Is a podcast something you’ve been dreaming about adding to your business? In today’s episode, my own podcast producer, Haylee Gaffin, joins us to discuss how you can leverage your podcast as a marketing tool in your business. Listen in as she highlights where to get started if you’re considering launching, plus she’s even sharing specific ways to make money in your business through your podcast!

The Branded by Bernel Podcast is brought to you by Bernel Westbrook, lead designer and founder of Branded by Bernel, a design studio dedicated to building strong brands and Showit websites for creative entrepreneurs.

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Entrepreneurs in Podcasting

Podcasting is a growing industry, especially in the entrepreneur space. Hosting a podcast is a valuable way for business owners to set themselves up as an expert, while also growing their business. Let’s review what you need to know about podcasting as an entrepreneur!

Where to Start When You Want to Launch a Podcast

Starting a podcast is an exciting experience, but before you get started, there are a few things to consider. It’s ideal to start with understanding why you want the podcast to happen, what your goal is of the podcast, and who your audience is going to be. In knowing those things, it’s really going to help you navigate the entire planning and launch process for your podcast.

Leveraging a Podcast for Your Business

In planning your podcast as an entrepreneur, you should consider how you could leverage your podcast for your business. This is where knowing your goal is so important. Let’s review a few ways that you can leverage your podcast!

Establishing Yourself as an Expert & Building Trust on Your Podcast

Creating a podcast that provides value and serves your audience is an ideal way to set you up as an expert in your industry and field. A podcast gives you the platform to connect with your ideal customer, share your knowledge as the expert, and provide the value they need in order to trust you. This makes converting your listeners into leads seamless.

Using Your Podcast to Market Your Business

Speaking of converting listeners into leads, your podcast can be used as a direct marketing tool for your business. From organically talking about your services or products to running ads on your show, getting in front of your listeners with what you offer is essential when leveraging your podcast for business.

A simple way to do this while building trust is to provide valuable content related to a service or product you sell that prepares your listener to get started. Once you’ve done that, you can provide your offering to listeners to help them get there even faster. Whether you’re providing a service that will take the work off their plate or a product that will make the transformation easier, marketing them is ideal when the content is related.

Building a Library of Resources with Your Podcast’s Show Notes

Now, podcasting is somewhat of a long-game. Once way to take this value even further is to create optimized show notes for your listeners. Optimized show notes are ideal for creating a solid search engine optimization strategy, which gets your website, podcast, and services seen by more people, potentially even ideal clients.

This also helps build a library of resources for your business. For each and every new episode that you drop on your show, new listeners that find you in the future have all of that content to go back to and binge.

Advertising on Podcasts

While we’ve established that paid ads aren’t the only way to make money on your podcast, that doesn’t mean they aren’t the right fit for you. A great way to monetize your podcast is through sponsorships and advertisements. Find a way to establish your podcasts value by testing out affiliate programs to build data, then you can use that data to pitch podcast sponsors with potential conversion rates and sales for their advertisements on your show.

Content Marketing and Repurposing with Your Podcast

Last but not least, another way that you can leverage your podcast for your business is through content marketing repurposing. A single podcast episode can create so many additional pieces of content, making your content marketing strategy a breeze. Consider how you can create content for all of your social media channels, newsletters, and more just with a single episode. Not only that, but you can build out those optimized show notes in a blog post, expand on specific pieces of an episode in a standalone blog post, and so much more.

Biggest Surprise in Entrepreneurship

While still a newer entrepreneur, now that Haylee has been a full-time entrepreneur for a little while, I wanted to know what the biggest surprise she’s had in entrepreneurship. Ironically, she’s found that it’s not as hard or as miserable as society had once made her believe it to be—one reason she spent ten years avoiding going full-time in her business.

The secret to it all is finding your own balance and deciding that it’s important. You get to choose what entrepreneurship looks like for you.

THREE ACTIONABLE STEPS TO MOVE YOUR BUSINESS FORWARD

Now to my favorite question here on the show, I asked Haylee, what are three actionable steps that someone could take today to move their business forward?

1. Keep it simple.
2. Set up systems that are easily replicated in your show.
3. Think outside the box—stop copying what others are doing.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode and are curious about what the investment looks like to start a podcast, make sure you download Haylee’s free Podcast Budget Worksheet! This will help you understand what you need, can splurge on, or leave out in your podcast launch process.

Connect with Haylee

gaffincreative.com

instagram.com/hayleegaffin

gaffincreative.com/podcastbudget

Connect with Bernel

brandedbybernel.com

instagram.com/brandedbybernel

Review the Transcript:

Bernel
I am so excited to be joined on the podcast today by Haylee Gaffin. Haylee is a Podcast Producer. She’s my Podcast Producer, strategist and owner at Gaffin creative where she helps podcast hosts plan their podcast launch and create strategic content that serves their brand and audience. As the founder of podcast launch program, a six week group coaching program to help you plan and launch your podcast alongside other podcasters and host of clocking in podcast, a podcast for professionals making their way in the working world. Haylee is on a mission to help hopeful podcast hosts grow their brand. I’m so excited to have you here today.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, thank you for having me. I’m like honored to be here. Bernal.

Bernel
Yes. For those of you listening at home Haylee, as I mentioned in the intro, is my Podcast Producer. And she has made a world of difference and making this an easy process on me. So I thank

Haylee Gaffin
you. Well, I’m honored.

Bernel
So how many years have you been in business?

Haylee Gaffin
Well, I signed hustled for about 10 years before I went full time in January of 2021. So I turned in my notice at my job in December, maybe November of 2020. I lost a bunch of hours at work, because of COVID. And then turned around and decided I’m going to take this full time and went full time in 2021. And have been doing it ever since.

Bernel
Oh, that is awesome. And I know it’s going pretty well. I was recommended to you by a friend client fellow podcast host. Akua. And literally when she told me about you it came up because I was saying I was postponing launching season two, as many people do. You know, we push things down our to do lists that are a little bit more difficult. And she was like, Oh, my goodness, I know exactly who you need to talk to, to get it out there and get it done. Because sometimes we need accountability partners.

Haylee Gaffin
Absolutely. I mean, as a Podcast Producer, myself, there have been times where I’ve hit pause on my podcast, hit pause on my blog newsletter. It happens. I get it.

Bernel
Yes, yes. Well, question that I get all the time. And this was one of the main reasons I really want to chat with you. How do you start a podcast? Like where should someone start?

Haylee Gaffin
Oh, that’s a loaded question. I think I always recommend people start with understanding why they want the podcast to happen, what their goal is of the podcasts and who their audience is knowing those things is really going to help you kind of navigate the entire planning and launch process for your podcast. And outside of there. Doing it alone is a little hard if you’ve never done it before, but also there are free resources that you can if you enjoy the research process of learning how to do it, those are out there. And there’s also producers like me, who will take you through the whole process.

Bernel
Excellent answer. That was the similar reason why I started my podcast. I was like, Oh, my goodness, I know who my ideal client is, I get a chance to work one on one with so many fabulous business owners, but not a lot of them get to tell their story. And then when I was looking, there wasn’t really someone telling their story from a designer perspective. Because what you tell your designer is a lot different maybe than what you would tell your best friend. So I was like some of these people have some really cool stories. And I really want to sit down and kind of as I say this symbolic brunch, I have my champagne, my Oh, Jay and we chat. So

Haylee Gaffin
yes, I love it.

Bernel
All right. So they need to know who their target audience is they need to know what the goal of their podcast is. Is there a service that you offer that kind of helps people just getting started? Because I know, we started working together in season two of my podcasts. But what about people who are just getting ready to get started? How can they work with you?

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, so I do offer one on one services. So it’s, I have a VIP day and then just a one on one six week launch. And then I also offer a podcast launch program, which opens for enrollment of a couple times a year. And it’s more like a group coaching program where you can go alongside other podcasters and learn the full process that way. But I will be guiding you through the entire process every step of the way. Every question you have will be answered. Oh,

Bernel
that is great. Yes. Once again. Where was this?

Haylee Gaffin
I was so full time in my other job.

Bernel
Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. But our paths crossed at the perfect time. Um, okay, so what would you say as someone who is semi new to being a full time entrepreneur, what would you say is a resource It’s really helped you get here to this point.

Haylee Gaffin
Well, to be completely honest, podcasting, other podcasts were huge in how I decided to go full time, just listening to other entrepreneurs specifically tell their stories and make it feel a little more realistic. Because I, my whole life believed that the corporate world was the only way to have steady income, like that is the tried and true way. And then, like many during the pandemic, I did lose hours in my job, and I was full time in that job. So I quickly had to replace it. And during that time, like, like I said, for 10 years, I side hustled, I had a photography business on the side, I still do photography here and there with headshots, but I had to find something that could replace what I was losing an hour Ziering. COVID. And when I decided to pursue this business full time, I was like, Okay, well, currently, I cannot go shoot anything, because the world shut down. But everyone wants to launch a podcast right now. How can I serve them? And so that’s kind of how it started. But if I had not had podcasts that I had listened to for years, clients that I had worked with, because I was doing a couple of podcasts on the side had I not heard all of their content, telling me entrepreneurship is possible, then I don’t know that I would have taken the LEAP or that I would have said, Okay, let me let me find clients on my own. And let me make this a full time income versus relying on a corporate job. Because there’s really no relying on anything steady or consistent today.

Bernel
Yeah, I think the pandemic definitely taught us that. Unless you’re generating your own income, you really can’t rely on anything else to generate your income. So yeah, so

Haylee Gaffin
yeah, I had to pull those skill sets from like, the job I wasn’t I started working on podcasts in 2017. So I had the skill set there. It wasn’t like I went out and learned a brand new one just to start a business. They were there and I, I really had to hone in on Okay. Can I help other people do this? Is this something that’s worth pursuing? To become, you know, to provide for myself and my family?

Bernel
For sure, for sure. And it sounds like to that, when you talked about having your previous clients, I’m kind of looking into other podcasts. It really sounds like community health. Oh, you a lot. And that’s awesome. Like I tell that story all the time on the podcast off the podcast, I do not think I could be an entrepreneur without community. And so that’s super, super good. One of the things that you’re actually involved in that I always thought was super cool is rising tide society. Um, for those listening at home, I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it really is a great community to meet with your local chapter. See what other creatives in your area are up to? What is your role with rising tide? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, I am a local co leader. So me and Ryn are the Chattanooga. Rising Tide leaders.

Bernel
Nice. Awesome. So if you’re in the Chattanooga area, and you’ve been thinking about going to a meetup, you can see Haley in person Possibly, yeah, selling in person meetings again.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, we started them again, I think two months ago. And we’re doing like a monthly co working session, and then a monthly meet up. But the meetups still kind of turned into co working just because we are still trying to grow it back up to where it was pre pandemic.

Bernel
Oh, for sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, I love that idea. Okay, awesome. Well, let’s just dive right into our topic, because what I’m super excited to chat about is how to leverage your podcast as a marketing tool. As a business owner, as someone who had a business before podcast, I really want it to make sure if I’m putting time and energy, if I’m diverting time and energy away from sitting at my laptop, being a designer, I want to make sure that this new aspect of my business is generating income and is generating leads, and you told me that was possible. So I would love to hear some of these ways that you can you can leverage your podcast. Absolutely.

Haylee Gaffin
So it starts back where when I mentioned knowing your goal, what is the goal of your podcast? Are you trying to grow your audience? Are you trying to set yourself up as the expert in your field? Are you using this as a platform to get in front of speaking opportunities and show that you have a voice that can resonate? With listeners and an audience that a conference may be hosting or trying to get on other podcasts? Or are you just trying to sell your services in a way that you’re providing value and free content. So understanding what that goal is, is going to be the very first thing you need to do in order to market and monetize your podcast for your business. But then once you have that figured out, that’s where like the really deep work of, okay, I want to market my business, I want to market my services, how can I do that? Well talk about the content in which you provide, I think that’s the easiest thing is just to sell. I don’t think that you should be selling all the time in every episode. But I do think like providing the value of I can talk someone through doing whatever it is that I’m trying to accomplish in this episode. But then at the end of the episode, I want to be able to provide them with another resource that if they want to take the next steps, whether that’s me talking through planning your podcast launch, and then I want you to come and work with me. I’m setting you up to do that. But that’s not always going to be the case like not every single episode of my podcast is about podcasting. A big majority of them are, but they’re not all that way. And you can sell through ads on your own podcast, you can sell organically. But you can also use your content as a way to establish yourself. So I’ve had plenty of clients come to me and say, I had heard about you, but I didn’t really I wasn’t ready. And then I listened to your podcast. And it made me feel more ready to take this on. Because it made me understand what it was in my business that I wanted to market what it was, I wanted to do with my podcast or XYZ, you know, all the things that could possibly happen or be a potential topic on my show, have answered the questions or the problems that my potential client would face. So you could take your own show and do that with your potential clients and answering and solving their problems.

Bernel
Yes, oh, my goodness, I love that finding the need in your market and making sure you fill it. And also, using your podcast is a place where you are providing value. I think that’s the word that always sticks out to me. You want to provide value, you want people to feel like they’re receiving something and not always a sales pitch. Yes, absolutely. And

Haylee Gaffin
that’s another thing is I have had a lot of conversations where a podcaster wants to start their podcast. And when you ask them their goal, it’s to serve and to give back to their community. And that’s absolutely fine. I think every single podcast needs to be that way. Like that should be your purpose. The purpose of your podcast existing is to serve. But what is it doing for you? What is your goal with creating this content? Because a podcast is not a great podcast, unless you’re serving and you’re providing that value. No one’s gonna listen otherwise.

Bernel
Exactly, exactly. And in turn, when you gain that listenership, that is when it begins to benefit your business again. So it’s a whole circular process, sir, I guess life?

Haylee Gaffin
Yes. And to like, I do want to mention that podcasting is a long game, like it’s not going to be a success overnight. I mean, it could be absolutely. But I look at it as I’m a year and a half in well, not a year and a half, about a year and a half, though, into podcasting. And my podcast now is a library of resources that I can repurpose or point people to or just remarket over and over and over again, to provide that value time and time again, so people can listen to an episode from a year ago today, and still get just as much impact as when it first released.

Bernel
Yes, and I think that was something that repurposing content was something I really hadn’t given a ton of thought to total transparency. I had my quarterly meeting with Haylee a couple weeks ago. And in my head, I was like, Okay, I can’t wait to talk to her about ads. I can’t wait to, you know, talk to her about pitching to major companies and using, you know, ad space to generate income. And one of the things that you brought out, I mean, you know, you supported that dream, but one of the things that you also brought out to me too, was just making sure that we’re linking all of my services, all of my templates, all of those things back to my website, um, and converting some of the listeners into clients, and that may be a form of how my podcast is profitable. Not to say you can’t have ads and things but it is really cool to now have this extra platform that you can put people into your service based funnel basically where people can work with in that’s just a different way to generate also SEO based shownotes. I mean, I had never even thought about that. And you guys, I’m a web designer, but I had never even thought about the importance of having your show notes really, you know, SEO having having that search engine optimization for those show notes. Because, guess what people Google? How do I, you know, start a podcast people Google, how do I find a web designer, any of those different things. And now with having those show notes on my website, it will populate those answers, almost like a blog post, which then brings them into my online home, and so on and so forth. I mean, we could talk about that forever. So I do think that organic marketing is something to really consider if you’re starting a podcast, or even if you have one, paid ads is not the only way to make money. I think that was my mind blowing takeaway from my quarterly meeting.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, and and I will say too, is like, AD, advertising in the podcast space is really, I don’t love it. And the only reason I don’t love it is because I don’t think it’s fair to the podcaster. Like as much time and effort as you’re putting into a show. Podcast ads don’t pay very well, unless you have 10,000 20,000 downloads, and then you can make some good money. But if you’re not quite there yet, and I’m talking per episode, not not even per month, so per episode. But when you have 25 downloads per episode, like, I mean, I’ll be completely transparent, I met the 50 downloads an episode mark, and I’ve been around for since March of last year. And for me, converting one person a month into a paying client makes it worth doing my podcast, because typically, I do convert one person per month from my podcast. And it has been that way since the day I launched my podcast because, you know, I have an intake form, they tell me where they came from, usually it’s a referral. But it’s a referral that came to my podcasts, and listen to the show. And they were like, okay, she knows a little bit more about what she’s talking about. But then, like you said, advertising is not the only way to do it. Like if you have products or like shop products, templates, anything like that, you can absolutely make just as much money if not way more money, then an advertisement would do. Because you can scale it of your shop products are typically passive income. And it’s going to live on your podcast for as long as you have your podcast live. So if people go back and binge old episodes, they’re listening to that show where you talked about this one template, and if that template is still on your shop, they could go purchase that thing. And not only them, but every other listener has the opportunity as well. Whereas with ads, you’re kind of capping yourself. So that’s, that’s really my tangent on ads. I do think if you can get the sponsors and get the advertisements, absolutely go for it. But make sure that they align with your brand and what you want to represent. Because the last thing you want to do is misrepresent and then your audience doesn’t trust you. So the be eliminating the value you bring to them.

Bernel
Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. And this may need to be just a whole different podcast. But I feel that way about sponsorships on Instagram. I feel that way about what conferences and speaking engagements you choose to take, they have to align with your value system. Yeah. Because you have brought in your clients, your clients are spending their hard earned dollars, because they trust you. And not only trust you as a creative genius, but they trust what you believe in. And they trust, you know, what you recommend to them. And so if you are aligning yourself with sponsors, who may be paying you good money, but are not, you know, paying into the values that you believe in? Yeah, it could derail all the work you’ve put in. But yes, that’s a whole tangent that I can get on. You definitely want to make sure your sponsors are people that I’m possible you’ve used their product or you can you speak to the integrity of their business.

Haylee Gaffin
Yeah, and even that’s a great segue into affiliate marketing as well. If you are curious about trying out sponsorships, or you want to even position yourself to where you can go to a sponsor and say, Hey, I’m a part of your affiliate program. I’ve been sharing about your products on Instagram or even in your podcast episodes, link it say like, head over to the show notes. Grab my link, put the disclaimer in there. This isn’t An affiliate link. And when you get those numbers back of like, oh, I shared this in five episodes, and this many people converted, or I shared on Instagram, this many people have converted take those numbers to that sponsor, or if they deny it take those numbers to a different sponsor, because that is to their editor I hadn’t even thought about that is like strict data that will show your value and show that your listeners trust you. Like, yes, I love affiliate marketing. For that reason, I’ve never really utilized it primarily just because I’ve had a smaller audience for the longest time, but at the same time, like some affiliate programs are amazing. Like, I mean, I’ll say honey books affiliate program is really great. And then you can even get half of your programs paid for like Planoly or plan that or whatever, all the Instagram, you know, scheduling tool,

Bernel
like show it? I mean, yeah, you guys, I know y’all saw that coming. You get a free month when you use my code, um, and I get a free month. So like, this is a very symbiotic relationship. I’m also Flodesk is another really good one. I mean, you get it half price. When you find an affiliate code, it might be mine, it might be Haylee’s, whoever’s, but, you know, affiliate marketing can generate some income. And as you mentioned, even if it’s not money as a payout, you’re getting your service free.

Haylee Gaffin
Exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

Bernel
Love it. One other thing, while we’re on the topic of affiliate marketing, SEO, all the benefits of having a podcast, it also has helped content creation, so much. Um, I know as a service based provider, I mean, I have products as well, but as a mostly service base provider have run out of things to talk about social media, very quickly. I’m like, I can only tell you guys, I made a website this week, so many times. But by having the podcast, I now have other content, I have quotes to draw from from other people, I have this new wealth of knowledge, this value that they’ve given on one platform that I can now share across platforms, that also made it a lot easier for me to get on Pinterest. I having.

Haylee Gaffin
Absolutely, I love repurposing content. So you can even like if you want to get technical, you’re just marketing one show. But you’re, you’re repurposing it because you’re creating content for all these other platforms in a way that you can’t necessarily do with just an Instagram post. You can you can use the same thing across platforms. But you’re driving people to a long form piece of content. And I do this with my podcast and my blog post. So every single podcast episode gets a blog post just like yours. It’s optimized for search. But then I also put out a weekly blog post about podcasting. And if I’m stuck on content, what I will do is I will scroll all the way back to the beginning and see what it was that I was talking about, you know, a year ago, however long ago, and I will repurpose a blog post into a podcast episode. And just make it longer because blog posts are a little bit shorter. And then I’ll do the same thing with blogs when I’m trying to figure out something to write about. And I’ll say, Okay, I talked about this Oh, but I had this one little takeaway here. I kind of want to expand on that in a blog post. And then I’ll link them together for internal linking for SEO purposes. And it’s like a whole SEO strategy, just within your podcast and your website.

Bernel
Yes. And that was the biggest surprise I had about podcasting. And that’s what I was going to ask you. What is the biggest surprise you had as an entrepreneur? The biggest surprise that I’ve had as a podcast entrepreneur, is that it brought so much traffic and value to my website. I guess I had never really thought about the way that connects. But I do want to turn that question back to you. What was your biggest surprise as an entrepreneur?

Haylee Gaffin
My biggest surprise was that so many people have made entrepreneurship out to look like this miserable life of hustle and struggle. And I think it is what you make of it like I can hustle and burn myself out all I want to make more money and to do more things with my life. But also I need rest. I can choose that this month. I don’t want to hustle. It’s June and it’s summertime and it’s pretty outside. And maybe I want to take a little more time to not work. But I can also do that and still pay my bills. I can still work and find balance. And I can find support and community as well. Because I think that, for the longest time, I was scared to go full time, I was scared to make this thing a business, and like call myself an entrepreneur, because I was scared of failure. And it was because I guess the media and society, not entrepreneurs, specifically, but more. So society, in general, has just made entrepreneurship seem so hard. And it does have its struggles. I’m not gonna sit here and like sugarcoat it, but it’s not as hard as I thought it was going to be, or like, you know, you will have failures, obviously. But they don’t define the success of your business.

Bernel
For sure, oh, my goodness, I feel so motivated. Now. That’s funny. I am I would agree. I think that society and other entrepreneurs sometimes, unfortunately, can make people think they’re running a business. Is this miserable, time consuming? You have no life activity? As a person who was in that space for a little bit? Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. I have guilty of that. And no, I am guilty of being like, Oh, my goodness, what did I get myself into. But you’re right, it is in your control to change that. And you just that were that were balance. When you said that I was like, yes. When you put pen to paper, what is really important to you what amount of money you actually need to have, and then ways to generate that without selling your soul. It’s amazing it is. And I’m in a season of entrepreneurship, where I’m in that gratitude season of like, it is amazing, everybody should do this. But you have to be balanced. Yeah.

Haylee Gaffin
And I know, there’s a lot of people out there that will say balance doesn’t exist. And like, just a reminder that your balance doesn’t look like my balance. And my balance doesn’t look like the next person. Because every single person has a different life. They have different priorities. And if your business is your priority, this season, and you want to do the hustle, that’s fine. But when you hit burnout, make sure you find the balance whatever else is important to you make sure you’ve at least put some time in there for just you.

Bernel
Exactly. And I love that I love the idea that balance is not permanent. Yeah, it is it really changes with what season you’re in, in life. And that’s that’s completely accurate. And that’s why we don’t compare ourselves to others. Because your, your balance my balance that may be completely different than somebody’s balance, who has five children. Yeah. You know, like, the time is just different, or even just in seasons of our lives, that it’s just like, I don’t have time to put everything in this aspect. That was something that I ran into when adding the podcast, I was already at the maximum amount of hours I couldn’t work and remain sane. So it was what am I going to take off the plate because I’m adding this new thing? Or what is one thing I can outsource now that I’m adding this new thing in? So yeah, I love it. Yes, I’m so excited that you’re one of the things that I decided to outsource. Yeah, I

Haylee Gaffin
mean, listen, I don’t even edit my own podcast, my I have a girl on my team. Victoria, I talked about her all the time on my own podcast, but she’s amazing. And join my team as an intern came on as a part time employee, and I just love her like not having to worry about my podcast after I hit record. Like is it’s amazing. And that’s the scaling ever. Yes. And maybe you’re not able to do that in the beginning. Like if you were interested in launching a podcast and you had to do it yourself, just to get started and to see if it was worth actually producing and outsourcing. That’s totally fine. Like, if you want to take on that work, you can always outsource it later. Like there are always options to find that balance. Or maybe it’s you want to just outsource editing, or just outsource show notes or whatever the case is. There are plenty of options out there.

Bernel
For sure, for sure. And that was a piece of advice someone gave me when I first started my very first podcast. So don’t go back and listen to it you guys but it was recorded in my closet. Because somebody told me if you don’t have a studio, if you’re not there yet where you’re outsourcing to a professional you want to get the maximum amount of quality in your house in a kind of padded small space. And so literally because I have an open floor plan apartment, my closet was the only place so here’s me with my nice little microphone sitting and it’s funny I put a coat up against the door because I was like I don’t want it to bounce. But it just tells you we all had somewhere we had to start Yeah. Now I rent a studio space in my co working location. So you know you you you crawl. You walk in you walk before you run and if you are a person as Haylee mentioned that is an overnight success. Well, kudos to you as well.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, I mean, there, there’s always a starting point I was talking with one of my podcast clients Laylee, we were kind of reminiscing about her three year podcast aversary. And how I made a mistake and didn’t know the apple podcast app could take up to nine days to approve your podcast, because she was my very first launch, launch day rolls around, we go to launch her podcast, and it’s not on Apple, because it’s not approved yet. So like, as a now more experienced Podcast Producer, I try educating as many people as I can, that that’s a thing. But that doesn’t happen. Now. You learn, you grow.

Bernel
So, right, we learn from those things. And I feel like, that’s the stuff that makes for a great business owner. So I am super excited. We are at that part of the show my favorite part, I do this on every episode, I asked you as a professional, what are three actionable steps that a person could take today to move forward in their business? But for you, I’m going to tweak this question a little bit. So what are three actionable steps they can take to start their podcasts.

Haylee Gaffin
So the first is keep it simple. And this is podcasts and business related, keep it simple, whatever your goal is, focus on it, don’t get distracted from it, because you will lose momentum. And you will lose progress when you get shiny object syndrome. And then the second thing is to set up systems that are easily replicated in your business. So if that’s how you’re producing your show, if that’s how you’re communicating with guests, all of the things set up those systems. So you don’t have to think about it over and over. I would say go back and like, review them every once in a while to make sure they’re still doing the same thing. I literally sent out a headshot email this morning that had old pricing in it. And I was like, Oh, the proposal had the correct pricing. But I didn’t update all my email templates. So speaking to myself here. And then the third would be to think outside the box and Stop copying what others are doing. Because I think it’s easy to get caught up in that whether that’s looking at people’s Instagram accounts, or looking at other podcasts and just trying to replicate exactly what they’re doing. Yeah, it’s nice to have guidance and have something to go off of, but come up with creative ways to do things yourself. Like I love your OJ and brunch. And I love that concept. It’s so like, it’s just so cute and perfect for you. And no one else is doing it. Like, come up with something really unique to you.

Bernel
And I was gonna say and it’s real. Yeah, like I don’t because we happen to be recording this on a day where I don’t have champagne in front of me. But a lot of times I’m drinking a mimosa when I’m recording these. So I feel like it’s something that’s authentic to me. It’s something that was not created, as you say it wasn’t created because I saw it somewhere else. And so I love that. Thank you so much for all these wonderful tips. Tell us where people can find you.

Haylee Gaffin
Yes, you can find me at Gaffin creative.com. And most of the things you’ll find from there, but then I’m also on Instagram at Haylee Gaffin

Bernel
I love it. And in the show notes. We’re gonna link the podcast budget worksheet. It’s a freebie. It is so good. You guys really need to go download it. I can say that as her client. You guys, check it out. Haley is the real deal. And I really, really appreciate you for being on the show today.

Haylee Gaffin
Yeah, thank you so much. For anyone who’s looking to even consider getting a podcast started. That budget worksheet will help you kind of understand how much you’ll be investing and where you can cut costs or put more costs in. So I really appreciate being here Bernel and thank you for having me on.