How Do You Turn Podcast Listeners Into Leads? | Nathalie Doremieux

Like content, this is not what people want. People want one thing and one thing only, it's results.

Yeah.

Right? So they don't want more of you. They don't want more calls. They don't want like content has become a commodity. And we talk about e-learning. The problem is that learning is very passive.

Yes.

We need to get into the learning, doing, learning, doing. That's how people are going to take action and get results.

Welcome to another edition of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Texas City, Texas. I mean, seriously, can't you get more creative? Texas City? Yeah, we're in Texas. We're a city. Anyway, thank you for listening. I'm sure you had nothing to do with naming the town. My My guest today is Nathalie Dorémieux. Did I pronounce that correctly, Nathalie? Not the accent, but the, you know, okay. Anyway, with podcast Lead Flow. Nathalie, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Christian.

So we were discussing in the green room that I thought you sounded German, but you are clearly French by your surname. Tell us where you're hailing from, where you're joining us from.

So right now I am in Brussels, France, in Toulouse. Nice.

You said that you also are an American as well, or no? Yes.

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So basically, to make it short, my husband and I, we met each other at school and we moved up to the US. Right after school, I stayed there for 10 years. I had a green card. I became a citizen. We had 3 kids there. We stayed 10 years and moved back in 2005.

Nice. Nice. Okay. So tell us about Podcast Lead— Podcast Lead Flow. Flow.

Yes.

Thank you. Yeah. So basically, actually, the podcast was launched by Christian. We've been in business for 20 years. But Podcast Info itself was born late last year. And the problem that it solves is to be able to, for a podcaster or guest on a podcast, to start a conversation with their listener. So it is powered by AI and basically it turns a podcast episode into a lead magnet generator. And so it's a form, some questions that automatically creates to gather some context about where the listener is in order to give them a free piece of advice based on their context. So that's how you create a connection. You don't do it like a PDF, it's the same thing. And don't use it or don't know how to use it.

I love that because I know as a podcaster, one of the challenges is converting listeners if that is your intent. And that's our intent, but not all podcasts are intending to do.

Exactly.

So how did you end up in this space?

So, being in the life space for a while, my background is in software engineering. I started a business with my husband, and we've been in life for a while. And I had a podcast, I still have it, 137 episodes. And I stopped it because I could not see what it was bringing to the business. So that— there was a big gap there. So, you know, I ran out of position, if you will. And, uh, there was a friend who had a podcast and she was telling me, my clients tell me they listen to my podcast. How can I get to those listeners earlier?

Right.

So my husband, who has 10 ideas a day, I was like, hmm, what can we do? And he was like, maybe we can start a conversation with the listener or giving them something that is unique to them, like if you were coaching them and you were sitting next to us, but using the power of AI to really come up with something unique. So, and we want to be quick, like in a couple of weeks create that. And then of course you can go back and change the questions and things like that. But the idea was to be able to test quickly if an app builder can be turned into an asset for your business that will bring in new users. So that's really how it came about. Like, is there something we can do? It's always looking for solving problems.

Right.

And that's a big one.

So, essentially, you had a problem, you scratched your own itch, and then were able to solve that problem for others. Is that fair?

Exactly, yeah. That's basically it. So, for transparency, I haven't restarted my podcast because I also realized one thing is that a podcast is just a tool, not a strategy, right? So, but that's the plan, actually, is really to restart it because now I know I have an angle. And I can kind of like reverse engineer and think, okay, what do I need to talk about? What people need to hear in order to just take that next step.

So what was your podcast about?

So the podcast is about the other side of the business, which is about memberships. You know, I've been building membership sites and online programs for a long time now, and it's called the Supercharge Your Membership Show. So that's basically what it's all about.

And when you relaunch the podcast, that will be the same content. I mean, that's the same purpose.

So it will be the same subject, different content because things have evolved and now we integrate a lot more AI tools just because people want support right now. And so, so it has evolved a little bit. Even the membership models have evolved. So but generally speaking, it will be for the same audience.

So when you're, you're, who, who is your target for selling the membership service?

So for the membership, it's primarily, I would say, coaches that have a program and that are looking to scale it. And put it online without sacrificing results for their clients. So they might go from just doing Zoom sessions, you know, and having a folder where they share things to having a whole portal where people have a true experience. And the experience of the program is not just on the calls now, is they actually have things that they can learn, that they can do. In between the calls, right? So it's when you want more people in your program, but you still want to make sure that they get the support and accountability that they need to get results. So coaching wants to stop doing one-on-one, maybe it wants to start to do group online, for example, is a great target.

Yeah, coaching is an interesting phenomenon that has really grown a lot, and how people deliver coaching has changed as well. The online learning is interesting to me as well, although I think just as a business, the online learning has kind of peaked. If you look at it in terms of I'm going to sell you my knowledge, right? Some, some course where you're going to learn how to do a podcast, right? And, and I'm going to sell you that course. That, I think, is kind of peaked, um, from talking to people in the industry, and it's, it's, it's now kind of sliding into more of a community where, uh, what you're, what you're doing with that community is not just content that like you have created and you're giving to somebody for dollars. What is your perspective of how that's evolving?

I think you're right on point. Actually, I did a video yesterday on YouTube about that topic. Like content, this is not what people want. People want one thing and one thing only, it's results.

Yeah.

Right. So they don't want more of you. They don't want more calls. They don't want like content has become a commodity. And we talk about e-learning. The problem is that learning is very passive.

Yes.

We need to get into the learning, doing, learning, doing. That's how people are going to take action and get results. And that's where e-learning is failing. And AI is helping a lot. That's why we use a lot of AI, create AI tools to help people implement what they are learning, because just learning is being busy, right? But it's not getting them the results that they came for.

Yeah. And it was— I don't think it was meant to be nefarious, but it was It was largely selling on— this is just my opinion. And I've bought not a lot, but I've bought several online content pieces over the time. But I think if you could produce something and it was a low price point, right? Here's $97, a $97 course to fix this. You got a lot of people that bought it because they had that need, but at $97 and it's an online course, to your point, 90% of the people aren't going to get what they wanted because they're not going to do the work. It's not that the content was bad. It was that they're not going to do what they need to do. I also believe that, you know, the amount people pay to solve their problem is an indicator of how committed they are to fixing it, right? Yeah. And so, like, if you're only paying $97, then that's all you really care about it. Whether it's worth it is largely irrelevant. Like, you, you have ascribed a value to fixing it of $97, um, but if it's really an important thing that you need to fix, you might be really willing or, or, or able to pay $5,000 for it. It, you know, it might be a $5,000 problem that you're trying to fix. Yeah. Um, But it's not going to be a passive thing, right? It's not just going to be, I pay $5,000 and you're going to dump this information in my brain and now my problem solved.

Yeah, absolutely. There are several things in what you said. Absolutely agree. So the first one about the price point, these courses at $27, $47, $97, they are the price that people are willing to lose. A lot of people buy this because they think it's the solution. But they still have to do the work, right? So there is also the— you'll see that the level of completion is going to depend on where they are in their business. Because unless there is mindset that is given with the content, the content alone, like you said, is not going to make people take action. So there is another point as well, which is how I'm like you, I used to buy lots of courses that, you know, when they say, oh, you have lifetime access, you can come back later.

Yeah, right, right.

Uh, but did you?

No, no.

And it's irrelevant now because things have changed. But however, now what I do is, and to avoid that shiny object, is to say, okay, what problem am I trying to solve? Do I need a course? Do I need to hire someone? Do I need to buy something to learn something in order to get there? And if you think that way, instead of having the FOMO, oh my gosh, you know, his marketing is great, I want to join, then you are more likely to take action because now you're actively looking for a solution, they are giving it to you, and hopefully you have the mindset to just not be busy learning but actually doing at the same time. So it's really important, even in this 97%, price point that it's not a 2-hour, you know, video they have to watch because people don't do that anymore. So I really strongly believe in the learning, doing, learning, doing. So even at $97, you can break it down and give them, make it almost like workshop style. Okay, now pause the video, do this, now do this, so that by the end, they actually have something a bit concrete where they are more likely to take action. So, I think that's really an important piece. And to the price point, like you said, it's how big is the pain, right?

How big is the pain?

I truly believe that whether we're talking about a membership, an online course, there are 3 key elements to the success. There is the content, obviously, they need the expertise, you know, but there is also support and accountability. And if these are not built in, then you're not gonna have the success rate that you could, right? And especially for memberships, the success of a membership is really when people stay, right? Because of course you can be a great marketer, you keep selling it, you make money, and that's how people say they are successful with their course, right? 'Look how much I made,' right? But with a membership, you cannot say that because if they don't get the results, if you try to get everybody to sign up with great promotions and coupon codes and things like that, but they do nothing because they were not really ideal members, then they're gonna leave, right? So the success for a membership is when people actually stay. If they leave at the 2, 3 months mark, that's a sign that it's not a fit.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. This is kind of scratching or bringing up an interesting thought because our leadership team has been kicking around for Core over the last, I'd say, 18 months, this idea and we're now really going to lean into it, of shifting to a— I'm going to use the word process, or maybe solution would be the better term, as a platform, maybe, as opposed to a service, because what This is kind of— I'm going to say this and then I want to hear what your thoughts are. When you approach it as a service, so accounting, finance, those things, and you're providing a service, there is this expectation that there's going to be some customization. Your customers come to you in all different shapes, sizes, uh, and conditions, right? Um, and you're, you're supposed to accommodate them, and which is great and it works. But one of the things that we realized was, you know, we have a process to, to deliver specific outcomes, but when our clients don't use the process they become incrementally less successful to the outcomes, right? And it doesn't matter what we do, it doesn't matter how good the service is, if they don't do the things that we tell them to do, we're just diminishing the outcomes, right? So an example would be, um, we are a profit-first, uh, forward firm. I, you know, I wrote the book Profit First for Creatives. That's, that's very built into what we do. But we get clients that come to us and they say, well, we don't really want to do Profit First. Well, then we're not your guy. Like, that's because you came to us to get an outcome. I want to have a profitable business. I don't want to have anxiety about my numbers. I want to understand what's going on in my business. Great. This is how you do it. Not this is how you could do it. And you, it's optional, right? Yeah. It's a different mindset. But it's all driven, all driving to the outcome that you said you want. And if you want this outcome, these are the things that you need to do, and they're not optional.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these programs that are basically driven by a process. And basically what you're doing, I mean, what you've outlined is like you've made it very specific for creatives so that it really speaks to them, right? Based on the generic Profit First, and you're guiding them. So you're providing the support, like we said, the accountability through the process. So it's like technically your ideal client is somebody that buys your book, starts to read the book, close the book, and like, I want to work with Christian and his team to help me implement that. I don't want to do it alone. I think that's your ideal client, right?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. Like, so is the reading of the book part of the process?

Maybe.

I mean, that's not You know, because at the end of the day, I don't really care if they understand the process or the mindset behind it. It's like, I just need you to do the thing, right? And if somebody comes to us and they've never heard of Profit First, you know, at all by Michalowicz, and they haven't read my book, like, it doesn't mean the process doesn't work. I don't need to back them up. And say, okay, you got to go back and start here and read and become a disciple, a believer. Like, I don't think that's a requirement, but it does ask an interesting question that if someone comes to us and they've never heard of Profit First, does that make them a worse client than someone that Already know what was—

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that if they've read the book, if they've bought the book, then they are a lot warmer and they are more likely to, when they join, they know what they're getting into. I'll give you an example, a very concrete example, a program that I joined. Um, I got in, It was to build a list. That was years ago. And basically what she made people do is summits after summits after summits. And you had to interview like 15, 20 people. There are a bunch of people, so I did 4 summits, but there are a bunch of people that did nothing because they had no idea that it was about summits and they didn't want to go and interview people. So yes, she made the money by getting them in the program, but all these people will never be successful. So should you talk about the benefit of doing summits? Should you show examples of what summits can do to a business? And then people that are coming actually know and are excited about doing summits? Or do you just say, you want to build a list? Just come in. And then you tell them, you know, like if people don't know, there are always people that will be either hesitant or like, hmm, I didn't know. I think it was that maybe they had expectations, right? So I'm not saying people will not come to your program if they have never heard of Profit First. I'm just saying that if they come from the book, whoo, they're warm.

They are. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Hey creatives, Delaina Ealy here. I have a question for you. If you could pay yourself more, why aren't you doing it? For real. S corp is an option. For you, the creative entrepreneur, to move your business to the next level, to pay yourself more, and to cut your tax savings down. Yeah, less money to the IRS. We want that, right? So why haven't you done it yet? What's going on? The reality is you probably have 50,000 questions in your brain. You don't know which way is up and down, and you're still too busy to do all those things plus also create, right? Well, the good thing for you is that Core Group is actually the place to be to get that S corp election rolling. Yeah, we have an assessment. Let's see if you qualify. Come chat with me. Core Group, turning passion into profit.

Okay, so I'm going to kind of pivot the conversation. How, how do you apply these concepts to your business in, in, in the sense that like you eat your own cooking, like how does this play out in how you market and sell what you do?

Yeah, sure. So basically what I always say is that I never sell. I enroll people into their own ideas. So basically that means that we have conversations. I have tons of conversations. I've talked to lots of people. I still do. My calendar is always open. People think that it's not a good idea. I think it is because I always learn about talking to people. And I think in terms of I have a solution to a problem. So we have the conversation and if at some point I think I can help the person, then I can, then I, you know, I would ask permission or people often would ask me, but how can you help me? And then I can share my solution. So I would say the way that I apply this is that some people don't even know what my packages are, how much I charge, or what I do. It's part of a conversation, right? So I'm naturally, if you want, I am qualifying people and they qualify me as well, right? Is it something, someone that they want to work with or something like that? So I think about it in terms, you know, like this, you know, like I have solutions. I'm not selling a service. I'm not selling a course. I'm selling solutions to problems.

Yeah. Yes. Because ultimately that's what people buy. I feel like there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace because Businesses don't really understand the problem that they're solving. Yeah. And so the way they market things, the way they design their solution is not really synced up with what the person is looking for. And it becomes more complex the more complex the business problem is. So, You know, we, we have a lot of creators that have had to shift their business model because the industry landscape has changed and the way people are buying what they do has changed. And, you know, what I keep coming back in my discussions with them is, is like, do you have a clear understanding of the problem you're solving? Like, because that's where it starts. If you don't have a clear understanding of the problem that you solve, it's real hard to be successful.

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And for years, I mean, we've been in business for 20 years, right? For years, what I was selling was my expertise. And when you do that, you speak about features, things that you can do. Oh, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. That's not what people want to hear, right? When you start shifting into that problem solution, then you have to be aware of the problem that they have and meet them where they're at. What is their level of awareness of the problem? Right? Are they actively looking for a solution? That's why you talk differently to somebody that is actively looking for the solution versus someone that has the pain, is right now, doesn't know what type of solution are there, right? So that's the whole marketing and the message that shifted. And for years I was like that. I was like, no, but my expertise, I thought that my expertise was my strengths and what was going to bring people. But one thing I realized is that there are only two reasons why people will not buy from me. They don't believe that I can help them, or they don't believe in themselves. If I have the right person that I'm talking to, like if somebody says no and I know they have the problem and I can help, either they don't believe in me or my solution, or they don't believe in themselves. And the don't believe in themselves, I think happens a lot. Like, again, it's a mindset, you know, thing where they're not sure, like, oh, I'm not sure that it will work for me or things like that.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I think you have to be upfront of what their commitment is. It's not, you know, they have to have skin in the game. To achieve the outcomes. Yeah. It's not like— and that's where a service model runs into trouble because they're going to hire us to clean up their finances, for instance, and that's their expectation that that's what we're going to do, but they don't think that they have to do anything, right? And you talked about mindset. Like, if you don't change your mindset around money, there's only so much that I can do for you, right? I can't make those decisions for you. Those have to be your decision as the business owner. And unless your head is in the right space and are willing to do the changes that you need to do about really what's important to you, right? Then I can't help you. I mean, or I can help you in a very limited way.

Yeah. You know, yeah, that reminds me something. I was in a program a couple of years ago. And, um, this guy knows about the mindset issues, like, you know, because he's got like hundreds of students, right? So he knows that it's easy for someone to fly under the radar and never show up and not get results. So what it is, is actually what he did actually is actually really smart. And he shared it with me once when I met him and he has a podcast that's absolutely free.

And what it does is that it addresses the mindset side of things.

So that when people buy the course, a lot of people will say that when the people that bought, I have been listening to your podcast for a while now. And I asked him, you know, like, why don't you put that mindset thing inside the program? It's like people don't want to buy mindset, right?

They don't, right?

Correct.

Right. So, but you can give it to them. As part of like the way you basically show up online. I mean, that's his choice of how he's doing it. But, you know, he's saying that by doing that, he gets to help people with the mindset beforehand, before they even join the program. And for having been in the program, you know, for several years, I was listening to a podcast before I joined. Me too. So that kind of worked.

Yeah, because that's a very, that's a very interesting thread to pull on because you only change your mindset, you only change your mind when you want to.

Right.

And if someone comes to you directly and says, well, Natalie, you need to change the way you think about that, your reaction is probably not going to be positive.

Right.

Exactly.

You have to perceive the need to change.

Exactly.

On your own. I can't do that for you.

I think you nailed it. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. And any effort I have to, you know, bludgeon you or belittle you about why your mindset is wrong is not productive, right? It's— to me, it's more a reflective thing around Well, why do you think that what is going on is happening? What— these are the questions that I ask in my coaching sessions. Why is it that you believe that? Because people come to business usually without any financial expertise, but they absolutely come to the business with some baggage around money. And it's not necessarily bad baggage or good baggage. It's just that they have beliefs about money that they learned primarily from their home and their parents and then their lived experience. And, you know, one of the, one of the most devastating mindsets that I run across with creatives is this idea that you have to work hard to make money, right? Which is fine. It's a fine belief, right? It's the good old Protestant work ethic, uh, that, that, you know, is pervasive in America. There's nothing wrong with that belief in itself, but if that's what you believe, you act a certain way. Right, and understanding that your, your beliefs drive your actions. That's the root of mindset. And if your results are not there, how are your beliefs driving that? And can you accept an alternative? Because, because the— you need to work hard to make money is great, but I know a lot of people that work really hard and don't make money. And I know people that don't work very hard and make a lot of money, right? So it's not axiomatic, right? It's not always true.

Yeah.

But one of the ways that shows up for creatives is it's like, well, I didn't have to put a lot of effort into that. Therefore, I can't charge much.

Yep.

Exactly.

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Because it was easy.

Yeah.

Because it was easy for me, I shouldn't charge much, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. And that's not true. I mean, it can be true if that's what you believe and that's what you want to be true, but it doesn't have to be true.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we're getting into like charging and pricing and things like that, but It has the pricing to me. It's priced based on the value, the perceived value.

Yeah. Well, that is the French pronunciation. Thank you.

Sorry.

Perceived value.

Hey, you should hear my French. It's nonexistent. Sorry.

That's okay. So, and that's what it is, right? It's not because it took you less time. Actually, if it took you less time, So you got into them quick—

quicker, maybe you charge more.

Absolutely.

Right?

I've told this story many times on this show. There's an episode with Cliff Ravensclaw. It's one of my very first episodes. He was an OG podcaster. He and his wife started with doing a podcast around the show Lost.. And every week they'd come on and discuss the episode and they were wildly popular. And he parlayed that into consulting around podcasts. Do you know Cliff? Have you heard of Cliff?

No, no idea.

So he parlayed that into a consulting gig around people starting podcasts. And this is, you know, 20 years ago when podcasting was very different. And he did a lot of work with helping people set up their studio and equipment and what to buy, what, you know, you know, et cetera. Guy reached out to him and said, "Hey Cliff, I'm having this problem with my equipment. I want to schedule some time for you to troubleshoot it." And he said, "Great." And they scheduled a time for the next week. And then Cliff started feeling guilty and he was like, "I bet you the manufacturer has a toll-free hotline." And so he sent it to this guy and he said, "I'm sure they could troubleshoot it and it's free." And the guy said, "No, that's great. Thank you. But I still want to keep the time. I still want to meet with you." So Cliff shows up on the Skype call or whatever it was, pre-Zoom, and he's early to the meeting, 5 minutes early. And the guy was there as well. And so he described the problem and Cliff said, "Okay, do this." And like in 2 minutes, he'd fixed the problem. And the guy said, "Great, send me an invoice." And Cliff's like, well, I can't send you an invoice. We didn't even get to the start of the meeting time. We're— and it took me 2 minutes. No, I can't send you an invoice. Guy said, no, send me an invoice. He's like, I don't feel right. And the guy said, no, send me an invoice. And so he got off the phone and he had this existential crisis where he's like wrestling with, I can't send this guy an invoice. I didn't spend the full hour with him. I didn't take time. And the reality was the guy didn't want to spend an hour on the phone with him troubleshooting the problem. He got it done in 2 minutes instead of an hour. That actually is worth more to them. And so like just getting out of that mindset that the amount of time or effort that you put into something has anything to do with the value that the person receives is nonsense.

Yep. Absolutely. And I think like, I think for, especially for creatives, I've had a couple of clients, um, over the years that, that are like that. And it's always the, but I have to, if it's too easy for me, then they don't, they're not going to see the quality, right? They are not going to. To see the effort. Somehow it has to feel hard to them in order to be able to ask the money.

Right, right. And I challenge you to go find a doctor or an accountant that has that same feeling, right? Exactly. They're not— because they don't think what they do, and they're right, is simple or easy to understand or easy to do. And creatives are the exact same way. What you do, not everybody can do. Not everybody can think the way you think. And so it doesn't matter how much time it took you. What you do is valuable. Natalie, how do people find out more about Podcast Lead Flow if they want to learn more?

So the easiest is to go to sas.podcastleadflow.com.

So it's saas.podcastsleepflow.com.

Perfect. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, uh, hit the little envelope button, shoot us a message, and we'll get rid of Natalie. Until next time, ta-ta for now.