Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPLive: Hala on Podcast Sponsorships, Hashtags and Writing Engaging Content | Marketing | Uncut Version

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Hala hopped on LinkedIn Live for an impromptu session where listeners and fans asked her about podcast sponsorships, how to properly promote your podcast, and how she first got into podcasting.   Social Media:   Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halitaha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast. And that's on purpose.

I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of ex-FBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and best-selling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, how to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young and, Profiting Podcast. Hey, everybody. I am just joining impromptu because one of my interviews with Tim Story, he is the comeback coach, which I'm really excited for, it got canceled last minute.

And I have a free hour, which is not typical. So I decided to hop on live here. And, you know, there's about a minute delay. So I'm just going to chat with you guys a bit before the comments start rolling in. but this is a session where you guys can ask me anything about podcasting, about LinkedIn marketing, about myself, whatever you guys want to ask me is fair game. That's what this session is all about. So looking forward to chat with you all, get to know some of my listeners a bit better, and hoping you guys will join me for this impromptu session. And I'll hop on here for 20 minutes,

30 minutes, you know, just depending on the engagement, I'll stay for an hour. But it just really depends on if you guys have questions for me and, you know, how well this session goes. Hopefully we have no comment fights like last time. I think the last time I did this was like a month ago because there was a big comment fight and it kind of turned me off from doing these things. But I decided that I would get back on and do a session for those of you who want to learn from me. Hey, Chell, thanks for joining us. If you guys are tuning in, And let me know you're here. Say your location, say your name so that I can shout you out. And feel free to ask me anything. Hey, Harnack, how you doing? Thanks for joining us.

So yeah, ask me anything that you guys want. Like I mentioned, I had an interview with Tim Story. It got rescheduled. And I'm here for 20 minutes, half an hour to answer anything that you guys want in terms of LinkedIn marketing and podcasting. Okay. So we got our first question. It is from Michael Williams. He says, how is LinkedIn marketing different from other social media platforms in your opinion? Okay, so I think that LinkedIn marketing is different for a few reasons. First of all, I think that the audience is very different. So when you go on LinkedIn, a lot of people are looking for a job, and they're generally

interested in education, in bettering themselves, in self-improvement. And so I feel like these types of topics do really, really well on LinkedIn. Like that's what people want to hear about on LinkedIn. And so, in my opinion, that's the main difference. It's the audience. Also, people on LinkedIn tend to make more money. There's a lot more executives who are hanging out on LinkedIn than there are on Instagram and Facebook. And so it's very professional.

The audience is well educated. They have a lot of money. And that's who you'll find on LinkedIn. And then in terms of the actual marketing and strategies with marketing, I think that the tactics are different too. I think different things work on different platforms for LinkedIn right now. The algorithm loves pictures, just plain photos, not even sliders, not even videos. It's pictures and text captions that are winning right now on LinkedIn. And so I think it always changes depending on the algorithm.

But so far what I've seen is that pictures, especially of me, or pictures of a person that people can resonate with or a good quote does really well on LinkedIn right now. Cool. So we've got a lot of folks here right now. Let me just do some shoutouts. Hey, Kennedy from Wisconsin. Hey, Joshua from Chicago Land.

Hey, Christopher from Chicago as well. Salim, Mario from Charlotte, North Carolina, Harnack from Chicago. Wow, a lot of people from Chicago. Carolyn from Chicago suburbs, Christopher from Pennsylvania, and Rick, yes, LinkedIn is more professional. So yeah, if you guys have questions for me, please put them in the chat and I'll answer them the best that I can. I am a podcast marketing expert. I'm a LinkedIn marketing expert. I am a marketer. And, you know, I'm also, I've got a lot going on and had a lot of experiences in my life.

So any questions that you guys have, I'd love to answer them. Hey, Darby from Dallas, Texas. And Nicholas from Naperville, Tony, Muhammad from Saudi Arabia. Thank you guys all so much for tuning in. Again, put your questions in the chat. All right. So here we go. Another question.

By the way, guys, put your questions in the chat so that we can keep this moving. And I can just answer questions as they come in. So we have from Roshab, Kamdar. how do you know what type of content the algorithm is favoring at the moment? So I think the key with this is really consistency. If you post every day, you'll start to get a lot of data in terms of what's working and what's not working. And there was a period of time when sliders were all the rage on LinkedIn. And every time somebody posted a slider, no matter if it was good or bad, they'd get 300 likes because LinkedIn had a new feature, the slider, that was getting a lot of

eyeballs. Now LinkedIn has the story feature, which is the new thing. thing that, you know, if you're using it, LinkedIn is going to favor you because you're utilizing a new feature. So some, a tip that, you know, I'm not 100% positive if this is true or not. A lot of people are saying it that if you use LinkedIn stories, because it's a new feature, you'll get more visibility on your content. And that in general, your posts are getting less visibility now because of the new story feature. They're pushing everybody to the story feature. So I would say, give it a shot, use stories, see if that improves your posts. And it's all experimenting, Rashab, like that's how you figure out what's working and what's not. If you post a

video and you notice that every time you post a video, you're not getting results, then you know that your audience doesn't really resonate with your videos or that the algorithm doesn't really work in your favor in terms of videos. I've noticed that the impressions or the amount of views on my video posts are like significantly lower than all the other content that I do. And because video is the hardest thing to produce, sometimes it just doesn't make sense. You're going to spend all that time working on a video and it's not even going to get a lot of eyeballs. That's, you know, it really also depends on the content. If you have amazing content, something that's going to go viral, then yeah, do a video. But for some reason for me right now, videos aren't really performing that

well. It could also be that my videos are typically about my podcasts and maybe people are sick of my podcast videos. I've been doing them for a while. So another thing is I might want to start switching up the way that my videos look so that I stand out in the feed more and improve my video podcast performance. Okay, cool. So I hope I answered your question. Let me know if you have any other feedback. So then we have a LinkedIn user. For some reason, your name doesn't pop up. I don't know why this happens to some people. I have somebody asking me if podcasting is profitable. And I think that it really depends on your podcast. I think that it varies. It depends on your podcast strategy. One thing that I find is that a lot of people think that they're going to be a lot of

going to create a business from their podcast, that their podcast is the center of their business. But that's actually really silly. Your podcast, unless you're Joe Rogan or Jordan Harbinger and you have hundreds of thousands of downloads, you're not going to be rich off your podcast. Sponsors only pay $25 per 1,000 subscribers. So that means that you need 40,000 subscribers before you can make $1,000 per episode on your podcast. And, $1,000. If you have four podcasts a month, there's only $4,000 a month, which is not too much money. And still, to get to 40,000 listeners per episode is really hard work. And you have to be one of the top podcasters. I'm just now reaching 40,000 subscribers per episode. And I've been doing it for two

years and I have a pretty big podcast. So you're not going to get rich from sponsorships, but there's other tactics that you can use that make your podcast profitable. So if you have a business, having a podcast that is a niche that is focused around your business industry. So, for example, I have a friend. His name is Jason Cass. He has an insurance podcast. And he told me that he made $80,000 last year in sponsorships because he pitched insurance companies to sponsor his podcast and community.

And he's got a community of insurance agents that follow him. And so because he's so niche and he's targeting people. people that insurance companies really want to target, he's able to make money off sponsorships. There's also affiliate marketing that you can do, and that's something that you can do even if you don't have a lot of downloads because half the time, these affiliate partners don't even ask for your rankings. They just want to know how you're going to promote their product, whether it's a blog or a podcast or whatever it is. And so, for example, like Audible has a partnership for podcasts that you can apply to. And anytime somebody signs up for your Audible trial, you get $15.

But you have to realize that podcast is an awareness channel. People are working out while they're listening to podcasts. They are driving, cleaning. And so oftentimes they don't want to go to audible.com slash yap and sign up for a trial. In fact, I did that and I probably only made like 200 bucks. And I promoted it like at least five times on my podcast. Like I didn't make a lot of money even though I have a lot of loyal listeners. And that's because nobody really wants to take the time to go to a website when they're listening to a podcast.

And so awareness promotions work a lot better on podcasts than affiliate marketing. But if you have a big following like I do on LinkedIn or if you have a blog or something like that, then affiliate marketing really does work. You just have to use some web strategies with it to try to make some money. So this is a really long-winded answer and I'm really sorry, but I have a lot to say about it. Lead generation is a great way to make money off your podcast. So I actually started a podcast marketing agency this summer and every single client has been a guest on my podcast. So they start as a guest on my podcast. They see all the marketing that I do.

They get interested and they want my services. And I barely have to do any selling. I've done no marketing for my podcast agency. And I'm on track to make multi-six figures next year from this side hustle that I started pretty much by accident. And it's because my podcast was a proven thing that people could believe in could see me actually doing. I actually walk the walk and I don't just talk to they see that I have a successful podcast and I market it really well. And so it's very easy to then sell podcast marketing services. So similarly, if you are a real estate agent and you have a podcast about how to, you know, be a great real estate agent and you've got a lot of expertise in the area, maybe you can

have a course and use the podcast as a lead generation tool for your course. So whatever it is, podcasting can help you build an audience that trusts you and that will buy from you and you can use it as a lead gen tool, whether that's with your guests or whether that's with your actual audience. And so that's the most effective way, I think, to monetize from your podcast. And then the other effective way is to have a very niche podcast and target sponsors that are very interested in your niche. So that same example that I gave you with the insurance agent, how he made $80,000. And he's got only 14,000 downloads per month on his podcast. So I'm guessing only 2,000 or so downloads per episode. It's a lot less than 40,000 like I was mentioning before,

and he's making a lot more money because he's got a very niche audience. So those are my tips there. All right. So I know that was a super long-winded answer. Thank you, everybody who's still tuning in here. All right. So let's see. We have a question from Joshua. What is the greatest challenge in marketing your podcast in order to grow your brand? I think that the greatest challenge is to retain subscribers. You can promote your podcast all day and get new subscribers, but if they don't come back again and again, then you're just always in the rat race trying to get new subscribers, new subscribers. And so for me, retention is the toughest thing. And I try to retain people by being consistent. So that's launching episodes every single Monday and never forgetting and trying to

make sure that I launch more than one episode a week because I want people to remember me and keep coming back to my podcast to listen. So I think that retention is a really hard problem. And I think just in general, growing my subscribers. I think that a lot of people know me from LinkedIn. And at first, I was seeing really rapid growth because all these new fans and podcast listeners from LinkedIn were finding me. Now I feel like almost everybody who was going to find me on LinkedIn, maybe this is not entirely true, but like a lot of people who are going to find me on LinkedIn have already found me. So now, like, what's next, right? What's next? How do I, how do I get my next? you know, 40,000 subscribers, that's when you have to get creative.

So what I've been doing is I've been reaching out to the podcast apps. How can I collaborate with you? How can you feature me in your app? How can I get to know other podcast listeners out there and be visible to them? That's my goal is to be visible to the podcast listeners out there. And where are they? They're in the podcast apps. So working with CastBox and trying to do promotions with them, working with Podicy.

If you guys saw my recent contest with them, you're going to see a lot more of that stuff from me, because I'm trying to grow my subscribers. And for me, the way to do that is to be visible in the podcast apps. And so for me, that's the next phase in terms of podcast marketing and getting new fans. At YAP, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees.

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That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. Okay, how important are hashtags? So I'm guessing you're talking about LinkedIn. I would say that hashtags are not very effective and can actually ruin your post and ruin the engagement on your post. So my logic is because when you use hashtags, you're broadening the impressions on your post. And more people are going to see your post. There's going to be more eyeballs, but it's going to be people who don't know you. It's going to be people who are not your actual followers who have never your content before, who are less likely to engage on your content. So, for example, when Black Lives Matter was going on, every time I used a Black Lives Matter hashtag, my post always did bad because there were so many people searching for that tag, and it would get so many impressions, but I would be lost in the sea of other people using the Black Lives Matter hashtag. My impressions would go up

in terms of the amount of eyeballs who saw my post, but the amount of people who liked them would be significantly less in terms of the engagement rate because they didn't know me. And so then your post just does worse in the feed and LinkedIn because they see that a lot of people saw it and not a lot of people engaged, they'll depromote your posts. It won't be visible in the feed. It won't be at the top. And you always want to be at the top when somebody signs on. And so for me, I find that branded hashtags work a lot better than very popular hashtags on LinkedIn. I prefer to just do Yap Young and profiting podcast as my hashtags and use it more as like a stylistic tool than actually something that would help my algorithm or ranking because I just feel that it actually just waters down

your post because too many people see it and because they're not connected with you, they don't do you, they don't have a relationship with you, they're less likely to engage and then it will deprioritize your post. So that's my opinion on hashtags for LinkedIn. I think for Instagram, it's a different story. I think you can use a lot of hashtags on LinkedIn. Instagram and maybe it works differently. But for LinkedIn, I would just recommend focusing in on some key hashtags that you're going to use over and over again and try to like own those hashtags. So for example, I think I pretty much own the podcast hashtag on LinkedIn. I'm probably one of the most trending people who use that hashtag. And so that's why I keep using it over and over again

because I'm trying to own it. Let's see. When can you start making money off being LinkedIn influencers? Do advertisers just throw money at you, L.O.L. I mean, I don't really get people who, like, offer to pay me money for my LinkedIn. I do a lot of trading as an influencer on LinkedIn. So, like, I'll do a lot of trading with different sponsors, like, hey, promote me in your podcast app, and I'll do a contest with you. And I like to do, like, a lot of win-win things. So I want to make sure that my audience gets something out of it, whether they're, you know,

promoting a new podcaster that's their friend or they get to win a gift card or do something where it's a win-win for everyone so that my audience, like, loves the contest and doesn't just get annoyed from me. And so I use my platform as a way to, like, trade. I'm not really getting approached by people to, like, just pay me to promote something. I think LinkedIn is a little different than, like, Instagram is where that's not really that popular yet. But a lot of LinkedIn influencers just turn into a LinkedIn coach, and then they make their money that way. There's a lot of opportunity in terms of people who want to learn about LinkedIn and there's not that many experts out there and there's not that many people really crushing it on LinkedIn, but I would

be careful because anybody basically can get to 30,000 connections. All you have to do is just keep hitting invite, invite, invite, and if people accept, you know, it's just a numbers game in terms of how many invites can you send out and get accepted to 30,000. So there's a lot of LinkedIn coaches out there saying that they're amazing and they've got 20,000 followers and all this stuff, but they invited those people, those people didn't find them. And so really, if you're looking for a LinkedIn coach, find somebody who has like 40,000 followers or 50 or 60 or 70 because those people went past the 30,000 that is just kind of you, anybody could do it because you just have to hit invite enough times. So that's what I would look for if you are looking for a LinkedIn

coach. Pardt, can you share one actionable advice that you implemented in your life from guests that you interacted with? Oh, that's a good one. Well, Jordan Harbin, Jordan Harbin, has become like my new mentor and he is a huge podcaster and he's been teaching me so much stuff about how he grew his podcast. And one of the things that he's been teaching me is that I've got to do podcast reads on other big podcasts in order to grow my Apple ranking and the people who follow me on Apple right now. I have got a huge subscriber base on CastBox, on SoundCloud, on overcast and all these like random apps. But I don't really have that big of a following on Apple compared to Jordan Harbinger or, you know, Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or all these other huge

podcasters. I'm still lacking on that app specifically because it's not as easy. I can't just like partner with Apple. They don't even know who I am. They don't care about me. But like Cass Box will partner with me, but not Apple. But anyway, he taught me that and I'm going to implement that. I implement stuff that my guests tell me all the time.

Sometimes it's subconscious. I talk to one brilliant mind every single week. and I just feel like what I learn as I'm studying for that guest or during the actual interview when I get this hour with this amazing person where they're just pouring out all their wisdom to me. I feel like just subconsciously I just take all that information wherever I go and it comes out in podcast interviews or in sessions like this and just in daily life. And so I feel so blessed that I get to learn from all these amazing people. Good question, Parth.

Thank you. Okay, LinkedIn user. I'd love some techniques to increase engagement. For example, what to post stories versus helpful tips and so on. Cool. Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. By the way, shout out to everyone who is tuning in. Shout out to Chris Parnell.

Shout out to Shell. Shout out to Jeremy. Shout out to Joshua. Everybody who's tuning in right now, if you are listening and I didn't shout you out, drop your name, drop where you're from so that I can shout you out and that I know you're there. And if you have any questions in terms of podcasting, marketing, LinkedIn, whatever it is, drop your questions in the chat. There's like a two-minute delay. So drop them in the chat so that when I'm done with this question, I have my next questions. And I probably have to scroll up and

see some of the questions that I missed. So yeah, drop any questions that you guys have. All right. So techniques to increase engagement. So much to say about this. Let's start with text. So you want to open up your post with something that's really engaging. This is called a hook. So typically it's one line. It's something that draws people in. It can be something that is controversial, works really well. It can be a question.

It can be something funny or something with all caps, something that's going to stand out that's going to make people click to read more. So your first two lines are like super important because you want to entice people to read more. So that's one hint off the bat. Have a hook. Make sure that you have a hook. The second thing that I'll say is that people hate big chunky paragraphs. If you notice, all my posts kind of look like a poem.

It's just like line, line, line. People don't like to read big paragraphs. People are on their mobile device. They're scrolling very fast. They're in a rush. They just want to get to the point and they don't want you to be wordy. So shorter is always better than longer when it comes to your content and your text on LinkedIn. The other thing that I'll say is in terms of the content types, there's a million different content types out there.

Like I was saying before, I find that right now, images are doing really well. So images are performing better than regular text posts. They're performing better than videos. They're performing better than sliders for me. Regular images are performing the best for me right now. That doesn't mean that in two months or whatever it's going to change. That's why you always need to be trying something new and experimenting. And speaking to that, you always want to.

freshen things up. So people get sick of your content very easily. So if you always post a video in the same background, people are going to get sick of it. So that's why I always switch up my colors. I told my team recently, like, we need to switch up the pattern of my video. I think people are sick of my videos and we need to switch it up. So it's really important to always keep things fresh and try new things because people will get bored of your content and they will just start to be part of everything else and they won't stop. You want people to stop scrolling on social media. That is the goal of social media is to stop the scroll, right? That's what everybody says in marketing.

Stop the scroll. And so you do that with bright colors, bold patterns, a hook that brings you in. And then the other thing is a story. Everybody loves stories. And so as a marketer on LinkedIn or somebody who's trying to build a brand on LinkedIn or have content on LinkedIn, you want to get really good at telling stories. And part of this is knowing like how much to tell, how you don't want to give everything away. You want to be like just high level enough where people can use their own imagination.

You want to give details so people feel like they're part of the story. You want to bring people in with a story. For some reason, humans just love stories. So a personal story always works well. Like think about your own experiences and whatever you want to write about, try to weave in your own personal story into it. And it will usually perform a lot better if you use a story. So those are just some tips in terms of increasing engagement.

The other thing I'll say is that you want to make sure that your post provides value. A lot of people think that they can go on LinkedIn and just be like, I was just on a podcast. Here's a link to it. Or check out my article. Here's a link. Nobody cares. And nobody wants to, everybody's on LinkedIn. They want to stay on LinkedIn.

Nobody wants to go to your outside asset. Sometimes people don't want to watch your video. So whatever you do has to actually have value in the actual caption. You actually want to have the person walk away, especially on LinkedIn, walk away, learn something new. So all of your posts need to be educational. They need to be impactful. They need to be smart, creative. And people need to walk away reading your caption, have learning something new and have found value in your post without having to watch the video or without having to go to the next link. You know, if you provide value, people will usually comment because they'll say, oh,

thank you. I didn't know that. Or thank you for sharing. This is so interesting. If you just say, hey, check this out, people aren't going to respond because there's nothing to respond to. There's nothing that you provided them with. And the last thing I'll say is to end with a question. Whenever you ask people a question, it's a lot more likely that they're going to engage with you. So always try to end your post of the question or start it with a question. I find that that really works well. All right. So we've got Carson from Idaho. Thanks for tuning in. We've got a LinkedIn user. I can't see what your name is, but you're from Massachusetts. It's cold and rainy. It's cold and rainy in New Jersey as well. Then we got A&B. Thank you guys all so much for listening. So again, if you guys

have any questions, feel free to put them in the chat. I'm going to scroll up here and see if there's any questions that I missed. Oh, from Carolyn. What is your favorite episode of Yap? I have a lot of favorite episodes. So episode number one was about first impressions and I spent a lot of time on this podcast. It might have taken me three months to put out and I interviewed Dr. Jack Schaefer and Dory Clark and Dr. Jack Schaefer wrote The Like Switch and he was my favorite author. I actually read the Like Switch or listened to it on Audible like 10 times and he was my all time favorite author and so to have him as my first guest was like unbelievable and he was so charismatic and so smart.

And I just love that interview. And I feel like I worked really hard on that episode. And so it's still, even though it's episode number one, everybody says your first episode is supposed to suck. I love my first episode. And so first impressions with Dr. Jack Schaefer and Dory Clark was top of the list. Then I think my first other episode that I liked was Chase Hughes, number eight, Hacking Human Behavior.

That was one of my first episodes that went viral. It went viral on SoundCloud. and I had a lot of people who found me from that podcast on YouTube. And just even till this day on YouTube, I get like all these views on this random old video. And everybody just loves that episode. And a lot of people say it changed their life. And it's all about body language and how to read people's body language.

And Chase is this like super cool ex-fbi agent guy. He's definitely like not one of the most, like one of the least famous people who've been on my show. And it's just funny how people just love that episode. and really loved his expertise. So I love hacking human behavior number eight. Chris Voss, number 23, negotiate like a boss was an amazing episode. Everybody loved Jay Sammet when he came on.

The Robert Green episodes, 43 and 44, I think. Those are also one of my favorites. Yeah, there's so many great episodes on Yap. We're super blessed to have had so many amazing people on our show. Okay, again, guys, please, if you have any questions, drop them in the chat. I'd love to hear from you. Try to think of something that, you know, maybe, don't be shy. Ask me whatever you want. Happy to answer anything about myself, podcasting, LinkedIn, whatever it is. What made you get into podcasting? Good question, Kennedy. How did I get into

podcasting? So really, I started my career in radio. I started my career at Hot 97. It is a top radio station in New York. And throughout my 20s, I always had an online radio show. So I would be with the DJs that are famous now on the radio like DJ Drusky and DJ Juanito. Those used to be my DJs when we, after work, go to DTF Radio in Brooklyn or AistRadio.net in the city, wherever it was and we used to have these radio shows. And I would interview artists and musicians and It was just like more of a casual thing where we talk about their relationships and, you know, how they got into music and all that. And, you know, I started this blog as well called the sorority of hip hop when I was in college and that got really big. And I used to have online radio shows

with my other girls who were in the sorority of hip hop. And so I always had these like group online radio shows like throughout my college career. And they never really took off. Like it taught me a lot about production and things like that. But online radio in general, just next. never took off the same way that podcasting did. And so all that kind of fizzled out at some point. And then I was in my corporate career at Hewlett-Packard. I was working there for like four years. I thought that I was never going to get back into radio. I thought I was never going to get back on a mic. And podcasting, it was 2018, podcasting was like becoming really big. And I was like, damn, like, I used to do this. And I miss it so much. And now it's like some huge thing. It's totally accessible. It doesn't seem that hard to get

into, I'm just going to do it. And I remember that so many people in my life were against it. They told me, Holly, you have such a great career. Everything is going great for you. You finally grew up from this dream of being in radio. There's no money in radio. And everything is going well. Why are you going to sabotage it, concentrating on this other thing? And I didn't listen to anyone. And I just decided I'm going to go for my dreams and I'm going to do it a little differently. I'm going to make it about business this time. I'm going to make it to help people. I want to be a voice of my generation.

I want to help people improve their lives. I had just very pure, good intentions. I did not care about making money off of it. In fact, you know, first two years was a lot more money invested in it than I made off of it. And it was just really to learn from all these experts and try to do something more meaningful. When I used to have these other online radio shows, it was really shallow. Like, it was really, like, fun. and entertaining, but I don't think anybody really improved their lives from it, which is probably

why I didn't have, like, diehard fans the way that I do with the app. And so I feel like I found something a lot more meaningful, and I just attacked it with full force and went, you know, went crazy trying to make it work. And, you know, here we are. Thank God. So West. So thanks, Kennedy. All right. So shout out to everybody here. Shout out to Rob, Mario, Philip, Kennedy. If you guys have any questions, again, drop them in the chat because there's like a two, three minutes delay, and then I'll know what questions to answer, and there won't be any dead air or anything like that. So from Mario, what are the easiest steps to start a podcast? Well, there's a lot.

I mean, people have courses on courses in terms of how to launch a podcast. I would say step number one is to know your why. Like, why do you want to start a podcast? If it's a way to make money quick, find something else because podcasting is not how you're going to make something quick. It's a long haul. It's a long road. It takes a lot of work.

I freaking busted my ass to get to where I am right now. And I think it's even harder now because it's, like, you know, two years later, podcasts are even bigger than ever. Not to discourage anyone. There's plenty of room for people in this space still. But you need to actually know your why and always be able to fall back to your why because most people who start a podcast quit after seven episodes. Like that's the reality of it.

They see that their downloads aren't where they want and they feel like it's not realistic or whatever and they stop. So knowing your why and having a really strong why is super important. Then I think it's about picking your. title of your podcast, super important. You want to have an SEO optimized title with some keywords. Young and Profiting doesn't have that. That's my biggest regret. So have a really good title that is not taken already and that people would search for. Decide what your category is, what your niche is, who your target audience is, how you're going to promote it, what is your format, how often are you

going to post it, all those kind of things. So I would say there's no easy steps. I think that it's just available to you in terms of how to start a podcast, just Google it. YouTube School is how you can learn anything now. And so just go on YouTube and listen to stuff from me in terms of how I started my podcast and then just put one and two together and go on your way. There's no right or wrong way to start a podcast. Everybody thinks that they have the right way. There's no, you could choose whatever hosting provider you want.

You can choose whatever equipment you want. It's up to you. And so there's a million different ways to start. a podcast. You just got to figure out what works for you. Okay. Let's see. If you have a question, put it in the chat. If you hopped on late, let me know who you are, where you're from, so I can shout you out. Okay. So this is a long question. Let's see. From Rob, if your LinkedIn profile represents the company you work for, company XYZ, and you had great success and networking and getting views and starting posting motivational quotes, but it branded to me

and some people in my company are getting a bit weird about what's the best way or kind of way to brand it to me without being obvious. It's mine. Without making coworkers or bosses feeling uncomfortable. Got it. So basically, I'm going to hide this because it's blocking my face. So basically your question is, how do I promote myself, my personal brand, without offending people who I work with? Now, what I'll say is that one of my biggest regrets when I worked at HP was that I was so focused on promoting HP and I never promoted myself, right? When I left that company, everything that I did to promote that company went away. It was no longer my asset, right? HP no longer represented me. I spent all this time building up their brand, building up their young employees.

And then I left that company because I had a new opportunity at Disney. and then I left with nothing. All that work, all that hard work I did to promote their brand, I did not own any of it. And so you need to really look inside yourself and decide yourself, do I want to promote something that I own, or do I want to promote something that I don't own?

When you promote your personal brand, you take that with you no matter where you go, right? You create a security blanket for yourself because you've got a network that supports you. And no matter what you do now, you'll be successful. And so while you might lose the respect of your current situation, your current bosses or colleagues, you gain the security of having a network that always has your back, no matter what company

you go to, and no matter where you go, right? And you can start to get consulting gigs and whatever it is and make money outside of your company because your personal brand is elevated and you're looked at as an expert in your industry. And so for me, it's a tradeoff. It's never going to be perfect. Some companies are going to be open to you promoting your personal brand. Some companies aren't going to be okay with it. But at the end of the day, you need to make your own decision in terms of do you want to build

yourself up so that you can do whatever you want and be looked as an expert, as an individual, as a brand yourself? Or do you want to spend all your time promoting another brand that you don't own, that you may move away from it sometime? and then what do you get from all that time you spent nothing? There's no return on your investment when you do that. So I would say it's not easy. I mean, for me, I am probably one of the most, if not the most well-known person at Disney streaming on LinkedIn, probably more than the CEO. And so far, everything's been fine. And I think it's because I carry myself in a professional

manner and I don't do anything that would hurt the reputation of the brand. So as long as you're being positive, as long as you're staying relevant to your industry and you're not doing anything that's talking bad about the company. Nobody should have a problem if you're promoting your personal brand. There's a problem with the company if somebody is giving you a big problem about promoting your personal brand because at the end of the day, the company does not own you. They don't own your digital presence unless there's something that you signed that said you're not allowed to do anything like that. You're allowed to do whatever you want on social media and it's getting more normal and more normal for people in a corporate situation to have their own personal brand.

And that's the feature. And for me, I have the most job security ever. And that is because I have built a personal brand on LinkedIn. And now you can ask my interns who are in my profile. They see me rejecting people every day asking me if I want a job. And I say, I have too many jobs. No, thank you. And it's because I've grown a very reputable personal brand. I've positioned myself as an expert, and there's give and take in terms of your corporate career and doing that, but I think the long-term gain definitely wins over the short-term turmoil that you might face when doing that. Young and profitors.

I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing.

Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lensione and he is a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius,

which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations.

So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role. role, which I do have Kate on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better,

understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing, start working in your genius. What's up, Yap, gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first

touch points every single cold customer has with your brand. Think about that for a second. When people are searching on Google, everybody who interacts with your brand first is seeing your dot com initially. But here's a problem. Too many companies treat their website like a formality instead of the gross tool that it should be. At Yap Media, we are guilty of this.

I am really due for an upgrade from my website, and I'm planning on doing that with Framer this year. Because small changes can take days with my other platform and simple updates require tickets. And suddenly, we're just leaving so much opportunity on the table. And that's why so many teams, including mine, are turning to Framer. It's built for teams who refuse to let their website slow them down. Your designers and marketers get full ownership with real-time collaboration, everything you need for SEO and analytics, with integrated A-B testing. I love that.

I love testing and making sure that we've got the best performing assets on the page. You make a change, hit publish, and it's live in seconds. Whether you're launching a new site, testing landing pages, or migrating your full.com, Framer makes going from idea to live site fast and simple. Learn how you can get more out of your dot com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com slash profiting for 30% off a Framer pro annual plan. That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's Framer.com slash profiting for 30% off.

Framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Okay, next question. And if you guys have questions, just drop them in the chat. And this is going really well. We're at 40 minutes already. So no comment fights. I'm really proud of everybody.

And let's go on to the next question. How do you decide the questions to ask a guess? Also, how much time do you spend on the production, researching, marketing, and other steps for your podcast. Okay. So I have an entire research team. I have six people on my research team now. And at one point, I was by myself. And when I was by myself, I was spending about 20 hours per guest studying them. And that would include just listening to other interviews that they're on, reading book reviews, good and bad about whatever books they wrote. But a lot of it was just spent listening to other interviews. Basically, what I like to do is

listen to these interviews and then take like the best parts of each one in terms of like how the conversation went. Sometimes when you're a podcaster and you're in the moment asking questions, it's so hard to like decipher all the information that's coming out at you. And so a lot of the times they'll be on a really big podcast and, you know, the podcast host did a great job. But the guest mentioned something that was so important and the host was just too distracted to dig deeper. And so I love to find those moments around like, ah, that's such a great point to kind of dig deeper on. How can I bring that out of him on my podcast and then remember to dig deeper? Because I remembered this piece of information that he gave in another podcast that they

didn't dig deeper on. So I love to do all that kind of stuff, really just pull information from different sources and try to put together like the best interview possible. A lot of people try to wing it and I never wing it. I always know what I'm going to ask. I'm very particular. and being super prepped for my interviews. It's one of the most important things, I think, when it comes to having a quality podcast when you're an interview type style, you really need to be prepped

and have done your research. How much time do I spend on production? I spend 50% of my time on production and 50% of my time on promotion. That's how I split it up. Now I have a big team, and so I have an audio engineer who kind of works on all the audio editing

that I trust, and it's all about building a great team with systems and processes, and outsourcing the things that you're not great at. So for me, even from the beginning, I was out. I can audio edit. I worked at a radio station. I did it when I was younger.

I can totally do it if I had to. I don't like it. I don't like spending my time on it. I think it's a waste of my time. I think Matt, my lead audio engineer, is much better at it than me. I'd rather pay him and be able to focus on research because I think that that's where my strengths are. And that's why I just try to outsource things that I'm not that great at or I don't care for

or we'll just suck up my time and then just work on. the things that really are going to move the needle that I'm the best at. So I hope I answer your question. Okay, guys, if you guys have any questions, drop them in the chat. I'll answer anything that you want. Let's start with what are some of the best hooks that you've seen? So this is going back to the comment when I said, write a good hook. I had one of my first posts was, I'm so thankful, I'm thankful for everyone who has told me no. And it was just a one line. and it was just a one-liner hook. I'm thankful for everyone who has told me no.

And people ate it up. It was like one of my first viral posts. And I think it's because it triggered emotion with people, right? Like everybody remembers the times when they were told no. They remember being, you know, rejected and redirected. And everybody kind of has their own failure stories. And so it just brought people out being like, yeah, I'm so happy people told me no, too, and got people talking.

So anything that's going to trigger emotion or trigger a reaction or help people remember, story or something that people can relate to. That's the kind of hook that you want in your material. Hey, Kashmir, shout out to you. If you guys are newly hopping on, tell me who you are, where you're from, and I'll shout you out. Okay, that's great insight. Also, do you let them know the questions so the guests can be prepared? No, actually, I don't. Unless somebody asks me for an outline, I don't send them anything. And when people ask me for the questions in advance, once in a blue moon, I tend to interview people who do podcasts all the time because I've reached a level where I can get like bestselling authors and CEOs and billionaires and things like that on my podcast. And so right now, people are usually pros and they don't have time to look at questions.

So if somebody asks me for the questions, it's sort of a red flag because I'm like, oh, crap, are they not on podcast typically? Because as a person who's on podcast, I don't want to know the questions because I just want to hop on, get it done. and I don't have more time to think about your podcast other than the hour that I'm on with you, right? And so I don't do outlines or questions. I don't give them any notice in advance. I think it also depends on your, some people have podcasts where they interviewed everyday people. And those people, I think, to have a better show, you want to give them the questions in advance. And somebody does ask me for the questions.

I don't even give them the questions. I give them an outline. So I have my team send them like a bulleted list of the things we're going to touch on. so that they can get mentally prepared, but so that they don't actually memorize their answers. I always want people to answer, like, from their heart, from within. Even I have all my questions written, but half the time I'm not even looking at my notes

and I'm just like kind of remembering what I planned and trying to be more natural with it. And that's why I still have ums and us and whatever because I'm sort of memorized what I'm going to say, but I still kind of go with the flow at the same time. And so I like things to be nice. natural and I find that I want people to speak from their heart, speak from their actual experiences. And so for that reason, I don't give them questions because I don't want them to study too

much in advance because then I just feel like it's stale, scripted. And it's just not the same real conversation that we want. Okay, shout out to everybody who's tuning in. Clayton from Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in. If you guys are just hopping on, put your name where you're from. I'll shout you out. Shout out to Catherine tuning in. and everybody who is tuning in. To start your own brand, this is from Carson, to start your own brand, it takes a lot of time.

What advice would you give to somebody with a family? Okay, so listen, I think that's an excuse. Like, I understand that you have a family, and I don't have children, but I have a full-time job, and I have a podcast, and I have a podcast marketing agency, and I had a really sick dad at one point that I had to take care of, and I have a very needy loving. I love him so much, but I have a boyfriend who's kind of like a big baby.

And so I think that's an excuse. I think everybody has their own things going on. And just because you have a family doesn't mean that you're more busy than somebody who doesn't have a family because they just might have other things going on, like two jobs like me, for example. And so I think it's about fitting your brand and your marketing into your daily life. So having a personal brand doesn't mean that you need to make things up and spend a lot of time on it. Why not just document your life? Why not talk about your own children if that's how you're spending your time?

Talk about your personal stories. Document the process. You don't need to document the outcome. You don't need to have something very fancy. You don't need to have something very expensive. The best videos that I do are like this where I'm just hopping on randomly and just talking and I have no script and this costs no money other than the computer I already paid for and whatever. And it does well because it's from the heart and it's just real raw content and it's me.

And so I think that having a brand and saying that it's a lot of time is an excuse. It's finding the moments that you have throughout the day. When I started my LinkedIn brand, I did all my LinkedIn marketing on my commute. Literally, my morning post was done on the train and then I would do all my engagement. responding to comments and things like that on the way home. And I would respond to my DMs. And I literally grew my LinkedIn from 2000 to like probably 50,000. I am like at 68,000 or something now on the train, on my commute to work. And so anybody can find the time to start a brand on LinkedIn. It's figuring out like what am I going to sacrifice. So instead of just listening to a podcast and

enjoying my commute, I decided to work on my commute and do my LinkedIn post every morning, be consistent every single morning, or shoot a video literally walking to the train, and that's how I grew my following. And so to me, it's an excuse if you say you don't have the time. I think you can find the time. And it's about documenting your real life, your real life experiences. You don't need to make it overwhelming or expensive or complicated. Just get started and tell your personal stories, share whatever value that you have. And hopefully, it will work out. Okay, from Isabella Vaux. How do you balance your time with a full job at Disney, Yap, and client work? Well, I think that right now I have a very unhealthy lifestyle, and I would

not recommend it to anyone. I don't have time to, like, work out like I used to and do the things that I need to do. I don't have enough time to spend with my friends and my family. And so I think that I'm in need for a change, and I'm working towards that change, and something's got to give. because you do need a work-life balance. And you can only hustle and hustle and hustle like I have been for so long. And so I'm looking to make a change soon so that I can't have more time to have a more balanced life. In terms of how I get by now with all these things on my plate, it's really about working on the weekends.

It's really about squeezing in any extra time that I have to work. So while I'm cleaning, I'm studying and listening to interviews for my podcasts. When I do work out, I'm usually studying for a podcast. And so trying to take that time and be really strategic with it. I don't watch a lot of TV. If I do watch TV, it's like Shark Tank and it's educational. And so I spent a lot of time doing that. And then I also think it has to do with the people that I surround myself with.

So my boyfriend is a very popular musician. He's a music producer. His name is Harry Fraud. He works constantly like me. And so he understands. and a lot of the times we're hanging out on the couch side by side on the computer working together, you know, and he gets it. And, you know, for a long time, he was a really busy one. And now it's me and he's totally understanding. And so I think it also has to do with, you know, who you surround

yourself with and making sure that you have the right support system. And I'm very lucky that my boyfriend is really supportive. My mom is really supportive. And so they all help me in terms of making it all work. And like I said, it's not healthy to be working all the time. And so I'm at this critical point where I need to let something go. And hopefully I'll share that news soon. Okay, from LinkedIn user, next time I shout out your question, put your name, because I think, for some reason, I can't see your name. How do you find quality guests when you're starting out podcasting? I assume without a brand, there'll be no value in great guests coming on your podcast. Well, I think it's true. It's harder to get great guests when you're up and coming. But I always recommend that you

shoot for the stars. So for me, when I was first starting, I reached up to Dr. Jack Schaefer and Dory Clark, and they took a chance on me. And it's because I told them my story. I told them my background. I told them why they should take a chance on me, how well promoted. And I had a professional looking podcast cover. And I had, I knew what my angle of my show was going to be. And so I think if you have your elevator pitch and you know what you're looking for and you ask people to come on your show, they'll come on your show. And a lot of people who are, you know, trying to make it, they're going to go on any podcast. Like I literally right now, I am saying yes to everyone. I can't do that forever. But I say yes to everybody who wants to have me on their podcast because I just want to

give a chance to people. And I think that there's a lot of people like me who are willing to give the underdog a chance. Evan Carmichael goes on like anyone's podcast. I think Gary, V said at one point he was going on everyone's podcast. So there's plenty of people that are going to just be like, what are your stats? And if your stats aren't XYZ, then I don't want to come to your podcast. And then there's going to be a lot of people who are just like genuine good people who would be the people that you want on your podcast that are going to say like, yeah, sure, I'll take a chance on you. You seem like a nice person. You seem like you have your shit together. I think as long as you look professional and you approach them with a mission and you seem motivated and give them some

examples of how you'll promote, even though you don't have a big following yet, and you pitch it as like, take a chance on me and I'll pay it forward when I make it. I think a lot of people will say yes. So that's my advice there. All right. Next question from Kevin Ward. By the way, if you guys are enjoying this conversation, let me know in the chat. If you're just joining, let me know where you're at, where you're from so I can shout you out. Thank you guys all for tuning in. We'll wrap this up in about seven minutes. So if you have another question, we can answer a few more, drop them in the chat, and I'll get them answered. Okay, from Kevin Ward. Do you have any tips for dealing with imposter syndrome? I know I'm competent in my positions, but when I'm sharing, I worry my expertise

might not be as valuable for others in different types of companies. I think when it comes to imposter syndrome, I think one of the ways to feel like an expert is to actually like write down, all of your stories or write down the things that you think you're an expert on. And it gives me more confidence because when you clearly write down and outline everything that you're good at, then when you're talking about it, you'll feel more confident because you can bring up more examples, more stats. Like, for example, when you guys just asked me about the podcast monetization, I just wrote a blog with Sounder FM on monetization. And so I had all this information that was so fresh in my head, and I could just rattle things off like it will be 40,000 downloads

before you'll get $1,000 per episode for your podcast. And that's because I just wrote that. And so I remembered it. And having those little nuggets of information when you're on the fly, getting asked questions or on a panel, that's what's going to give you that confidence. The other thing that I would say is before you get onto that panel or whatever stage you're on, try to remember a moment where you had confidence. Some people have a confidence journal. That's what they call it. Some other people just call it like just channeling good energy.

Think of a moment. Like, let's say for me, it was like I was a teen and I was on Miss Talented Teen, New Jersey. And I sang a song by Mandy Moore and I won. And it was one of the first moments where I was confident and did a really good job at something and won. you know and so when i'm about to get on stage i just try to feel like oh let me think back to that time when i was a teen and i won mistalented teen new jersey and and how confident i was and and and try to just channel that feeling and it will help you be more confident in the moment and then like i said writing down what you think you're an expert on and really building it out and getting facts and stats

and things that are in your arsenal stories real life examples whatever it is so that you can always like pull from them when you're on the spot. And that's what's going to give you credibility and make you that expert. Okay, guys, well, thank you so much, everybody for hopping on. I really appreciate everybody who took the time to chat with us. If you enjoyed this chat, let me know, drop a comment. If you want me to do these again, let me know. If you have a different angle that you want me to take, let me know. And I appreciate everybody hopping on. We had a great discussion. Thank you guys so much. I hope you have a great night. And goodbye. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please write us a review or comment on your favorite

platform. Nothing makes us happier than reading your reviews. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. And don't forget to share this podcast with your friends, family, and on social media. I always repost, reshare, and support those who support us. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. Big thanks to the Yap team, as always. This is Hala, signing off.