Should You Create a Podcast Summit for Your Business?

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Deanna Seymour, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends. Welcome to the top coffee Timmy podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. Hello friends today i have Deanna Seymour here with me and I just want you to buckle up for a great conversation because Deanna and I are great friends. And I have been dying to have her on the podcast. You may know Deanna as the girl who creates all the visual content for really smart, hip and cool brands. But what you might not know about Deanna, is that she actually has a perm. I’m gonna do like a full stop here for a second because I didn’t know she had a perm, and she is my friend, Deanna. How did I not know these things about you? Deanna Seymour 00:56 Well, I don’t really talk about my perm very much. So um, you know, I have super straight hair. And I just, I think the grass is always greener, right? Like, I feel like all my curly hair, friends were always like, trying to straighten their hair. And then I was like, wanting to be like Dolly Parton trying to curl my hair like in the 80s like sleeping in the vendors. And when I had perms in the 80s, for sure. Also, my aunt Gloria, who lived in New Jersey, when she would come down to visit would like perm our hair on the screen, which is oh Erin Ollila 01:22 my goodness, we need pitchers. Deanna Seymour 01:25 Yes, I will find some. And so then, like, a few years ago, I was like, I really want a perm. So I did it all my coworkers at school, and when I was a teacher, were like, don’t do it, you’re gonna think it’s gonna look cool. You’re good thinking it’s funny, but it’s not. It’s gonna be terrible. But I did it. And we only use like the big perm rods. So it was just just like wavy, it just gives it like some body and a little bit of wave. Erin Ollila 01:49 Well, I don’t know how you feel about this, but I actually heard the perm is making a comeback. And I am not your hip cool, like old lady. Like at all. I did not stay up with trends. But I think there was like just literally probably scrolling on some type of social media feed and I saw something about perms. And I was like what perms? What, I don’t think anyone in the world has had a perm since I was like four years old. Right? Like, and then I read the article and it sure enough, it was like, yeah, all these people have permanent hair. And I was like, what you look at that. And now I have a friend who does perm their hair and has for a while. So my eyes are opening up to the world big time now. All right, Dan, I have you here today to talk to my guests about audio summits or micro audio summits, which I think are so fun. I had never ever heard of them before, actually, until meeting you in a podcasting group. And I think maybe you had done your first like even right before we met or right after. And I thought like, Oh, this is really smart, right? Because there’s so many different ways you can take a like a micro or a larger audio subject. And it’s it’s not what you just see, like I’m I’m very tired of the same old marketing things over and over and over again. And I think that they lose their people lose interest in what could be something really interesting to watch and learn from but they maybe don’t place as much value in it because it just seems like the same thing over and over again. So the idea of having everything hosted on audio is I thought at the time super novel, it still is super novel. And I’m really glad to hear to have you here to talk to me about it so I can learn and everyone else can learn your approach to doing this. What made you like think when you’re sitting there thinking like who what am I going to create today? Like what made you think to do a micro audio series? Deanna Seymour 03:38 I’m trying to think back. Okay, so my first series that I did was still called an F that series, which is what I still keep doing people breaking the rules right now it’s an online business, like, a time in their life or their business when they were like, you know, what, why am I doing this like eff that? Let me do it this way. My very first one was just a hodgepodge of people and just different rules. They broke just like people anti diet, people like stopping dieting. And who else like one person, like quit their corporate job just to like be a nanny because she was like, whatever. So it was just people stories of that. I feel like I was going through a big transition where I my first podcast, my first public regular podcast was called imperfect party, and it was sort of about business and sort of about showing up as you know yourself. And so then I was like, Okay, I’m gonna do online business, but then I was like, oh, like online business. It feels like sleazy to me, I don’t know. And so it was in that weird space where I did my first F that series but I wasn’t ready to commit to doing a full on podcast again. But I missed podcasting because I am a chatterbox and I love talking to people. And when you can, like have a conversation with someone and it counts as content. I’m like, do it Sign me up. This is the best thing ever. Fun fact Liz Wilcox was on that one for saying that too. Like it was like probably one of her first interviews about her $9 membership because I was we talked about her saying like, I don’t have to price my things. Hi. And I’m always like, Oh, I wish that was on something I have now. And we could get into that. But yeah, cuz it was a private podcast. And it was, it’s like, it feels hidden now in the archives somewhere, but Erin Ollila 05:14 since your first private, private, like audio series like what did you like? How many have you done? Since then? Deanna Seymour 05:21 I have done pop quiz. Uh, yeah, I know, I’m like, I’m working on my third business centered F that one. So would be number four. If you count the first one that wasn’t only business. And then I’ve done the anti hustle holiday countdown twice now. So I will definitely do that again this year. It’s like an annual thing. So what is that seven ish working on seven will be in seven by the end of this year? Wow. Erin Ollila 05:49 I was in the anti hustle holiday countdown. I think the first one because yeah, I was last year was a new one. And I remember being like, Wait, this is all new stuff. How fun. I loved the first one that I was on. Because I found that I had a lot of extra time to listen to podcast, right? Like it was the holiday season. I was working less but not necessarily like, like tapped out yet. Like I wasn’t completely in the holiday zone. Oh, and I was able to hear from people that I knew or knew of in the online business world that like but about something completely different than I would hear. Like when I was on your show. I think I talked about the Elf on the Shelf. Yeah, we Deanna Seymour 06:27 totally did. And I always think of you, I love the elf on the shelf. I always think of you when we’re doing that. Erin Ollila 06:32 Now I just lost half of my listeners who are like this girl, Elf on the Shelf done. Controversial. Goodbye, guys. I love you. But I do Deanna Seymour 06:41 good marketing repels people. We just propelled a lot of people. Erin Ollila 06:45 We have to know our own values, too. Right? Like, yeah, it’s hard. But Logan and I have like, I have five people in my immediate family, including myself. But if we add the elephant is really six. So that’s how it has now struck. Anyway, moving past that what was so fun about it is like maybe a touch of work, stuff would come up maybe but like, you know, I remember someone talking about like what Boxing Day was like, and I actually didn’t even know what Boxing Day was I’d heard it a million times, but never thought to like, educate myself. Other people talking about like, traditions that they had with family members that are no longer with us. And I just thought like, it was really fun and really interesting. So what I liked, especially contrasting that to f that right? And what’s cool about F that, as you mentioned is you have done more business ones, but like the first one was business and personal. What I like when I can compare and contrast them and just look at them as a whole. It’s like, there’s no right way to do this, right? There are so many options depending on your goals, your interest, your time, your boundaries, all of these things and how you want to pull this off. So it’s, I think, like if you’re listening because you’re like, huh, audio series, what is this? Like? Should I pay attention? Yeah, pay attention, because there’s a lot of options for you here. Deanna Seymour 08:03 Yeah, yeah. And you can make it as easy or as complicated as you want. And that is something I really value too for different people and different levels of business and people have support or don’t have support like you can keep it super simple. You can make it super complicated. Erin Ollila 08:20 Okay, so which of your all of these series were your first audio summit was an F that was at the holiday shows? Deanna Seymour 08:28 The original f that was the first one. Erin Ollila 08:31 So the first time you did this big old private podcast, like content thing, it was like straight into the summit. Yes. Look at you. And so okay, that I’m sure there was a lot of growing pains with that. Like, what was the experience like for you when it came to like, planning that? Did you have any prep? Did you have anyone to guide you? Or did you just kind of like throw yourself into it and try to like figure it out as you went along? Deanna Seymour 08:56 Um, I definitely figured it out. Along. Um, so okay, at the time I was using Hello audio, and it was, I think, fairly new, at least definitely new to me. I mean, I had just met Lindsey pedia in a clubhouse room. So that’s like putting us back in the time zone when this was happening. I think I was not even using Thrive cart yet. So right now I use Thrive cart ConvertKit and hello audio. And for me, they all integrate very well to do what I do for my audio series. And it all links together and it works amazingly. But at the beginning like you were saying like bootstrapping I’m like What am I duct taping it together? I did use ConvertKit and used Hello audio and I don’t think Hello radio like connected to ConvertKit yet and I didn’t have thrivecart Five Card and I’ve always been intimidated by Zapier so I was like I’m not I don’t know how to. I can’t even with this apps. So what I ended up doing was just in Hello audio. There’s like a universal link that you can just send to anyone and if it was a private thing that was like super special to me like a very expensive course that I had created, I probably wouldn’t want to just toss out that universal link to just anyone. But it was just my free private podcast series. So what I ended up doing was just pretty much treating that link, like I would a PDF download link. And so people sign up on my website through a ConvertKit sign up that, you know, tag them in ConvertKit. Like, normally, I feel like most people are used to sending out the PDF like you sign up for this download and get it. So people signed up on my website, and then in the sequence that it sent them, it just had the universal link to like access the podcast, which is like, pretty simple. If you think about it, you just instead of sending a PDF, you’re sending a link to a podcast. Um, when I did that, I couldn’t get any like analytics on the back end about who listened or, I mean, I could see the number of people who listened, but I didn’t know each listener, there’s a lot of stuff Hello, audio can do, where you can know, who’s listening to what. And I feel like that would again be more important if it was like a course. And I wanted to check in on my students. But for this, it was like, I mean, I never knew who actually downloaded or used a PDF opt in that I made. So that felt like, streamlined enough and good enough. So that was the first one. Erin Ollila 11:16 If anything like goes to like anyone listening who who’s like, Wait, what am I supposed to be doing here? This is too hard. Like it really is as simple as that, like a like an opt in form on ConvertKit. And then the email that confirms their opt in could have that universal link. But so I understand clearly, you’re mentioning not having the universal link like and like you wouldn’t do it now. Because if you were to do that anyone could technically listen if they had the link, right? Deanna Seymour 11:43 Yeah, yeah. And I could, I could do it now. But now the way I’ve set it up through thrivecart is just awesome. Because it puts them in Thrive cart. So I have their like data, I mean, I guess it puts them in then it also tags them in ConvertKit. And it also automatically shoots them an email from Hello audio. So it just sort of skipped. It just feels like it’s very all automatic now. And now that I’ve made that one thing and convert in Thrive cart, that’s just what I use every time. So it’s just a link to that product, which is free. That’s for the F that series. So every time we do it now I just No, like, sell that product. So Erin Ollila 12:19 yeah, so basically people go into Thrive cart and like buy the series as if they would buy a product except they’re not charged a penny for it. Right? Yeah. And as soon as they purchased the series, they’re then added as into your ConvertKit. Or at least tagged if they’re already in there, and given access to the series through the Thrive cart. Hello, audio integration, right? Yeah, exactly. And then you can like, like you said, I think this is I’m also understanding like all the future times you do this, you’re kind of just copying that same thing that you’ve already created once, even though it’s new content that you’re sharing. Deanna Seymour 12:52 Exactly. So for me, and again, we talked about like anybody listening, like my style is totally do what you want, take what what works for you, whatever, obviously, if that, you know. So what I’m doing for my F that series now moving forward is I’ve done two seasons. And so the third season will come out this year. And when people sign up for the third season, they also get access to seasons one and two. So it’s actually still the same URL, like it’s still the same podcast feed. So that also helps if depending on what you know, plan you have or how many feeds you want to juggle. And it’s kind of fun, because I can bring up the old feeds, like the old seasons, and tag some of the people who were in it before and they’re like, Oh, fun, she’s doing like Season Three coming out. So I can tag people who are in season one or season two. And that also helps it be more shareable and spread the word. And I mean, I don’t think that they’re gonna like promote it the way they would, the season they were on. But it’s still like, you probably get like a story share here and there. You know, it’s kind of fun to tell people who else has participated in the past. So it’s kind of fun. Erin Ollila 13:56 I love that. I didn’t know that you could do that either. So basically, when you’re like in the backend, you’re setting this up and you’re creating the seasons, you’re not really doing, you’re not creating any new private podcast, like you’re going back to the one you already had, but adding to it. When the we just I’m asking because I don’t I can’t visualize it on my side. When the end user goes and they they get the access for and they get the old seasons and it comes into their podcast feed like is it very clear, like here’s season one and the 10 episodes, let’s say here’s Season Two and the 10 episodes. Deanna Seymour 14:28 Um, that’s a great question. Yeah, more so I was like, Erin Ollila 14:31 Alright, give me a second. I’m going into like podcast right now to see like, where the Andy hustle holiday was because I know I have both season here. Deanna Seymour 14:38 You know what? Let me correct myself because again, like depending on what you’re doing, this is perfect for people listening. The anti hustle holiday is too long. I felt like we have like, I think the first year like 27 episodes. So I was like, That’s too many, like no one’s gonna listen to all 27 from the year before, and new ones. So I actually did do those as two separate feeds. It’s, but the F that holiday or the F that now we’re F that into the holidays, like we’re really getting into it. Those are the people who don’t like the elf. That’s what they’re saying. The F that business series, I only do 10 episodes max per series per season that I put out. And it’s actually really funny reason why it’s because you can only tag 10 People in the story at a time. So, and they might have changed that by now. But when I first started doing it, I wanted to be able to have one graphic with all all 10 speakers, and tag everybody. Because the first year I had more than 10, but it was only like, a couple more. And it was just annoying to me because I was like, wait, what, how do I now I can’t take them and I just get really nervous people are gonna feel left out, even though probably no one would notice. But it just made it easier for me. So I actually do eight. And that’s like just two rows of four on the landing page. Again, as a graphic designer. It’s like, what’s easy? What look like, yeah, and eight is like doable. It doesn’t feel like oh my gosh, now I have to edit. I mean, I kind of burnt myself out on the anti hustle holiday season. That was like 20 Some. I was like, oh my god, this is gonna be so fun forgetting about all the work. All the conversations were really fun in real life, but all the work on the back end to edit them and promote them got to be a little much in December when I was planning on like, kind of killing myself. So yeah, Erin Ollila 16:24 well, is a really good point too. Because I can imagine there’s podcasters listening to this. And they’re like, I’d love to do an audio Summit. As you know, if they love podcasting, that would be an ideal thing for them to jump into. But they’re also cognizant of how long it takes to do everything in podcasting, which I’d in one way, I’m kind of afraid it would hold them back. But I think a key thing to consider is is like we have to also think about like how much editing needs to go into a summit. Like in your case, like you mentioned, it was, I wouldn’t say last minute in a negative way. But it was toward the end of the holidays of the beginning of the holidays when you were launching. So you were kind of like getting everything done at once. And it was a like a ginormous amount of people. But I think it’s like, okay, if you know what your Summit is going to be about, you know exactly how many speakers you want to have. You’re interviewing them. We don’t have to aim for perfection here, right? Like this is a summit. This isn’t like our like body of work that a public podcast might have. This is something that could be temporary and then completely go away. Or it could be like yours and have seasons that build on each other. So can you put a ton of editing work in can you put a ton of like behind the scenes work? Sure. Before you can just kind of treat it literally like but like a zoom or Riverside conversation with someone and then what goes on from there gets right into the feed like yeah, no editing, nothing crazy. Deanna Seymour 17:45 Yeah, for sure. And the holiday one, I think I told people there were like 10 minute interviews, I think some people maybe turned into 15. But I’m just trying to leave slack for way too long. We’ll go back and check. We need to check this for the show notes. Just kidding. Um, but yeah, it was just fun, like, share something about the holidays. And it wasn’t a big, big long episode. So that was another thing that was a choice I made because I knew I wanted it to be like a countdown to Christmas. But also the one I do this year is gonna be the 12 days of Christmas. So each year and smaller. Well, it’s so Erin Ollila 18:18 funny, because when you first had mentioned that, like the 27th. And you did a smaller like she should just do 12 for like the like everything around the holidays is 12 related. And so I’m on Team 12 episodes, go for it. Okay, so I remember talking after your first summit, when you’re kind of explaining this whole idea to me about the idea that you know, everything you learned from it, and what you would change and what you would keep the same. And one of the things you were working on in the shift was that you wanted to kind of be a little bit more strategic about how you use it with your business and how you use it to network to grow your network. So what is your suggestions for people who don’t want to do this just for fun, like they want to they maybe they’ll have a fun series, but they really are doing this as like a goal to grow their audience or to even just grow their colleague base? Deanna Seymour 19:09 Well, I think number one, like picking a topic thinking about who do you want to attract? Well, there’s two, there’s sort of two things that are happening when I do these. I’m attracting listeners, who if it’s private will be also on my email list. So like, Who do I want to attract in terms of like, potential customers or clients? And who do I want to talk to who do I want to have on the show? And who do I want to network with? Um, I love I mean, if you already have a podcast, you know this, but I love having a podcast because I feel like it is the perfect way to see somebody that you’re like, oh my gosh, they seem so cool. Like, I want to talk to them. And then you’re just like, hey, do you want to be on my podcast? And then it makes sense. You’re not just like, hey, I’m a fan. Yeah. Erin Ollila 19:53 Awkward introduction. Can we be best friends forever? No, it’s like, I have this thing for you like would you like To be on my show and share your expertise, and then we’re going to be great friends, like Deanna Seymour 20:04 on the back end, we have a sneaky plan. Yes. So I think, for me choosing, like my branding and the customers I work with are usually very, what do I say like bold, rebellious, like not afraid of lots of color and being sassy. And so me, obviously picking to call it F that breaking the rules of online business was attracting those types of listeners, like obviously, someone who doesn’t want to cuss or like I don’t, I’m not a huge customer. It’s just like a way for me to say, hey, if we if you’re okay with being sassy, check me out. And then same with the anti hustle. I, I just, it’s like a pet peeve of mine when I see like a lot of like, six figures in six seconds and a little bit. And I was like, Oh my gosh, Can we all just like calm down? Yeah, so the anti hustle is a little bit of a flag saying like, Hey, if you’re okay with this, come hang out with us. And also, like you said, it didn’t really have much to do with business. But I think the way I sort of positioned it was come listen to these business owners talk about the holidays. And like when you’re ready to get back into things in January, you’ll have new people in your sphere to listen to their podcasts or whatever. And that I personally Erin Ollila 21:14 did, like I met I mean, I don’t know how many people like I met as in like best friends, but like I met people that I would have never even like kind of like crossed paths was that with that? I thought were so interesting. Deanna Seymour 21:25 Yeah, well, um, the first Fun fact, the first anti hustle series was all podcasters. And one of the reasons they’re all podcasters is because my goal for the following year was to be on more podcasts. So it makes sense that I would want to meet all of these podcasters. And then in the new year, when I started looking around, I could be like, Hey, I think I could come on your show and do this. So again, thinking about who you want to connect with. So I definitely wanted to attract anti hustle customers and clients. But I wanted to connect with podcasters. And that was a really fun way for me to do that. So I think just thinking about who you want to connect with, Erin Ollila 22:02 is Yeah, I think that’s so valuable. And like thinking of your overall business schools, right? Because I think what I find so often with my clients is people get ideas, and they get excited about their ideas, but we have to understand why the ideas will or won’t work for us when it comes to what we want to accomplish. Right? You know, like, sometimes I have to check myself and be like, No, you don’t have the bandwidth to do that. Like, it sounds really fun. And I know you’re very much excited about this, but like, let’s put this on the later list. And later, if you’re still excited about it, you can do it then. But you know, just the time of your life right now that you don’t have the space. Or just like you mentioned, if you knew podcasting was going to be a big goal for you. So like why not like in a natural way, get yourself in front of other podcasters. Because even if you’re not perfect for their show, I know you well enough to know that you weren’t like I’m only inviting people whose shows I can be on like this was more like, I want to invite people within my crew like people who get where I’m coming from. Because whether or not they have you on the show, they can introduce you to other people, or they can recommend other people to be on your show, which I have found to be like a very great thing about podcasting and growing a different type of network. Because often when I want to have a show on a particular topic, I’ll send out an email to the people who have been like experts on my show and be like, do any of you know any of these people? Because I know I loved having them on the show, you know, like they were great people to interview. So they’re gonna probably know other great people. So I think when it comes to like deciding if a audio series is right for you, a lot of us just figuring out like, what’s the end goal here? Are you going to lead them into like a course? Cool, then you approach it that way? Are you going to just grow your network? Cool, grow it that way? Are you looking to meet people who can collab with you later? Cool. Think about that, right? Like, there’s no wrong answer, but don’t not consider that before making any plans in regard to having one of these audio summits? Deanna Seymour 24:00 Well, I have let me I actually have a good example of a summit that one of the members of my community and I’m helping her with the graphics and stuff that she’s doing. And so she is a I don’t know the right term, like she’s a counselor, she counsels people on Zoom. And so she likes working with moms and new moms especially and helping people prepare for having a baby like she wants to do some VIP days with setting up boundaries and getting ready for like all the stuff they don’t tell you about having a baby that when you have the baby, you’re like oh my gosh, what’s happening? And so she’s doing an audio series called the mindful mom to be so like hello attracting the people she wants to attract. And she’s working with all these different people. She has like a doula on a lactation consultant. A person who helps you with introducing your dog like your pet to your baby. And so it’s like about eight guests are important. Yeah. And I’m just a way that now she’s like you said building her network of people who also work with her target client who could also say, oh, like, if you’re stressed out about boundaries and your mother in law like you should totally hire case You know, and again, it’s like what you were saying like, what are you trying to launch? Like, what? What’s your goal? And then who like what kind of community or network? Can you build around that? And then how can that attract the people you need? Erin Ollila 25:12 So you kind of started answering this. But I think one question people will have is like, how do you go about like choosing speakers and asking them once you’ve like, decided on the topic, the length and in how it relates back to your goals? Like you actually have to go find people? So like, how do you do that? And how should other people go and do that? Deanna Seymour 25:31 Well, you kind of actually talked about asking other people. So I started with people I knew. So I feel like you, Angie Trueblood, I’m trying to think Emily, a born we’re all podcasters and the first one, like who are my friends who are podcasters. And then I just make a simple Google Form. I love a simple Google form saying, what should we talk about that? And then one of my questions is always, who else should I ask like, who else would love this, who else would be a great person to reach out to. And then from that, it’s like, if one of those people fills out the form, and then tells me some more people, it just grows from there. So that’s the main one, I will also say that I tried to, and this might be intimidating people. And please remember that I’m like the graphic design person and visual person. So what I did was I sort of mocked out a landing page, a very loose one, and sent that so that people could get a feel for a little bit of the branding and how fun it was going to be especially. Well, both of them are pretty fun. I feel like the name of that and the anti hustle holiday, I think people heard it. And we’re like, what is this could be fun, this sounds different. So they would go to the landing page. And that’s where I put a lot of information that maybe I would normally just put in an email, that would feel really wordy, but I just was like, Well, I have to make this landing page anyway. So let me kind of do it. And in the email I sent to them, I’d be like it’s a work in progress. But click, you know, check out the landing page so you can learn more about what it is and if you want to be a part of it. And I think that helped because they went there. And they were like, saw the cute colors and the branding and read about it. And we’re like, okay, I can picture myself like on this landing. Okay, she’s gonna make it happen. It’s gonna, it’s gonna happen. I could see myself on this landing page. I want to do it. So I think that helped. Erin Ollila 27:12 No, I would say that’s huge in what like, if you weren’t paying close enough attention, she means before she invited people, she had the landing page. Because I mean, this is really where like design and copy like intersect and how they have such a vital role in things. You know, earlier, we joked about like repelling people because of Elf on the Shelf. But like, Okay, so let’s say, you know, you asked someone like, who would you recommend? They recommend someone to you, you put out the email, ask and you’re like, hey, so and so said you might be a good guest for my show. This is what I’m looking on doing for my next audio Summit? Would you like to be interested? They go to your landing page, and they’re like, oh, this check is not my vibe. Great. Nobody has to like have that awkward conversation. It doesn’t have to be like weird, they just don’t sign up to do it. Right. And at the same time, I think we are anyone who’s listening podcast or not business owner or like maybe Freelancer dipping your toe in. I think we all realize like we’re busy. Like, there’s a lot of potential things we could or could not do to grow our business or like, have more visibility. So sometimes, it’s partially like, we just want to know if it’s the right opportunity for us, right. And not having those details, I think maybe makes it a little bit more complicated to like, onboard the right people. Like if they can see they can self identify, then they can make that decision. And you guys can all move forward quicker. Deanna Seymour 28:32 Yeah, well, and the fun thing was, as I got speakers, I would add them to the landing page. That was a work in progress. And that helped to show people who went there. Oh, okay, well, that person’s doing it. Like there are some people that you feel like maybe have a little bit more like, celebrity or like, bow factor. And so like if they said yes, like they’re on there. And I put things like I put pronouns on my landing pages on events like that. And so I feel like that’s another bit of information that maybe wouldn’t be in the email. And just like little indicators like that, like you’re saying that would either attract or repel people, I think it gives them a better view of what you’re trying to do. And it proves you’re gonna do it because it’s hard. Like sometimes these things don’t actually come to fruition. And nobody wants to come get interviewed, and then oh, nevermind, I fell through. I never put that out. So they know, it’s like gonna happen. I think it builds a little bit of trust, too. Erin Ollila 29:23 Yeah. And I think from that, like consumer or like listener standpoint, when one thing will actually or from the participants standpoint, one thing I’m trying to do is I’m trying to make sure that when I join, like video or audio summits or panels or anything like that, that there’s more diversity on the on the panel, you know, I’m a sis white woman who’s, you know, heterosexual, like, I’m just your average, old basic lady, right? And there’s so many of us and the point is like, I don’t want to amplify my own voice if there are not other voices that need to be amplified, also getting a center stage. So there have been times where I’ve been invited to do things like speak on on Physical stages and in like, or bundles, audio summits, things like that, that I’m like, well, your page is literally like 10 white men and like five white ladies like, this isn’t right for me. And while that may be right, like, I mean, maybe there’s a white guy listening right now that’s like, hello, I’d be great. I’d love to be on that stage. Cool, great, good for you. But like, for me, it was very easy to like, have that visual indicator of the landing page to know that it just wasn’t a place that I felt not about them. But for me, like I didn’t need my voice to be there because there were already voices like mine there. And they needed other people’s voices. So I say landing page the copy can help you make decisions it can weed people out it can like welcome people in and the visuals are helpful. But let’s talk visuals before we go too much further because I you know, we’ve got a lot to to cover, and we’re almost out of time here. What type of visuals do people need? I mean, landing page we mentioned that but what else needs to be created to kind of promote the show to people to get people to listen? Deanna Seymour 31:03 Well, you definitely need a cover like you need cover art for whatever podcast player you’re going to use. And then that like quick aside Erin Ollila 31:10 here, everyone Deanna is the person who made my cover art, and many other wonderful people cover art like Miss Angie Trueblood from go pitch herself. And obviously Deanna made all her own. So if anyone needs Dianna for like podcast II, visuals like this is the commercial time to say, when you’re done with this episode, please go over to what is DNS see more.com and learn more about how you can work with Deanna. All right, I’m back from commercial break. Deanna Seymour 31:39 Oh, my gosh, I love that. Thank you, my own hype girl. Yes, you need a cover. And then I would just say I mean, whatever social platform, you’re on a few. I think it for me when I’m in summits or bundles, and they give me too much I sort of shut down. I’m like, I don’t know what to do. So I think, you know, I usually just make a graphic with all the speakers, because I think that is helpful for people to share all the speakers in your Summit, you know, with them on that one, too. So it’s like a little picture of them with all the other speakers. And then one that’s like them and their topic, what they’re talking about. I also like a real or an audiogram. I’ve been like experimenting with that a little bit over the for the last anti hustle holiday. I just I invited them to send me some video if they wanted, but I don’t have anybody did it’s like a busy time of year. So I didn’t really expect it. But I just found like, you know, funny, like in Canva, or wherever you can get some video that you can use in a real and then I just use that the captions on Instagram, it was I kept it super simple. So that I could still share some audio clips from the interviews. Alright, Erin Ollila 32:45 I think this is super important. And I know as someone who’s participated in this, how much more willing I am to kind of like, schedule ahead of time because I have that content already created versus like winging it once like the summit starts, and I’m like, oh, yeah, I gotta create something to promote this. And so if you if this is all new to you, and you’ve never really been in a summit or heard about summits, what Dan is talking about is, as the summit leader, as the summit, host creator, whatever you want to call it, it’s your responsibility. If you’d like to make this easier for the people in your Summit, which you always do, to create assets for them that they can then share and help market the summit so that it’s not just your audience, it’s all of the guests audience, which we talked earlier about growing your network, here’s, here’s, here’s how you do it, you invite other people in, it’s like, why you have people on your show to interview, not just because they’re smart, they’re interesting that they can have great content and and teach things to your audience, which is should be the number one, but it’s also because they can share your episodes with their networks and things. So having a summit is just that amplified in a very short period of time. If you can then create like, small pieces of social copy or email copy, which obviously you talked about visuals, but those things as well as visuals that can be shared on Instagram, any other platform that you’re using even an email, let’s say, then what you’re doing is you’re just kind of giving them the tools to amp you up and hype you up, right, so that they don’t have to do it on their own. You can keep this as simple as like just one or two sized images, one or two, like written pieces of content, or you can go wild and crazy and create a ton. You gave a great bunch of great examples of what to do. So I’m not going to repeat you but there is the like beginner step here and the more advanced steps that you can really take when it comes to creating that content. Deanna Seymour 34:40 I should say too, I do caption. I do a PS for emails because I know some people don’t want to send like a whole email and I’m like, if you’re not trying to send a whole email about this. Here’s a cute PS. That’s like a mad lib and I’m like I’m talking about like, whatever they talk about they can put in so it’s like one Google Doc and a couple graphics And just so that they can do, but I think you’re right to like the earlier the better because although I’m not the best at scheduling my content out way in advance, there’s definitely people who have teams, and it has to like fit in their content calendar. So the sooner you can get that stuff to them, the better. Alright, so Erin Ollila 35:14 you’re gonna hate me for this is probably gonna be my last question for you. But like, let’s pretend you’re sitting down. Now you’ve done this a couple times. So you feel a little more comfortable of what you have to do. What’s a like quick and easy review of like the steps that you’re going to take for the process of like ideation to actual launch of your audios? Deanna Seymour 35:32 Well, I would say Well, first, and I’m gonna get to that, but what I would do is I would try to brand it as an overall idea that you can do different series under, because then you can have like a brand, you can have a little logo, you can easily like already have that in Canva to pop on things. So if you already have most of the light colors, fonts, logo sorted out. So mine’s like, you know, the F that storytelling series. And it’s the same graphics kind of every time. And the first one was about breaking the rules of social media than breaking the rules of podcasting. This next one, I think I do want to sort of do like a potpourri, if you will, like a little map mix up. So I have to figure out what to call that. But it’s still really easy. If you call it something, you know, like the artists challenge. And then you’re like, Oh, we’re going to do this challenge. Now we’re going to do this challenge, I’m going to do this, because then you don’t have to reinvent it every single time. So that’s the first thing I would do is get that sorted out. And then each time you just figure out, what do I want to cover in this? And then I mean, I think you’re just saying go down the line of like what I do, yeah. And figure out like who you’re going to reach out to one thing I started doing is it gets tricky. And I don’t know if this is just my personality of let’s say you want eight speakers. And you know, you just want eight speakers because honestly, if you’ve already template, that template, monetize this. And that’s what your graphic looks like in Canva, you only want eight speakers. So it gets tricky, because you’ll email somebody and you won’t hear from them. And you’re like, how long should I wait before I check them off? And that is honestly why there was 27 speakers the first anti hostile holiday because I didn’t manage that very well. And then people came back late and said, okay, yeah, I want to do it. And I just didn’t have the heart to say, be a Grinch and be like, No, you can’t participate. Now you took too long. So I think I started just kind of saying it’s going to be first come first serve, if you’re interested, like pick a date, fill out the form. And I sent it out to like, maybe the first eight, gave it a couple of days, and then started sending out more. And then some people didn’t get back to me. And they were like, oh, it’s probably they kind of started the conversation by saying it’s probably already full. And I said it is but I’ll keep you on my list for the next one. So that is a big tip. I think if you really want to just get your people and get going. Email the people, secure your people, and then just like, start recording those, start recording those puppies, and making your graphics and I guess we already talked about the landing page would come before you email them. So I just put a placeholder in just use the logo, eight times on the thing. But I would put in like, you know, guest name guest pronouns or whatever, you know, their website so they can see like, Oh, my website’s gonna be linked, put all the things like put placeholders in for all the things they’re gonna get. They’re gonna get a headshot on there, they’re gonna get whatever they’re gonna get, how they’re gonna be promoted, and then send out those emails and then just just get going. And don’t overcomplicate it, like you said with the editing. Just go with it. Erin Ollila 38:25 I’m gonna nudge you a little bit more here. So what happens when all everything’s done? Let’s say it’s all in Hello audio, or wherever they host this, like, what’s your, like, quick and dirty, like marketing? Like how do you actually get people to know that these things exist? Deanna Seymour 38:37 Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, for me, my main channels are my email list. I email all the time. So my email list knows it’s coming out. And then I just talk about it a lot on social media. I have done it different ways. And I will say that for me open one year for the EFF that the first one I did. I released like three episodes each day. And I think and with that anti hustle holiday like a new one comes out every day. So it makes you feel like okay, we got to talk about it every day, we got to keep hyping it up. For the first F that one it closed on Friday. So it was a little bit of like, like Hurry up you can get in it was a free event. But it was like get in because the doors are closing the gap made a joke about it was like the Disney vault like the Disney vault is like closing it’s going back in the vault until I open it again. And so I think just having them out each day helped me keep talking about it. I have wanted to do some lives, maybe like throughout the event to make it feel more in person. And I think maybe one of the F that people have done that it just hasn’t like people are so busy. I just feel like everybody’s making so much stuff and doing so many things. Yeah. But I think continuing to share in stories for me it’s really easy for the for the contributors to reshare that I think that’s where a lot of traction comes from because even though you give them the graphics and you give them this By copy, they might not share it. But if they’re tagged, and particularly in stories, I feel like if they’re tagged in a post, they will usually like that post and comment for sure. But they don’t necessarily share that post to their audience. So again, like you were saying, it’s still on your turf, it’s still like to your audience. So Instagram Stories has been key for me in sharing any audiogram sharing any graphics and tagging them. So that was like, so easy. Like, basically, Instagram tells you to do it Instagrams, like, add this to your stories. And they’re like, Okay, so then you get one of their audiences. Yeah, Erin Ollila 40:34 yeah. And I think this is key, why it’s we have, we have to remember that when we market things, especially like a summit or anything that’s like bigger, that we’re including other people in that we have to think about how we market and how they market and this is why it’s so vital. With everything that Deanna was saying about all those visual assets, those copy assets that you’re creating, sure, it is an extra step, it is additional work. But let’s pretend you have someone in your audience, let’s say you are someone who doesn’t really use social media, we had a great episode with Hillary Ray on to show that you really don’t have to use any social for your business, you can still have an audio Summit, if you don’t use social, just use your email lists, use your physical network, you know, use your chatting with friends to kind of grow it, but the people on your audio Summit, they might use social. So creating lists for them allows them to be able to share. So it’s not just about how you plan on marketing, which is a huge thing. It’s also about how they do so it’s like give them all the opportunity to do it in the way that they’re able to do it and like let them run with it. The other thing to consider too is, especially when the spectrum of like, no social to using a lot of social, pre launch strategy could really be like what’s the driver, right? So like, you don’t have to do any pre launch stuff. You don’t even have to do like anything huge for a launch besides talking about it. But if you aren’t going to like rely on social or if the people on your series don’t use social that much, maybe you build up the balls on that email list a lot earlier on. So people know it’s like the sneak peek. It’s coming. They’re excited about it when it comes. So I think what we can really say about the entire episode so far is like we can do this really like easy. Like it doesn’t have to be this big thing. But it can be a very grand audio summat. Just it depends on like, where you are and what you’re able to do. And that’s fine. Like, I think it’ll still be super successful it just decide that and figure out how you’ll approach it. And don’t stress yourself out about it. Deanna Seymour 42:38 Definitely not do not do that. Erin Ollila 42:41 One quick thing. I promise I’m going to end this but when I was talking to someone yesterday, who was like, Hey, I know you have a podcast. I know you love podcasting, like is podcasting still a thing? Like, is it too late for me to start? And I was like, oh gosh, no, like, it is like Welcome to the club like it is primetime. I was just reading an article about in statistics, I can never say that website is to Teesta about how podcast is growing exponentially. But they were worried they didn’t have the bandwidth, but they really wanted to have one they really admired podcast, and they were like, What do I do? This could be a great idea and audio Summit, if you know that, like an actual show is not something you can commit to, but you’re able to do some batching work or maybe you do have like a series of your your audio series. once a quarter, once a year, even. There’s your opportunity to create that podcast and invite people into the audio world that you create without having to do an entire show. Deanna Seymour 43:39 Yeah, and if the private the private nature of it is freaking you out, like you can still do a public podcast that is as a series and you just do it when you want to. There’s like so many podcasts out there who just stop, right? And so you can honestly think of them as like a limited series, right? Because it’s hard to maintain the like, what is there’s like a statistic What, like people make it to like episode seven or something? Yeah, Erin Ollila 44:03 I’m just bananas. Right? But can you so anyway, if you are nervous about starting a podcast in general, just do it because people don’t make it until past episode seven, like get to eight and you’re good. We got your first series you will win. You’ll be winning. Yeah. All right. So Deana, based on our entire conversation, if you could think of a teeny tiny homework exercise for the people who are listening, what would you give them? Deanna Seymour 44:27 Like To be honest, I would start thinking about which is funny because I wouldn’t expect myself to be thinking this, I would think about like who do you see as your peers in your industry that you want to connect with? And what do you think could bring you all together in a way that would serve them and serve you and serve? Ideally your audience? I would just start thinking about like, who you want to connect with because I really do feel like although private podcasts have grown my email list, and I mean, I enjoy doing them. I really think that the people I’ve met, like the people I’ve interviewed and met doing them is what has really been a huge game changer in my business. So I would start with like, Who do you want to talk to? Who do you want to bring together for your series? And then start thinking about what that could look like. Erin Ollila 45:14 Perfect. And that leads me like insanely wonderful into the final question is, if you could be connected with anyone, personally, professionally for any reason at all living dead. I don’t care who would it be and why? Deanna Seymour 45:27 I mean, Dolly Parton. Hello. Let’s bring it back to the beginning. Thank Erin Ollila 45:30 you bookend this episode. Perfect. And honestly, I would love anyone to meet Dolly Parton because she is just insanely incredible. I know she’s amazing. Okay, well, that’s it. We’re gonna get Deanna and Dolly hooked up and they can talk about perms and report back to us on everything that we all need to know. Thank you so much, Deanna for being here everyone. Head on over to Dan his podcasts, check out all of her audio series get on the waitlist, and I will put all of the ways you can connect with her in the description and the show notes. Thank you, Erin. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Top copy to me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation. Head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends