This week, we’re learning about and from the entrepreneurial drive of Sarah St. John, AKA The Frugalpreneneur. Sarah’s not afraid to make asks, reach out, and experiment with her content. She shares some gems for landing a great podcast guest, creating, selling, and using books as lead gens, and more.

Sarah’s bio

I am an entrepreneur, podcaster, author, animal lover, and world traveler. I’ve created several startups throughout my entrepreneurial career of over a decade. Through my books, blog, and podcast, my goal is to show people how to launch and manage an online business on a budget.

Show Notes

This week, we’re learning about and from the entrepreneurial drive of Sarah St. John, AKA The Frugalpreneneur.

Episode Transcripts

Jayde: [00:00:00] Hi there, I’m Jayde. Before we get to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics, I want to tell you about another show I think you’re going to love. And it’s recorded on SquadCast. I’m the host of Students of Mind, a mental health podcast aimed at normalizing conversations around mental health. The show covers different mental health related topics, through interviews and discussions with mental health experts, professionals and healers, as well as individuals like myself who have the lived experience of living, surviving and even thriving with the mental illness. You can find it on all major podcasts, streaming platforms or on our website. W w w dot students of mind dot com. Now let’s get into Between Two Mics.  [00:00:47][47.7]

Zach Moreno: [00:01:02] Welcome to Between Two Mics, the podcast that brings you remote recording resources from SquadCast Dot FM. [00:01:09][6.5]

Rock Felder: [00:01:10] I’m Rock Felder, co-founder and CFO of SquadCast.  [00:01:13][2.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:01:14] And I’m Zach Moreno, co-founder and CEO.  [00:01:17][2.3]

Rock Felder: [00:01:18] On Between Two Mics, we bring you interviews with podcasters, experts in the field of remote recording. We discuss current events in podcasting and so much more.  [00:01:27][8.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:01:28] Twice a month you’ll hear a Founders’ episode. That’s just the two of us chatting about all things remote recording, updates to SquadCast, what we’re up to, and what we’re listening to.  [00:01:39][10.9]

Rock Felder: [00:01:39] The other two weeks of the month, we’ll bring you interview episodes. Zach and I will sit down with experts in the podcast Space to discuss their companies, their podcasts, their thoughts on podcasting, creating content and more.  [00:01:52][12.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:01:53] The most exciting part? We’re recording all of this on SquadCast, the best place to record remote audio and video interviews in studio quality.  [00:02:02][9.1]

Rock Felder: [00:02:03] So let’s get Between Two Mics.  [00:02:06][2.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:02:07] Today, we’re excited to speak with Sarah St. John, a.k.a. The Frugalpreneur. She’s an entrepreneur, podcaster, author, and traveler. And you’ll hear in our conversation that Sarah is a risk taker. She’s not afraid to experiment in business or in content production. But before we jump into the interview, we wanted to share a few reminders about our community. First, we hope that you’re really enjoying our recent software update. V4 is live as of June, and we’re super excited by all of the positive feedback y’all have been sharing. Please let us know what you think. We’re all over social media at SquadCast FM. And second, we want to hear your SquadCast stories. We want to see your SquadShots. Please head to SquadCast.fm slash share. That’s our new submission page. You can upload an audio clip from a session, a picture of your most recent interview, a testimonial video, anything. And we’ll share it far and wide across the pod-asvere. Again, that SquadCast.FM slash share. We can’t wait to amplify you. OK, let’s get to our chat with Sarah St. John.  [00:03:13][66.0]

Zach Moreno: [00:03:17] I’m curious about your story, what ultimately led you to being focused on and becoming an entrepreneur?  [00:03:22][5.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:03:23] Well, I started my entrepreneurial journey back in 08. I had had six different jobs that year, not at the same time, but throughout the course of the year, and realized I didn’t really want to work for other people. I wanted to work for myself. And so I started a photography business. But I realized that while I like taking photos of animals, architecture and landscapes, I don’t like taking photos of people. But that’s where the money is. I was doing weddings and portraits, but the bigger issue was the expense to maintain and upkeep with equipment and all of that. So I decided to switch to an online business model, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. So I tried a bunch of different things like drop shipping, affiliate marketing, blogging. And it was during that process that I discovered all these free or affordable tools, resources, software that you could use to run an online business on a budget. So then I got the idea to write a book called Frugalpreneuer, that kind of goes over the different types of online business models and how to run them on a budget. And then while I was writing the book, I decided to launch a podcast also called Frugalpreneur, to coincide with the book to be extra marketing. But it wasn’t going to be a long term thing. It was going to be like 10 episodes. Well, I got more leverage and traction with the podcast than the book, so and I love the connections I was making with the podcast. So I just kept that going and have been doing that for a couple of years now. I’ve always produced my own show and people would compliment me on it and say that I did a good job. And so I was like, well, people are telling me I’m good at it, I enjoy doing it. So why not get paid to do it. So I started a podcast production agency and wrote a book on podcasting and now I’m working on a course. So I’m kind of all in on podcasting now, but it took over a decade of trying this, that and the other thing to pretty much accidentally get into podcasting, because it wasn’t really, you know, something I thought that I was going to be doing long term.  [00:05:26][122.4]

Rock Felder: [00:05:26] That’s a fascinating story. It’s like you iterated your way to finding your ikigai. Have you heard that concept? It’s like do what you love, what the world needs and something that you can get paid and you find all those.  [00:05:36][9.5]

Sarah St. John: [00:05:36] Ah, yea.  [00:05:36][0.1]

Rock Felder: [00:05:36] And that’s like the thing that’s it seems like you found that. So that’s really exciting and awesome. What was that aha moment that led to you honing in on the podcast? How did you know that that was working and decided to go more all in on it?  [00:05:49][12.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:05:49] Well, I mean, I guess first of all, it was just the connections I was making. I was able to talk to and interview people like actually just the other week I interviewed Pat Flynn. He’s probably the biggest name that I’ve interviewed. But I’ve interviewed other people that, you know, people would probably maybe recognize their name. And it was just interesting because it’s like it almost felt like a one on one consultation, like I was learning from these people. I mean, if you were to call these people up, well, you wouldn’t even get a hold of them. But I mean, and you were like ask for an hour of their time. You’d get one of three responses. You’d either no one will respond or they’ll respond with no or they’ll respond with yeah, it’ll cost you X amount of dollars. But when you say you have a podcast, do you want to come on my podcast? You get yesses like way more often and easy. And so just the networking connections. But then I start to discover like ways to monetize it and how you could actually turn it into a business or have like a business as a back end. You know, like the the podcast is kind of the front end of the funnel, if you want to use that word. But, you know, an extra marketing avenue and then plus with guesting as well. And then you’re leveraging the other person’s audience and getting and their listeners are already listening to a podcast. So they’re likely, if they like what you’re saying, to subscribe to your show or check it out. And I feel like it snowballs and relatively quickly versus anything else I’ve ever done. And I wasn’t expecting that. And so when I saw results like that relatively quickly, I was like, OK, well, and I enjoyed it, too. I was like, wow, this is I think this is what I’m going to go with.  [00:07:30][100.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:07:31] That’s really great. You found what works for you and and also additional value. Right. I think people think about the audience as the thing that you can grow and the metric to focus on. But part of the value proposition of podcasting is networking and growing from those relationships like it is a lot of value to be offering somebody to have them on as a guest on your show, especially if, like you, your show is doing fantastic. That’s even more more of a value proposition and also your focus on helping people grow their businesses on a tight budget. It sounds like that was part of the journey all along. Or, you know, your brand certainly communicates that you have that up front. That’s something that maybe, you know, was that was that always part of the focus for you or when did that become part of your strategy?  [00:08:15][44.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:08:16] Yeah, it’s kind of interesting how things lined up, because it was like when I went into the online business model and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I learned a lot. Part of me feels like I waste a lot of time trying this or that.  [00:08:30][14.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:08:31] It sounds like you learn from it. I mean, but it’s not all lost, right?  [00:08:35][4.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:08:36] Right. Yes.  [00:08:36][0.6]

Rock Felder: [00:08:37] The half half full version.  [00:08:38][0.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:08:39] That’s how I have to look at it. Yeah. Because of what I learned and I wrote the book. Well, then the book to the podcast. The podcast is now leading to the course and the production agency and all of these things. So the podcast itself, Frugalpreneur, is obviously a little different than all my podcast related things that I’m doing now. But it’s still kind of ties in because I think that podcasting is a affordable way to grow a business. I mean, the podcast started the business, tons of affordable tools out there to like SquadCast, for example, like we’re using now. And what I use, you know, and I love Descript as well. That’s another tool that’s really affordable, that makes podcasting, editing and transcripts and all that stuff really easy. I think people when they first start a podcast or they’re thinking about it, they think it’s going to be really expensive because they’re imagining like broadcast studios and all that equipment. But I mean, I started my podcast for under a hundred. I had the ATR 2100, which was like, I don’t know, 60 or 80 bucks, USB that plugs into the laptop. I just now got lights because I when I was doing video interviews, people were like, do you have any lights? Because they’re shadows. So I just got some ring lights, but it was only like 30 bucks. I try to do everything is economically frugal as possible or like as I make money in my business, then I turn around and spend it to get this, that or the other thing. But yeah. So I think in a way the Frugalprenenur brand kind of ties in, in that I think podcasting is an important thing to add to any business for an affordable way to market and reach new people and audiences and customers or whatnot.  [00:10:29][110.8]

Rock Felder: [00:10:30] I feel like you develop you just been creating the whole time. I think that’s the lesson that I’m getting here, is like you never stopped creating until you found whatever, you know, it it started to hit and really resonate with you. And so I think that’s I don’t think it was all time wasted, even though I can relate because I feel like I wish I would have gotten to where I’m at sooner. But don’t we all? I guess that’s just how life is sometimes. But I do think you constantly creating and trying to figure it out is like something that podcasting seems to reward. It seems to reward consistency and persistence. Were there any tough times where you didn’t think it was going to work or did it just kind of work out and you just kept moving along?  [00:11:07][36.5]

Sarah St. John: [00:11:07] Well, I mean, there were several times before I got to podcasting where I tried different business models and would get kind of scared or frustrated that they weren’t working out. But, you know, I think all entrepreneurs are pretty determined and kind of just keep going and don’t just totally give up. I mean, they might give up on a particular business idea, but then.  [00:11:28][20.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:11:29] Experiments.  [00:11:29][0.0]

Sarah St. John: [00:11:29] Right. But yeah, with podcasting, though, and everything that’s grown out of that, I really I don’t think I’ve felt I mean, sometimes I wish, like when you look at the analytics and statistics and like, I feel like it should be higher by now, although I look the other day well actually check every day. But I noticed the other day that the downloads and things have almost doubled in the past few weeks, maybe past month or so.  [00:11:55][25.7]

Rock Felder: [00:11:56] Congratulations.  [00:11:56][0.0]

Sarah St. John: [00:11:57] Yeah. Thank you.  [00:11:57][0.6]

Rock Felder: [00:11:58] That’s got to feel good.  [00:11:59][0.6]

Sarah St. John: [00:11:59] Yeah it does means I guess I’m doing something right.  [00:12:03][3.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:12:04] You might have a different metric than downloads that is meaningful to you because you are creating this universe of content and having now, you know, your production business be in service of that and and your content drawing people in. It sounds like that’s working for you as well. Like it’s not all the download if it’s part of your business. So it’s kind of tempting to be like, oh, revenue, right. Is the metric if you’re an entrepreneur. But how do you think about like what is your KPI when you’re thinking about how all of these elements of your business and your entrepreneurship fit together?  [00:12:35][30.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:12:35] I mean, I guess email list growth maybe, at least for right now, that’s kind of the main thing I’m focusing on outside of, you know, download numbers and things like how many of those people I mean, it’s hard to know how many of those people like where the people are coming from necessarily, but are the email subscribers going up, as you know, because I always have like a little call to action and the beginning of the episodes, which are actually the Pat Flynn episode coming out next, is I’m changing the call to action. But anyway, like it used to be all three of my books, you know, a PDF version for free. But then and that seemed to do well for a while, but then they kind of tapered. Often I think it’s because people it’s like that sounds more valuable because you’re getting three books for free, but the amount of time it takes, although my books are short, they’re like 10000 words. So you can probably read it in like an hour, hour and a half. But still, people don’t have that much time. And so I was interviewing on one of my episodes the email marketing heroes. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, Rob and Kennedy. And we were talking about stuff like that. And I said, you know, I think my problem might be that my lead magnet is too much like it needs to be something more consumable quickly. And they’re like, yeah. So I switched it to be like the 27 tools I use which SquadCast is on there. So I think maybe six or seven page PDF that has all the 27 tools that I use and recommend for online entrepreneurs, you know, on a budget. And so hopefully that’ll that’ll actually perform better. I mean, I know if I was listening to a podcast and they were like, check out the 27 tools I used that would spark my interest, I’d be curious. So I’m hoping that converts better.  [00:14:24][109.2]

Rock Felder: [00:14:25] Well, I look forward to hearing how that goes. And it’s just a constant theme here, just iterating experimentation and constant creation.  [00:14:31][6.1]

Zach Moreno: [00:14:32] So Rock and I on this show are often talking about, you know, the comparisons between running a startup or a small business and a podcast. So what advice would you give entrepreneurs that you work with about starting and growing their business that you think podcasters could benefit from?  [00:14:47][14.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:14:48] Keeping things fresh, whatever it is, and I’ve thought about changing up like the flow of the show. I know when I first started, I was interviewing, like when you were on Rock, it was more like the CEOs and whatnot of different companies that I used or recommended or whatever. But then in 2021, I kind of switched to more of a interviewing people who started a business with under a thousand dollars and grew it to over a million with no outside capital or funding or loans or credit or any of that stuff. So I’ve interviewed a few people like that and learned a lot from those types of people. And so I guess pivoting or deciding when it’s time to do something new, different and fresh. And I’m thinking about doing like a series on kid entrepreneurs. I don’t know any kid entrepreneurs, or so I’m going to have to figure out how to get kid entrepreneurs on the show. All I have to do, like  [00:15:48][60.2]

Rock Felder: [00:15:48] That’s what a podcast is for. Right?  [00:15:49][0.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:15:50] Yeah, I guess I’ll have to like, do a little call-out thing and have like a fourth…  [00:15:54][4.7]

Rock Felder: [00:15:55] How does one do that without, you know, there’s there’s a fine line to walk here, right?  [00:15:59][3.6]

Sarah St. John: [00:16:01] Yeah.  [00:16:01][0.0]

Zach Moreno: [00:16:03] It’s like a whole nother podcasters talk about like guest consent forms and stuff like that, like you have, you have to get like parental consent to interview. Oh, a minor entrepreneur. I guess I’m just trying to think through it on the fly. But that sounds like a fascinating challenge and and one that I’m sure you’ll you’ll find a solution to.  [00:16:20][17.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:16:21] Yeah, that’s a good point. I probably will have to get some kind of parental consent.  [00:16:24][3.4]

Zach Moreno: [00:16:25] If was a parent, I’d want my kid on that show.  [00:16:27][1.6]

Sarah St. John: [00:16:28] But yeah. So I’m kind of thinking of like different themes, you know, having different like one. I thought about creating a second show called Create Your Own Income, where it was about creative ways that people have made money. Like, for example. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Doug the Pug.  [00:16:46][17.5]

Rock Felder: [00:16:47] OK, yeah,.  [00:16:47][0.5]

Rock Felder: [00:16:48] I am not. But it sounds awesome.  [00:16:49][1.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:16:49] I have a pug.  [00:16:50][0.5]

Zach Moreno: [00:16:51] My wife and I, we had a pug and he unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago. But he was the best dog ever, Hercules.  [00:16:57][6.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:16:59] Oh, how cute? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We had a pug for like thirteen years and then she passed away and then we didn’t have any pets for four months and then got another that we have now. But I actually know the the mom or she calls herself the momager, like manager, but mom of the dog. Well, more like acquaintances I guess because she used to live in Dallas and do some social media stuff. But now she makes money. She was able to quit her full time job to run her business just with Doug the Pug stuff anyway. So I thought it’d be fun to have like a show like that. But then I was like, well, but do I really want to start a second show and then have to do so? I thought, well, maybe that can just be a series within the show where anyway. So I guess, yeah. Just coming up with new ideas to keep it fresh and I guess you would want to do that with business as well. So I guess that’s a parallel there.  [00:17:53][54.6]

Rock Felder: [00:17:54] Absolutely. And just to touch on your the guest that you’ve had, it’s been it’s incredible that you have name after name. I mean, you just recently had Renee Warren, but then you’ve had so many well-known podcasting folks like Mark Asquith and, you know, Dave Jackson, you know, so you’re covering like everybody there in the podcasting space as far as like, you know, folks that have been in it for ten plus years and some of the newer people, too, how are you finding your guests? It’s really impressive.  [00:18:19][24.5]

Sarah St. John: [00:18:19] Oh, well, I mean, initially, the way I would do it was I just had tons of people that I either I listen to their podcast or have taken one of their courses or read their book or whatever it might be. And I just reach out to them. And usually they’re like, yeah, sure. And now, like how I found Renee Warren, for example, is through like the various podcast, I guess they’re not really directories, but the matching services like PodMatch and Podbooker.  [00:18:51][31.6]

Rock Felder: [00:18:52] Oh, cool.  [00:18:52][0.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:18:53] Yeah. All those things like, I don’t know, at least five of them now and I use all four of them. So I go on there like every day looking for interesting people and then also for shows to be on as well. So yeah, that’s primarily how I do it.  [00:19:07][14.5]

Rock Felder: [00:19:08] And I mean and it worked with with me getting me on your show and having you here and. Yeah, I think that’s I guess another takeaway is like you’re definitely not afraid to ask and I think that’s really cool. But you don’t just ask, like you come with like here’s why, here’s why, you know, I want to use SquadCast on my show. And so you made it easy to say yes to every time. So I guess that’s part of it, too.  [00:19:29][21.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:19:30] Yeah. And you got to start thinking of for the bigger people, creative ways to get them on the show, like, for example. Well, this was kind of coincidental. So with Pat Flynn, for example.  [00:19:38][8.6]

Rock Felder: [00:19:39] Yeah. Let’s, how did you land Pat?  [00:19:40][1.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:19:42] So I’ve had the podcast for about two years now and during those two years I would say I reached out like two or three times through, the only way to reach him is through a contact form on his website. Well, he has a team and I’m pretty sure it went through gatekeepers. And I think I only heard back once and it was something like, he’s not doing a podcast right now. Well, then he came out with this paid membership called S.P.I Pro or Smart, Passive Income Pro. And the goal wasn’t to get him on the show by joining, but anyway, I joined it and he uses a platform called Circle, which I had never even heard of. It’s I mean, it’s kind of like Facebook, but like it’s own thing or kind of like Mighty Networks. And I discovered that you can send direct messages to people on there. So I direct message and just said, hey, I have a podcast. I gave him a link to it, just if you want to check it out and said, you know, I’d love to have you on the show, would you be interested? And I gave him the booking link. And then two hours later he responds saying, yeah, I just booked a time. So it’s not like I joined the membership to get him on the show. I was like, hmm, I guess I can message him on here because I went straight to him versus, you know, the contact form, which he probably never even sees. Yeah. And then I think also like making another good thing about podcasts and the connections, as those people might know someone and then that person knows someone. So like I was just on someone’s show the other day who has had Mike Michalowicz on his show. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but he’s like.  [00:21:15][93.2]

Rock Felder: [00:21:15] Yeah, it’s a prophet. Prophet First. Is that his book?  [00:21:18][2.7]

Sarah St. John: [00:21:19] Prophet First, Fix This next. Yeah, he’s got a bunch he knew. How did it come up? I’m not sure how it came up, but he was talking about how he had had him on his show. And I was like, oh, I’d love to get him on my show, you know, just throwing that out there. Not like, you know. And he’s like, oh, well, I’ll give you an introduction. I was like, OK. And so he even emailed and like, include me on the cc or whatever. And but he had to email well I think he did email him as well as like whoever this person is, you know, that does scheduling or whatever. And so, and she responded saying yeah that sounds good anyway. So just stuff like that where and then there’s another person who has a connection to Hal Elrod and so she’s going to try to make an introduction there because he’s hard to get on. And just so you know, things like that, just creative ways or making connections with people and going from there.  [00:22:13][54.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:22:14] It’s a lot of fun to to kind of navigate that space of, like you said, finding ways to to connect with Pat. And also, I admire your persistence. Right. Like, that’s something I, I don’t think a lot of podcasters necessarily consider is that the pitch gets easier as you go. And we all have kind of our wish list, our dream list of guests. And that’s awesome. But yeah, a no this year might be a yes next year or under some different circumstance. And, you know, I think it’s it’s worth thinking about like an investor, like a long term relationship. And that’s something that I just wanted to applaud. That persistence is another element of being an entrepreneur as well. Right. Like, you got to keep going. And and that’s a common theme among your story I’m picking up.  [00:23:01][47.4]

Rock Felder: [00:23:01] It’s inspiring.  [00:23:01][0.1]

Sarah St. John: [00:23:03] Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And I think you were saying how you know, a no this year might not be a no next year. I found that if someone is writing a book or their book is coming out, if you can contact them and, you know, because they’re usually doing the podcast rounds around, yes, right before, but yeah, if you can get on their radar like before that book comes out, because apparently Mike Michalowicz, is actually has a new book coming out in a few months. So I’m thinking how that might work.  [00:23:36][33.0]

Rock Felder: [00:23:37] Good timing.  [00:23:37][0.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:23:37] Yea.  [00:23:37][0.0]

Zach Moreno: [00:23:37] Yeah. And just a quick logistical question about that. Do you used Amazon’s Coming Soon list or I forget exactly what they call it, but like preorder. How did you come about that information? Are you just, like, really plugged in with these individuals?  [00:23:49][11.6]

Sarah St. John: [00:23:50] It’s usually more just like people that I actually read their books are familiar with them and know that they have a book coming out. And then, yeah, it’s only been recently where I’ve thought about that because I noticed that John Lee Dumas and Rachel Hollis and all these people were doing a lot of interviews around the time their book came out. I’m like, oh, that’s probably the way to go.  [00:24:11][21.3]

Rock Felder: [00:24:12] Mm hmm.  [00:24:13][0.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:24:13] And then as far as Mike Michalowicz, I actually just went to his website today and was like, oh, I wonder if he has a new book coming out and he does. So I’m like, oh, OK. Well, this might work then.  [00:24:24][11.5]

Rock Felder: [00:24:25] So just being creative, thoughtful, a little tenacious. It sounds wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Persistent, of course. Persistence. Yeah. So so zooming out a little bit. I think you have a really unique perspective on the podcast industry, and that’s something that we like to talk about here in Between Two Mics, this podcast is all about focusing on the people and things that are happening in the industry that are really pushing the boundaries. And that’s stuff that’s really exciting to us. What’s your take on where we’re at and the podcasting industry in 2021? Like, what do you think is going right and what would you like to see change?  [00:24:56][31.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:24:57] So I know ah, and I’m sure you all know to between 2019 and 2020 that it doubled and now I think it’s like doubled almost even since between 2020 and 2021. So now the question is how many of those new shows are actually going to stick around? Maybe these people had gotten laid off because of covid or whatever, had extra time, you know, and so they started a podcast to keep busy or entertained. So who knows how many of those shows will actually stick around. But I think.  [00:25:30][32.7]

Zach Moreno: [00:25:30] Keep going, folks.  [00:25:31][0.5]

Sarah St. John: [00:25:32] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.  [00:25:33][1.0]

Rock Felder: [00:25:33] Yeah. If Sarah is any sort of inspiration, look what happens if you just keep trying.  [00:25:36][3.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:25:37] Right. Yeah, exactly. I’m not encouraging people to stop. I’m just saying that..  [00:25:41][4.0]

Rock Felder: [00:25:42] No, no, you’re right. It’s totally valid. [00:25:42][0.1]

Sarah St. John: [00:25:44] So I think, you know, more and more people are obviously familiar with podcasting. A lot of money has been thrown at it, as you all know. Like what Spotify, especially with the whole Joe Rogan thing, but then them acquiring a bunch of companies, see what else. And then Amazon got into podcasting and and now I guess what Apple and Spotify are now doing that thing where you can.  [00:26:10][26.1]

Rock Felder: [00:26:11] Subscription.  [00:26:11][0.0]

Sarah St. John: [00:26:12] Ya the subscription model which kind of already existed, but with third parties, you know, like Patreon or whatever, and now it’s going to be directly integrated, I guess. So that’ll be interesting. I don’t know if I’m going to do that or not, but. [00:26:26][14.5]

Zach Moreno: [00:26:26] I was just going to ask maybe that’s a future experiment. I’m curious.  [00:26:29][2.8]

Sarah St. John: [00:26:30] Yeah. I mean, I guess I could do it as an experiment just to see, but so, yeah, I think podcasting is definitely I mean, I don’t see it slowing down. I know when covid and when people were working from home and not commuting, that downloads did go down, although now supposedly they’re finding that downloads on desktops have gone up. So even though they maybe went down and the typical sense like on your iPod, I mean, iPhone, whatever.  [00:26:59][29.1]

Zach Moreno: [00:26:59] Yeah. Like like smart speakers, I think have gone up because that’s more like the home listening environment, whereas like headphones on a on a smartphone is kind of fluctuate or cars. Right. Is the other one with the commute is a big one. So I’ve noted that in my wife and I listen to a lot of podcasts together and I’ve noticed that change in our behavior just anecdotally. So I wonder if that’s what a lot of other people are doing as well.  [00:27:24][24.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:27:25] Yeah, I mean, because if someone’s subscribed to a show that they really enjoy, I don’t think the fact that they’re not commuting would keep them from I think they’re going to go on the desktop while they’re working on something or, you know, even when they’re doing the dishes or something. Listen to it on a smart speaker. I don’t think they’re just going to give up on their show. I mean, I know at least for me, because I get addicted the different shows and I can’t miss episodes. So I.  [00:27:53][27.6]

Zach Moreno: [00:27:53] What do you addicted to right now? If I can interrupt for a second.  [00:27:55][2.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:27:56] OK, let me pull because there’s several so let me pull it out.  [00:27:59][3.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:27:59] Well, while you do that, I am currently bingeing a podcast about the FLDS like the fundamentalist Latter Day Saints Church.  [00:28:08][8.8]

Sarah St. John: [00:28:08] Oh, interesting.  [00:28:09][0.4]

Zach Moreno: [00:28:10] Yeah, it is fascinating. And our community manager, Arielle turned me on to it. I believe it’s called Unfinished: Short Creek. It’s just been a rabbit hole of interesting thing to learn from.  [00:28:19][9.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:28:21] Oh wow, oh that’s interesting. Yeah, they’ve had a podcast for everything now. So obviously, I listen to Smart Passive Income and Ask Pat, Entrepreneurs on Fire, obviously, Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield, Podcast Pontifications with Evo Terra, School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson, Side Hustle Show with Nick Loper, The Dan Henry Show. I don’t know if you all are familiar with him. The first time I saw him, I think it was he’s like a click funnels guy. Like he’s he doesn’t work for click funnels, but I mean, like, he’s one of those guys that’s done the two comma club thing. Anyway, I started like seeing his videos and his podcast episodes and these YouTube videos are nice and short, like five to 15 minutes, but very like jam packed. And I don’t know, I learn a lot. You just have to check it out to see what I’m talking about. But he’s really, really good.  [00:29:13][51.9]

Rock Felder: [00:29:13] Anything non-work related. You’re just working. You kind of like me. I don’t usually like telling my podcast because I’m like this so boring. It’s just business and podcasts about podcasting, but that’s all I got time for.  [00:29:24][10.5]

Sarah St. John: [00:29:25] Yeah. No, yeah. They’re all business pretty much.  [00:29:27][2.1]

Zach Moreno: [00:29:29] Student of the game. I like it. And I apologize again for interrupting. But just to come back to the question, what do you think is working and what do you think improved from your perspective?  [00:29:36][7.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:29:37] I think the fact that Apple and Spotify are getting into the subscription model, I think that could be considered an improvement. I guess we’ll see. But it clearly indicates that they at least think that there’s money to be made or that people will pay well, actually, because podcasting is free, but that people will pay for extra content or whatever it might be. OK, one thing that really irritates me and I don’t know why this is still an issue is that I feel like none of the podcast directories, none of the podcast hosts that with the analytics and statistics, that it’s clear about how many listeners you have. Like, it’ll say, OK, you have 100 downloads. Well, is that 100 people downloading one episode or is that, you know, one person downloading 100 episodes? I mean, it’s not clear. And so that’s been always frustrating. And it seems like that would be something easy enough to do.  [00:30:35][57.4]

Zach Moreno: [00:30:35] Word up.  [00:30:36][0.1]

Sarah St. John: [00:30:36] Or to tell you how many subscribers you have. Like there are some directories. I can’t remember which ones, but it will tell you how many subscribers you have. But like the big ones, like Spotify and Apple, they don’t. So I think that could be improved, is better analytics and statistics.  [00:30:53][17.1]

Rock Felder: [00:30:55] Download is one thing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they listen. We care about listeners, our audience. Right. So I totally hear you. Yeah.  [00:31:01][6.8]

Sarah St. John: [00:31:02] And I mean, like you just said, even the downloads, it isn’t clear because that might just mean that a downloaded on their phone. But did they actually listen to it. So yeah. Just a whole bunch of improvement that can be done.  [00:31:13][11.7]

Zach Moreno: [00:31:14] Yeah. Bots download things all the time. Right. So it’s just like let’s see what it is in real life. Yeah.  [00:31:19][5.5]

Rock Felder: [00:31:20] But I think for, for me it’s overall exciting. And you know, both of these examples are there’s a lot to be excited about, you know, on the thing that we would like to see change, which I think we’re all in agreement on as far as the analytics shows to me, that we’re a very we’re still a young industry and it’s still early days. But then moves like Apple and Spotify kind of changing the game with this subscription model. I don’t know if it’ll work in this iteration, but I think they’re working on it and they’ll figure it out. And I think it is exciting to me. It’s exciting to see what the future will have for all of us creators.  [00:31:51][30.8]

Sarah St. John: [00:31:52] I know one concern I’ve heard people say, and I don’t think this is going to happen, but that with them going to that subscription model that it’ll become that you have to pay to listen versus it being an option. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But who knows?  [00:32:08][16.3]

Zach Moreno: [00:32:09] Yeah, this is one of the things that I think is magical about podcasting is the content ownership for things to go that far in that direction. I think that the ownership would need to shift there. If it’s wrapped up in my Apple Music or Apple podcasts like monthly subscription overall, then the the ownership. Yeah, yeah. There’s some real big questions there, I think. And I seem to be, you know, a similar perspective to you on this, that that’s not what this is. And maybe that’s somewhere in the progression of things. But certainly a lot of things would need to change to like facilitate something along those lines. And while we own our shows, we have our website. We have our you know, that’s one of the benefits, I think, of RSS that I’ve been very critical of in the past. So so I want to be balanced. And that is definitely one of the benefits is is ownership.  [00:32:58][49.0]

Rock Felder: [00:32:58] Yeah. So as we wrap up, I really enjoyed the discussion here today. Sarah, what can we look forward to what’s going on in the world of Sarah St. John, the Frugalpreneur and then all the other endeavors that you have going?  [00:33:08][9.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:33:09] OK, so as far as the podcast itself goes, I guess just the different series that I’m thinking about within the show, like the ones with kid entrepreneurs, which, by the way, if anyone listening has a kid entrepreneur, you know, let me know. I give away all three of my books, Frugalpreneneur, Author Preneur, and Podcast Preneneur at the Sarah St. John dot com forward slash free. And that’s Sarah with an H and then s t j o h n, let’s see, I also have podcast resource directory dotcom which y’all are on.  [00:33:41][31.8]

Rock Felder: [00:33:41] Thank you.  [00:33:41][0.3]

Zach Moreno: [00:33:42] Yes. Thank you.  [00:33:42][0.7]

Sarah St. John: [00:33:43] So if anyone has like a podcast resource of some type or a software program that’s relevant or whatever equipment, anything you can sign up for free profile on there. So I’m trying to get it more populated so that people keep coming back to see the latest things that have been added.  [00:34:04][20.8]

Rock Felder: [00:34:04] That’s exciting. You’re keeping it moving. And so we’ll have to throw in some links into the show now so folks can follow along with all that stuff.  [00:34:10][6.2]

Zach Moreno: [00:34:11] It’s quite a journey. You’ve had, Sarah, to this point. And like, I’m sure that you have any advice or encouragement that what would you share with our listeners, podcasters and content creators as far as advice for their journey?  [00:34:23][12.4]

Sarah St. John: [00:34:24] A couple of things that are more in general would be to try to recognize and avoid shiny object syndrome, because I think that’s something that I had for many years, which I guess in the end ended up being OK because of what I learned and whatnot. But find that one thing and go in on that one thing. Or of course, I’m doing several things, but it’s so within one niche. I guess another thing would be I don’t know if it’s a mistake per say, but just one thing that I’ve noticed about myself that I think a lot of entrepreneurs deal with is spending a lot of time learning but not implementing what they’re learning. I think it’s important to, you know, listen to podcasts, read books, take courses and all that stuff. But if you’re not implementing what you’re learning, then it’s pointless. So I try to spend an hour implementing for every hour I spend learning to kind of balance it out. And then as far as podcasting specifically, I mean, I guess being consistent, which I think is actually the hardest part of podcasting, is the consistency.  [00:35:24][60.3]

Rock Felder: [00:35:27] Agreed. Yeah.  [00:35:27][0.2]

Sarah St. John: [00:35:27] And I don’t find the recording hard to be consistent because I have several episodes ready to go, but it’s all the post-production that takes time.  [00:35:37][9.6]

Rock Felder: [00:35:37] Promotion.  [00:35:37][0.0]

Sarah St. John: [00:35:39] Promotion and all that.  [00:35:40][0.3]

Rock Felder: [00:35:40] It’s a lot of jobs.  [00:35:40][0.3]

Sarah St. John: [00:35:41] Yeah, it really is. And so and I found that that’s the case for pretty much everybody.  [00:35:46][4.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:35:47] I think that’s really awesome. And I’m really grateful that you joined us in this interview here today. Sarah, thank you.  [00:35:53][5.9]

Sarah St. John: [00:35:53] Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.  [00:35:55][1.9]

Rock Felder: [00:36:02] Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics.  [00:36:05][2.8]

Zach Moreno: [00:36:06] We hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you learn something or we intrigue you a bit, let us know on social media,  [00:36:12][5.9]

Rock Felder: [00:36:13] you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn by searching for SquadCast FM. [00:36:18][4.9]

Zach Moreno: [00:36:20] And if you want to show the podcast some love, you can leave us a rating or review wherever it is you’re listening right now.  [00:36:25][5.5]

Rock Felder: [00:36:26] This show is put together by us, Zach, and Rock. It’s mixed and produced by Vince Moreno with help from Arielle Nissenblatt. Our logo is designed by Alex Whedbee.  [00:36:35][9.3]

Zach Moreno: [00:36:36] Since we’re a podcast about podcasts, we want to shout out the brands and products that we trust. We’re recording using SquadCast.fm. And here’s our current stack. For recording, we’re using ATR 2100 mics, Apple AirPods Max headphones, and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces. [00:36:53][17.1]

Rock Felder: [00:36:57] We edit the show on Adobe Audition in our hosting site is Simplecast. [00:37:00][3.1]

Zach Moreno: [00:37:01] That’s it for us this week. We’re back next week with more from between these mics.  [00:37:01][0.0]

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