Podcasting Done Right to Build Your Online Business with Marni Wasserman
Today, I am chatting with co-founder and co-host of the Ultimate Health Podcast, the one and only Marni Wasserman. Outside of being a fun and entertaining host of a successful podcast, Marni is also a nutritionist and natural chef. Although she loves cooking and teaching, Marni found a new passion in podcasting
Marni started as an owner of a cooking school and author of two books. But when she recognized that her brick and mortar business wasn’t lending itself well to the lifestyle she desired, she opted for something different. As she transitioned out of her cooking school, Marni transitioned into the Ultimate Health Podcast, and she hasn’t looked back since.
She and her husband are now proud to run a wildly successful podcast. She is excited to continue building out its brand to extend to an entire wellness space—complete with products, live events, and speaking engagements all over the world. We’ll jump into podcasting behind-the-scenes, the growth that comes from in-person to online work, and the necessary traits to succeed in any business. Tune in and soak up some key lessons that any entrepreneur can take home, and learn what it really takes to put out content on any platform.
In this episode Marni and I discuss:
- How she and her husband, Jesse, got into podcasting.
- The back-end work that no one thinks about.
- Sponsorships, affiliates, and tasteful advertisements.
- The business side of the Ultimate Health Podcast.
- Getting guests on the show, maintaining the integrity of the brand, and partnerships.
- The transition from a physical to an online business and what it takes to succeed.
3:30 – 9:30 – How the Ultimate Health Podcast started and how it has gained momentum
9:00 – 13:30 – The back-end work behind podcasting, sponsors, and social outreach
13:30 – 17:30 – Listener support, affiliates, and appropriate advertising
17:30 – 19:30 – Growing the business side of the brand and maintaining long-term partnerships
19:30 – 22:30 – Getting guests on the show and having a backlog of episodes
22:30 – 25:30 – The Ultimate Health brand, products, and live events; an entire health space
25:30 – 35:00 – The transition from a brick and mortar to an online business and the challenges
35:00 – 37:30 – The Rapid Five
Transcription:
Healthpreneurs! It’s episode 80 today, and we are joined by the co-founder and co-host of Ultimate Health Podcast, Marni Wasserman. I hope you’re having a great week. It’s been an awesome week on the Healthpreneur Podcast.
We had a great interview with Adam Lloyd just a few days ago. If you missed that episode, it’s episode 79. Grab it on the iTunes feed, and subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. It was a great interview about how he built the number one rated gym in a town just outside Toronto out of 217 competing gyms in that area.
Whether you have a physical facility or not, it doesn’t matter. The fundamentals we talked about are applicable to any business, online or offline. Check that out if you missed it.
Today, we are going to shift gears and focus more on podcasting. As you can tell, you’re listening to a podcast right now. I’m a big fan of podcasts and I’ll be very honest with you, I’ve started and stopped four different podcasts in my health and fitness business.
I thought maybe I had an issue with consistency. But I recognized that the process I had created for myself wasn’t well thought out. I was doing way too much work inside the podcast, but it was still a medium. I still believe that a podcast is an amazing intimate experience that is unparalleled.
I don’t know where you’re listening to this from, but maybe it’s in your car, maybe you’re walking your dogs, maybe you’re working out, or maybe you’re just chilling outside. Either way, this is one of the only ways you can connect with people in an uninterrupted fashion.
If you’re watching my YouTube videos, you might be distracted. You might see other videos in the side bar and you might click on those, or if you’re reading a blog post or a Facebook post, you might be distracted by another shiny object and clicking off to somewhere else. A podcast is unique and I want to acknowledge and appreciate you for listening to this podcast, whether it’s your first episode or your 80th episode.
If you’ve been with me since day one, thank you. I do this for you. Yes, it’s a great way for me to connect with amazing entrepreneurs, but I love to inspire and show you what’s possible with your expertise, knowledge, and business. Every week, we bring great entrepreneurs to your front door to help you do that.
So, today’s episode is with Marni Wasserman of the Ultimate Health Podcast. I was fortunate enough to have been a guest on that show about a year ago. I’m going to ask some questions about what it takes to build a successful podcast. They’ve been doing this for three years, and there must be some highs and lows and some lessons learned that she can share with us in this episode.
If you’ve no interest in podcasting, it doesn’t matter. There’s always common threads. It doesn’t matter if you’re YouTubing or blogging, there are commonalities that are applicable to any value vehicle as I call them in my workshops. Your value vehicle, the thing you use to produce your value to the world, whether it’s a podcast or anything else, has the same fundamentals.
There’s little nuances that Marni will get into, but nonetheless, it’ll be valuable for anybody in our space. She started off with a physical brick and mortar business and she’ll share with us how she transitioned out of that into being online full-time.
***********************************************************
***********************************************************
Marni Wasserman, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going?
Marni: It’s going great. Thanks for having me.
Yuri: You are very welcome. You are a podcast star yourself. We’ll devote a good chunk of this episode to the podcast journey. It’s an amazing platform for connecting with your audience and providing an intimate experience with great content. Why did you start the Ultimate Health Podcast, the one that you and Jesse have been running for so long now?
How the Ultimate Health Podcast started and how it has gained momentum
Marni: Well, I do have to give credit where credit’s due and that is to Jesse. He was the podcast junkie well before I was, so he was always a consumer of podcasts. He had a podcast before we started ours and when we first started dating, about a year into our relationship, he kept pulling me to start a podcast.
I was so busy with my food studio and teaching cooking classes, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I didn’t know much about it. I had listened to a few of them and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know if this is going to work.”
He eventually convinced me and we started the podcast. With his commitment, diligence, persistence, consistency, and teaching me about the power of the podcast, I fell in love with it and we started doing it. We started getting guests on. We were doing some of our own shows and I started to see the reach this podcast could have, how we had the ability to get into the ears of so many different people across the whole world.
It was so different than blogging, so different than YouTube, so different than working with people one on one, which I’ve been doing for so many years. So, seeing the potential of this platform got me excited and here we are, three years later.
Yuri: Awesome. For the listeners who may not know the power of the podcast, can you share the data or the cool byproducts that have come from the podcast?
Marni: First, and you know this too, you get the chance to connect with so many amazing people, whether they’re people that are already in your community or in your world. You get the chance to have deeper conversations with them. People who you’ve always looked up to and have been inspired by can be welcomed on your show so you can take that conversation deeper. Because we’re under the umbrella of health, that covers so much and we have done that over the years. We’ve tackled everything from yoga to meditation to mindfulness, to nutrition, sleep, on and on, and that’s allowed us to connect with so many amazing people.
Through those conversations, not only do Jesse and I get this unbelievable experience, this one on one continued education, but we are also reaching so many people. Because it’s available through iTunes and it’s free, it makes it so accessible. So again, I was not a listener of podcasts. There was some friction. Now of course, Apple’s made it so easy with the podcast app. People can download it, click a button, and listen to it.
Through that, social media, and SEO from our website, we’ve had the ability to gain momentum by using the right keywords, connecting with the right people, and having them share the show.
Yuri: Amazing. Like as you said, it’s such an amazing opportunity to spend half an hour to an hour with awesome people. I don’t know of any other opportunity, unless you’re a reporter for a news station, which is tremendous.
Marni: Exactly.
The back-end work behind podcasting, sponsors, and social outreach
Yuri: What are some pieces of advice or common potholes people should avoid as they’re starting their journey into podcasting?
Marni: The first thing people need to know is that it’s not as easy as it appears. It’s not as easy as just clicking play and putting on an episode and putting it out to the world. There’s a lot of backend stuff going on.
If people are looking to start their own podcast, they need to find out from someone else who’s podcasting exactly what’s happening. I’ll try and give you some tidbits here. Having the right equipment depends on how savvy you are, and Jesse and I are very savvy about audio quality. We made sure we had good quality mics and sound. Invest in that, and if you can’t invest high in that in the beginning, just get something simple.
Yuri: So what do you guys use?
Marni: Now we’re getting into Jesse territory. I know we have the Audio-Technica mics and that’s our beginner mic. I know we’re looking to upgrade from here, but they’ve been great with a pop filter.
That’s key for starting out. Then having some of the right switchboards for making sure it’s connecting through Skype properly, and we’re now also using Zencastr. We’re making sure we get two backup recordings to get that quality, just in case there are any glitches or Skype has any sound glitches. That always happens.
We’ve upgraded that as well. Make sure the room you’re in is enclosed and you add some cushioning in there. Those are all things you can do if you’re doing them like we are. A lot of our conversations are Skype interviews. When we do them in-person, we allow that flexibility for whatever the environment might be, because we have the benefit of having an awesome conversation with someone in-person. We plan on doing more in-person conversations down the road.
So, equipment for sure. Then consistency would be my next thing.
We made sure we were getting a podcast out every single week from the get go. We dabbled with a couple early on, two times a week. We let that go for a bit and now we’re back to two times a week, where we have a guest interview once a week and Jesse and I do our own little mini show called Focus Friday once a week, where our audience gets the chance to know us and our life. We talk about things in the realm of health and wellness.
Yuri: Very cool. So, have the tech and the consistency. A lot of people say not to expect anything in the first year of a podcast, to allow it to gain traction. Did you notice that it took a long time to get traction and build momentum?
Marni: It did take a while to build a huge momentum, but it did continually go up. We had our nice, steady hockey curve going up over the first year, and into the second year, we started to increase. That allowed us to gain our first sponsors for the podcast, and allowed us to break into other platforms early on.
Jesse got us into Google Play and a couple other ones early on because of our stats. It was interesting to see that trajectory, but that comes down to the consistency and social sharing as well. We made sure that we were building the other mediums to get the podcast out. That allowed us to reach more people.
That’s where I step in quite a bit, as I help with the community and the outreach through social media, Instagram, and Facebook. That has helped as well.
Listener support, affiliates, and appropriate advertising
Yuri: Awesome. How do people become aware of the podcast? When you have a guest on the podcast, what does that look like in terms of having them share it? What types of initiatives do you guys put in play to get more exposure for each episode?
Marni: We always hope that our guests will share it. When we send our initial email and follow-up emails to the guest, we give them our social handles and request that they share it with their newsletter or whatever else. We’ve had many share it. We’ve had many not share it. We get it, everyone’s busy and they have lots of other things to share.
If we make it easy, they can share it off our page on Facebook and just click it over. That’s helped too. If I can tag them on Facebook they can share that way. Twitter’s been great. That’s usually a very easy share for a lot of people because Twitter’s quick and fast; it’s just a short link. Instagram’s been a huge platform for us, too.
So, we ask, but then do our best to make sure we’re tagging appropriately and letting people know. Our listeners have been a huge part of our sharing. We have built an incredible, loyal tribe of listeners who are loving it.
I think they’re loving it because we’re very down to earth. We’re very real. We are a couple and we’ve got the yin and yang. We’ve got two different perspectives, we bring the conversation forward, and we both have had a following from our previous careers.
We’ve been very lucky to have a loyal following. Through their social media, our listeners are sharing the show all the time, which is amazing. That’s been very helpful.
Yuri: That’s awesome. You talked about sponsors. Has that been the main monetization model for the podcast?
Marni: Yes, that’s been the early, initial form of monetization. We’re going to continue with that for a little bit, but we’ve been very careful about doing that. We want to make sure that we’re aligning with sponsors that we value and use. We would never bring anything onto the show, pitch, or sell anything to anyone without being fully behind it.
It took us about 50 episodes to get our first sponsor. Because I had an existing relationship with Sunwarrior as an ambassador for the company, that was a great first step for me.
They didn’t know much about podcasting either, but they believed in me and us and saw the power of it. They’ve been with us ever since.
Over the years, we’ve accumulated five or six sponsors. A couple of them are on rotation, and a couple of them are every show and it’s been great. That is a source of income. They’re paying for a spot on the show and we also have affiliates with them, in addition to affiliates with other companies that are on our resource page on our website.
Yuri: That’s smart. Some podcasters say they’re weary of bringing in sponsors because it detracts from the listener experience. I’ve never found that to be true. If I’m listening to a podcast and someone says, “Hey, this is brought to you by so and so,” I’m cool. Have you found any kind of pushback for sponsors from your listeners, or has it been seamless?
Marni: Of course there will always be some people who are turned off by it.
As a listener, when they’re pitching something, I know it can be annoying. But I think it matters how you do it and when you do it. Jesse and I have played with this now that the show has grown and we’re up to four sponsors in a show.
We originally had them at the front end of the show, which when you have four of them is a little too much. Some podcasters do that. Now, we get right into the show and have two breaks in the middle.
We space them out and, right from the beginning, we’ve gotten feedback that we do them authentically. We do the ads. It’s not a read blurb that they’ve sent us. It’s not prerecorded. I try and make it real. I try and make it something tangible.
If it’s a product, I give people a recipe or some new way to use it. Even if I’m talking about a similar product repeatedly, I try and bring something new to it each time, so that the listener is wanting to hear those ads and wondering what else they can do with that product.
There will always be people who’ll skip through it, but overall, we’ve gotten good feedback that our ads are exciting for people to listen to.
Yuri: Yeah. What a thought, right? Just be normal and conversational about something you enjoy. Right? Instead of, “Insert canned thing here.”
Marni: Exactly. And you can’t help it when you’re talking about a product. Of course, your tone might change and be like, “Oh, now a word from our…”, and you sound like a commercial.
But then when you start to come down from that, get real, and talk about the actual product and experience with it, that’s when you get a chance to connect with the audience.
Growing the business side of the brand and maintaining long-term partnerships
Yuri: Totally. What’s been one of the biggest challenges you guys have faced as you’ve built this podcast over the past three years?
Marni: Making sure that trajectory is going up. You want the listener count to keep going up. You want more subscribers all the time. I wouldn’t say that’s a challenge, but that’s something that we’re always watching because that’ll help with future collaborations or different sponsorships that we may want to get on the show.
Other than that, I think just growing the business side of it. Jesse was doing a lot of the editing in the early days and that was challenging because it was such a time sucker. Again, this happens if people don’t know what they’re getting into and don’t have the right things in place.
Luckily, Jesse was tech savvy enough to be able to do that and get most our shows out, but it got to a point where if he was busy doing that all week, we couldn’t keep growing the brand. We eventually got an editor to do that and free up that time.
Just like any business, it has growth and you should hire on people and delegate different things. That was a challenge because it was hard for Jesse to let go of his craft
And you can only do that when someone can do that job better than you. We were lucky to have found someone to do that job. He and Jesse work closely together to make sure that the show quality has stayed the same, if not gone up.
That’s been a big thing. Right now, we are funded by sponsorships, and we want to keep those relationships going because that is our source of income, especially now that we’ve given up our day jobs. We want to make sure we have some long-term partnerships with companies that we value and that value us, so that we know we can work together in a healthy way.
Getting guests on the show and having a backlog of episodes
Yuri: That’s great. How do you find guests to come on the show? How do you go about getting those people to come on? Is it cold outreach, introductions, or a combination of both?
Marni: It’s a combination of both for sure. A lot of our early guests were cold outreaches or people in our network that we knew. We’ve had a lot of people that I’ve worked with or been in touch with over the years. Then over the years, as you start to get good names and some VIP-type people, you leverage that for other people you want to get.
We’ve also gotten emails from these people, and sometimes from very important people, who’ve reached out to us saying, “We’d love to be on your show.” Now that the show’s doing so well, we’re in some top rankings. If a person has a new book coming out, they or the publishing company might reach out to us to get on the show.
So, it’s been a combination.
Yuri: It’s so cool because podcasts have become the new talk shows.
When people go on Letterman or the Late Night Show, they are there to promote a new movie or something along those lines. I think podcasts offer people, especially authors nowadays, that same opportunity.
If you’re in the ear of tens of thousands of listeners, that’s a pretty captive audience. That’s a powerful way to move the needle for whatever it is, whether it’s a book, an event, or anything else. It’s cool.
Marni: Yeah. It’s just been interesting to see this medium grow. We’re always amazed. When Jesse gives me the stats, I’m amazed at how many people are listening every week. They’re waiting for that new show and wanting to listen to it. On the flip side, the authors and guests that are on get huge exposure and reach.
It’s nice to see that this is getting traction.
Yuri: Yeah, totally. If you guys were to start all over again knowing what you know now, is there anything you would do differently?
Marni: Good question. I’m stuck. It’s hard to say because you never know what you don’t know, right?
Maybe doing more recordings ahead of time so we always had podcasts in the bank would be good. We’re trying to do that now, too, to make sure that we have a continuous roster of guests ready to go. Some weeks we’re guest-to-guest. That would be a good thing to start it off.
Other than that, I can’t say much. I think we’ve followed the organic process of building this up and have reached the right milestones at the right time. We got the sponsor at the right time and everything’s just worked in our favor.
Yuri: Great. That’s awesome. Is there a lesson that you guys had to learn the hard way? Was there a moment like that or something that happened over a period of time?
Marni: I think we’ve gotten to know ourselves and the type of guests that we want on the show.
There have been times when we’ll have a guest on or have something recorded. If we decide that it’s not the right fit for our audience or they are not projecting what we thought they were all about, we’ve learned that we can’t put something out because of who they are and what they stand for.
If it doesn’t resonate with us and our audience, even though we thought that they would have, we’ll let that go. We choose what is the best possible delivery for the podcast and for our brand.
We’ve tuned in with that. That’s important to do because you can’t just get the guest on for the sake of the guest. If you think they’re going to be a great hit and they’re not, you’re just seeing through them. We’ve been very weary of that.
Yuri: Totally. That hasn’t happened to me on this podcast.
I had a previous podcast in the health space. I was interviewing a very popular doctor that we all know, I won’t mention his name, and it was one of the worst interviews I’ve ever done. The whole time he was on the interview he had his camera on, so I could see that he was on his computer typing.
Marni: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. We had a few guests like that. We had to call them out and say, “You’re talking about mindfulness and mediation, but you are not present right now.”
It’s just about being of integrity.
Yuri: But the cool thing is that you learn a lot about people when you speak to them. Even if it’s for half an hour. It’s very interesting.
What does the future look like for the Ultimate Health Podcast? What’s coming out of the pipes?
The Ultimate Health brand, products, and live events; an entire health space
Marni: Because the podcast has grown to a certain point and will continue to grow to other astronomical points, we hope, I want to build out the brand.
Now that I am fully immersed in this, my big goal is not just to focus on the podcast, but to focus on the Ultimate Health brand. I want to develop products, do live events, and grow out our website in a way that can reach more people, whether through products, blog posts, or whatever it might be.
I want to create a whole wellness space, not just the podcast. The podcast will be there, but it may be just part of the puzzle we intend to build.
Yuri: Nice. When you talk about products, is that information products, physical products, or a combination of both?
Marni: A combination of both. I just launched a grain-free eBook a couple of months ago. It did well because people love recipes and want desserts, and an eBook is an easy tangible thing to grab. We got to test that out on our audience. That was our first custom product and it did very well.
We’re open to all products, whether it’s more e-digital products, physical tangible products, or live speaking events. Jesse and I have been doing a little bit of live speaking and we’d like to get in front of more audiences around the world.
Yuri: That’s awesome. Are you asking for feedback from the audience, like what they want to see or what they want you to develop? Or is it more intuitive on your part to come up with stuff for them?
Marni: A bit of both. We have a close-knit Facebook community group. Those are super-fans. Some people who want to give back to us share, know what’s happening in our lives in between episodes, and we get a chance to ask questions. We ask what they want, what they want to hear, how they liked the last episode, and what they thought. They’re giving us feedback so we’re using that to our advantage.
The transition from a brick and mortar to an online business and the challenges
Yuri: Awesome. Before and during the podcast for a bit, you had a brick and mortar business. It was a kitchen, a food studio, right?
Marni: Exactly.
Yuri: How was that transition?
Marni: It was interesting for sure. I taught cooking classes for 10 years. It started off in my parent’s home, which was nice because I wasn’t paying rent, then it moved into my own space as my business grew.
I wanted to take it to a totally different place, physically, for the business’ sake. So, I opened a food studio in midtown Toronto. That was open for about four years and it was amazing. I was running cooking classes, living out my passion to educate people on how to cook and eat well, and it was wonderful. During the last couple of years of that jaunt I experienced the podcast with Jesse.
We started it. We started to get it out there and I started to see the potential of what that could bring. I also started to look at my life, what I wanted to spend my days doing, and where we wanted to go.
We want to start a family and travel. With a brick and mortar business, you can’t necessarily do that unless you have a large team or a manager, someone who can take that on. I didn’t have that. I had staff but no one who could run it without me.
I had to make that call. After doing what I was doing for 10 years, I slowly started to have a change of heart. I felt like I accomplished that mission, teaching cooking classes. It was great but I was done with it. I was ready to develop into something new, and I fell in love with podcasting as we started to do that.
It took time to make that decision because I was still amid a lease. I had to make sure I found the right person to take it over and make that transition as smooth as possible, and I was very lucky to have that happen. But it’s not as easy as what I’m describing. It was a lot of behind-the-scenes paperwork and things to figure out and how to make it all fit.
But it worked out and it’s great. Jesse and I also decided to make the move outside the city. We’re living in Windsor, it’s a little bit quieter and calmer, and there’s more space. We have a dog, so we wanted a backyard. This was all part of the decision-making process. It’s the lifestyle we wanted to live and I couldn’t do that where I was.
Yuri: No kidding. You said that, over time, you felt this urge to stop doing the offline brick and mortar business. Was there one moment in time where you said, “You know what? This is it. I’ve had it.” Was there a pivotal moment or was it just the accumulation of things over time?
Marni: It was an accumulation.
I did get to a breaking point, but it’s hard. You go through the day-to-day of what you’re doing and it’s so tough running a business and all the logistics. But then when I showed up for my cooking classes, I had my rose-colored glasses on.
I loved it. It was my passion. I had people coming into my space and experiencing what I offer. But then I had to close everything up, take the garbage out, and pay the bills. It allowed me to see what it took for me to have a full class, and it was hard to let go of my passion.
But at the same time, I realized that I could take that passion and pivot it into a completely different direction. It was an accumulation, but I got to a point where the lifestyle came into effect. I got fed up with living right in Midtown, Toronto, with traffic and noise and an apartment that wasn’t conducive to our health.
We knew we needed to get out of it because of mold and all kinds of other things. So, I thought, “This is it. I’m just going to do this all at once. I’m going to change this all up.”
Yuri: Was there any kind of disillusionment in it at any point? A lot of people, including myself, who start an online business think, “It’s going to be great. I’m going to have all this freedom and it’s going to be awesome.” But then reality hits. Did you ever experience that for yourself?
Marni: Yes. There was a big change in my day-to-day. I went from being so busy every day to not. Now that we’ve moved and the podcast is growing, I’m so much busier again. But there was a transition period where I knew we had to make some money and get things going. I also didn’t have the same expenses, so there was that shift, too.
The studio was generating a lot of income but there were a lot of expenses. I had to shift that. But the online world is still very competitive, as we all know. If you’re listening, you’re an entrepreneur, and you’re online, you know that whatever product or podcast you have, there’s a lot out there. There’s a lot of saturation.
You must figure out how you can differentiate and rise above it, or keep going with whatever you’ve got started. Luckily, we had our brand. I didn’t make this transition then start from scratch. I had the Ultimate Health Podcast, which was a growing brand.
So, I asked how I could make it better. What else could I do? What could I contribute? Jesse’s good at the editing, tech, and the behind-the-scenes. How could I help the brand grow? I had the chance to re-shift and take some to leverage my talents and bring them to a new platform. I’m still doing that now.
And that’s just it. Because of the competition you have to find different ways to make it shine.
Yuri: One of the things I feel like you touched on was that most of us are coming from a one-on-one or one-to-many background in-person. We already have the technical ability and now we have somewhat of a captive audience that we can nurture online as well.
I think we have an unfair advantage to some degree because a lot of internet businesses and marketers are just getting into businesses and don’t have prior experience like we do.
If you’re a doctor, you’ve dealt with patients for decades. If you’re a nutritionist, you’ve dealt with people one-on-one and now you can bring that same knowledge online. A lot of people are doing surveys and other stuff, but I’ve been having conversations with real people for the past decade.
You get all this intel and it’s a great asset to utilize. If you already have a following, now they can listen to your podcast and follow your stuff online. It’s a nice starting platform.
Marni: You bring up a good point. If you don’t have a marketing or advertising background or you’re not a social media savvy person, you learn all this as you go. For someone like me, I didn’t have that. Even running my brick and mortar business, I didn’t have a business background. I didn’t go to business school. I learned it as I went.
That is the real work. And with social media, you just learn it as you see what’s going on, stay persistent, and see any trends. You should be on top of it.
Yuri: What’s been the one area from a business or marketing perspective, that you were completely wet behind the ears in and you started to master it?
Marni: Engagement. Making sure you’re finding different ways to engage your audience and get people to respond and comment. My blog got a lot of views and reads, but it didn’t have that much engagement. It didn’t have comments and responses. What was missing?
It taught me a lot about how I was writing, the ask, or the way I was talking to my audience before. Now, through social media, Instagram, and Facebook group, I feel like there’s a different language and connection with people.
Less is more. Getting down and real with people and asking, “What’s going on,” shows you the difference in how people want to engage with you. That’s been a big one for me.
The Rapid Five
Yuri: Awesome. Good stuff Marni. Are you ready for the Rapid Five?
Marni: I am.
Yuri: All right. Here we go. You’ve got no knowledge of these questions. I’ll just fire them off and whatever comes to mind is probably the right answer.
Number one, what’s your biggest weakness?
Marni: Thinking too much. I think too much about what I should say or do and don’t speak fast enough. That comes up in different areas of my life.
Yuri: Cool.
Number two, what is your biggest strength?
Marni: Engaging with people and connecting people together.
Yuri: Very nice. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?
Marni: Getting real and vulnerable with people.
Yuri: Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?
Marni: I have a beautiful one to two-hour routine. I won’t take you through all that but the first thing I do is hydrate and write my five-minute journal.
Yuri: Sweet. Good old five-minute journal. Number five, complete this sentence. I know I’m being successful when …
Marni: When I’m feeling fully empowered, committed and happy.
Yuri: Very nice. It’s cool because this question elicits two types of responses. One is something like, “When people tell me I’m changing their lives.” But the second response relates to a feeling.
Marni this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your podcast expertise. Our listeners who are interested in podcasting will find a lot of value in this. Where is the best place for people to find out more about what you two are up to and follow you online?
Marni: You can follow the Ultimate Health Podcast and go to the website and Instagram. We also have a Facebook group. Search on Facebook for the Ultimate Health Podcast community group. We’d love to have you.
Yuri: Marni, once again, thank you so much for taking the time to join us and for sharing so candidly. I appreciate you having me as a guest on your podcast and for being here with us.
Marni: My pleasure. Thank you.
******************************************************
Yuri’s take
Cool stuff, right? If you’ve got a podcast or you’re thinking about podcasting, hopefully this episode has found you well. I want leave you with a thinking exercise for today. Whatever it is you’re doing in your business, are you taking the long game approach or are you looking for the short-term win?
I ask that because it’s very tempting and easy to be allured by the stuff, nonsense, that we see on Instagram. Don’t look at the person in the private jet, which they don’t even own, or the car that they’ve rented. Turn the blinders off. That kind of nonsense messes with your mind.
The reason I’m bringing these interviews to you is because these people were in the trenches and now they’re doing it. They are in their business, working on it, growing it, failing, and succeeding. All of them understand that success takes time.
Marni talked about how building a podcast takes time. If you go into podcasting thinking you’re going to have a hundred thousand downloads in a month, unless you have a massive following and a big platform already, that’s probably not going to happen. Give yourself time, like a farmer who plants seeds.
Be realistic about the natural course of things. Manifest and create. Yes, you can set the intention to do XY and Z, but allow the universe and the process to unfold as it’s supposed to. You can’t rush the results.
Ask yourself, “Am I giving myself enough time? Am I approaching this with a long-term point of view?” How long are you willing to see no results before just shut down shop? If you don’t see results from what you’re doing, you should evaluate that.
If you’re running Facebook ads and you’re not seeing results, stop wasting money. But there are things like podcasts, building a YouTube channel, building a blog, that take time. Anything that’s organic and content driven is going to take time.
If you want to accelerate your results, you can spend money on advertising and hope for the best with a lot of tweaking and optimization. If that’s you, fine. If not, understand that it’s a process. If you want to build your brand, expertise, and become a celebrity in your niche, it takes time. There are ways to accelerate that but it’s not going to happen by next week.
With that said, a couple housekeeping notes before we finish off.
Number one, subscribe to the podcast if you’re still hanging on the fence. Go over to iTunes and click the subscribe button. Do it right from your iPhone and you’ll get all these amazing episodes that we have produced and that are coming your way.
This is episode number 80. We’ve had some amazing conversations with amazing entrepreneurs in our health, fitness, wellness, and nutrition space. It’s been a blast. If you’ve been with us since day one, you know what I’m saying. If you haven’t, then subscribe today so you don’t miss out.
Number two, if you don’t know about it, I’ve got a great book I want to give to you called Health Profits Secrets. I’ve covered the cost of the book, so just cover the cost of shipping, which is literally a couple bucks. Less than a latte at Starbucks, to be honest.
Inside the book, I’ll show you the four secrets to building a successful online health or fitness business. These are the four things that I’ve recognized over the years having built a multiple seven figure business myself, having worked with others in our space, and having seen other businesses do well.
These are four fundamentals that all these businesses have in common. You’ll be able to score your business in each of these four areas, to see where you might be deficient. Then we can fill the gap so you can go from where you are to where you want to be. Get the great results you deserve and grab that book over at healthpreneurbook.com. That’s all for today my friends. Thank you so much for joining me and I hope you have an amazing day. Continue spreading your awesomeness, impacting more lives, and enjoying the rewards that come from that. Now go out there, be great, do great and I’ll see you next week.
***********************************************************
Follow Marni Wasserman At:
https://ultimatehealthpodcast.com/
iTunes
Facebook
Instagram
***********************************************************
Free Healthpreneur Health Profit Secrets Book
If you enjoyed this episode, head on over to iTunes and subscribe to Healthpreneur™ Podcast if you haven’t done so already.
While you’re there, leave a rating and review. It really helps us out to reach more people because that is what we’re here to do.
What You Missed
In the last episode of the Healthpreneur Podcast, I spoke with fellow Canadian, Adam Lloyd, a driven entrepreneur who owns a super-successful gym, ALP Training Institute. A cool part about his gym? No TVs!
Adam has been making serious leaps to change the game in the gym world by focusing on top tier offerings, actual results, and a member-centric attitude.
I had a genuinely honest conversation with Adam in this episode. We talked a lot about listening to mentors and learning from failures, especially when still building on your own experience. We discussed avoiding comparison, especially in regards to price, because there’s always a market for a top-notch product. We also touched on how to avoid burn-out. All entrepreneurs face failures and challenges that cause hiccups in our forward momentum. Adam offers some valuable take-aways that are sure to benefit the growth you and your business.
Related posts
March 19, 2018
How to Charge Premium Prices Even If You’re Not a “Guru”
Happy Monday, Healthpreneurs!…