How Courage Creates Confidence To Make Things Happen In Your Podcasting Career With Sabrina Victoria Of Her Version Podcast

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors, and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the binge factor.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I've got Sabrina Victor. Today, her version podcast, she's over 200 episodes, which makes it really exciting. I love to talk to someone who has that. She started on YouTube before she started her podcast, so that's an even different perspective. So her version, her perspective of how she came into podcasting is going to be one of those interesting things that you want to hear about. So let's hear a little bit more about Sabrina. She went from a struggling single mom to escaping a 13 year narcissistic, abusive relationship. Sabrina's tenacity and optimistic spirit has inspired fans worldwide and helped endless amounts of people break through and discover their own untapped talents and and immense potential. Now creator and CEO of Human Better 365, a human transformation company, Creator of the Her Version podcast and founder of her Nation community. She's a speaker, an entrepreneur and an author. And I am excited to have her on the show today. And it's really such an interesting perspective to have a show that has shifted over time and gotten tighter and tighter and tighter in her focus. And now she's right here where she wants to be at her version of podcasting. So let's talk with Sabrina Victor, Her Version podcast host.

Sabrina, so glad to have you here. And let's talk her version of podcasting. And I just saw the statistic, and I'm super excited about it, is that 48% of podcast listeners are women. Now we're getting really close to parody.

Are you serious? I didn't know that.

I just saw the statistics. So we finally have like a larger mass which consumption of every media type is typically dominated by women.

Women.

The fact that that hasn't happened until as we're getting to that tipping point right now in podcasting has shocked me. It hasn't happened faster.

Wow. Good for us. Yes.

Yay. So her version. What made you name it that?

I named it Her Version because when I first started my, I guess, podcast, if that's what you want to call it in the beginning stages, I needed a place for me to tell my story authentically without feeling like I was offending everybody. So my whole thought process was, I'm going to say some stuff. You're maybe not going to appreciate it, but this is my version of my story. If you don't appreciate my version, then you can very well open up a podcast and tell your version of your story. So it was just kind of a way for me in the very beginning. I opened this whole thing because I just wanted to tell my story, all of the shenanigans that I went through in my life and just wanted a nice, clean, authentic place to put it.

And this is the thing. It's like, it can be. How do I say this? Such a vanity piece on podcasting. Like, you're like, I'm telling my story here, but you don't do it in that way. And so I'm going to dial straight into your binge factor, which I don't normally do at the beginning of an episode, but I'm going to do it because now's the perfect time to talk about that. The way that you work in bits and pieces of your version of the world, the way you see the world and your story in general, is so natural, and it ties in creating this wonderful rapport with your guest in a way that I think it's not pushy. There's a lot of it that's pushing ego onto people, and that is not what your show is about. You're letting who's ever on your show tell her version of the story, too. And you're in there just slipping in your, I'm going to say, empathy, your understanding of that. And your story comes across through there as well.

Yes, 100%. Well, that's the whole mission of. Everything that I'm doing is allowing women a stage to be able to tell their story. One of the biggest aha. Moments that I had during this entire journey I've been on is when I was in the thick of it, when I was in the darkness of it, I was thinking to myself, this is the worst story ever. Like, I have guaranteed the worst story ever. Nobody has gone through anything as bad as I have gone through. And as I was telling my story, women started to drop into my messages or into my comments and tell me these crazy stories. And I started to open up my eyes. Like, there are, like, true warriors in and amongst us at the grocery store, at Starbucks, at freaking McDonald's with their kids on the playground that have gone through Just enormous challenges in their life. And nobody knows it. Nobody knows.

And you're not alone. Right? Like, that's what it started to feel for you. You're not alone. And maybe it starts to put things in context for you so that you can move through it in a better way. I think that's what your show is really about at the end of the day. So why don't you give us a little bit? Because, I mean, hopefully our listeners are going to go listen to your show and really get your story. But why don't you tell a little bit about the brief version of it so that they can understand why this is so important to you.

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is based on my own story. I lost my community very early on in my life. I was raised as Jehovah's Witness. I got pregnant at 20 with no husband. And as a Jehovah's Witness, when you do a sin like that, you're cast out, or what's called disfellowship. So I lost my entire family and my entire community. And I kind of had to navigate through this crazy thing like motherhood. And then on top of that, the stereotypical no money motherhood of being a single mom and no child support, and now looking back, hindsight's 20 20. I really started to realize that the thing that I was missing was just support, just community, people to be able to ask, is this normal? So the mission of pretty much everything surrounding my podcast is. Is community, is building people together. One of the things that I always tell every single one of my guests is unlike every other podcast that I've ever been on, I've been on many, many podcasts. You go on the podcast and you never hear from the person ever again. It's so true.

We were actually just talking about that on another interview I did this week that it was like, why are you ghosting them? They took the time to be on your show. What's wrong with you, Host?

Yes. Well, not only on a marketing standpoint or a financial standpoint, but just as far as building community standpoint. You have all these warm connections where you really bonded with somebody for, like, sometimes an entire hour of time, and then it's just like a fleeting moment. So I don't do that. Every single one of the women, starting from the very first woman that I ever had on my podcast is in contact with me, is in our group. They're in my support groups. They're building businesses. They're. In some way or another, I am making connections, getting on the phone continuing to connect and bring us together as a community. Whether it's podcasting times 10, where I have multiple women on screen or in this case audio at one time, I call them impact panels. In April, I have a 16 hour podcasts that I'm doing straight. I'm bringing on 20 speakers and 100 panelists within a 16 hour time period. And these are all women that I have previously interviewed that are coming back together on a more intimate level and really diving deep into the topics of female.

I love the way that you do that. Your panels are really interesting. And so this is the thing that I really do want to touch base. You started on YouTube first, before the podcast started. So I want to make our audience aware of that and understanding that very often here we're talking to someone who added YouTube, added video later. They started out as podcasts, but you're the opposite of that. Why was YouTube an easier sort of entry for you?

Yeah, so I had started out on YouTube. My very first little tiny business that I started was called pure aspiration.net, it was all health and wellness. And I started making little smoothie videos where I would make smoothies with my little Vitamix or salmon recipes or vegan recipes. No longer vegan, but that's just where I started. I was a huge.

So you were comfortable there?

Yes, yes. So that ended up just like many of us entrepreneurs, you try one thing, it doesn't quite work, it bust. You try another thing, it busts. So, yeah, so YouTube was comfortable.

And then when did that click in your mind? Oh, I should have a podcast too. Like, what happened in that process?

I think other people started calling it a podcast because I started that's really.

A lot of people do use their names interchangeably.

Yeah. Yeah. And then what happened is somebody at one point, I don't know who or when or anything, but I started calling a podcast and they were like, oh, where do you host your podcast at? And I was like, YouTube. And they're like, that's not a podcast. And I was like, excuse me, podcasters don't think that.

Yeah, yeah.

So I had to dive into. When you're an entrepreneur, the tech world of like, how to do all the things. I had no idea how to do it and had to dive in and do all the research on where to put it and how to host it and how to get into different places.

What did you find harder in podcasting and then versus YouTube? I hear a lot of people find YouTube just like completely difficult.

Really?

Yeah, they do there's, like, end cards and, like, to them, it's confounding. And it's just different. Like, it's just different. But what did you find challenging on the podcasting side?

Ooh, nothing good. I don't know.

You just felt like the tech was like, I could do this.

Yeah. Because it is easier than YouTube. Actually, I've never. It is.

Yeah. That's what I think it is.

Easier than YouTube. Yeah. And I don't know know how most of your guests do it, but the one thing that I appreciated about the podcasts that I have, which I don't even know if this is correct or not, I might be doing it wrong, is I just have the one graphic of, like, my face. I never change out the graphic. Unlike YouTube, you have to have a different graphic for everyone because YouTube just pulls like a random.

Yeah. So if you don't put a thumbnail on.

Yeah, that's right.

What Sabrina's referring to is if you don't pick your thumbnail, YouTube will pick it for you, and you will not be happy with that.

It's always the worst one.

I don't know how their AI does that, but it's terrible.

Yeah. That's one thing that you have to learn when you're doing YouTube is you have to learn how to make that.

Well, you do have that option in podcasting you can create. And we do it for most of our clients on potatoes. We do sepit episode art, which is something you can add but you don't need to. It will default to whatever your cover art is. And honestly, most people, my listeners are listening. They're not looking, so they don't care. And so it's not a necessity. We do it, but we more do it nowadays because of listening in cars, because the players and the screens and like, well, my car, it's gigantic in a Tesla. They're really big screens. And if you play a podcast there, it's like having album covers that change. It gives it a little more variety and you know you're on the next episode. So that's why we started doing. It was in that context, if it was the same all the time. Sometimes you jump back in the car and you'd be like, did I listen to this episode before? And you don't have that visual cue that tells you otherwise. And so that's why we started to encourage our clients and we were making them anyway, so it was easy for us to just add them into the feed for them, but it's not a necessity. You're right. It's totally an easy. But I do want to chat quickly about it because on this show and on Feed your Brand, my sister show or Tom would take issue with that. Our. Our parent show, I don't know what we would call it, but, like, Tom and I do that. So it's not really a sister show. But anyway, the other show that we do that kind of goes hand in hand with this show. The tactics side, I talk about this a lot, and that is that I typically don't want people to have their face on their cover art and their own voice in the intro. You're the right exception, and that's what I really want to highlight here is because I do say there are exceptions, but I don't always highlight what those exceptions are. And in this case, it's a perfect exception to highlight as an example. So if you go view and listen to Sabrina's show, to listen to her version podcast, then you're going to see that Sabrina's picture's on it. And it makes perfect sense because this is about her version of the world, her view of the world, her community that she's bringing in. So having her picture there makes a lot of sense. And you start your podcast with you making a statement about why this podcast is for the listener. Right. Why you're there or what it's for. And it's the perfect intro. It's nice and short, but it gets to the point. And then you have music, professional music that starts in after that. It's the right choice to make and use that in your voice because you're inviting them into your version of the world. That's extremely important that you did that yourself. More often than not, the person who does it, it's all ego. Like their pictures on it because they just like, it's all about me. But this makes sense with your theme, with where you're going and how you're inviting people in. But there's no ego involved in the rest of your show. Like, it doesn't exist there. So I really want people to check that out because it is the true exception to the rule.

Thank you. It's nice of you.

Yeah. And did you really think about that or was just like, this is the way I'm going to do it?

No, there wasn't a whole lot of thought to it. And the music that you're talking about when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, there is music.

You transition music. And it's nice. It's up.

Yeah, that's because on YouTube I have a whole. It's a little video that plays. So that whole music is like a bunch of my faces of all the girls that I've interviewed coming on and off the screen. Yeah, yeah.

So go check out the YouTube so.

You can see that.

Yeah, that's so nice. Because I think this is because you do have that YouTube view, which is when you start out with those intros to your video, sometimes it doesn't work as well as it does to have your picture, your face, and kind of start right into what they're getting. Like, I think in YouTube that plays better than it does in audio. I think it works for you in audio, but it works really well for you in video.

Yeah, I agree with that 100%.

So now that you've got this podcast going, you're over 200 episodes. Congratulations. Like, that's a big deal here. You're one of the elite podcasters who've made it over 25 and then over a hundred from there. So you're in elite territory. Are you enjoying the podcast side of it?

Yeah, 100%. It's so funny you asked that. Cause when I started, most people start just once a week, which is what I did. Then I went to two a week, then three a week. And then at one point on screen with somebody while I was podcasting, the subject came up, and I said, if I could do podcasting every single day, I would. And they were like, well, why don't you? And I was like, well, it's a lot of work. Like, there's a lot of backend stuff that people just don't even recognize. That's going on.

A lot of work, Right?

Yeah. That I can't. And then she said, well, you're so good at it. You should. And then that was it. And so I kind of, like, mulled it over, and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to do it five days a week. I'm just going to try it out, because I can always just bring it back. Like, you can always just close up your calendar and bring it right back again. So, yeah, so probably like three or four months. Three months ago or so, I opened up my calendar to five days a week, Monday through Friday. And yes, that was a long answer to your question. Yes, I love podcasts. But you know what?

This is so great. So I do, too. And I had done this where I didn't really publish more than maybe two a week. And some, like, if I get too many recorded, then I'll publish two a week. So I go in and out from one to two, but I do record a second show, so there's always at least two recordings a week that is happening from me anyway. But I went to do a report and do some things in Zoom recently and I checked our company statistics because I have the admin view of my entire company and I spent 55,000 minutes on Zoom recording and I would say probably 80% of that is recording my podcast or recording tips or recording things for clients. So like it's all recording of content in some way, shape or form. And wonderful meetings with people too. But when networking and other things. But wow, 55,000 minutes. But I did not beat out our sales team. Super proud of them because they did 85,000.

Wow, that's amazing.

So, yeah, so that's a sign that it's going well for you. So what have you seen to be one of the greatest return on investments and benefits towards building a business and building a community from podcasting and videocasting?

One of the things which I was talking to you about last time we spoke was just kind of came out of. I wasn't trying to do anything with the podcast. I was. I was just trying to tell my story. Basically I was in the middle of a healing journey and then I was. And then I just started having fun, just talking to people. But now the podcast is actually the top of my funnel. So for all the entrepreneurs out there who are trying to pull people in towards them, the podcast for me is at the very top of my funnel. And then from there, after my podcast, I discuss with them different areas within the community that I would love to have them in. Depending on the jive of their story or who they are, what they do, you know, they fall into two other buckets and then from those two buckets, they can then fall into my one on one coaching.

So are you saying that guests are part of that? Not just the listeners, the guests, yeah.

I am sorry to toot my own horn, but like, oh, you should.

That's what you're here for.

As far as networking, as far as collaborating, as far as like community, that is everything that I am. I have a whole cheat sheet list as soon as we're done with the podcast. Of all the things that I go down on the list from as far as who do you know, how can I help you? How can we collaborate? Who can we pull together? So by the time we're done, I have a plethora of contacts. They have a plethora of contacts and that just continues to build My network. So even if they don't necessarily fall into one of my buckets, they have given me three to five people who could potentially then fall into my buckets. So my podcast is everything with my business now. It is the main. The leader.

Yeah. So that's fantastic for you. So you've built it as an integral cog in the system that is your business and you enjoy it, which makes it even easier to keep going. Right. So you've made it so. But I can see why expanding it actually though expands the speed of everything for you. So it makes complete sense you would want to do more. I can't see you dialing it back because you find you contract on the other side and that's not going to be helpful to you. But you were saying, and I really think this is something that I want to hit home with and that too often the podcast hosts ghost everybody afterwards. Like they're like the content creation was the point for them and everything else is nothing. Besides following up and getting referrals, what else do you do to kind of keep touch points going with your guests.

As far as.

Contact? Like how?

Yeah, like how often do you contact them? How do you keep in touch with them? How do you do that follow up?

So well, I mean, I have a CRM that pops up and annoys me every single day. Of all the people that I need to be recontacting. I also have everybody on an email list. As far as automatic emails kind of going out a month, two months, three months after the podcast, just re pulling them back in. Whether it's regarding coaching or reintroduce yourself into the group or have you jumped into the group lately? We miss you, whatever it is. We have a very, very active Facebook group. So everybody that is on my podcast, one of the things that I pretty much like they have to do, but I continue to bother them until they do it. They have to join my Facebook group. So in and amongst there, they're all there. And then on top of that, I send them quite a few emails over the course of months, right. Where I remind people like, hey, we're growing. Can you please invite a few people? So over the course of. I don't even know how long it's been, a little over a year. We have just over a thousand members. Even though I've only had three to 400 people on the stage, like on the actual podcast, I think I'm at like 3:80 or 3:90 or something like that. So let's just say 3:80 have turned into A thousand.

That's great. Referral base.

Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's all just consistency. That's all just me saying, what can I do for you? Here's this for you. Can you do this for me? So it's all very much give and take.

Oh, I love that. That's really working for you.

Let's talk about guests. How do you find the people for being great guests on the show? What is your primary way besides referrals? Because I hear that you're doing that.

I don't do it any other way now. But what's funny is, is that because.

It didn't work in the other ways.

No, that's how the whole thing was built. Off of comments off of my YouTube videos, or I go live on Facebook, so I stream on Streamyard, which I'm sure you know what that is. So it goes to, like, a few different places. So people just telling me their story, not trying to be like, be on my podcast, they were just saying like, oh, my gosh, I totally relate to your story. I would drop into their direct message and just say, hey, do you want to be on the show? Yes. Yeah. And it's so funny looking back, because the first probably 50 or so women, literally, was just. I saw them on LinkedIn, I saw them on Facebook. These people don't even know me. Like, they have no idea who I am. Instagram. Like, I would just keyword search, like certain topics or whatever it was, and I would just drop into people's DMs just like, Hey, I know you don't know me. And we joke now because I still have so many of them that are so close to me. We joke now and we're like, yeah, just this random chick just dropped into my DM asking to be on my podcast. And I'm like, who the is this chick and what is a podcast?

Because they're just normal early on. Yeah, that's a lot of it. They're like, I don't even know what a podcast is.

Right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. But, yeah, now I have a system. That's one of the things that I always tell all of my clients that I work with is you have to have a system. So my system is, once I get off the podcast, do you want to be on another podcast? Because I've been on so many now. So the first thing I ask is, do you want to be on any podcast? They always say, yes. So I say, okay, I will refer you two people. Can you do me a favor? And can you refer Me to people. So a podcast for a podcast, and then what else can I do for you? And they usually name off something, and then usually they feel guilty because I just gave them a plethora of contacts. And then they say, well, what can I do for you? And then I say, well, I would also like some guests. So a bunch of email exchanges happened, and I just keep doing that over and over and over. And it's just the same thing. It's just a process, just like a sales script.

Yeah, yeah. So, and then I think that's so often what podcasters aren't good at. The host that I meet, they're really good at, like, the talking part, the relationship part, but they're not good at the follow up in the system. And so if you don't have a system that supports you, it makes it difficult to really do that. As you said, your CRM is like yelling at you every day. Because the system's already set up, though, to alert you to what you need to do. And that's the part that's usually missing for people.

Yeah, definitely.

And we spend way too much money on our CRMs to not use them to their full advantage. Right.

Yeah. And I'll even do silly things like I've had people that have had, because the whole thing is based around storytelling. So I've had people that have death in their family or just something very tragic on a certain month. And I'll even put that in my CRM, like, make sure you contact this person during this month, even if it's a year out, because it came up in the conversation. And that just really hones in on what the mission is of what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to pull us together on an empathetic level of rising. So I'm just very in tune. And I think that that's what I mean. There's a lot of things that podcasters are missing, and I feel. I try so hard to try to give some candid advice, even though they're not asking. But I understand why people do stop podcasting after 25 or so episodes because it is a lot of work if you're not getting anything from it. And no offense, but a lot of them just aren't doing it right. They're not using it correctly. It's kind of just on the back burner. I'm here, I'm talking to you, you have my full attention. Nothing is bothering me. And they have tons of time to speak to me, and they literally say nothing. They don't ask for anything.

This is what. What surprises me. Yeah. And what you were saying at the beginning about what you found in the sort of trauma of everything that has happened to you is that you found how important support and community is having someone that you can ask questions of, and yet they don't take advantage of that enough. So we have a coaching call that we run every single Wednesday here and our entire client base, anyone who hosts on our platform is invited to it, and we live stream it, and we still get only a handful of questions. Like, we could answer anything, and people don't ask enough questions. Why do you think that? Is that, like, we don't take advantage of the support systems we do have? Is it fear of asking the wrong question? What do you think is going on there?

Yeah, I mean, it depends what field you're in, but I'm assuming if they're all podcasters. Yeah, it's fear. You're wanting to look like you're not an idiot. I think that's one of the things that I've benefited from. It's funny because my fiance, when we were first dating, used to get so mad at me because I asked questions. I'm constantly asking questions. If there is an entrepreneur or somebody who owns a business in the crowd, I am all over them like white on rice, like, all the questions, and he'll, like, cut me off or not cut me off. He does not cut me off. He'll afterwards ask, like, why are you asking questions when you already know the answer? And I'm like, they know what they know and I know what I know. They might know something that I don't know.

I might have a perspective that I never heard before. Yeah.

So I'm constantly asking, inquiring, even on topics that I already know about because I'm humble enough and because I know what my goal is and my vision is, and I know that the only way I can get to my goal and my vision is if I continue to tweak what's up here. If you continue to do what you already know and it's not working, then you need more information.

Yeah. Yeah.

People aren't necessarily humble enough to recognize.

That that's so, so, so true. I love that you're doing that. Well, let's make sure, because I will normally do this after the interview. This is my process of doing it, is that I will open up and say, where do you need the most support and what can I do for you? Like, I answer any questions, and normally I will do this after our interview. But because you're so open to that, I'd love to ask that question right now. How can I support you? What question do you have about what's next for you and your show?

Ooh, how can you support me?

And I'm going to give you some referrals. Like that's. Like that's going to happen.

It's a given.

It's what I do to you. But what else do you want to know about podcasting industry? Anything that I can support you in that because I have a different view of it.

I love that. Okay, so one of the things, I was just talking to a friend of mine, she also started a podcast because of me, and she's probably six months in and just started monetizing, meaning she's putting commercials on her podcast, which is something that I do not do. And I know you had mentioned during our first call that you recommend putting the commercial in the middle. My question is, what is the difference between a podcast, who has commercials and doesn't have commercials, and does one of the podcasts get more viewership or get more traction than the other?

So very often this is a great question. And one of the, like, monetization, I mean, is my kind of driver. But we have two things that we want, the two ways that things monetize, right? Discovery monetizes, right? So if someone shares my show to the right person, it's gonna monetize in a much deeper way than it is if just I make money off of commercials, right? Like, it's just gonna monetize so much better if I can get someone to refer a show. And so that matters the most, as, you know, referrals are the basis of everything that you do. So I want to make sure that someone isn't just going that it's truly someone who needs the show that they're referring it to. That's more powerful at the end of the day. So when they're feeling like I'm going to say sold to, or they're feeling like you're doing this for the monetization, for the ad money, which happens a lot on YouTube. Like, you know that they're just creating content to create content, because that's how they're making their money. And it frustrates you. Like, people consciously know when you're phoning it in like that. And so when that happens, ad monetization drives you to doing content for content's sake, and that's when it can go terribly wrong. And so controlling those advertisements, making sure they're relevant to your audience, making sure they're in the right place where they can benefit the most from them. That's when it shifts to saying you just gave them some an opportunity. You didn't just promote to them. Right. That's the difference mindset that I look for in it. It comes through to your listener. And when I get a show like that, I'm less likely to share it when I see it on that side, because podcast listeners are smart, binge listeners especially. They know that you won't stick around because 90% of the shows quit on them. And most of them quit that have advertisement. There you go. So they know that. So then when they don't see the advertisement, but they see a promotion to an event you're running, or a promotion for the community that you're building, or a promotion for a class, a workshop or something like that, they don't see that as a commercial. They don't see that as an ad. They hear that as you offering a connection point.

Beautiful.

So much more valuable than an advertisement. And then most of the advertising companies that work in the space, they stream all on the front and the back of everything. So, like, you get three minutes of ads before you ever speak.

Yeah. Which is so weird.

Yeah, it's awful and it's weird. And it sets the tone into your podcast of me already being, like, contracted, like, not even paying attention enough. It harms the listening experience later. Which is why I say wait until the middle. Wait until you're like, if I ever put an ad on the binge factor, which I really don't, but if I ever did, it would be like, right after my introduction to you, before you started speaking, or right after our interview, before I recapped. And so, like, that's 10 minutes in, five minutes in. It's not very far in, but it's far enough to not be attached onto no content being delivered yet.

Got it. Yeah.

So that's how I see monetization can keep the discovery model that is so critically important in the referral model that's so critically important to bringing the two things together. So great question, and I'm so glad you asked it, because I think people are just like, what do I got to do to make more money? Like, that's usually the typical question they ask. Do more is my answer, which is terrible.

I don't know if he has a podcast, but I watch him on YouTube. It's the impact Theory. It Impact Theory, huge following. Millions of people follow him on YouTube. Him and his wife run a podcast. She Runs a female version.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He does have it in a podcast version.

Okay, cool. I only watch him on YouTube. He does this thing where in the middle of the podcast, it'll break away to just him standing, selling one of his courses. What is your thought process on that versus monetization?

So I think it's an opportunity. Like, if it's done right, it's an opportunity. Because a lot of times as podcasters get really focused on, I gotta create authentic content, I've gotta stay in the moment of connecting with my guest and this whole thing, and that's my sole role here. Everything else will flow, but we do sometimes forget to tell our audience that we have things for them, we have support for them. So I do think it's critically important. I think if you do it prior to having 25 episodes, you're doing it too soon because you don't know enough about your audience, you don't know enough about how they're going to receive something. Because his way might be. Is perfect. You know, keep in mind, like, who he's talking to. He's talking to a lot of digital marketers. He's talking to a lot of people who are in the industry. So if he didn't do it, they would be more surprised.

Got it. Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes. I like that. One more question. The way that I do it. So I run my podcast through Streamyard, which streams live on visual video. So Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. So I'm live. My back end can't sustain taking that video, downloading it, inserting, and then re uploading it. I would need to actually run the ad during. If I were going to do it, I would have to run the ad during the live podcast. So I'd have to say, hang on one second. I have a little thing. Like, I'd come up with a little script. They would obviously previously know that I was going to insert an ad, and then I'd press a little button on streamyard, and then my little face would pop up and I'd be like. And then it would cut off. And then I'd continue on with the podcast. How cheesy is that, as me, as a host, to do that to my guest?

So you should make sure your guest knows it ahead of time that that's how it's going to happen. This is why we built our system the way we did on the podcasting side. Because in podcasting, that would be awful. Like, what we do here. Like, I mean, it's easy for me to make a throw and then continue our conversation if it's not inserted right. And so or not do the throw at all. This is why I built Potatize the way that I did. Because on our hosting end, what happens is in the continuity of the podcast, I never have to say it. I need natural breaks in our conversation, which is why there's a natural break between me introducing you, which is done as a separate segment anyway, and then our conversation here, it's a natural break. And I put on the side of the advertisement or the promotion before we get to the interview, I want to give you this opportunity. And then I do my little spiel if I were going to do it. So it's tacked onto the promotion side and it's inserted by our software later, and it has no impact on the recording from the podcasting side at all. So that's the difference. Video's very different, right? Because YouTube will stick videos everywhere if you don't watch out. That's how then monetization happens on the YouTube side. They stream on the beginning. They can insert them every five minutes. Like they can do things on it, depending on what you allow on that. So that's what we would call intrusive. Right. But I think for your purpose, your purpose is to establish a rapport with your guest. I would never do that on where I would stop it and let a commercial run. I would edit it in later. And then we do do that. Like we do edit videos where we'll put a promotion in later. But the problem is with YouTube is that if I put that promotion in and I wanted to change it later, like, I no longer offer this course or it was timely and it only happened. A workshop only happened once a year, and now it's the next year. Right. I can't remove that without breaking all my statistics on my video. In podcasting, our system maintains the statistics. So we created a system by which you can change your advertisements, remove them altogether if you want to, if they're not working for you, so you can test them.

Your system has a thing where this podcast that you and I are on right now, there's going to be an intro that you record by yourself saying my name or whatever. Because we didn't do that, then you can insert some sort of an advertisement before you and I jump on like this. Like how we just started.

Yeah. So I record in a really different way. So transparency to all of you listeners out there, right. Like, I'm totally transparent about how I do this. I don't like to create an introduction of you on air because we're not live streaming. If I were live streaming, I would totally have to do that with you sitting there because there's no other choice than that. You have to do that that way. But I learned something about you in this that might not be in your bio that is my excitement for wadding it, right? And so it happens all the time. So unless we have enough time pre conversation and I don't like to have a lot of pre conversation because then I lose the like excitement of talking to you, right? And so I like that to happen on air. Some of the best stuff would happen before that's not okay for me. And so that's why I do that. So my team on the back end at Poditized assembles that introduction piece, our interview, and the closing piece that I also record after our call here. I'll stop it and I'll rerecord. And I usually create enough time to finish that right after our interview here because it's about a 5, 10 minute close, it's not long, it's easy to do. And so I do that right in the moment. So I feel like energized from having talked with you and I can give my closing thoughts. And so all of that is separated into these three segments. Plus I have a professional intro and outro that are happening on it as well, which is my voiceover artist. It's not my voice like yours is with the music. Our team is going to put stitch together the three pieces and fully edit within that. But our system will tack on the intro outro and add in any promotions that I have after the recording. So our recording is simply like the core recording. Saved into our hosting platform is my introduction, our interview and my close. Everything else can be switched out in the future. So let's say I changed the name of the show. It's happened before. I can change my intro outro on every episode I ever created if I change my promo app, if I change my ads or I only want to drop in ads for one given month for some opportunity that I have a book launch special workshop that I'm running and I can only run those ads, I can take them out. So my show has no ads for the rest of the year. And that's like why I invented this system. That's why Tom and I did it, because we didn't want stuff that was old sitting there. And my editor, who is now my son in law told me it is going to cost me just as much to take out your ad. After I edited it, because it takes just as much time for me to encode this on my computer than when I added it in to begin with, I was like, well, I'm not paying for that. So necessity developed and we came up with a system. But that's only works in audio because of how audio system is so dynamic, right? Feeds are updated. YouTube's not dynamic really. You have to do a new video. And so it is difficult. So live streaming one thing and I live stream one of my shows. So we know how this works. We actually, when we live stream that show, the podcast from it is different from the live stream. So we actually take a piece of the live stream. We purposefully record our episode. So we go, hey, welcome to Feed you'd Brand. And like, we start into the episode and our team clearly knows to cut out everything else in the live stream. So the live stream is preserved with it in the middle, but the podcast is not the entire live stream.

Got it. That makes sense.

Just different. So before we go here, I want to make sure, because we just did some on air mentorship, which I love that you did that. So thank you for being so open to that. It's very different episode because of that. But you said to me that you inspired a friend to start a podcast. So what inspiration can you leave for our audience who's still sitting on the fence and haven't started their show yet?

Do all the things. That's it. Do all the things we can do. Hard things. You've done hard things. One of the things that I tell my clients is if you're having a lack of confidence, if you're having a tough time stepping into whatever you want to call it, if you want to call that fear or uncertainty, write a list. I always say write a list of all of the hard things that you've done, because there's a plethora of them. There's so many things that you have done in your life. Write the entire list and just watch your eyes awaken as you start to recognize, I have actually done so many difficult things in my life. I have overcome so many struggles and challenges. I have been in the darkness and I have come to the light. And this is just another one of those things. And it's also important to recognize that doing courageous things is what creates confidence. There is nothing else. So if you're lacking in confidence, you're sitting here being like, I don't really know. I have low self esteem. Nobody can give you self esteem. You have to create self esteem. And the Only way to do that is to do courageous things. And what will happen is that will create a neuropathway in your mind to recognize, I can do this. But you have to first take that step and take the journey down whatever that podcasting journey is for you and add that to your list.

Ah, Sabrina, thank you for bringing her version to the world, for being courageous yourself and finding anew and building a new community.

You know, I really enjoyed when she talked about courage, creating confidence. I really believe in that. I really think that when we know we can do something or when we think this through and we make a similarity between something we've accomplished before. So I do this with my kids. Sometimes I'll do this thing, they'll be like, I don't want to try that. I don't know if I'm going to like that. And I say, well, you do love this food, right? So why? It has the same texture, the same feeling. I think you're going to find it's very similar. So if you like this one, maybe you'll like that one, right? This is the thing that we do in our mind is we have to create these similarities to give us confidence, to give us comfort in something. My very good friend Aaron Young did this once. I had been kind of holding back from creating the company that I'm creating right now because I was really daunted by the idea that it might be a billion dollar company. And when I look at a billion dollar company, I thought, who's going to let me run that? And Aaron said, when you were looking at all of your experiences and you total that up, does the total of all your experiences total to doing a billion dollar company? Not quite, but I've certainly done two and a half billion dollars worth of retail products, so I personally haven't done that. But all the products that I designed and built went in to build two and a half million dollars for other people's companies. So I have what it takes at a base level. And when I looked at it and analyzed it again, I had said that I looked at the numbers and I said, well, if we've done, my partner and I had done 250 products in a span of about eight years. And at that 250 products that generate two and a half billion dollars, you're talking about an average of about $10 million of products. So we serial launched $10 million product lines, $10 million companies, $10 million brands, one after another after another for eight years straight. So looking at that, why can't I build one single $1 billion company.

Right?

So this is what we mean by and this is what that her version that you're really narrowing in this perspective that Sabrina and her show is getting at is that this idea of having courage and having the comparison and having that happen helps build confidence in I can do this. And I think that that's so great. So go find your comparison. Go dive right in. Try something. Build your confidence. Find ways to do that just like Sabrina has, because she has just built a fantastic podcast. She's achieved over 200 episodes, so she's really feeling confident in what she's built and it's translating into the confidence to build great community. So if you'd like to find out more about Sabrina Victor her version podcast to the Her Nation community, then you're going to want to go to the blog post for this episode where you'll be able to link to everything and all the resources and all the things that connect with her, as well as find some other great podcasters that might inspire you just as much as Sabrina has today. So I'll be back next time with another bingeable podcast right here on the Binge Factor.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and videocasting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.