are not talking to people enough. You send me one email, sorry, I'm being really harsh. No, be brutal. You send me one email and I'm like, that should have been four emails. There is so much stuff in that. And you did this one. We do a weekly newsletter. Yeah, you do. And it's, and it's brilliant. but we're all completely attention. we're, we're, yeah, we're a mess. Right? I mean, even if you're not a DH ADHD to begin with, the 21st century pushes you that way anyhow, doesn't it? A hundred percent. So I really think that you are. Overdelivering in a single thing. And that could actually, it could almost be like a daily bulletin of, you know, spark Report mini update by like bite-size pieces. Interesting. Yeah. So just context, the email that Tony sends out from his business is called spark The Spark Report. Spark Report, yeah. Spark Report. Because we're intentional Spark'cause our business and it's super, it is super helpful stuff and it's not, it's, it's by no means egotistical. I mean that as in you are crediting other people. You're saying this is something really interesting. We saw this is performing really well. You know, you curating in the way that you might, if you're inviting people to come on your podcast'cause you felt more comfortable, you know, facilitating conversations rather than being the sole person. You are doing that in email newsletter format and yeah, you feel like you are, you are overdelivering and it could be split down much further and then you could be more consistent and more present. Right. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So yeah, and that's something we could do. I was just happy to do it once a week. That was a big win. We did it for, we've done it for a year now of once a week. I was happy to be that consistent. but yeah, I liked hearing that'cause maybe we could, you know, at least a couple times a week, if not every day.'cause that was our pretty long emails'cause we usually cover a couple different things. so for me, what would you recommend I start with a podcast or a book and why? Hmm. So I think for you, a podcast, because I think you're working, oh, and maybe just so everyone, so we're a growth marketing agency, 10 plus clients. we have capacity for more, but we're also looking to expand more into digital, digital content products like courses, growing group programs and things like that. So that's our current level. The level set for people. So, and I'm just gonna give the lay persons translation of that. So Tony and his business partner and wife, right? Correct. Yeah. There are incredible geo when it comes to running paid ads, particularly on meta platforms that, so if you see like ads on Facebook and Instagram and they are selling really well on behalf of their clients, that is what they do. and, but in a very, very human way. And, not in a scary kind of who the hell am I talking to? Kind of way. Like Tony is very, very down to worth and very human and, really good at implementing things. So I know that from, you know, you've just described scaling with digital products and knowledge and stuff. I know that's about you trying to grow your business in a way that isn't gonna burn you out. but you are still working with some one-to-one clients and mm-hmm. So what I would. Probably recommend you do, and this has worked really well when I've run it a couple of times, is so other things I know about you. So you are really, you're a really nice person. You are very good at what you do. You come highly recommended by people. You've grown by referral only. So I'm kind of confident that you are really good at what you do because you've never really had to do a lot of active outbound marketing. and you're doing it now because you've got ambitions for the growth of the business. You are really well connected because of the kind of clients that you've worked with before. but also because you have facilitated conversations on other people's podcasts, which is actually how I came across you before. And those people are high profile in their own spaces as well. So what I would recommend you do is you, pull together a list of people you know who are killing it with. Paid ads perhaps, or the, the term that you used, the overarching term you used to describe what you, what you do. Yeah. and so people you already know, people who you really respected and admire and, and would like to work with. Some of them might feel like a stretch goal. Some of them might feel more accessible. making a list of all those people, reaching out to them and saying, Hey, we've got a podcast. We're having more conversations. I really admire what you do, or, I loved when we worked together. would you be open to a 30 minute conversation where we talk about, your, growth plans or how you've got to this point or do you know what the, the thing is that. This feels really scary putting yourself out there and, and asking for people to come on. Yeah, it does. But the po the thing is Tony, is that I've never known anybody say no because everybody's mindful they have to do their own marketing. So if they're on somebody else's podcast, it's something they can share again, with their audience. They are reaching more people that they're not having to go find for themselves. the, the, the cost to acquire an opt-in or a new client by going on somebody else, it being in somebody else's content is a lot cheaper.'cause it just costs you, you half hour, 45 minutes of time where you go speak to them. Uh, you don't have to do anything else. and people are really flattered. And also people are just nice. if you are nice, you get nice back, I find generally, and, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was never the person when I was single who would tell somebody that I found them really attractive. But I, I am comfortable doing that in business, saying, Hey, I'm really I'm, I love what you do and I'm really impressed by it. Would you mind me asking some more questions? Yeah. we have this podcast and I would love to have a chat with you. It's just half an hour of time and we'll promote it. And you are welcome to do the same. and my experience is that people don't say no to that. And my other experience is that it can rekindle relationships with old clients and it can facilitate new relationships with people that you may not have thought it possible to work with before. Because they will, either. On the recording or before and after, they'll be asking you about what you do.'cause likely it's one of the first times you've met. If it's somebody brand new and your only exchange has been that over email in advance. And, and they might be oh, Actually it might be worth us talking about this thing. the number of times, completely and unintentionally interviewing somebody for our podcast has turned into a client. And that is not the, that is not the strategy. But I think this would work really well in your space because you are a curious mind, you know your shit and you are pretty well connected and, your prospective clients, clients are also prospective clients of yours. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so, so for you then, the podcast strategy, because I think one thing is most people probably listen to this, consultants, coaches, or small agency owners, right? We're not necessarily, we don't need a hundred clients potentially. I mean, it'd be nice, but I couldn't serve a hundred clients right now. No. Now for some of our other offers that we're building, that's the whole point, is to be able to help more people. But I hear podcasts and I think, okay, well now I gotta build a whole audience to serve and, and how is this gonna actually, so for you, it, it sounds like there actually, that actually isn't the point necessarily of the podcast. No, absolutely not. And you know, I said of the book, Amazon bestseller in its category, that's because I fully engineered that with a very specific marketing campaign. And I've had, my goal was not to make any revenue from that. My goal for the podcast is I, I don't even look at those statistics about how many downloads we have, if I'm really honest. Sometimes I share them when I'm encouraging people to come on the podcast'cause they might be in of interest to other people. But, that's not a big deal for me. And, and I think it should be even less of a big deal to, clients with a. Higher ticket offer, by which I mean a higher investment offer, right? Like one sale could be a huge annual contract. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the, the thing that I want you to bear in mind is how much persuasion you can do in a passive way that can get somebody closer to the finish line and the purchase point, than you'll ever have one-to-one sales calls with them. So by that I mean somebody who is your ideal client, who could be a huge deal for your business. Tony could be listening away quietly in the background or the point they're like, I've heard enough. Let's book a call with him now I wanna talk with him about something specific. Or they read your book until the point at which they're like, we're never gonna do it. Let's just call. Yeah. You know, it's more about. And it, it does feel a bit like a wing and a prayer sometimes, but it does work out over the medium to long term. And that will really depend on the volume of clients you need and the cost that they, they, the, the revenue that you will get from those clients. But like I said, it does feel bit like a, what do you call those? Like trust falls. kind of like falling backwards. Yeah. You close your eyes and fall backwards and. See if it works. Yeah, I'm just thinking of the meme. I dunno if you saw the meme about the local library in the US a couple of weeks ago where No, you didn't, I have to find you. This, it was a really good example of, uh, marketing using the trust form, but it was also for like a public libraries. They didn't have any marketing budget and yet it went completely viral. I'll, I'll dig it out. Completely unrelated the topic, but yeah, it does feel a bit like that because you can be producing stuff and being like, I've got one client at the moment who just, released the first episode of their podcast after a lot of procrastination for many completely relatable reasons. and now they're like, right, how many downloads is good? How many of this, that, and the other are good? And like, okay, how big is like, how big is your email list of past clients? And they told me, and it was like, and how often have we been communicating with them? And they were like, Hmm, we maybe send them a Christmas card last year. And I was like, okay, well, the 28th of October. You have not communicated with them all yet, the fact that you are now sharing something out every two weeks on email just to keep you front of mind to me. Ah, interesting. Yeah. This is, this is the biggest part of what it's about is like having an authority platform is a really easy way to remain consistent in your marketing. Take that book for example, you can kind of see it a bit more with a podcast'cause you're like, okay, yeah, I see you do one recording a week every couple of weeks, once a month, whatever. I have thoughts on that, but it's not really the point. But you take a book, for example, and you can, we can elicit the information to write a book from you way more easily than you could ever think is possible. but then when you disseminate that book back down, it can become an entire year of marketing content. Yeah. because every kind of salient point on its own is a separate thing. It's a separate. right. You know, so there's at least gonna be 52 in there. And if there's 52 in there, then that means you've got a, piece of content for every, week of the year, which means that that piece of content can then be shared across at least six platforms, seven platforms, or at least 10 times across those platforms without you really thinking about it. You know, when we talk about batching, for me, the book is the ultimate batching experience because you take the time to write the thing up front, then you can have somebody else extrapolate all that down and then queue it up, and then you're not thinking about it for a year. You're remaining visible. What we do now, now more than ever, and I think this is where we confuse for me authority, is, is more about having a reason to be visible than it is about being the, the last word in your space, in your discipline. Because if you have taken the time to, Create that resource, you're then able to remain visible across the entire span of time that you're showing that out over without being able to, like, without wriggling out of it, without being like, oh, this is crap. Let's just stop. Or like, we've missed a week. We may as well just stop now. Or, you know, all the other reasons we give ourselves to stop doing the thing. You know, it eliminates the, the risk of doing that. And what we do know now more than ever is, is like you, if some, if you're not visible, you are much more likely to be forgotten because of the way our brains work, et cetera. so a, a biggest part of the battle is staying front of mind with people and doing that in a way that is not annoying and, and adds goodwill. Generates goodwill, adds value to their working life. That is our goal. And I love that. And so once I, okay, so now you've got me starting an inter starting a, a podcast, and I'm interviewing people. Uh, and so I try and interview people that either past clients, uh, people that are probably, would be good prospects, right? Try, try and keep interviewing those people, or at least interview people whose audience maybe would be clients, even if they might not be. really it's, for me, it's then my goal is producing that content more than anything else. Not getting an audience, but producing the content that I can then share, stay in front of people. So what do I do? I have this podcast now. how do I make it actually pay off? Like, you know, make it worth it my time? Do I, is it just sending it via email hoping people find me in the podcast feed? What else? Like what, how do I make it work? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, to address your point about finding people to come on who are prospective clients or have. People who are, whose, yeah, people whose clients could be your clients. It's not just that. It's facilitating conversations that you know, your audience will find interesting. And often there's no end goal in the person that you invite on, aside from you know, that your clients will find that interesting and they'll be grateful to you for, for facilitating that conversation. but I think you need to think about it like several different ways in terms of the commitment that goes into it. For example, for a podcast, we find I, I'm gonna be really transparent about what I do. I do a half hour chemistry call in advance where we can kind of set the groundwork and, prep some questions and kind of get to know each other a bit, before the actual recording. and then the recording is, is around one hour. And then in terms of editing, that takes maximum half an hour. And then in terms of, The, content creation? Well, the copywriting part of that is really rapid, I would say around an hour because we have a really formula process for how we do that. and formulaic is not a bad thing in this circumstance, by the way. It just means you're training people's brains for what to expect so you're not alarming them. And actually it becomes more familiar and that's a good thing. It's part of the habit forming. and then, you know, depending on how much you value design, obviously there's some kind of design investment, whether that's your own time or assistance or your agency if you have one. but we have a weekly cadence, and I would say I spend no more than, two to two and a half hours absolute maximum per week on our marketing because it all comes from that one recording. And I'm including that recording time in, in that two and a half hours a week. So. I think what I would do is challenge anybody who's thinking about this in terms of an, of an investment to think about how much time they spend through the week right now, trying to brainstorm what marketing, yeah, what marketing is even gonna look like, and then finding the content for that. And then populating, you know, for example, the Spark Report. I dunno how long that takes, between you and Meg to pull together, but I'm assuming close to two and a half hours, probably all in, or at least at the start of that process. Yeah. Well, to pull all the link content together and Yeah. It can take a while. Yeah. And you've got, you know, you've been, you've done that 52 times now, like you've got that habit formed, you've got the kind of the, you know, the structure for it. so my experience is once you get into the flow of this. Once it feels comfortable, once you form that habit, it actually becomes the fastest form of, marketing and the most consistent form of marketing. but then in terms of like, how do you make it reach further? Well, the beauty of interviewing other people is that they often have an audience to share on with. And so by encouraging them to go share it onwards further, you're massively expanding the reach of who you get in contact with. A big part of, any kind of marketing is, which often really gets missed by people who aren't doing marketing consistently. And for the digital marketers here, they'll be like, are you kidding me? This is the most basic. but it's a call to action. A CTA, often will go to all the effort of creating something. We won't give people a next step when they get to the bottom. They're like. Now what, where do I go? I wanna speak to you. We're not actually giving them those options. And yeah, this is a, I I think this is something really crucial to think about. It's not always gonna be let's get on a call, it can be something else you've pointed them to something, something else of interest or something else that is gonna be helpful to them. And, I think it's super important to be, to be conscious of that because the number of times I work with a client who, I mean, take my agency clients, for example, they work in the marketing space, but'cause they so rarely do work for themselves in terms of marketing, this feels really weird. They don't, they're not very good at kind of signposting, who and when should somebody take, should take the next step with them. For example, oftentimes they don't even have a system set up whereby somebody could schedule a call with them. I, that might sound obvious to some of the people listening, but for many, that is a, a big part of it is literally just having a method to, direct people to, and often once they do that, they find they're getting more calls or they're kind of getting stuff booked in, literally because they've said, Hey, we're here and here's how you can work with us. Which seems ridiculous, right? But if you just went out there on LinkedIn or Instagram and said, Hey, we're here, here's how to work with us. It wouldn't be received in the same way as if you'd wrapped that up with something really valuable, something that, they're grateful that you shared, whether it's podcast format or, or book format. That's cool. Okay. So I'm just guessing, but probably. There's type two types of people, especially who own a business. There's the ones who half people listen to this are probably like, this is awesome. I'm gonna go immediately, start a podcast, do this myself. And the other half are saying, that sounds awesome. I'll never do that myself. I wanna work with Charlotte. Um, so a, there's a, we'll share, be sure to share how people can get in touch with you at the end mm-hmm. To work with you. But for the people that are going out there and maybe I'm gonna do this. Uh,'cause I've also selfishly gotten a lot of advice from you now too. Uh, but I'm gonna go out, start this process, do a podcast. What are some of the common mistakes you see that I should avoid, when I'm starting this authority building? Yeah. So just make it, I mean, the, the main mistake I see with any form of marketing is seeking perfection over completion. I'd say make it as, make the bar. I always wanna say set the bar low, but when you think of like limbo dancing, that's the opposite of easy. Right. But yeah. but you know, make it really easy. We're jumping, we're jumping over the bar though, you know, that's the difference. Jumping. Yeah. It depends which way you're going. Right? I like that you went to, I like that you went to limbo that shows. Oh no, I should been thinking hurdling, but yeah. Do you know what, actually, I dunno if it's because I didn't tell you this when we started, and I dunno if my cheeks are really red, but I've managed to break the thermostatic valves on my radiators and so it's like a solid 26 degrees in my entire house. And I am so hot that I think I thought of limbo dancing soon because it feels like it's topical activity. It's, yeah. so I, the things that I would say, and I definitely have fallen into this camp in the past, is looking at people you admire, and thinking, well it has to look like that to be good. And, and so for and examples of that which I've coached a client on today are. Don't get stressed about having jingle music on an intro and outro to begin with. Just have, just have an intro and outro that's spoken and a bit of a pause, and then you, you get your actual content in the middle. secondarily, don't I, I'd say don't be going really heavy or investing lots of time and energy into, editing at the start. Actually, a huge point of if we are talking about podcast is, kindling human connection. And if you remove all the ums and ahs and the pauses and the mistakes and the chat about the thermostatic radiator valve from the podcast, it removes all its humanity and there's less of a reason for somebody to kind of listen in or engage with you or feel warm towards you. So I'd say don't be trying to be too polished in terms of your actual delivery because, and a, a big part of that is just repetition, which I'll come to, but, Yeah, just like leave some of that in. People like that stuff don't sweat it. Like just, it, it makes you feel more human and relatable and I think it's a good thing. I'd say you just alluded to get your reps in, like I really encourage you, especially at the start and when we work with people in the Authority Builder program, if they choose to use a, to build a, a podcast as an author platform, we, will very quickly get them to batch create. Six podcast episodes, whether they're solo or interviews that way, they are getting those reps in, they're feeling more comfortable about it. They see, we see phenomenal, phenomenal process between the first and the sixth. And by the sixth, the, the habit is kind of formed and they've kind of got the process, they've got their heads around it, and hopefully they're starting to see some traction or some benefit from doing that. They might be getting positive feedback or they might be getting people replying to emails and saying, Hey, you know, we haven't spoken for ages, but actually we've got something we need to chat about with you. You know, they, they're seeing the impact of what they're doing, which encourages you to do it more, right? It, if you are seeing proof points around it, you're more likely to do it. And then other things that are really simple, if you are doing, an interview process. I, originally when I sort of, one of these kind of, podcast types for a client, it was a, it was a good few years ago now, but I looked to, one of the first post podcasts I listened to was, Tim Ferris, and he always asked the same, 10 or 12 questions. and he did that for a reason, because then he created a book with the answers to all those questions. I can't, tools of Titans, I think it was the, the book. he obviously has many at this point, but he asked the same, interview questions and so I managed to find those on the internet and then I, I adapted them, for, I've managed to stick my thumb up on here, which drives me nuts. Hang on. I can't get it down. It's gone. Yeah, we, we, adapted them for our client and then they went into each podcast interview knowing exactly what they were gonna ask. So they were able to actively listen and respond rather than just be like, thinking in their head, queuing up the next question. And that's never thought of that. That's really smart. Yeah. And sitting, sitting in this seat, being, being the interviewer, it's very stressful. Being Sure. I'm, I'm trying to listen and actively engage, but also be like, I need to keep asking questions and, you know. Hit the right. Absolutely. Oh, it's really, it's really stressful. I know. I felt that as well. And, you know, my way around that now, when I don't ask the same questions of everybody, but I do get on that first chemistry call and I ask the same three questions to everybody. I end, in that chemistry call and that conversation goes in loads of different directions. And then we take that transcript and develop that into the questions. I share it with them in advance. I've got them, and then we're free for the conversation to go wherever. But whenever we hit the end point with something, I don't then have to pivot or think of a question on the move we already have. Not a script, but a list of kind of themes and topics. And I can quickly scroll through and be like, oh, we haven't covered that at all. Let me just move on to that. so just know that it's not gonna feel like a normal conversation. but there are ways in which you can make sure that the conversation flows. And I did say don't. Overly edit, but know that you can, there is an incredible tool, descrip, which is the thing that I use still, I still edit. It's like magic. It's like magic. Oh, it's incredible. And the thing for me is that you can edit by transcript. So say for example, I dunno, I say a swear word or I say radiator and I wanna get rid of that. I can, you know, do command F on my Mac, find the key word, and then go to that section, the podcast and edit it out. Yeah. That probably sounded, if you say, um, a lot, if you say um, or ah, you can just wipe that out if you're worried about it. Yeah. There's like, but like you said, it's some, a little bit of that's good, right? Authentic, Yeah, absolutely. Overwhelming, removing gaps of more than. One second. Yeah. Removing, um, filler words, if they're like removing, you could say remove some 60% of filler words and it would improve it, right? Yeah. You, um, can re say remove retakes and it will find where you're like, oh, hang on, scratch that. I just, I shouldn't have said that. Or, anything along those lines. It's really good at finding the relevant content, but also you don't have to stress too much about when you hit record or when you stop recording because you can literally delete the first part of the podcast. The green, the green room kind of chat. Yeah. Where you're not fully into it yet. So yeah, there's, yeah. Tho those will be some of my top tips would be just, you are probably having amazing conversations already. Just go record them, obviously with permission. Yeah. That's, I think that's, you've really, you've inspired me here. So I got, so now I'm, you've got me actively thinking about this. Mm-hmm. You're very good at, making it seem. The thing I have to do, and I think it is, I think you're right. so I think a lot of clients I work with ha I have to talk them out of doing what I'm now thinking of doing. which is whenever you're in the actual seat of making the content, it's funny how your brain starts to fight it. But I often find clients get really sick of talking about the thing they always talk about or feel like that's too easy or boring. Mm-hmm. Or too specific. So if I'm getting specific with my example, it's having a podcast talking about we do more than ads, we do more than that ads, but you know, we're growth strategy, but we do focus on ads. When we work with clients, we typically are running their ad campaigns, but then really working with them on their marketing funnels to help succeed. But ads are often where people first come to us. That's what gets them curious. That's where we get the most just general referrals and inbound leads in general is around ad strategy and management. Right. Having a podcast about ads, I'm like, who would ever click to listen to that? So then I wanna do it differently or, you know, interview people, but maybe not specifically about ads. Would you recommend pick something you're interested in, even if it's not specific, as long as it's the right audience, or have it be about what you do? Like if I'm a, if I'm a design agency, like a website design agency, should I be interviewing people and talking about website design in my interviews? Well, I'll give you an example from our own business. So we, uh, our podcast is called Authority Builder Podcast. We, in essence, serve to help caffeine exists, to help creative people who will normally avoid sales. Do sales and marketing. Yeah, that is our goal here and we have different ways of working with clients. One big part is around visibility and just getting themselves out there. Another big part is around authority and being known for something specific. So I would say, you know, back to your question, the concept of it just being something really interesting. I think it needs to be something where you can. Occasionally, not all the time, but occasionally reference back. Oh yeah. When we've experienced this with a client. So, you know, thinking about it and, and I feel you've got a bit of a communication challenge here as well, because a lot of people do know you for ads because of, you know, how clients have come in or who, what you've discussed in other people's podcasts, et cetera. So you do have to make a bit of a pivot so people understand that you are a partner from beginning to end of the marketing funnel. And that is a really powerful thing.'cause a lot of people just wanna jump in and do one part of that and not be responsible and supportive and walk with you the whole way.'cause that's not where they're gonna make a quick book. That's why I'm saying Tony is down to earth, human, helpful, a real support. And I think communicating that is the most important thing. So you might go into your chemistry call and talk to your, the people that you're interviewing and. Assuming they haven't been clients before and and say, look, we're really mindful that a lot of people come in and help with one specific aspect of marketing, but it's about so much more than that. and then ask them questions around a time where the whole funnel failed or something didn't quite work out or when it's worked really well, or things that they want to experiment with in the future. But being conscious that you're facilitating a conversation around that entire, that entire journey from becoming aware of, the brand to becoming a client, which is effectively what you're helping with. and I would say as well, you know, interviews one thing, but the reason I kind of honed in originally on your, the trainings that you've been doing, the free live trainings is. They are such an incredible source of content. look back at the transcripts, or download the q and a from Zoom or wherever you have those calls. I dunno if you host'em on Zoom webinars or what, but, download the questions and your responses to them. and you know when, this is really helpful, when you read the question out loud and then you respond to it because then you can literally have, go through the transcript and find questions and response. Take those, take them from all the trainings you've done, put them into one big document. Every single one of those is a podcast episode because that is a true kind of question or challenge or problem pain point that that person's experiencing. Every single one of those questions is a barrier to working with you in that person's head. That's why they've asked it. So you can bet your bottom dollar, there's more than just that one person who's thinking it. So in that sense, your podcast can become, Can save you a lot of time on sales calls because people, before they book one in, have already had a lot of those reservations answered through your podcast content. So if you're somebody who feels like you're wasting a lot of time on sales calls, that's a really great way to do it and doesn't have, you don't have to have a live webinar, by the way, to do this. Literally get the transcripts from your sales calls and do the same thing. It's what questions are people asking? What is their, where do they want to get to? What are the, what's been really difficult the past year? What stopped them from getting there before? What have they tried before? it's an arsenal of marketing content, but we say we, we often think we come up a sales call and if they don't immediately become a client, we think, oh, it's failure. It's, but you know, so when I said before, so many people that I speak to always have already have so much stuff lying around. It might be. Pitch proposals that have been rejected. It might be sales calls that have not gone anywhere, but the ip Your your thought process that went into, into that process is something you can recycle and reuse in marketing. You could write a whole book, literally just with the frequently asked questions and the objections that you've heard and your responses to them. That's interesting. That also feels easier than what I was thinking. So I like that for writing a book. And I think it positions you as a partner and inspires trust as well. Right. Because you're willing to have the difficult conversation. You're not ignoring it. Yeah. And, and just thinking too about, you know, going back to my question around what the content or theme of my podcast should be, or anyone's podcast like, looking at your podcast is probably a really good example, right? Like The Authority Builder Podcast focuses on client winning strategies for coaches, consultants, and creatives who wanna lead with authority. But that, you know, you, your offer, you also have an offer named Authority Builder, which is very smart. Uh, but that's about write the book, build the system, become the authority. You also have LinkedIn lead lift off. Mm-hmm. Right? Your podcast isn't about LinkedIn lead generation. It's not about writing a book or even starting a podcast, but it definitely could touch on all of those. Right. And, and if you're talking about authority in general, you become the authority on authority. Uh, and so that's very meta. That's very meta. But, you know, so for, for us, maybe that is the thought process of like, it, the podcast itself doesn't have to be about ads or growth strategy specifically, but it could just be interviewing, uh, businesses and creators. Maybe it is focused on, like we start, we have a focus of at least focusing on a promotion they've done, whether it worked or not, and like. Drilling down on it, or they share their top strategies that they see working. Um, but something around it doesn't have to be specific to it. Um, well, I think as well the, the clue might be in what you have both decided to call your company. You know, the, I love the, the, the phrase intentional spark. And when I first, uh, met you and thought it was just meta ads, it was like, well, that, that name doesn't make any sense to me. And now as I understand more about your business and you know, the, the role that you play as a partner throughout that entire process and like together, you, it almost feels like lighting a fire when you're out in bushcraft, you know, Yeah. You know, and I dunno if that was the intention. I mean, you do live in Oregon, so it's kind of your state, right? It's your, your way of being. Yeah. Well what was funny is we started the business right around the time, uh, marijuana started getting legalized. So then everyone thought we were some kind of marketing agency for weed.'cause it was like intentional spark. And so we were like, no, no, no. It's the idea of spark of an idea, but in not random. Right? Like you can intentionally Yeah. Market grow, have have a real good creative idea and, and be intentional about it.'cause most people, it's like throwing spaghetti against the wall when they're doing so. So to me that's it. It's like, come and interview people about their intentional spark. Like what? And that would be like a marketing process from beginning to end. Right? What was their goal? How did they get people in top of funnel? Yeah. How did they nurture them through? What is the average life cycle of somebody from opt-in to, I'm thinking about the, the people in my head where the people in my head that you work with, that may not be typical of all your clients, but those kind of, coaches and online consult. I like that. I like it. Keeping it around. Yeah.'cause we could maybe, maybe it's, we interview creators who have grown to a certain level, which is most of our clients. But talk about like, what was that first intentional spark that actually took you to that next level, right? Yeah. Where you actually found traction, like what worked? That's a cool idea. Yeah. Or even of the most recent campaign or Yeah. yeah. And, and. Yeah. I, I, to me, the thing is that when, if you look through the conversations that I have, it's for example, I interviewed, the, my own design agency that I use. And that's really because I've got a, a lifelong, appreciation of design and it's, ability to influence. Did they do your website? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did. And you have an amazing website. Thank you. Well, that is unbelievable, Jasmine. It's like my inspiration now. I wanna redo our website, but it's unbelievable. It's so HiFi powerhouse, absolutely incredible agency working with, predominantly online businesses and creators, and it was a very. Intentional pivot from, when we pivoted our target audience, we needed it to look different. And it was a, it was an uncomfortable process to go through. But for example, I, I interviewed Jasmine because I think lots of people know that things look nice. They don't necessarily know why they work well in this, you know, designers having such an influence of'em in this world. Whereas I come from a branding background. So I was really curious to see kind of like how those things have intersected and have a conversation with her about how it can be this huge, influencing factor, but so little, so few businesses are actually leveraging it in the way that they could. So it is, it is often, it, it's often like if you've got unresolved questions, if you're looking at something and thinking, I wish I could just have a chat with'em about that. You know, like, why did they choose to do it that way? Or there's gotta be some thought process around that I'm not getting, and I like it and I'm not sure why. That to me, is a sign. That I probably need to have a chat with that person. And whether they wanna have a chat with me or not, I don't know. But generally when I ask people, they say yes. and we, you do end up finding common ground. It's, it's bizarre. Recently I, in the summer, it was a bit of a quiet period in terms of the stuff that I was doing. My kids were off and I didn't really have set work hours, but I was missing talking to people. So I just sent an email out to my email list, it's like 5,000 people. And I said, I feel like I don't really talk to many of you on a one-to-one basis, but if you'd like to come on a podcast, I'd love to have a chat with you. And then, and I've had the most fascinating conversations with people who are just on my list out of that. It's not necessarily become work. That wasn't really the intention there, but it's given me a really good, it's, it's given me some closer connections with, it feels less like I'm shouting into the void basically, when you have an intentional conversation with somebody on your email list. But also just show me how diverse those people are, what their goals are, and the, regardless of who I was speaking to, there was, there was a level of connection that you couldn't really anticipate until you got on a call, just as a curious, interested person, human to human. Yeah, I think that's so true. Uh, so I don't know how long you wanted this interview though. We've been going for over an hour, so I wanna, I know, I wanna make sure I'm a good host here since I'm, I took over. Is there any question you wish I had asked that I haven't yet? no. I mean, I, I, I am conscious of some of the things that I would be thinking if I was, if I was listening to this and thinking, well, that all sounds great, but why would you plunge into the unknown knowing you might not see return on investment in terms of at least, even if it's not an expensive exercise. The time that you spent on it. And I, I think my resistance would be around that. And, I really, we are working really hard to quantify that in lots of different ways with, our systems team to make sure we're capturing the difference. But what we do know is that when you are showing up consistently and you're growing your audience, and we tackle both of those things inside of Authority Builder, you are having many, many times more sales calls. You are, your audience is growing, maybe not exponentially because it will depend on your demographic, but you are growing your audience in a way that, you've not seen happen before because you are literally showing up. You are doing this thing and you're being human. And, and, one thing that feels really good is, which I think is worth mentioning, is that, I, it is partially to do with the commit political climate and partially to do with the amount we use machines and AI these days. But, A lot of people, I often get the comment, oh, isn't it too late to start a podcast? Is that everybody's written a book? It's like, well, the thing is, I think the more opportunities you've got to create, a a kind of level of connection through listening to your voice. I see that typically offer return on investment time and time again in, in terms of, how close people feel to you and understand you and get what you're talking about. And also in terms of the time it takes to have multiple sales calls with somebody being eliminated because they feel like they kind of know your process already. So yeah, it does take some faith. but I've not seen it fail and I really encourage, I, for me, I think you answered it for me. I mean, number one, I think it's, it's true with all of these things, we're always 10 years too late. And you should also just do it now.'cause 10 years ago podcasts, you were too late for podcasts. And how many people have grown huge podcasts since then, right. Or generated. But so like even now, 10 years from now, there'll be podcasts to start today. That'll be massive, right? Yeah. But I think where you've convinced me and answered that question is you're, like, you're saying who cares if you grow an au You're not trying to necessarily grow an audience with this. and what attracts me to it is I'm, as someone who's now really committed to putting out content, we've done the newsletter for 52 straight weeks. We're doing a monthly unique webinar workshop every month. creating content is hard, and if you can create long form content in one platform, like a podcast, you can then turn that into a lot of different content, right? Social clips, quotes for social, you know, email. Other people will share it. so I think for me that answers the, what if no one listens or what, because I, it's not even, it's who cares? people will listen is the answer, but that's not even the point. it has so many other benefits, which is I think, really exciting, to work on. So you've excited me. I hope other people are gonna start too. Absolutely. And as you were just speaking then, I just totted up how many pieces of content we create from every podcast episode. Yeah. We do this with clients for ads. Like, we're just give us all your funny controversial clips from your podcast of you just saying three sentences. Right? And those can often be great ads or at least great beginnings of ads. Yeah. which is something I how many times if you're on TikTok or reels, it's all you see are podcast interviews sometimes, right? Like all Yeah. Amy Kohler, her new podcast is the only thing I see on TikTok right now. people love, that's a thing. Love podcasts. People love podcast clips. Yeah. So, yeah, know, that's quotable quotes. You know, we, we are creating 18 pieces of content from every podcast episode. And, and then if, I mean, if you're still writing a blog, I, that multiple blog posts could be turned from, turned from transcripts, email newsletters. Like, I think there's a lot of things you could do with that, even if you never published the podcast, right? It it immediately becomes this transcript. But yeah, you also then create a connection with someone. And to your point, I do know that, I've never said no to a podcast interview request. I don't, I don't ask how big their audience is. I'm like, I can sit down for an hour with anyone and talk. Yeah. So it's a much easier a yes for people too than like hop on a sales call or anything like that. Absolutely. And what, when I see people like send out emails for joint venture, kind of like. Webinar, email share things like I do a workshop for your audience, you do a workshop for mine. I'm like, yeah, that's great. And I do do that, but there's so much more effort than just having a chat for an hour. Right. And, and that in many ways is something that will reach more people.'cause you're not asking them then to do another optin to receive it. Yeah. but I'll give you another example of what I'm gonna do. Like after we finish up today, I'm gonna take the transcript from this call and I'm mindful that we will be going to a promotion period for Author Builder towards the back end of this year where it. October 28th, right now, probably in December, probably at the worst possible time to be launching something. No. Get in, people get in now before it's sold out, we'll be chatting to people about it. But I'm gonna take this transcript. I'm gonna be like, l let's extract out like at least 10 different emails, driving people, off on the themes from this conversation. Driving people to register for our, launch event, which will probably be a free live training where we explain in more detail like how to build your authority platform. Yeah. So, just like there's endless, once you start having conversations, you'll find loads of other uses for it. It's never a bad idea. most of us should be having more conversations with interested parties in our, in our kind of industry, shouldn't we? It's, yeah. And also, if, even if you're, you're running your own agency or you're a coach or consultant. And we still want referrals. And guess who gives referrals? Your podcast interviewees, right? Mm-hmm. I've gotten more referrals from the people who've interviewed me on their podcast than maybe anywhere else.'cause yeah, they, they're interviewing other people and the podcast ends and they're like, oh, you said you've been having this problem. Like, I know someone'cause they wanna be helpful. Yeah. And so it's just another way to get your name out there to people that are talking to a lot of people. something I just thought, I just, I had that realization right as you were saying that. Yeah. And that might even be part of your strategy about who you interview, right? Yeah. Okay. So this podcast is about to go viral. So for all, I don't think so. Oh, that is, that is not my intention. Not, it doesn't matter if it does. Right. We're not gonna hold that too tightly. But when it goes viral, the people that are new to you and not on your email list, how should they join your email list? Is that like what you would want them to do? Is that the next step? That they're not on it? Yeah. I would recommend that if you wanna come and join our free live training around Authority Builder, then being on our email list is the best way to, get access to that. And you can head to caffeine.co. That's KA double f, double e n.co. And there's an email opt in there. There's also a free training, which is not for Authority Builder, but is a good thing to absorb all the same and, and get into our world. And if you just wanna go four, the four part LinkedIn system for predictable high paying clients, that's, I'm signing up immediately. Yeah, yeah. It's that's awesome. It's, yeah, it's great. And actually the next one we're gonna be doing is we used to do it like weekly and then we did it three times a week. And actually now we're putting our all into, a big live event that we've got coming up on the 6th of November. We've already got 250 people who want to come, which is a bit overwhelming. I need to, yeah, I need to practice. That's amazing. Yeah. That's exciting. Yeah, it's really exciting. but if you wanna find out more about Authority Builder specifically, you can head to caffeine.co and then click on the authority builder link at the top or just go to slash authority builder and then you'll find all of the information about it there. And what, if I'm on the email list, what should I do? What if I'm ready to work with you? Yeah, if you're ready, book a call. you can always book a call with us and, I'd love to chat with you. I will put the link to book a call in the show notes and we can, we can have a chat through. Awesome. Always important to have a couple CTAs at the end of your podcast. I'm, I'm, I'm learning to be a host. Can I lit anything? I'm learning to be a host here. Well, thank you Charlotte, for letting me hijack the podcast and ask you all the questions that I hope, you know, they helped me. So I hope me as a, probably a avatar for a lot of your audience, helps a lot of people. but I definitely took a ton of value outta this, so I'm excited to put this into action. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And, also, we recorded another episode recently. It's probably gonna come out, oh, I dunno, before or after this one. But basically look out for Tony. There's more Tony on the podcast, so, oh. Yeah. If you enjoyed this, hopeful, enjoy. If you enjoy this, you'll like the next one. Otherwise, I feel bad for you. A lot more of me talking. Well, thank you again, Tony. Speak soon. All right, thanks.