the bossbabe podcast - 399. How I 4X’d My Podcast Revenue by Making ONE Major Change

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Want to know exactly how Natalie sold the biggest partnership of her career to date + 4X’d podcast revenue in the process? In today’s episode, you’ll learn the one major switch Natalie made to increase profit without working more. Natalie also shares about her journey with podcast sponsors, the 80/20 rule, and the revenue pie chart exercise she does every single year to make sure everything is on track to reach or exceed her goals.  TIMESTAMPS 2:15 - The Podcast Agency We Use + Recommend 4:10 - Our Journey with Podcast Sponsors 6:00 - Revenue Sources + The 80/20 Rule 9:00 - Working with One Sponsor vs 10 11:15 - Simplify To Amplify + Make More Profit 13:06 - Revenue Pie Chart (Yearly Exercise) RESOURCES + LINKS Join The Société: Our Exclusive Membership To Help You Build A Freedom-Based Business. Get Our Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More.  Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997)  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

welcome back to the boss babe podcast i am coming to you from the most amazing serene british countryside um we bought a house here last year. And at the time I was like, is this a ridiculous decision? Because we had no plans to move here. We do not want to rent this place out. I mean, maybe in the future, but we really just wanted a place we could feel at home in, in the UK, knowing we want to spend a couple months a year here. And doing this has just been the best decision. It's a couple of hours from London. So we land in London and then we drive. And as soon as we start getting into the countryside,

like I just feel my entire nervous system relax. It's been the best. And then we get here and we've got all of our things, like all the nice things that we like and our own beds and the little things that make all the difference. Like I just, yeah, it's been the best decision. And I remember weighing it up, like talking to friends about it, like, is this crazy? Is this a ridiculous decision? And the thing that came up was like, well, you know, what's the point?

What do you make all this money for? Like, what's the point? Like, what's the motivation? And I was like, you know, it's for family, it's for experiences, for peace of mind, all those things. When I thought about it through that lens, you know, I'm not making money to like invest it and make more money and retire. Like that's not it for me. Like I want to be free. I want to live in the present, like all that stuff. And so it ended up being a really, really great decision. So yeah, that's where I'm coming to you from. And we're here for a couple of months. We have some mini trips in between, but yeah. Also have my mum here too, helping doing some childcare, which is great because like I've shared on the pod, I haven't had childcare for a really long time and I forgot what it was like to not be juggling a million things at once and

actually have a bit of focused work time. So that's been nice. I feel like I've had a chance to like actually execute ideas and all the things, you know, take myself out for some lunch dates, luxuries. So that's been really, really nice. But I want to hop in and have like a, just a little chat with you guys and share something that has been a massive, massive game changer for us in the business. And hopefully is something that no matter what stage you're at in your business you can apply so I'm going to share that and another thing I just want to share because I do get a bunch of messages since we've started like upping our reels game and podcast game of you guys asking me who we work with so actually a reason that we spend a lot of time in the UK is Stephen actually owns my husband Stephen actually owns a content agency and they have

an office out here in the UK. And so that is a reason we spend more time here too, is he loves to be able to go in and hang out with the team because they are in person. So anyway, it's so funny because Stephen had this agency for quite a while before we moved over to them. Cause I was like, I don't want to mix business with our relationship. Like, I don't know if that's a good idea. You guys, moving over to their agency has been the best idea and the best thing for our business and our podcast. Like, I can't even tell you.

It's been really amazing. Their attention to detail and their knowledge in this space is unparalleled. And previous to working with us, they'd worked mainly like in the gaming industry and creator industry. I know we're in the gaming industry and creator industry. I know we're in the creator industry, but it's like creator entrepreneur industry.

And they have started branching out. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, I want to do it. And it's been such a great decision. So anyway, if any of you are looking for, if you have a podcast already and you have a good budget and you're looking for a new agency to take that on,

the production, the growth, things like that, drop me a DM. And if I feel like you'd be a fit, I'm happy to just introduce you directly as Steven and you can have a chat with him. We've actually helped a bunch of our own clients move over to them and they're just having the best experience.

I want to put that out there and share because whenever I find someone that's great. I honestly am not being biased. I know he's my husband, but I'm not being biased. Like he's, they're just great. They're really, really great. But yeah, happy to intro. I know it's sometimes husband, but I'm not being biased. Like he's, they're just great. They're really, really great. But yeah, happy to intro.

I know it's sometimes hard to find epic people. So yeah, wanted to let you guys know. Anyway, speaking of podcasts, that is the topic that I wanted to share. I mean, for years now, since we've had the podcast, I mean, from the beginning, in the beginning, we didn't have any sponsors because obviously we didn't have enough downloads and we would basically pretend to have sponsors

and be like, this episode is brought to you by cbd and then we just share the affiliate link that was actually amazing for us because we were making loads of sales through the affiliate link so we were still getting paid but then it meant that brands could actually see where their audience are converting and so we were then able to get podcast sponsors anyway we start getting podcast sponsors and then we worked, you've probably heard a lot of our sponsors on the podcast. And it's important for us to have them. We're not doing this podcast just for the good of our health. We want to be able to cover our costs. We want it to be a part of our business. We want to be able to continue doing it.

So we've been working with loads of different sponsors. I mean, like people that I could only have dreamt of working with, like the companies that I put on my vision board, we were able to work with and I was just like in awe. And I will share as amazing as it is because the podcast isn't my full-time thing. It was a lot of work working with so many sponsors. Firstly, from a project management perspective, like knowing which ads are going in which episodes and like when you're working with so many sponsors, firstly, from a project management perspective, like knowing which ads are going in which episodes. And like when you're working with like five sponsors per episode, you're doing two episodes a week, and they all want to sign off on the creative, like it's a whole process, like, you know, they send you talking points, you then create something that's authentic to you, you send it back to them, you get it signed off, you record

it. And then they want you creative every single time you record and again it's such a blessing to be able to work with advertisers and at the same time it was a lot and when we were looking so one thing that I do in my business a lot and I really recommend everyone do this it's like I look at all my revenue sources and like a pie chart so I see because there's normally like the 80 20 rule like 80 percent of your revenue comes from where you spend 20 percent of your time honestly if you do this pie chart you'll probably be like yeah that's actually really correct so anyway I was looking at this pie chart and podcast sponsorship was such a small part of our business. And I was spending a ridiculous amount of time on it. And like, it felt like I had no freedom, honestly, because no matter where I went, even I mean, obviously,

I have my mic and a whole setup here in the UK. But like, even if I was just going on a trip for a few days, I'd have to take my mic with me because there's always like sponsors to record and like, some of them would get back to you last minute or they'd request changes and like I just had to have my mic with me all the time to just like pull it out and get an ad recorded and we'd be doing this for years and years and anyway I did this pie chart I'm like wait podcast revenue is such a small amount of our business I know we're getting really good results for sponsors because they all want to renew their contracts with us and like every time they renew we generally can negotiate more money because they've gotten really good results like we just I think we just have built an audience that trust us like we're not going to lead them astray when we turn down sponsors if it's not something that

I would use and like I can't share it honestly like we have always always had a lot of integrity with the brands we work with and we generally try to work with the same brands over and over again. So anyway, looked at this pie chart, I'm like, okay, it's a small percentage of the revenue, but it's taken a huge chunk of my time. This doesn't actually make sense. And I didn't fully just like want to cut off the revenue from the podcast because, you know, we have an agency to pay. It's not cheap. All the equipment, all the time, all of that stuff. I didn't want a podcast to become something that's actually, you know, losing us money. I know as a whole, it supports the business, but I still wanted to see that coming in every month on the P&L and be able to justify the cost

and the time that's going out. And so I was thinking about it and thinking like, what would be a solve for this? Because I'm such a big believer in business that you simplify to amplify. That's always, always been my motto in every quarter. I put a pie chart together of where all of our revenue is coming from. And there's always like loads of little pieces and then like loads of little chunks in the pie chart and then really big ones. And I'm like, okay, I want to get rid of those little ones. And I want to focus on the big ones, unless like those little ones are, you've got like a low ticket that's actually selling into your big offer and it's crushing and you want to keep it for that reason. Like I have to be

able to justify to myself why focus is diluted. I have to be able to justify that. If my focus is diluted or the business focus is diluted, business marketing is diluted, I often know I'm getting diluted results unless I can really analyze it and see why we're doing it. So I do this every single quarter. I've always done it. And so last year, as we were going into Q4, I did this again and I thought, this doesn't make any sense to me. Like there has to be a smarter solution. And so I had an idea. I was like, okay, what if I pick one brand that I feel so passionate about that I could talk about effortlessly every single episode, you know, every newsletter, I could talk about them. What if I just did, instead of all of these different sponsors,

what if I just pitched one sponsor for a really big package and probably, you know, I'm making less overall having one ad versus like five or 10. And you'll notice we still have some ads because we had contracts that we weren't going to cancel, but eventually we'll go down to just having one ad and then our own ad. I was like, what if I can just work with one sponsor? That means, you know, I'm going to be making money, definitely covering my costs. I get a big chunk of the money up front. This would be amazing. So I like sat down like vision board. I was like a vision board. What would feel amazing is if I could go and pitch a sponsor and like lock in a really, really fantastic deal, like something high ticket money that would be consistent, guaranteed. And I'm not having to create like

do new creative every single week. They're not super picky. And I truly would like I would talk about the brand for free. And so that's what we actually did. And so we pivoted, we started this in Q4. And like I said, we're sometimes on six to 12 months contracts with other sponsors, which we've decided, you know, we're not going to break contracts. So we're going to see them out. But as of the beginning of this year, we started working with way, way fewer people, way fewer sponsors, because most sponsors will book on for a certain number of episodes. And we actually pitched a brand, a really big package. It was actually the biggest

partnership of my career that I've ever sold. I was like, so proud. We sold them a really big package and it was for a whole year. And it was across our newsletter and our podcast. And that was one of the big needle movers. And like, when I keep talking about, you know, we 6X'd our profit, we doubled our revenue and I'm working less. It's from making decisions like this. It's from actually looking at the business with an analytical lens and saying, how could I continue to make this level of revenue or make even more and make more profit by doing less? And it was a decision like this because not only am I making more money doing it,

I'm having to spend less time and my team spending less time. Like the project management is pretty much non-existent when you're just working with one partner like that. And I'm doing way less. I have way more freedom. And it was such a no brainer. And I want to share it because I am sure

if you put together a pie chart of your business revenue, you probably could look at this and make some similar decisions yourself. And I was so terrified pitching a deal like this. But the way I thought about it was like, the worst thing that they can say is no, no, we don't want to do this. No, we don't have budget for this. But I actually went to them and I put together a

whole pitch deck and I was saying, you know, I'm so passionate about your brand. I've already promoted your brand and we've had really, really good results. I think I could really crush it over 12 months. Here's what my dream package would look like. Are you interested? And I sent it to them and they were, and we negotiated and we got to a really good number and it just felt great. So yeah, I'm sharing this because there are so many ways that you could simplify to amplify in your business. You could do less and do it better, do less with less stress and actually bring in more revenue. Like it's not this myth that you hear like, yeah, that sounds good. No, it actually is possible. And it often just takes

having that analytical lens and having that look at your business to say, yes, this is exactly what is going to help me to grow without taking on more and more and more. And what's going to help me grow without putting more hours in. So yeah, I wanted to share that. I hope it's helpful. Maybe an exercise that you could do as we're going into new quarters is pull together a pie chart of all your revenue from this year and last year. I actually do it from the inception of our business. And every single year I compare all the pie charts. I've said pie charts so many times this episode, it could be like a drinking drinking game but I put them all together in Google Slides and I look at them every single year at how it's changing and what I will say is every year as my revenue grows the pie chart gets simpler and simpler and simpler like the first year was very simple second year I had revenue coming from every

source you can imagine and then as I start stripping that back and making it more and more simple, the revenue went up, the profit went up, all of that stuff. So yeah, hope this was helpful. Really wanted to just drop in and share that. And like I said, if you're looking for an agency too, just drop me a DM with a bit of info about you. And if I think you'd be a fit, I'm happy to just make a direct introduction

because they are awesome. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know,

get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe anyway have an amazing day and I will speak to you next week. Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift. All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because

it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom-based daily, weekly, and monthly schedule looks like as an eight-figure CEO, mama, and high performer, and I'll walk you through step-by-step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug-and-play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system.

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