SPI 432: From Zero Audience to a Successful Podcast-Based Business, with Sophie Walker

432 SPI 432 – From Zero Audience to a Successful Podcast-Based Business, with Sophie Walker

Pat Flynn:
So imagine this, you’re starting a business completely from scratch. You have zero audience, zero connections, zero followers, zero email list. You’re literally starting from scratch. So, to build your audience, you start a podcast, and you end up choosing a niche that involves interviewing mums who are—yes I said mums and I’ll tell you why in a minute, M-U-M. If you don’t know what that is, that’s moms, but mums is in Australian, because this person who is featured on today’s show is Australian. I’m going Australian today, mum. I’m not going to try to do an accent for you I promise. Anyway, you start this podcast, you interview mums and ask them about their pregnancy stories. What was it like to be pregnant? What were the challenges? What were the joys? Maybe also interviewing soon-to-be mums, pregnant women, and their stories and where they’re at now. What they’re scared of, what they’re excited about, etcetera.

Pat:
Well, this is exactly what Sophie Walker did. Starting from scratch, to now today seeing millions of downloads of her show, advertising dollars, even agencies in Australia requiring her podcast to be listened to or to be listened to for additional credit. Just incredible success happening, because guess what? She put herself out there. She found a niche where other people wanted to listen, and success followed. We’re going to follow the story today of Sophie Walker, host of Australian Birth Stories, at one point the number one kids and family podcast in all of Australia. I’m so proud to also call Sophie one of my students in Power-Up Podcasting. She started from scratch, joined the course, and has found success. We’re going to follow her journey today, but first the intro.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. Now your host, he sometimes takes the phrase pat on the back literally, Pat Flynn.

Pat:
What’s up everybody Pat Flynn here, and welcome to session 432 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. My name is Pat Flynn here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. We got a success story. Boy do we have a success story to share with you today from Sophie Walker from Australia. She’s going to come on in just a moment to share exactly how this all happened, where she got the idea, and what happened from there. It’s just really exciting because again, I’m so stoked to share the success stories of my students, because this proves that this can happen.

Pat:
It’s so awesome because Sophie is also very active in our Facebook student center for Power-Up Podcasting. She just encourages the newbies in there every once in a while when she reaches these new milestones, especially because she is somebody who started from scratch. From zero, which is really cool. If you are starting from scratch, or you’re starting out and you haven’t yet found success, I hope this encourages you, because she’s going to share some specifics as well in terms of how she did what she did, and what has happened since, and how she’s planning to go even bigger and better. Here she is, Sophie Walker from Australian Birth Stories podcast. Hey Sophie, welcome to the SPI podcast. Thanks for being here today.

Sophie Walker:
Thanks so much for having me Pat, such an honor.

Pat:
Well, I’m so honored to have you on as somebody who has taken one of my courses and done extremely well with it, I’m just so excited to learn how you did that, what it’s done for you, and all that kind of stuff. But before we get into your podcast and what’s opened up for you, I would love to understand a little bit more about you and what you did before you started the podcast. What did Sophie do before?

Sophie:
Sure. As you can tell from my accent, I live in Australia. I live here in Melbourne, and I’ve got three little boys. They are six, four and one. Prior to starting the podcast, I’ve got a background in public health. I used to work at a cancer organization in Australia, and I interviewed women about their cancer experience. I had interviewing experience in that way. But I was working part-time a couple of days a week in between juggling my kids, and listening to podcasts every day on the way to work. I’m not sure how I stumbled onto your podcast, but I became obsessed and was binging on that. A girlfriend of mine we used to do a lot of mail outs and she’d say, “You know what? You should start your own podcast.” We joked about it. I thought okay, maybe I will. I was right into birth story, so I recorded my own birth and then I recorded a few friends’ births, and then it took off from there.

Pat:
When you say recorded a birth, what does that mean exactly?

Sophie:
There’s a few different countries around the world where people have podcasts, where they interview a woman about her pregnancy and then her childbirth experience. I thought there’s none in Australia doing the Australian healthcare system with different things that we know and can relate to here. I recorded my own experience of childbirth with my second son. My mum listened and my sister listened and I thought it was a bit of fun. I had no idea it would end up being where it’s at today. Now it’s had over nearly 2.4 million downloads. That’s been a wild ride.

Pat:
That’s insane. I’m so proud of you. What is it like now to know that every episode you come out with has like tens of thousands of downloads, that you’re making this impact around the world now?

Sophie:
It’s so special. It’s an added responsibility now. It’s easy to record it thinking six close friends are listening, but now thousands and thousands it’s definitely a little bit different putting the mic together these days. But yeah, it’s so special. I feel a lot of people message me through. I’ve got quite a big platform on Instagram. That’s how I built a lot of my audience. Daily getting messages from women saying, “I’m listening every week and my baby was just born.” They are crediting the show to helping equip them and get their mindset ready for birth. It’s a real honor and it’s incredibly special to do something I love so much, but to be helping people, it’s amazing.

Pat:
That’s really great. You said you had this now large Instagram following. Did you happen to have any following or email list or anything before starting the podcast? Or was the podcast really what started all this for you?

Sophie:
Yeah, the podcast definitely started it. I actually began my podcast when I just found your YouTubes prior to Power-Up Podcasting being available. I just followed you step-by-step to get my show up and running. I think the part of the component of that was start to build the audience if you can. I started my Instagram account when I didn’t have a show, and I just put inspiring birth images and slowly gathered a few followers and then launched my show. But once Power-Up Podcasting came out, I said, “Great, another great resource to go step-by-step through.”

Sophie:
I wish that I’d had that initially, because I missed out on doing a big launch, and all the amazing things that you lay out in the course about having three shows ready to go, rather than I did my first show, and then I was like, “Oh my goodness, I need another show for next week,” and I was scrambling. In Power-Up Podcasting you lay all that out. I wish I’d done it a bit more sequentially, but I generally built my audience through Instagram and gradually grew an email list from there, but I had nothing to begin with.

Pat:
I love this story. This is why if you’ve heard me talk about Sophie before, this is the Sophie that I always talk about. Because just Australian Birth Stories has taken off and it’s done some amazing things. She started with zero audience, which I think is a big reason why a lot of people like podcasting, because you can find your audience doing that. I’m curious to know, what really worked for you? When you started your show, did it take off immediately? Or what was it that happened or did you do anything to get the word out there?

Sophie:
I literally just followed your recipe. I laugh every time you use your knitting example. When you say approach people in your niche in groups in Facebook. I literally did that, and I made one of my closest friends to date now through that approach.

Pat:
No way.

Sophie:
Yes, so funny. I found another mothers’ group on Facebook and I approached the administrator of the group, and that was my now-friend Bridgette. I interviewed her. She shared it on her really large, she had nearly 100,000 mothers following her in her Facebook group. I interviewed her and then she shared it on her platform, and it literally grew from there. We’ve since both gone on to have another baby and shared our birth experiences and pregnancies together. It’s really funny. I just definitely laugh every time you say knitting, I’m like yes, do that approach.

Pat:
It works everybody, it absolutely works. I had no idea that that’s what you used to get started. Because I know a lot of my students that for their efforts to grow their show. What I’m talking about, what Sophie’s talking about here is a strategy that I talk a lot about on my webinars and online, where you can use your podcast platform to interview these forum owners, group owners, LinkedIn group owners, Facebook group owners, who often don’t get a chance to share on a platform like that. You have this amazing thing called the podcast, which is a huge asset that if you can use to make somebody else look great, and share their expertise and offer them a platform of their own using your show. They can’t help but want to share it. I’m so thrilled that you mentioned that strategy. A lot of you who are listening probably have heard me talk about that before, you got to do it.

Sophie:
Definitely implement it.

Pat:
This is proof. I’m curious about the struggles that you had. Every podcaster has different reasons for struggling in the beginning. Mine in particular was the technology. It was also just a lot of fear around whether or not people were going to pay attention. I was much more used to writing versus using my voice. What struggles or obstacles did you have to overcome in the beginning?

Sophie:
I’m definitely not a techie person, and I much prefer to talk than to write or do any of the IT side. But literally I feel like I’m just singing your praises, but I literally just followed step-by-step. I didn’t even have to think about the different things that I was doing, because I was just putting one foot in front of the other and following the steps. I just think if I can make a podcast, anybody can, because it’s definitely not my field of expertise. I’d rather just talk to people which I now get to do for a job, which is amazing.

Pat:
You said you interviewed people before. How were those interviews done, and how did those transfer over?

Sophie:
They were over the phone. I was just used to talking to people and building rapport in that way, I think. It set me in good stead, because I think people often say they enjoy the sound of my calming voice, and I try and talk less in my interviews and let people tell their own story and not interrupt as much. There’s not a lot of me talking within my episodes, but yeah, I think I gained those skills through previous work.

Pat:
For people who are interested in podcasting or maybe even have one already, and they want to really hone in on their interview skills and asking the right questions, do you have any powerhouse tips or questions that you often bring up in your show?

Sophie:
I think I listen to heaps and heaps of podcasts myself, and I get different insights from the way that other people interview. I feel like I’ve started listening to your podcast, and then a lot of people that you’ve interviewed, I listened to Amy Porterfield and Tim Ferriss and people like that all the time. I try and learn from the greats. I think less is more, trying to sit back a bit and let people often you want to interrupt and ask an extra question, but if you just pause and let them go, then it often opens up a whole nother section I find.

Pat:
One of the hardest things to do as a podcaster is to actually just listen. We’re always so worried about what’s the next question going to be, I don’t want this to be bad. My advice would be to just be genuinely curious. If you’re genuinely curious, you’re going to listen intently, you’re going to ask the right follow-up questions and likely be in the heads of your audience. My favorite piece of feedback for my show is when people go, “Man, you seem to ask the same questions that I have in my head.” If you can just be curious, that’s definitely going to help you. What’s another tip now that you are a pro podcaster that you could offer to the podcasters or soon-to-be podcasters that are out there about your show?

Sophie:
I think people often talk about knowing your avatar or your main listener, and I think that’s just vital. In my case, I kind of am my main listener because I’ve gone through a pregnancy and childbirth experience again, whilst recording the show. I think, what do I want to know right now? Really having that person in mind rather than taking different tangents. Just focus on one person. What would that one person want to hear, and channeling that. But I’ve gone on to do your other course as well Amp’d Up Podcasting, and I’ve learned heaps from that as well. I’m really implementing those strategies to grow the show and increase my experience and knowledge base there. That’s been fantastic, so thank you so much for doing the follow-up.

Pat:
Yeah, you’re welcome. It was you and several other people who had asked for more. I think that there are only certain things you can do after you have a show that’s been up and running, which is why that course exists. But I think everybody’s going to listen to this and go like, “Did you pay Sophie to come on and talk about your stuff, because this is just a testimonial.” I knew that obviously you being a student would share your success story with the course in your podcasting career here. But I don’t want this to be about me, I want it to be about you. I want to understand a little bit more about your interview process. Because I think there’s huge opportunities there. I’m curious, how do you prepare for an interview? When you’re about to get on a call with somebody, what’s going through your head? How do you get yourself in the right mindset for that?

Sophie:
Well, it’s funny because I try to not know too much about their story to be honest, so it unfolds the way that the listener would hear. People apply to come on my show. Every woman pretty much wants to share their birth story, so I’ve got no shortage of content there. I had an application page on my website where people could submit their story, and just write a few dot points about what happened in their birth, and then I choose it from there. But I’ve had to close that off because the waiting list got to 900, and I thought I just don’t have the time to go through. I do it all myself as well, so I don’t have like an admin girl to help me. I actually try, which is probably the opposite of what most people do in interviews. I don’t do background research. I just let it unfold naturally as if we’re having a cup of tea, and I think people enjoy that as well. They feel like they’re just sitting down with two people having a chat. I haven’t got quotes and information up my sleeve, I just let it unfold.

Pat:
I love that, and that’s the same exact strategy I use with my interviews. I at least think about, okay, well with this person, where do I want to end up? That’s usually the one thing I think about. Where do we want to take the listener eventually? Then I just have a curious conversation to hopefully get there. That becomes my guide or my lane for the questions, and where I want the conversation to go. But I find that sometimes when I’m listening to an interview and the podcaster will already know about the book, and they would each have their own insight or language about a thing, I often feel left out of the conversation, and feeling dumb versus like you said, the approach that we take is more of a, hey, I’ll just represent you as the audience and ask questions like you would if you were here.

Sophie:
The outcome of my story always ends in a birth, so there’s no surprises there, but it’s how people got there and how it unfolded that’s interesting.

Pat:
Love it. What were the first signs for you that this thing was going to be huge? I’d love to know a little bit about your story of when you saw that this was starting to take off. When did that happen, and what was going through your head?

Sophie:
I suppose another technique I used is through Instagram, again, I just DMed more popular mommy bloggers and influencers, and tried to get their birth stories, and then grew my audience that way. I now do that two episodes a month. I do someone with a high following on Instagram. I don’t even have to ask them to share, they often just naturally share it with their audience to give their audience a bit more background on themselves. It’s kind of a win-win. I grow exponentially that way. Each week I get a whole bunch of new listeners from the person that’s being interviewed, and then I combine that with doing just regular women that approach me as well. I did one influencer early on in the piece, and I think I went from getting 500 listens to maybe 1200, the following week after her episode. I thought, okay, so it can grow that quickly. I use Libsyn, which I know you recommend as well. It’s like looking at those spikes, it’s like suddenly a huge spike. I thought, okay, I can grow this quickly if I get it right.

Pat:
That’s really cool. How does your husband feel about all this?

Sophie:
He doesn’t really understand it all that much. He doesn’t obviously listen to the birth stories, but he enjoys seeing the money coming, I think.

Pat:
Money is coming in, how is it coming in?

Sophie:
It’s interesting because again listening to all these podcasts, people talk about have an online course, have an online course. I thought, but I’m not an expert in anything. I’m not trained as a midwife or a nurse, so I don’t feel like I can educate in that way. I decided to get a business coach about a year ago just to chat through things. Because I think it’s hard having an online business. People don’t quite understand what you’re doing, and they don’t know, a lot of my friends don’t know about affiliate marketing or advertising. I didn’t have a good sounding board. I hired a beautiful business coach, a lovely lady, Rachel, and we discussed things. I’d been running the show for about a year and a half then, and she said, “You need to make an offer and have something that your people can purchase because you’ve built like and trust over the years, and they’re going to want more from you.”

Sophie:
I came up with the idea to record an expert series of interviews with healthcare professionals to delve deeper into the health side. I interviewed people like physiotherapists and psychologists and lactation consultants, and I compiled a five-part audio series, which I ran off Teachable. Released that thinking who knows if anyone wants to pay money to listen to these expert series? They definitely did. I went on to do a second series and I’m now thinking about doing a third. For anyone who thinks I’ve got nothing to offer or nothing to put into a course, you can get other people in, and definitely package that together and put it all in one place, and people love that.

Pat:
That’s really great, and that’s a fantastic idea. You’re essentially playing expert curator versus being the expert, which I think is a really great strategy. When it comes to creating an online course that involves other experts, can you share a little bit about your positioning when reaching out to those experts to get help? I’m just curious, is there any thing they have to sign? Are you paying them to get in? How does that work?

Sophie:
I’m very loose with all those things. I don’t get anybody to sign anything, which I’ll probably regret one day. Because another crazy offering I’ve been approached to write a book, to share some of the stories in the podcast. I thought, I haven’t got anyone to sign anything to see whether I own this property, so I’ll have to go back to them if I need them for the book, I guess. But I approach professionals that I know want a bit more exposure as well. They know that once I put together the course, I’m going to advertise it on my social channels, which now I think I’ve got about nearly 80,000 followers on Instagram. They want that exposure in front of pregnant women to sell their other items or their other offerings. I approach people that I’ve worked with like my own physiotherapist. Then I’ve just in the discussion said, well, obviously at the end of your interview, I’ll put links back to whatever products they’re selling. If they’re selling a book or another online offering, then I put links in. It’s just almost like a goodwill sharing of exposure.

Pat:
That’s great, and that’s the sort of positioning, you let them know that it is going to be used in a course in that way. If they wouldn’t be down with that, they would just tell you right?

Sophie:
Yeah. I haven’t had any backlash from them. I’ve had really good experiences. I think we’re all on the same page, the people that I’m talking to all want to educate pregnant women to have a healthier and happier childbirth experience. We’re all trying to get the same knowledge out to women to utilize. In that way, we’re working together.

Pat:
That’s really great. A year and a half after your show came out, and you’re building this online course, any fears, any worries? I know you said that you were just like, “I don’t know if people are even going to pay for this.” I know a lot of people who can and should create an online course, but they just don’t. How did you get over those fears or what was going through your head before you launched it?

Sophie:
I think the push that I got was from my business coach. You’ve got nothing to lose. Say you make it and nobody buys it then well, you’ve learnt a bit of tech. It’s your first launch and you can go back to the drawing board and rework it. But if you don’t try, you don’t know really. It literally changed our life because my husband’s a primary school teacher, so we don’t earn a lot of money and we’re renters. The money that I got through from the course allowed us to pay off our credit cards and just had a huge, immediate impact on our finances. It has gone on to be life-changing.

Sophie:
It almost feels—I don’t know, I felt embarrassed initially to be bringing in the money, and then you have to rework your mindset on money and all sorts of things. It’s been a huge growth learning curve for me, not only with the podcast, but making money and I learnt all of that along the way. But I think it’s the same with advertising on the podcast. I reached out to a few brands. I think it was only six months in and I said, “Look, I’ve got this podcast and I’ve got, I don’t know, maybe 1,000 people listening each week. Would you like to buy a sixty-second ad?” I think initially my offering was $80 for a 60 second ad, which is pretty funny now because they’ve paid that money, I’ve left them as evergreen. They’ve now had 30,000 listens and they only paid $80. They did well out of it.

Pat:
On those earlier episodes?

Sophie:
Yeah. I now charge again I just play around with that myself, the figures, but I now charge about $1200 an episode. It’s just, that’s grown over the years as well.

Pat:
That’s crazy cool, wow. That’s incredible. When you went to launch your course, how did you launch it? What did you say and where did you launch it?

Sophie:
I launched it on Instagram because that’s where most of my audiences is. My email list at the moment it’s something I really want to work on, and I hear it all the time, the money’s in the list and my list is a bit sad. I think I’ve got 5,000 people on my list, but I’m not that regular at emailing. It’s definitely on the to-do list. But I just started planting the seed on Instagram, and I took people on the journey. Did a lot of interviews for the first series in one day. I just went live on Instagram and said, “Okay, I’m just heading in to meet with this physio now, and we’re going to talk about these things.”

Sophie:
I also got my listeners to send in the questions, their burning questions that they wanted me to ask, so they felt part of the process and they had input. Then I knew I was creating a product that they were going to want to buy. I definitely used their input there. Then I think just did teasers throughout the process as well, like teased little snippets of the interviews. By the time it was ready to launch, they were like, let me have it. Creating that anticipation really helped.

Pat:
That’s really smart, and that’s something I love to do as well— as ConvertKit calls it, work in public. You’re sharing your process, you’re sharing it along the way, getting people involved. I did the same thing when we launched the SwitchPod, a little physical product that me and my videographer created. People were following that journey for so long. Then when it came out, it was like, it wasn’t a surprise and they wanted to support it. I thought that was really cool. I think that’s a really smart thing that you did there. Now that your show has been up for a while, how long has it been now? It’s been a few years, right?

Sophie:
It’s going to be three years in May.

Pat:
Three years. Approaching that anniversary—happy anniversary by the way. I love that you’re involved in the student center, which you get access to in your Power-Up Podcasting. You go there and you continue to inspire and help out the newbies as well every once in a while. You shared something recently that I’ve actually never seen before. That has to do with some agencies and things in Australia that now your podcast is a part of their curriculum, and like just really amazing things. Can you share a little bit about what that is, and how that all came to be?

Sophie:
Yeah. I know a lot of my listeners, student midwives, and nurses that listen along, and they love it for the human aspect. They’re learning in their course, all the medical side and all that stuff that they need to carry out in their day-to-day job. But they’ve come to the podcast to get the emotional experience and see what it was like for the woman. They often hear, we often offer say an epidural, and we don’t realize that the woman at the time, a lot of my interviewees say, “When she offered it like this I felt like that.” They get a real human perspective to the whole process. They love it for that component. I knew that they were listening each week, which is a bit of added pressure for me to get the lingo right. I was approached by the Australian College of Midwives, just in an email randomly one day, and I nearly fell over.

Sophie:
Just saying that they appreciate my work so much, and they value it so highly that they want to count it as certified professional development for their midwives. One podcast episode counts as one hour of professional development. All the midwives were thrilled when I announced, because they’re like, “Well, we’ve been listening for two years.” There goes, I’m not sure how many hours they need to do a year, but basically they can just listen to the podcast each week and get their hours up. Once I’d made the course, they listened to that as well. They have formally endorsed my two professional series as again certified professional development, but it’s also a tax deduction for midwives. It’s huge, and I’ve got their logo of approval on my website and on my products, which is something you’d normally have to seek out and go through a long process, and they literally came to me and offered it. That was an amazing day really.

Pat:
Did you ever think it would get to this point when you started your show?

Sophie:
Never. I never ever. I’m very close to my mum, so I was like I quickly rang her, “You’ll never guess what’s happened now.” Everything that’s happened within the podcast has been a real shock, an exciting shock. But it just seems amazing. I think it’s quite funny I now earn more than my husband, which I like to rub in regularly. My little podcast. My boys are like, “Mommy’s got a podcast.” My son actually does the intro to my show, so he thinks he’s part owner as well. I never dreamed that it would become this. I think that’s also recommended in some lectures for midwifery as well. If you want to gain more personal experience and hear stories of women tune into my podcast, because a couple of people have said, [inaudible 00:27:59] today and they said make sure you’re listening. To get free endorsement and exposure is priceless.

Pat:
That’s really incredible. But you’re obviously creating a platform for amazing education and stories. You had mentioned your son, which is really cool that you have him on the show with you. How are you as somebody who’s now . . . you’re a business owner now and you have this thing going and you’re making money, even more than your husband, and he and you are working to raise your children. Tell me a little bit about work-life balance now. How is your week like? How do you ensure that you are still on task for both work and family at the same time?

Sophie:
That’s a real juggle. It’s hard. I do most of my show in my car actually just with my laptop and my mic.

Pat:
You’re in your car?

Sophie:
Yeah, I’m in my car now actually. Because it’s very hard to get three boys to be quiet, let alone out of the house in a timely fashion. It’s often, I’ll do it in the car in the carport, so my car’s off the street and I just do it in there.

Pat:
Your whole podcast essentially has been done in your car?

Sophie:
Yeah. You don’t need fancy studios.

Pat:
That’s amazing. I did not know that.

Sophie:
Thank you Auphonix that helps me fix out the sound. You can do it anywhere. If I can do it with three kids and I’m still breastfeeding, I’ve got my youngest is one. I’ll literally do a quick breastfeed, hand him over to someone and run out into the car. It’s definitely a juggle. I really love working on the podcast, and I want to grow it as a business. I do find it really challenging finding time to do things: like I really want to focus on say a nurture sequence for my email list, but it’s on a long to-do list. I know I’m in a position where I should really probably hire someone to help, but I feel nervous to hand over my baby to anybody else.

Sophie:
I don’t even outsource my editing, because I feel like I know there’s plenty of services where they could do the editing, I just do it on GarageBand myself. But I feel like these stories are so personal that women have shared with me, and I’d hate for somebody on the other side of the world to just snip out a whole chunk on their breastfeeding experience or something like that, that I feel like was really personal and important. I want to have creative control over all of that as well. I haven’t been able to let go of any of the parts, although I really need to I think.

Pat:
That’s the whole first part of that second course that you got. But I understand that. I mean, perhaps there could be a way for you I’m just brainstorming right now. Maybe there’s one of the women in your audience that you’ve once interviewed has the ability to do some editing for you, for example, so it’s sort of in-house, but with somebody who knows the brand and who knows you. That could be an option one day. That’s pretty common actually.

Sophie:
I think it’s the whole thing of like, I’m like, financially I am in a bit of position with it now, but I think spending money to make money, and spending money to free up my time to be able to grow another, to perhaps do another course or something like that. I’m really at that stage where I need to do that, but I have to just take the leap. I think I listened to that part in that course, and I was like, that’s great, now teach me about affiliate marketing. I just jumped ahead, which is another great thing I’m doing as well, so I learned that as well. I do affiliate marketing for quite a few different products, which is really another great leap for my business.

Pat:
Yeah, let’s finish off with that before we close up. This has been an amazing conversation. With affiliate marketing, promoting other people or other companies’ products, how are you balancing what I’m sure is a load of people who want to get in front of your audience, and determining who to promote and how to promote them?

Sophie:
I used hypnobirthing myself in my birth. I’m an affiliate for Hypnobirthing Australia, and they’ve got an online birthing class. Two or three times a year we have a big sale, and with everything that’s going on in the world at the moment with corona, online resources have become really necessary. A lot of the birth classes in Australia have been canceled just to reduce face-to-face contact. I’ve just launched this week another sale with Hypnobirthing Australia. Percentage wise it’s quite good. I think the course is $200, and I get $50 for every sale. I just can promote that whenever I like.

Sophie:
I’ve got links within my webpage, so that’s always available, but at the moment we’re offering a big sale to help women out who can’t get to their classes. I’ve done that and online baby first aid courses. I’ve deliberately picked things that are very relevant to my audience, and things that I would purchase and use myself, so that’s been really important so I can authentically endorse them. That’s just another regular income, plus I also do Patreon. I’ve got Patreon money coming in as well. There’s about four or five different revenue streams now that I’ve built throughout the years.

Pat:
Good for you Sophie, man amazing. On the Patreon stuff I know that if you were to set up a Patreon, likely there’s different levels that people can pledge and different things they get access to. What are you giving your patrons access to in exchange for a little bit of support?

Sophie:
I’m not great with that actually. Initially I had it set up so that if you paid, I think if you paid $15 a month, you got priority in being on the show. But then that became overwhelming, so I had to modify that because people were paying that amount and then wanting to come on the show, and I just couldn’t keep up with the momentum of that. Making sure it’s things you can deliver really. I think most of the people just pay five dollars a month and that is just, I think they could get my gratitude and the shout-out. I mention them at the start or the end of the show. Once a month I do a bit of a Patreon thanks so much, and just list the names, and they get the thrill of hearing their name on the show. But they’re just doing it because they love it. I just do, if you’re loving the show and you’re listening every week, could you afford throwing me five dollars—the cost of a coffee? That kind of thing. I get about $1,000 a month through Patreon.

Pat:
Wow, incredible Sophie, Sophie Walker everybody. She podcasts from her car, and she’s had now millions of downloads and has run a full business out of this, and is still able to be at home with her kids too. Congratulations Sophie, I’m so proud of you. Where can people go to listen to the show?

Sophie:
I’m available on all good podcast apps, Spotify or Apple. The best place probably is just to go to australianbirthstories.com and you can find my whole back catalog there.

Pat:
Awesome Sophie. Thank you so much for taking the time today. I appreciate you. I always appreciate your support for the courses as well. That means the world to me, and just thanks for taking action.

Sophie:
Thank you so much.

Pat:
All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Sophie Walker. Sophie again, thank you so much for taking the time today, I appreciate you. Thank you for being a star student, and for encouraging other students and soon-to-be students. Even if you don’t become a student of my course, Power-Up Podcasting, definitely make sure you get started anyway. It’s still a perfect time to start a podcast. At the time I am recording this, there are still less than one million podcasts out there. We’re very close to that one-million mark, but I mean compare that to 500 million active blogs, or dozens and dozens of millions of YouTube channels. We haven’t even hit one million podcasts yet. Now is the opportunity for you. Even if you’re just starting from scratch like Sophie, man, I hope this success story proves that you can do it too. Make sure to check out the cheat sheet.

Pat:
If you want to learn how to start a podcast, I do have a cheat sheet for you. It’s going to walk you through all the steps that you need to take. Then from there, should you choose to want to go deeper, you can potentially get involved with my course or go somewhere else if you’d like. But if you want the cheat sheet go to smartpassiveincome.com/podcastcheatsheet. One more time, smartpassiveincome.com/podcastcheatsheet, all one word, and that’ll take you there. Sophie thank you so much, make sure to check out Australian Birth Stories if that’s of interest to you.

Pat:
Even if you’re not in Australia, you can go and listen to that, and make sure you leave a rating and review for the show if you have the opportunity to do so. But yeah, if you’re interested in starting a podcast, smartpassiveincome.com/podcastcheatsheet is the place to go. I can’t wait to see you there and help you out with that free cheat sheet for you to help you get that kickstart on your upcoming podcast, it’s going to be awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. If you want the show notes and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, smartpassiveincome.com/session432 is the place to go. To finish up as always appreciate you, love you all. Thanks so much, and as always, #TeamFlynnforthewin, peace.

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