The Proffitt Podcast
Are you thinking about starting a podcast? Launching a YouTube channel? Repurposing your old blog content into something fresh? Hi, I'm Krystal - host of "The Proffitt Podcast." And I'm happy to say you've come to the right place!
Business owners and content creators dream of building a platform where they can connect deeply with their audience, and marketing feels easy. But I also know what it's like to feel confused and overwhelmed.
Join us weekly as we strip down those processes and remove all the overwhelm with new tips, simple strategies, and great conversations with creators like you. Tune in to hear how I help creators start, launch, and market their content confidently. The motto here is, "We all have to start somewhere."
The Proffitt Podcast
Behind the Mic: Honest Answers to Your Content Creation Questions
What happens when you actually reply to my welcome emails? Your questions might turn into an entire podcast episode! That's precisely what happened when a new subscriber sent in some thought-provoking questions about content creation that I knew would benefit everyone in our audience.
Starting your content journey can feel overwhelming, particularly when faced with decisions like whether to begin with audio-only or video podcasting. Drawing from my experience of publishing over 1,500 episodes, I share why I recommend starting with whatever format makes you most comfortable. I began with just a $20 microphone (which now sits on my mantle as a reminder of how far I've come), and there's no shame in starting simple. The key is getting started and building confidence before adding complexity.
We also dive into crucial strategic questions, such as when to start monetizing your content (hint: make small asks from day one), what consistency really means for different creators, and whether platforms like Patreon are worth exploring. I share candid insights about why I've never used Patreon myself but know creators who've found great success with it. Additionally, I share my favorite content planning system—the PrepEm method—that helps creators integrate content into their lives rather than letting content creation dominate their schedule.
Whether you're just starting out or looking to elevate your existing content strategy, this episode offers practical advice without the fluff. Have questions of your own? I genuinely love hearing from you! Reply to my emails, leave a comment, or send me a message. And if you're enjoying the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts—I read every single one and might even answer your question in a future episode!
Ready to stop starting projects and never finishing them? Get the proven system that creates consistent content without the chaos. Get the PREP'M Method Now
Click the "Send Krystal a Text Message" link above to send us your questions, comments, and feedback on the show! (Pssst...we'll do giveaways in upcoming episodes so make sure you leave your name & podcast title.)
So this is a fun episode today because I love it when you actually reply to my emails. It is something that makes me so happy and, as part of our welcome sequence whenever a new subscriber joins our email list, we have a list of questions that we ask, and someone recently wrote in and their comments back to me like were open-ended questions. They were like actually I have a few more questions, like if you're willing to answer them, and I thought these are so fantastic and there's probably other people in the audience that have these same questions, so why don't I just answer them on our next episode? So that's what we're doing today. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time-saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we All right? Welcome back to another episode of the Proffitt Podcast. If we have not met, I'm Krystal Proffitt. I am your content coach and strategist, and today is going to be a fun one because it's going to be a combination of what this audience member, what their experience is, and I'm going to share the thoughts and feelings that I have about someone who's published 1,500 plus episodes and the experience I have with coaching others, in feeling more confident behind the microphone on stage and really creating that consistent content. So I'm going to leave today's submissions anonymous, so you're not actually going to know exactly who said it. But if you're listening to the podcast regularly and you know who you are, then I would love to give you a shout out in a future episode, but I'm going to keep you anonymous today. So the person that submitted these. Like I said, we have a welcome sequence. If you're brand new to email marketing and you have no idea what a welcome sequence is for creating your content, having a lead magnet, getting people on your list you're like that's a foreign language to me then make sure you check out our playlist all about email marketing for digital marketing or digital products. Make sure you check that out because it has a lot of beginner intro things that can help you grow your email list. But what I did is I have questions in the first email that you get from me if you're a brand new subscriber to my email list, and at the very end I ask people to answer these questions. Some people respond, some people don't, and that's totally okay, but it makes my heart so happy whenever y'all reply to my email. So please keep doing that, if there's some of you that are regularly replying to my emails. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. But this one I'm not going to read the original questions we have because, again, please go join my email list. You can go to krystalproffitt. com, go all the way to the bottom in the footer of my website, and there's a place for you to get regular updates. So make sure you go do that.
Krystal Proffitt:But this is what they said. They said one there's five things that we're talking about here today. One I'm keen to get started with a podcast, but I'm not sure I have the right space or backdrop. I wonder if it would be more successful with visual podcasting for myself and co-host, or if I should build videos that follow the audio content somehow. Now I in true coach, you know fashion. I followed up their question with a question, so I said back to them are you already comfortable with video? If yes, then I'd say lean into that. If not, then focus on audio only setup for now, with the intention to upgrade to a video setup in the future. This is how I got started and it's still a good approach.
Krystal Proffitt:And if you're listening or watching this today and you're wondering the same thing like how should I get started? Should I do audio and video? Should I just do audio? Should I just do video? I would say the same thing back to you Are you comfortable being on video? And some people will say, yeah, it's fine, I record social media content all the time. And some people will say, absolutely not. Like, I feel like I look like a troll that should live under a bridge and I don't have the self-confidence to do that yet. And that's perfectly fine, right? Maybe we need to work on some self-image issues, but that's the whole other thing. Right, we can absolutely work on building your confidence over time. But I will always tell people start with audio only first If video is something that feels foreign to you and you're just not comfortable with it. That is how I started and I will say it is a very different skill to be able to record videos Like I'm staring down the barrel of the camera right now.
Krystal Proffitt:Whenever I'm looking at this, I'm actually not even looking. If I were looking at myself, my eyes would be over here, but I'm looking down the barrel of the camera. I'm looking at this. I'm looking at my arm, I'm holding this, I'm looking at my notes. Like there's a lot going on whenever you are doing video. But when you were doing audio only, you could read a script verbatim and no one would ever know. You could also do the same with video.
Krystal Proffitt:If you want to invest in a fancy teleprompter and have this whole like expensive setup, but y'all, I'm cheap. I'm not going to do that. I've never invested thousands and thousands of dollars in having a full studio built out and like that was over time, like what you see today my fancy microphone. I have these acoustic panels in my office now, like I have this box light behind me. That was not what I started with at all. I started with a $20 microphone. Oh, actually, can we still see it? There we go. If you're watching on YouTube, it's a little blurry, but that microphone, right there, was $20 in 2018. That is still my original microphone and that is why it's up on the mantle. It's a shrine to the beginning of my podcast journey. It was $20. That's what I started with. There was no video. There was no video at all whenever I started and that one doesn't. There was no video at all whenever I started. And that one doesn't even have any settings on it. It literally plugs into my computer as a USB and that's it. That was the most investment that I was willing to make because, again, I'm cheap. So all of that to say please start with your content creation journey in whatever way you feel most comfortable and let us know in the comments Are you an audio only or a video person right now when you're creating content, or maybe you're about to start creating content? Let us know. We would love to hear from you.
Krystal Proffitt:But let's move on to the second thing that came up in this email to me. The second one says do you have any recommendations for marketing design for pics or videos or posts? That isn't Canva. Oh, and this one stumped me y'all. That's exactly what I said. I said I don't have other tools I recommend specifically for this type of work.
Krystal Proffitt:I use Canva for most of those tasks. I also have a video editor. Shout out to Jay, I know he'll do something fancy right here. Jay always does. He is my incredible video editor that handles my edits and he uses I believe this is true, jay, so correct me if this is not right. I believe that he uses the Adobe Suite for all the editing that he does so whether it's Premiere Pro or Photoshop I don't know if he uses Audition with some of those as well, but these are a lot more complicated tools. Like, I can barely use Premiere Pro, but for those video editors that are out there, they do incredible work and they can do super custom fancy things, but I just use Canva.
Krystal Proffitt:I use Canva for literally everything for designing PDFs, for designing deck designs, for my podcast movement talk, for my thumbnails, for images I'm going to use on my website, for promotional campaigns. I use Canva for everything. So I'm so sorry, listener, I was not able to give you other recommendations, but if you need something fancier than that, I highly recommend going and asking some design friends what they recommend. But Canva is my go-to. I used it literally for years. I've been using it since 2015, which sounds crazy because I've been using it for 10 years. I used the free version up until about the last three years, so you can do a lot with the free version. You mark my word, you can get a lot done.
Krystal Proffitt:All right, the next point. The next thing that they said is how did you know when to start funneling your content into paid premium stuff? Great question. I'm so glad that you asked this, so I'm going to give you my answer back to this person. First, it says my recommendation is to start pointing people to a product ASAP if you plan to monetize your content in that way, even if it's only a $20 book or recommended products that you love through affiliate marketing, because it's a lot harder to start making the ask of someone when you're months or even years into creating content and you've never made that CTA.
Krystal Proffitt:Audiences really don't respond well when you flip the switch on them. It's better to be transparent from the beginning. Now, if you've been a longtime listener, you've heard me tell this story before, where I was listening to a podcast. I loved it so much. It was incredible and they kept saying we will never sell you anything on this podcast. We will never sell anything on this show. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Guess what they did one day. Guess what they did. You know what they did. They were trying to sell something on their show, and it wasn't that they were trying to sell me something on their show. It was the fact that they had gone so far as to say it is a principle of our content, it is one of our deep values that we will never sell you anything on this show. And then they started promoting stuff on their show. So it pissed me off. They were not transparent about the whole thing and I was like I'm done. I'm done with this host and I never listened to that show anymore. Maybe that's really petty of me, maybe I just hold a grudge, I don't know, but this is how I feel about anyone that's going to be promoting stuff.
Krystal Proffitt:You start making CTAs from day one. From day one, even if it's just make sure you hit the follow and subscribe button or leave us a review, or go check out our website or download this free lead magnet, or go, you know, buy this $20 book on Amazon, or use this affiliate link I don't care what it is, but you should be making CTAs from day one if that is ever going to be an intention for your podcast and if you know, like right now you haven't started, you haven't launched, but you're like yeah, I want to eventually monetize this thing in some way. Make a CTA from the very beginning. Make your CTA. That way it gets a lot easier to do that as you continue on this journey, because it is really hard to backtrack whenever you haven't made any of those calls to action. And then you do it one day and you wonder huh, why is this not converting? Why is this not working for people? It's because you didn't ask them from the beginning. So I want to know your thoughts. So, if you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments how you feel about people making calls to action on their podcast or kind of flipping that switch. They never make any calls to action. Then all of a sudden one day they do Like, tell me, I want to know your thoughts and feelings about this. And then, if you're listening on the audio only version, hit that, send Krystal a text message button and let me know in fan mail. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and let's keep this conversation going. All right, let's move on to the fourth point that we have today.
Krystal Proffitt:So the question is do you utilize Patreon? If so, has your experience lived up to your expectations? I'll be really honest I don't use Patreon. Well, let me read exactly what I wrote back to this person. I says I don't use Patreon but I have a friend who does and has had great success with her Bedtime Stories podcast. She creates extra content for her subscribers, custom stickers and sends them personalized thank you notes. So Jordan Blair shout out she has the Dreamful podcast and is it's all about bedtime stories. You should absolutely go check it out. But she's done really well with Patreon because she gets so many downloads she says millions of downloads on her podcast and she loves doing Patreon because she doesn't want to have ad spots in her show.
Krystal Proffitt:People literally listen to her podcast, whether it's adults or children. To go to sleep. That is the whole purpose of it is like, and you have to go listen to her voice. Like maybe we can put in an audio clip or something of her show, but her voice is absolutely incredible to fall asleep to right what a compliment, jordan knows. I mean well and we've told her this before like your voice is so soothing and maternal and it's just. It's so delicious to listen to her and I think that it's really cool that she does this on Patreon because it allows her to give a shout out to her recent Patreon subscribers, and she can do that in the pre-roll or the post-roll of her episodes, but it doesn't have to be something that's jarring in the middle of an episode. If someone's like almost falling asleep and then it's like, and by the way, make sure you sign up for our Patreon. No, she doesn't do that. She didn't do that, so it works out really well for her. I know other people that have had great success, so I think it's absolutely worth checking out, but it's not something I personally do. All right, last point, all right.
Krystal Proffitt:Last question, last point for this episode. Today, the person wrote in and said how often do you post? And I said I publish one podcast episode per week, which is also turned into a YouTube video with the same content. Now, this is what consistency looks like for me. This doesn't have to mean this is what consistency looks like for you Like for me. This doesn't have to mean this is what consistency looks like for you, and I am a firm believer that everyone has their own version of what showing up consistently looks like. So figure out what that looks like for you.
Krystal Proffitt:For me, I love showing up once a week. It feels like the right cadence for me to be in front of my audience, to be present, to continue showing up in a regular way, but for some people that's daily, but for some people that's daily and for some people it's monthly. I know some people that only put out quarterly podcasts. So it's totally up to you on what that looks like. But at the end of the day, find something that works with your lifestyle, both personally and professionally, and what you have going on, and make sure it's something that you can commit to, because that's the thing that I find is, once someone really commits to what they're doing, it's almost impossible to keep showing up as long as you've created a content system that works really well for you and how you plan and record.
Krystal Proffitt:And if you've never heard me talk about this before, please check out our PrepEm method. That's P-R-E-P-E-M. I actually have a download that I'll link here. It's go to KrystalProffitt. com/PREPM and you can download our free guide where I dive into the details of what the PrepEm method is. But it's really a content system. It's the only content system that you need to help you stay consistent, help you publish regular content and really fit your content into your lifestyle instead of the other way around, because I find so often that people try to shove in their content in these weird places and their content ends up running their lives when really it should be something that fits seamlessly and naturally into what you're already doing on a regular basis. So please go check that out and we'll link to a video, too, where I do a deeper dive into the method here that we use at Proffitt Media for every single piece of content that we create media for every single piece of content that we create.
Krystal Proffitt:But again, please reply to my emails if you have questions. I think people get surprised when they email me and I email them back and I give them actual resources and answers and responses to their questions. So we love to hear from you. So leave us a comment if you're watching on YouTube, or send us a fan mail if you're listening to the audio-only version, again watching on YouTube, or send us a fan mail if you're listening to the audio-only version. Again, you can hit that send Krystal a text message button and I read all of those, and some of those even get featured in upcoming episodes of the podcast. So please reach out to us. We love hearing from you, but that's all I have for you today. So make sure you hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you are listening and watching today and I haven't made this call to action in a while but if you are a podcast listener, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast.
Krystal Proffitt:We actually haven't gotten any new reviews in a while and I'm remembering it's because I haven't asked. I haven't asked for podcast reviews in a minute. So if you do have a question, I would actually love to see what is your question. Tell us that in a podcast review, because that's another fun way for you to get reviews. So I always do this thing where I like teach you the thing, I tell you how to do it, but I'm also doing it. It's very meta around here. I know it's a podcast about podcasting, it's YouTube videos about YouTube videos, but this is what we do here at Proffitt Media. So I would love to hear from you, but I'm gonna leave you with this, and this is how I end all of our episodes, and that is keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.
