Chasing Financial Freedom
Chasing Financial Freedom
Ep 309 | Unlock These 3 Strategic Techniques to Amplify Business Growth Through Podcasting
Unlock the hidden potential of podcasting as a powerful marketing tool with insights from Nicole Grinnell, a dynamic entrepreneur and seasoned business owner. Nicole's journey from the staffing industry to embracing podcasting reveals how small businesses can tell their stories without breaking the bank. Her clients, initially hesitant, quickly realized the transformative impact of podcast appearances, leading to enhanced trust and increased referrals. Nicole shares her expertise on how podcasting can streamline your sales process by creating genuine connections and fostering business growth.
Explore the strategic benefits of podcasting with Nicole as we uncover how this medium can elevate your brand and credibility. Learn how to repurpose podcast content across platforms like TikTok and Instagram to maximize reach and engagement. Nicole also emphasizes the importance of selecting the right guests, aligning them with your goals to maintain professional relationships. With a structured approach to guest appearances, including crucial pre-calls, you'll generate quality referrals and attract high-caliber clients.
Consistency is key to success, as Nicole illustrates through her own podcasting endeavors. Discover why maintaining a regular presence builds an online network and enhances brand recognition. Nicole highlights the importance of setting realistic expectations and committing to long-term podcasting efforts for tangible results. Offering educational support, she addresses client challenges with coaching and digital courses, ensuring they harness podcasting's full potential. Join us to explore exciting developments at Mic'd Up Booking, where new opportunities are on the horizon, and learn how podcasting can expand your business horizons.
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Hey guys, ryan DeMint from Chasing Financial Freedom podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day. Today on the podcast we have Nicole Grinnell, and Nicole is a two-time founder and business owner, but I want to give a little bit of her background because I think it's going to be quite interesting for what we're talking about today. Nicole's a two-time business owner and founded Mic'd Up Booking. Driven by her firsthand experience of the power of podcasting to the power of podcasting, which we all know how well podcasting does, her desire is to extend the powerful tool to fellow entrepreneurs and business owners and I think that'll be a great topic to talk about. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, ryan, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:You're more than welcome. So thank you for waiting. I know it was a little bit of a wait, but I look forward to having a conversation with you. But before we get into what you're doing and so forth, can you give the listeners a little bit about your background and who you are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Like you mentioned. You gave a great description there. I actually started out in staffing that's my primary company and along the way we were serving a lot of small business owners and ultimately they came to that point of, hey, I don't have the budget to bring in a huge marketing team, but I need exposure and I want my story out there. And so we honestly, just out of finding a solution for our clients, started looking into podcasting, and I find that a lot of great businesses come out of a solution that may be right in front of their nose. And so a couple of years ago, we launched Mic'd Up Fully, which was really the idea of finding other ways for entrepreneurs, small business owners, to really get their message out and their story out in a economical way and, honestly, one that we felt was bringing the most ROI that we were seeing from our clients.
Speaker 1:Where, when you and I'm just going to dive right in, so when you were first starting it up and so forth was there a lot of pushback from entrepreneurs and small business owners saying, hey, I don't want to go on podcast, type of thing, or they just didn't understand it, or was there a mix?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a mix, but it was almost this underground service we had. So we were really in the hiring role. But inevitably we would be talking with our clients and you know, seeing what they were forecasting for their needs, and they would say you know, a big problem for me is marketing social media. How do I get my name out there? I feel like if I'm talking with a potential client, it's a really great conversion rate. I have a great discussion. How do I 10x that? And so we would say we have this thing, we know how to get people on shows, it's really great opportunity.
Speaker 2:But we weren't really marketing it because it really didn't fit in our staffing company. So they would give it a whirl. We were doing it for rock bottom pricing because that really wasn't our company or our service. And then the results just became immediate and they started seeing oh wow, I'm getting so many introductions and referrals. And so, honestly, about five years ago I started doing it myself and using that as my number one sales tool, and so from there we really began to hone in, actually develop a process and a service for it and then be able to take that to market to our clients. So I think initially it was probably a little bit of desperation from them and a little bit of us band-aiding a solution for them, but ultimately they were getting great results.
Speaker 1:It's initially a tough sell. I know in the spaces that I'm in with entrepreneurs and so forth, they seem to have a hesitancy to be good just to come on a podcast. I'm like it's two people having a conversation, or maybe there's multiple people, whatever the case is. But once you have that conversation and you're just able to naturally be yourself and discuss whatever topics you're discussing, it changes people's minds. And I'm not trying to bring political stuff up, but if you think about Joe Rogan and who he has on his shows, it really helped out. That's a game changer in that sense, because there's not a very many.
Speaker 1:You don't hear very many politicians going on podcasts and we can learn from it. There's a lot of things that we can learn. As a host of two podcasts I tend to I don't. I do get invited to a lot of podcasts. I'm very picky on where I go because I have one not enough time but two. I want to bring value and I think that's another piece that we'll have to talk about is how much value do you bring to that conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you touched on a lot of points because and I felt this myself and I felt like a lot of my clients felt this is that we really, you know, struggled with a way to connect and people wanted to understand who they were doing business with. Connect and people wanted to understand who they were doing business with so much. Like you mentioned with the Joe Rogan right, that's an unedited loosely of the person truly telling their own story. So, even if we just take that angle and I know we'll get into other aspects of the benefits but that was a great sales cycle shortener, right Because they had heard my story I was also using this in sales follow-ups, pushing it out to my newsletter, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So by the time they came to me, they were already bought in. They loved that they were connecting with me on being a small business owner, that I grew up in, small business, my approach to recruiting, whatever that was, and so then it just became now let me learn about their needs and how we can service it. But I was past the point of proving who I was or proving what we could do, and I think that is the biggest piece of podcasting that helps business owners and companies grow fast is really being able to get that out there. So I love that you brought that up, because we have certainly seen that to be true.
Speaker 1:And I think podcasting excuse me, podcasting can help anybody, because I'm also in the real estate space and we do affordable housing and so forth, and you would be amazed how many realtors and mortgage loan originators, brokers, whatever don't want to come on a podcast and talk, just have a conversation and I'm like you don't have to pitch your business, you can tell people who you are and what you do. But it's just a natural conversation and I still don't understand the hesitancy on some folks part to not want to come on.
Speaker 2:I think it's a couple of things at least. The objections I've heard are typically like I've done a podcast. Nothing came of it, which I will always do. We didn't do it right. You didn't actually do it. You had a conversation but you didn't do what the intent is or what am I going to say? Who am I? What's my story? Everyone has a story and, to use your examples a realtor, broker or whatever you can throw a rock and hit a realtor right Especially so.
Speaker 2:How do you set yourself apart? What makes you unique? Why do people want to work with you? Is it education? Is it your background? Is it your network? So it's only just helping build that credibility and for me, I'm such an efficiency person that when I first started doing it, I realized I'm tapping into networking right. You and I would have never met outside of doing something like this. I'm able to tell my story, it's creating content and validity for me, it's helping with SEO and it was a one-stop shop. So that's why I say, yeah, you've done a podcast, but you haven't done it correctly. You didn't take advantage of all the benefits that it really brings. Repurpose that, and we're all strapped for time. So if I can do a 30 minute or an hour podcast and hit all those fronts once a week. I'm never going to get that bang for a buck trying to go to a networking event, create content, post it out myself, and so that's really the education we try to bring to our clients.
Speaker 1:I love it. So I'm going to just jump right in and get to the point where I always ask everybody is for the entrepreneurs, small business owners that are hesitant for really getting on podcasts and so forth, what would be three nuggets you could give them today that would help them or reassure them, but, better yet, give them a better idea that podcasting is one here to stay. But two is a great marketing tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think, first and foremost a big objection that I was there, truly, of just what am I going to say? Who wants to hear me? But you have to get over yourself and realize if I'm advocating or explaining my story, no one is right. So I have to be my own representative sales, whatever you want, like, I have to get to that place to be able to advocate for myself. And if you truly believe in what you're doing, you're going to want to bring that solution to the market.
Speaker 2:So, getting over that mental hurdle and then really looking at take some time to look at your calendar Like, how many networking things are you going to? Let's be honest, you go to one event. That's half your day, right, and so really saying, okay, what is that yielding me? What if I had and you touched this a little bit a curated audience, because that's part of our process is, we're not gonna get, you're not gonna be a realtor that happens to be on Golden Retrievers monthly, right? Like we wanna hone in on your audience and people that can be a referral source and clients for you. Where do you get that in networking? We all have gone to the B&Is, the chambers, the after social clubs where we see the same group of people. There's maybe 1% in there. That's for us. What if you had 90 to 100% of your listeners that were for you? So that's number two. And then number three and we touched a little bit on it is just that content that comes for you. So that's number two. And then number three and we touched a little bit on it is just that content that comes from it.
Speaker 2:You are now establishing yourself as that expert, that thought leader. I can't tell you how many times I will have a sales call with someone and maybe they're shrugging to delegate and I'm able to say, hey, I pulled this episode, I did on top 10 ways to delegate as a business owner. Take a listen while you're out on a walk. I think this will help you walk through things. Now I'm not coming across as I'm selling. I'm truly just trying to bring value while also establishing my credibility in the marketplace. Right, they're not just hearing from me. They're hearing a conversation between a host and myself. So I think between looking at your schedule, finding that curated audience, having that content created and then you telling your story in your own voice, is just going to lead to better referrals, better sales funnels and honestly better clients.
Speaker 1:Definitely better clients, for sure. The thing that really sticks out for podcasting for me is this is you've said it multiple times we get to tell our story, but then the piece that we've touched on is how you've got all this content that you get to go out and share and be able to parse it out. There's so many tools today that you can use to be able to get that information out in front of people, and I don't know if the entrepreneurs are hesitant on that too, but there's just so many ways. Once we're done with your podcast, I'll put it up on our platform, and then I have a virtual assistant that'll slice and dice it. We'll get the full video up, and then I've got tools that'll put us in shorts, so I can go on TikTok, we can go on Instagram reel, we can go on Facebook reels. It's just, it's crazy. You can get your, you can get your work out there. You just have to be willing to do it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's back to the point. Earlier, like you, you didn't do it right and so really making sure to capitalize. You have literally golden content that's been given to you of your own story in a validity experience being used for sales cycles, for social media content. Link it back to your website. There's just I like I don't want to keep beating on it, but it's such a bang for your buck in things that business owners are all struggling to do to find content, to find the right audience, to get their voice out there, and this is just really a one-stop shop.
Speaker 1:Love it. So you're currently is Mic'd Up still active.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, it's very active. We've been doing this for eight years, but Mic'd has been established, for we're coming up on three years.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and then your primary clients are entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Speaker 2:I would say coaches, authors, and then, yeah, any of the small business owners and entrepreneurs, Anyone that really doesn't have a geographic restriction on their services, even though we do have a lot of people that do focus on one area and they want to use it more for their story. But if you are certainly a nationwide international opportunity, it's a fantastic option for you.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I get bombarded probably I don't know about daily, but pretty close to daily, with people that want to introduce potential guests for my podcast, and there is a big difference in people, I should say how they introduce their client, their potential, their clients to me, but then also how they actually follow up and I want to. I'm sure that's something similar to you guys. Is that something you guys do? You'll reach out to potential podcasts get a match, so forth.
Speaker 2:Is that correct? Yeah, so our primary service is truly getting guests on podcasts, but the biggest piece of that is coaching our clients to understand how to do podcasts right. So truly having them work through all of those things that we've discussed. But, yes, the main goal is to get your presence out there. You work with a direct booking agent Everyone's U-based. So if you are with Ashley, ashley is going to be your person. She's going to manage that for your calendar. She'll do all your follow-ups Because, yeah, a big thing that you just touched on there is huge, a lot of people and you can. There are ways for you to self-represent yourself. We find that hosts want to work with people that have been vetted. We will fire a client if you keep showing no, showing Like. Our relationships with our hosts are very important and we really work there as their PR agent, so to speak, and making sure, like you are where you're supposed to be, you're taking advantage of the opportunities and we're going to have good follow-ups with our hosts because it is a relationship builder.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, for sure, one of the big things that is a red flag for me and I could be off, but it's just me. If I have a potential guest that does not want to do a pre-call with me, I just I struggle with that because I want to get to know him or her first, have that 10 or 15 minutes so we can have some rapport. I don't like it just to be cold, even though I know it's been a while since you and I had one but at least I knew what you were doing, what you were up against, so forth. And I'm just going to tell a brief story.
Speaker 1:I got a booker that called me the week before last about some guests that they've been pitching for some time and I've avoided them. And I finally picked up the phone and just said hey, what's going on? And they said you need to have this person on your show now and I'm like that'd be great, but my shows are booked out till the first quarter of 2025. So I'm just I'm booked and I said I'm not doing any pre-calls and he goes you don't have to do pre-call, this guy's a stud portfolio, blah, blah, blah. The one thing that just really rubbed me the wrong way is that. He tells me, this booker tells me that I need to have better guests on my show and I'm like and you want me to have your guests on my show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just it rubbed me the wrong way. But those are the things that a lot of people don't talk about in the podcasting world is there's a lot of nuances back and forth with being a host, but I also know the pains that go through for a guest to get on, just like you and I met on Podmatch, love the platform, love the interactions, love what Alex is doing over there. I wish there was more of that platform. It just doesn't. It's a great tool.
Speaker 2:It is a great tool it.
Speaker 1:I sorry, I just went tangent. That, just that, that.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's really important because it's we say this a lot like it's not transactional. The goal of this is to build a relationship. You hosts are in an awesome space of wanting to educate, inform, connect, so you want to show up with that energy as well. Right, like you want to make that connection and we walk our clients through that as well, because, yeah, yeah, we're not taking advantage of a host and just get me on the airways. We truly want to be in the right audience, the right space and hopefully that leads to great referrals from the host and their audience.
Speaker 2:And we really honor hosts in our space and want to make sure that we're bringing guests that way and to your point with the pre-call, as a good guest. You also don't want to walk in cold, right, like, I want to understand audience. I want to understand what's going to be of value to them. We really teach our clients. This is not a commercial. You're not going on there and being like hey, for $9.99, sign up here. We want to know your story. We want you to connect with the audience and bring value, and so that's really what we want our clients to be coming in to the shows as that's really what we want our clients to be coming in to the shows as, because podcasting is a great tool.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that I wanted to jump into is, as you, if you guys have built your model out and have you guys looked at other forms other than podcasts? When I say that is so, for some podcasts are not always video. Some will just do audio, and when you combine the audio and video together, it's really changed the way my podcasts come out and what we get in eyeballs and downloads and likes and so forth. Is that something that you will differentiate with your clients to whether they come on an audio only or a video audio podcast?
Speaker 2:We haven't really discriminated either way. We obviously let the client know what they're walking into and we want them to be prepared, whether it's audio or video. But as far as, like the back end of what's doing better, we believe that really all content is going to be working for good here. What we see every imaginable host platform coming in, whether it's video. I did one not long ago that was almost like a game show environment. We and I'm my own guinea pig honestly, like the team, will book me on things to really understand that experience and get to know hosts more. But yeah, I certainly believe that the video plus audio is a game changer. People are going to YouTube, tiktok, seeing clips, so I think it definitely enhances that experience. But, having said that, we would not decline one if it didn't have both represented.
Speaker 1:How often are you on a podcast I?
Speaker 2:try to do about once a week and it's honestly a cadence that I give a recommendation for clients. For me personally, between my time and getting sick of hearing myself talk, I feel like one is probably good and I think that's probably what most people's schedules can lend themselves to. But having said that, sometimes we get an author coming in. My book launches in February. I need to hit it hard and we can ramp that up. So it really depends on what their goals are.
Speaker 1:So I talk about this a lot on other shows. But social media is a great tool. It's also it's got its downside, and one of the things that we talk about is you can't be a one hit video or a poster. So some of these, some of and I say kids because I'm 50 years old will come on and say man, you're getting some great likes and shares and stuff like that. And I said ask me how long it's taken me to get this far. Eight years, not an overnight success. And there's still a lot for me to do. And it's a challenge, to say the least. How do you set expectations for your clients, like that one entrepreneur, or whoever that was that basically went on one podcast and nothing happened. Him or her will have to go on probably 6, 12, 15 before you really start seeing a snowball effect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I liken it to anything that you have a long-term goal in, right. So if your goal is to start building a network, building an online presence, building validity, it's no different than going to the gym one time and like, why am I not down a pant size? Or even, for business terms, posting one social media post and being like how come I didn't get clients. So it is a ramping up For our own internal. We actually require a six-month commitment, and where that six-month comes from is that the amount of bookings you'll receive in those six months should yield you about 12 to 18 months of shows dropping, based on their schedules. So for us, if you are willing to make that six month commitment, you're going to have a year to a year and a half of shows dropping on your behalf. That then we can teach you to make sure that you're utilizing that. So it's a good value.
Speaker 2:We're not going to do 30 days and then you are upset that we didn't get a client. That's not how that works. You haven't even gone through a coaching program. You haven't seen those shows even drop yet. So those are some boundaries we set up after doing this for so long, of realizing we don't want clients walking away unhappy because they did it for 30 days and nothing happened. We truly want to teach them how to get the most out of this. But yeah, it's like anything right. I sent 10 sales emails. How come I didn't get a client?
Speaker 1:It is all a process and all building towards that goal. I love it because you just have to keep on building that muscle and going after being consistent, being persistent, and it's like anything in life If you don't work at it, how are you supposed to win? And showing up, to be on a podcast? And don't take this wrong, it's not hard. You just have to come in and have a conversation, like I've said. But I love what you say. You guys are helping them to tell their story and hitting the bullet points and so forth. We're having a natural conversation. I've never met you, I can't remember our intro call, but it's just flowing and that's just the conversation piece. And why would you not want to get out on a podcast and be able to get your message out there, to grow your business with a little work?
Speaker 2:I think it is an educational hurdle that once they get there, our client retention is very great because once people are in it and they get it and they're understanding the coaching, they're seeing the results right. But initially it's just this far off thing that maybe they see on Apple Podcasts and they download. But why would I be on there and who am I to talk and how does that translate? So if we can get past that hurdle and then really understanding it from the platform that it is, it's like the light bulb goes off and they're in and we've even started developing. We actually just launched one last week, some digital courses on it, because we found that our biggest hurdle in sales is just that educational factor, so trying to let them see from the beginning. This is why this works.
Speaker 1:Awesome. We're coming to the bottom of the hour and I wanted to ask you a couple other questions. I'm gonna throw them out there because I always like to do that. Are you currently bringing on new clients?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely yeah. We've got a great team over there and excited. We've got a lot of new things coming out for 2025. So we'd love to get to speak with any of your audience looking for that.
Speaker 1:That's great. And then if they want to reach out to you to discuss your services and so forth, where should they reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can go to our website, which is just mikedupbookingcom, or you can email me at Nicole at mikedupbookingcom.
Speaker 1:And I will put the website in the show notes too, so we'll make sure that happens. Nicole, thank you very much for coming on. It's been great. I really like that you're taking the stigma away from podcasting for entrepreneurs, because you're not the first person to tell me, but you're knee deep in it, because when I have some guests come on, they're hesitant to come out and have a conversation. It's like man, it's just two of us. Just think of it that way, and then a bunch of eyeballs will see it afterwards. If that's what you're looking for, that's great. But I love what you're doing because it's game changing and I love quality guests that come on that can share their story and bring value to our listeners.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I appreciate what you're doing because I know hosting is a big job and a real job, and vetting people and producing it, and so we thank you so much for even having our people on, and certainly me, because I know that it's real work and you're doing a great job educating and connecting people.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's fun, it's my passion projects. So I truly enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me, Ryan.
