Martha Stewart Called; She Wants You To Sell Something Too

The ground under creators is always moving, and that’s not a threat—it’s an invitation. We open up about what it feels like to outgrow an old niche, why that’s a healthy signal, and how to turn a shifting identity into a resilient business. If you’ve relied on sponsored posts, ad revenue, or platform payouts, this conversation offers a practical path to stability: own your audience, solve one clear problem, and build offers that deliver results.

We trace the journey from early success with brand partnerships to a model centered on email lists, product thinking, and direct customer relationships. You’ll hear why rented reach can’t be a strategy, how to map the real reasons people follow you, and what it takes to transform that trust into sustainable revenue. We share concrete guidance on creating products or services—courses, templates, workshops, memberships, or done-for-you offers—that meet your audience where they are today, not where they were five years ago.

Along the way, we address the market forces you’re feeling right now: platform rule changes, shifting incentive programs, and AI replacing top-of-funnel searches. Rather than chase algorithms, we show how to protect your growth with segmentation, lifecycle emails, and a simple product ladder that scales your impact. Expect honest stories, clear steps, and a mindset shift: change isn’t a detour from your brand—it’s the engine that keeps it alive. If you’re ready to pivot with purpose and build something durable, hit play, subscribe for more deep dives, and leave a review with the one offer you’re committed to launching next.

Chapters

• 0:01 Outgrowing Your Original Niche
• 0:36 Embracing Personal Evolution
• 1:48 From Sponsorships To Ownership
• 2:45 Build Products For Real Problems
• 4:16 Stop Renting Audiences
• 5:15 Market Shifts And The AI Wake-Up
• 6:08 Email Loyalty And Sustainable Growth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Have you found yourself almost outgrowing the content that you have created? For some of us who have been around for a very long time and might have started off as a mom blogger, you may have noticed that you've kind of outgrown it. You're not looking to do the most random things of putting together activities for kids because now you don't have itty-biddies anymore. Maybe you have teenagers. The content that the way in which you talk, the stories that you share, are going to come from a different side of who you've become. One of the things that Benjamin Hardy talks about is that you cannot know the person that you will be in five years. You can try to determine what that's going to be. But if you look back five years ago, would you have thought that you are doing what you are doing now? And that's something that you have to be thinking about. You have to go into it with the idea of you are going to change. You are going to grow as a person. You are going to have experiences in your life that are going to change the way that you view the world. We are going to experience times in the world that are going to change the way that we may see other people or think about the way the world that we live in. And because of that, it doesn't make your content invaluable because it's not along the same lines that you've always been. It just makes you being able to understand who you are and where you need to take your people. So it's okay to outgrow the content that you might have been creating or the audience that you might have been trying to attract. And as you are hearing this week, this is something that is very near and dear to my heart because it is something that's kind of happened with me. I started off, for those that are not familiar with my journey, I started off the podcast Influencer Entrepreneurs at a time when I had put together my first course. I had put together Pitch Perfect Pro, which taught those bloggers, influencers that had an audience to leverage to learn how to be able to do sponsored content for brands. And that course was very successful. But as I continued to grow and really start to talk more and more to that audience, I knew that you couldn't just live off of sponsored content. You needed to diversify your income. And one of the ways in which you had to do this was to have a product or service of your own. I talk a lot about growing your email list and making sure that you are attracting an audience online that is the right audience for you, not simply growing a social media platform to attract random people. And if you are doing that, how are you leveraging it? Are you making sure to grow your email list with them and offer them a product or service that you have? This is a business owner. And I think that those who still believe they can stay in the lane of an influencer and are going to become the next Martha Stewart and have their own cooking show, need to really start to think about even Martha Stewart has products and services as she offers her audiences. Even if you get to that point, there are other ways in which you can leverage that audience by continuing to solve their problems. They're coming to you, they're finding you because you solve a problem for them. It's important that you continue to offer them that solution through products and services. Whether you are an international speaker in a very specific niche, you still want to have your own product or service to be able to offer to them. So as you start to grow your brand and really better understand where you were trying to go and where you were wanting to take your business, if you notice that you are starting to grow an audience that is looking to you to speak to their audiences or to go onto their podcasts or to come on to national television, how are you continuing to help that audience? What product or service can you offer them? I really want to stress this because that is where, in order to be a business owner, you have to start thinking of going. You cannot solely rely on outside platforms like social media to be able to supply you with an audience that you are then going to leverage in order to work with a brand or in order to continue that route of going after page views because you're going to get ad money from it, or you're trying to grow on Facebook because Facebook is going to pay you to have a certain number of followers and a certain amount of reach. That is not a consistent business model because I can tell you right now, Facebook has done that three different times in the past five years. And they change the rules and they change the game and they get rid of that revenue stream for those individuals that were early adopters to whatever it is they're pushing out. They get to a point where they want it, they pay them, and then they're done with that program. And you are out that income. You're growing a revenue stream that you can't even totally utilize. So instead, focus on that audience that you have, the reason that they come to you, the problem that you solve for them, and provide them with a product or service that is yours, that you can better understand what they want from you so that you can potentially expand upon it, making it better, giving more value with it, and be able to continue to grow your business. I really want, I know I'm honing in on this whole idea of it being good, okay to pivot and understanding and outgrowing your audience, but it's because this is very real for me right now. It is my honest of what not only is it real for me in the sense of who I want to be speaking to, but it's also very real because of the market. We're watching AI come in, and as many bloggers like to say, their income is being taken away because now you're just going to AI and you're asking for a recipe instead of going to those food sites. Well, instead of making it simple and easy for people to be able to not have that connection with you where they're not on your email lists or only looking for you on social media, instead, grow a list that then provides them with a product or service that is specific so that they are loyal to you. When you have people that are on your list, that is what happens.