Slashing The Myth That Hosts Make Absolutely No Money In Podcast Sponsorship With Samantha Lee Wright Of The Essential Oil Revolution

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 Hazard 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 to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tracy Hazzard and today I'm interviewing Samantha Lee Wright. She is a podcaster with a very niche podcast called the Essential Oil Revolution. She's got over 300 episodes. There's a lot to learn and a lot to unpack here, but first let me tell you a little bit about Samantha. Samantha Lee Wright analyzed, strategized, and bootstrapped her way into podcasting fame. With no connections and a shoestring budget, she skyrocketed to success, becoming the world's top podcaster in her category in a matter of weeks. Over 5 million downloads later. That's right, 5 million downloads later. She is not only master of her platform, but but a passionate advocate for podcasting itself. She hopes to lead the next generation of podcasters in the future with clarity and confidence. Samantha is a teacher, speaker, writer, podcaster, wife and mother of two living in the mountains of North Carolina. She has just got so much incredible tips and other things to share with you in this episode, but there's just some really interesting things about the way that the show operates and the niche that it's in. I love these deep dive niche podcasts and I love how Samantha has this going on for her because she's got this power that is in that niche of people already looking for information on essential oils. And remember that a lot of that power exists outside of the podcast ecosystem, but it does exist within it too. So it is the fact that it is a top level search term, it is something that people are looking for and that there are a lot of people looking for it that is part of the power that is accelerating her podcast in into that successful stratosphere.

Right?

So be thinking about that as you're listening to your show and as you're listening to the advice she's going to give to us today. So let's take a listen to the host of the Essential Oil Revolution, Samantha Lee Wright.

Sam, thanks so much for joining me. I mean, 300 plus episodes, the download numbers, 5 million overall off the chart. I mean, I'm sure it's more since you even booked a call with me here. So I'm so excited to talk to such a successful podcasters.

They like to go up, right?

That's right. Such a good thing about numbers. Let's talk about that 300 number. How did that feel when you hit 300 on your podcast?

Oh, my gosh. It felt really, really validating. Like, wow, people are still listening. People still care about this content. I'm keeping up a good job. It just, it felt like a little pat on the back. Not going to lie.

Good. Did you celebrate?

We did. Yeah, we did. We had some champagne that night. It felt good. Really good.

Now, for most podcasters, when they start their show, they don't really see that kind of positive feedback very early on. When did you start to feel that feedback from the audience about how many episodes in?

For me, it was pretty early on. I launched three episodes for my launch date, and then from there, it was weekly from there. And after the first month, really, I started to hear, well, really from episode one. I was a part of a small online Facebook community that had to do with my niche. And that was, you know, where I started sharing these episodes. And the first couple episodes came out and people in my community were like, this is great. Keep them coming. We really love it. And I was very intentional from the beginning that I was going to start out with some heavy hitter people to interview. You know, that was my big thing before I launched. I had recorded probably about eight or 10 interviews, you know, having like a good stockpile. And I definitely front loaded the big hitters in my industry right up front for those first three episodes just to kind of show the world like, I ain't messing around here, you know, like, I came to play. This is fun.

Do you think that that industry niche actually really helped you at the beginning and being so tied to it and so upfront with it in the title.

Of your show, hundred percent, 100%. And that's something just to kind of back up for people that need to see the whole picture, you know, what I do now is teach other podcasters to start podcasts from scratch. I feel really qualified to do that because my podcast that I started out has nothing to do with business or entrepreneurship. It's just a podcast, a health and wellness podcast about something I was totally obsessed with at the time and still obsessed with today. Essential oils. Not something that a lot of people would be interested in. Extremely niche, right? And that's where I really excel at helping people. Okay, what's something you're super passionate about. What's your freak flag? You know, there's a lot of people, like, you have a podcast about essential oil oils. You must be a weirdo. I'm like, well, maybe I am a little bit weird, but there's a lot of other weirdos out there that want to learn about this thing. I was totally in love with this world of health and wellness essential oils, and was really plugged into that world and knew there was other people that wanted a podcast about that topic as well. And so I really created this roadmap of, all right, how do I take this teeny niche weird topic and turn it into a successful enterprise? And that's what I was able to do. And so kind of what you said about the title was close to naming my podcast something really clever. I'm like, maybe I could name it Lavender Fields Forever, something kind of clever. And I was like, well, Sam, how are people going to find your show if it doesn't have the word essential oils in it? And I'm a big fan of optimizing the SEO of podcast apps themselves. When someone goes onto a podcast app, if they're looking for something in your niche, you're way more likely to come up to the top of the results if you've got those keywords in your title. So that's something that I dive into.

A lot, especially if those keywords are tying into a growth industry. We found the same thing when we were doing our 3D print podcast, having 3D printing as a part of our extended title, because it wasn't a part of the initial, like three. You know, ours was called wtff and that stands for Fuse Filament Fabrication. So people had to know what it was. So it was for people in the industry. But having it in the extended title helped bring exposure to a growth topic that people were searching on. And essential oils, definitely a growth topic over the years that you've been doing your podcast here that people have been searching on. So I can see the success tie in there. And I think it's a choice like it really is. It could limit you, but it could also be the key success factor. And for you, I believe that it is the success factor there.

Yeah, I believe so too. I was someone that was starting from zero, starting from scratch. I had no influence anywhere at the time. If you're already have an influence somewhere and you want to start a podcast, I feel like you were given a little more license to make it about something a little more broad and generic and Then you can compete with those big, broad, generic podcasts out there. But to really give yourself the best chance of success if you're starting from zero, is to really narrow down down and find that niche that you want to serve and do like what you were just talking about with extended titles. I call that Embrace the dash. You know, embrace the dash in your title. WTFF Dash the Puppet.

3D printing.

Yeah, 3D printing. Which by the way, my husband is a big 3D printer. So I'll just talk about your podcast.

It has over 650 episodes, so he has plenty to choose from. There you go. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that industry kind of of follow through on this because I think it you over the 300 episodes and over this time, you've sort of probably touched on different levels of monetization in your show. You have lots of ads in the show currently, but you probably didn't do that early on. So let's talk about how you started to really find some monetization style success as you went through the process.

When I was first starting out, I was learning everything as I went. I had no business background, but I knew how to listen to podcasts. So I found a lot of business podcast marketing. Podcasts started to understand, you know, really how the world of online marketing and business worked. And so first and foremost, as we all know, and I'm sure you talk about this a lot on your show, you need to know who you're serving and why, you know, why are people coming there? And you need to focus on serving those people. Well, you know, don't jump in with, I'm about to make a lot of money and I feel like at first.

It'S a marathon, right?

It's a marathon, not a sprint, you know, for sure. So at first I thought I had to have the whole picture figured out, the whole blueprint all laid out. And you know, really at the end of the day I needed to focus on that core. Who am I serving? Why are they listening? Just keep asking myself that every single day. And then the things fell in place from there. So the first thing I did was implement just the good old fashioned free offer, right? A freebie opt in for people listening to the show that wanted to learn more about essential oils. You know, maybe they were new. So I would just run my own commercials. You know, I tell people, don't wait for sponsors to pay you to run commercials. Run your own commercial. So I ran my own commercials for my free oil course. You know, hey, go to free oilcourse.com with podcasting, it's really, really important to create easy domain names, right? Oh, please. Very easy to remember, you know, and just set up a redirect to your offer for that. And then that would just lead people to the, hey, if you want to learn about oils, here's. You can learn about them if you want to buy them now here's where you can go and buy them. And I'm an affiliate for that company. So that's where my first commission sort of coming in from affiliate offers. And like most podcasters, in the beginning I'm an Audible affiliate as well. So, you know, hey, if you want a free audiobook, you can go to audible.comrevolution, you know, and you can do that way. So in the beginning, before you have enough listenerships to do sponsor deals, you what are affiliate programs that you can find that are in your niche or that would appease or appeal to your audience and run commercials for that or what I tell a lot of my students who are more so in the service based industry, right? Like coaches or therapists, I'm like, why are you scrambling trying to get sponsors for your podcast? Like advertise your own services through your podcast. And sometimes that's a light bulb moment that goes off for some of them, like, oh, I didn't even think about that. I can like make a commercial for my own counseling sessions or whatnot. I'm like, yes, they make it clear to people that you offer a service. Sometimes advertising is not the best way to monetize if you do offer a service like that.

Sometimes advertising isn't a great way if you have a really good offer of your own. And so having five minutes of commercials about other things just confuses people to the offer you're making on your own. So having one or the other or both if they're in the same alignment may make sense, but that's, you know, that can be very confusing to people. So muddying it just to make $10 here and 100 bucks there. It may not be worth it. At the end of the day, you may actually be limiting your ability to sell your own stuff, which long term could be the best option for you, so.

Exactly, exactly. My show, it's more of a broader, let's just educate people. I don't have like a high ticket item of my own to sell. So eventually sponsorship ads became a revenue stream for me. But that took about a year. I remember like a year in, I had to call my sister up one day and say, I need to borrow $300, I can't pay my electricity bill. They're going to turn off my Internet. I'm not going to be able to keep doing what I'm doing. We were that poor. And so I had to bomb money for my sister just to keep the lights on, literally in my office. And that was like a year in. And I definitely had those thoughts, should I keep doing this? And blah, blah, blah. I was just really fumbling my way through for that first year. So glad that I stuck with it. And then those sponsor deals did start coming in and that's been a really big source of revenue for my show especially. And I don't know if you want to get into the details here, but especially when we started switching over to dynamic advertising versus baked in advertising.

Yeah. So the difference. And just so everybody. So we can do a little definition here and then I'll have Sam talk about it. A little bit more detail is that baked in is where they're in the middles of your show or somewhere in there and they're in the downloadable file. So in other words, when somebody is taking and listening to that audio file, they're taking it down from whatever server is coming from whatever directory they're pulling it from that is coming in with the ads baked into it. What we hear running on the front and back of things on Spotify and other places are what they call streaming ads. Right. And so those are only coming from someone who has the ability to put those ads on. They are interrupting. Some cases if you're on radio stations, they just have like a. At the 15 minute mark, a streaming ad runs. And so it can be very intrusive, it can be very annoying because you're not getting to the show. And in most cases the streaming ads you cannot skip. So baked in ads are better because they're built right into your show. But dynamic ads also allow some kind of switching. So at Pottiti's, we have dynamic ads that are truly dynamic, meaning that they are dynamic and baked at the same time. And that is unusual. So you won't hear that anywhere else. And that means that we can take them in and take them out, but we are putting them within the show. And most baked in ads work best if, like Sam does them. And this is where I want you to listen to her show. When you listen to her show, you're going to hear ads where she's speaking about the product, about the sponsor, and that's where they're more powerful. So when you have baked in host red ads Those are the most powerful ads you can have. So, Sam, tell us a little bit about why you love baked in ads. And switching from that made a big difference for you.

Yeah, we started with baked in ads, and I ran those right in the middle of the show. They were baked in. But the after I started developing a catalog of episodes where I had 150, 200, 250 episodes. And realizing that a new listener coming to my podcast, they're like, ooh, the essential oil revolution. That looks fun. That looks like it's for me. They might binge through and listen to that catalog all in one month.

And you don't want them to have something old.

So they're listening to an ad that I might have recorded five years ago, you know, back in the beginning. And not only am I not getting paid for that ad anymore, but that ad might not even be relevant anymore. So we went through a very big process. When we decided it was a big decision, I was like, okay, well, because.

You had to edit all your shows to fix it.

We had to literally go back and take every single sound file.

See, that's why we invented what we did here. Yeah, that's why we invented what we did here at Potterties. So you never have to edit your shows to fix that problem.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so that was just a big game changer. Once it was complete, once that huge, I had, you know, a three person team working on cutting out these ads. And then after that, and now it's just so simple to be able to record. I make my ads the same. They're as personal as they were before, and I have total control over exactly where they go in the episodes as well. A lot of control over that. And different backends have different options for that. But now, you know, if someone's listening to episode one or episode 300, they might hear that same ad. And that counts as two listens for me. And my revenue increased a lot when I was able to do that, because I was able to capitalize on all the downloads for the month versus just what's that one episode getting, right?

Because what Sam's alluding to is that 60% of your listens will come from your back catalog in any given month. That's pretty much average for most, and some shows are higher than that. The more episodes you have, the higher your percentage of back episodes will carry the weight of your total downloads for the month. So I'm sure that's pretty high for you, seeing you're doing so well every month. Let's Talk a little bit about binge ability. When did you realize you had binge listeners?

I don't think I realized it until they emailed me.

So they started reaching out.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, Sam, I just discovered your show and I'm already on episode 9 98.

I don't know about you, but the first time someone send me that, I've thought, you can listen to me for that many episodes in a row, like, that's what went through my head. And I was like, that's not okay. I'm a podcaster.

I should be better than like me.

Right? Yeah, I know that little weakness in you kind of comes out at that moment. So, yeah, so they started reaching out and you're like, oh, they're bitching on it. So once that happened, did you consciously think about what was your binge factor from the beginning?

I've always kept my main priority at the top, which is my main priority is I want to make a podcast that I would want to listen to episode after episode after episode. And the heart of my show really is we're here to learn. People listen, to learn. They really want to learn about how to use these tools, how to improve their health, how to be self sufficient when it comes to using their oil safely and efficiently. So. And they're curious about what's the newest research in this field. Right. If I record an interview with someone and I'm like, I've heard all of this before. I'm not learning anything new. You're not bringing anything to the table. And then I try my best as the host to get us there and keep asking, tell me a story or tell me something else. But if I can't get it, at the end of the day, it doesn't go live because if it's something that I'm not learning something from, then I want my episodes to be valuable for the person that's listened to all 300 or is coming there for the first time.

I'm going to psychoanalyze your show because that's what I do here for everyone who joins the Binge Factor as a guest and let you know that from my view of having reviewed hundreds and hundreds of bingeable shows, there's actually a really deep seated reason in what you're doing that is your binge factor. And that is merely because your industry is so extremely hungry for information and they need someone to be their curator and their guide. And you do that so well because you care about it being valuable to them, as you just mentioned. So you want to make sure that it's valuable to those that are seasoned essential oil people and those that are brand new to it and are just saying, what is this essential oil thing? And coming to them with this valuable piece of new information, a valuable recommendation of what essential oil might be perfect for the topic of the day. Those are things that they can file away and use. So they're going to come back again and again. And you're helping the other advocates in the essential oil industry through what you're doing because you're giving them industry news, you're giving them information, you're giving them something that they can refer to and say, well, I believe lavender is amazing for this, this and that. But Sam said on the Essential Oil Revolution, she said this, and now you have an alternative, you have a third party you can refer to that really helps validate the advice that someone might be giving. And the essential oil is full of, as you pointed out, lots of affiliates and MLMs and other things that are in that process. And when I say mlm, I'm going to define that for your multi level marketing associates. So there's lots of those things going on. They don't always get valuable information from their own sources, from the companies that are providing them with their oils themselves. So they need somebody who's got a great resource for them. And you are absolutely that. Sam, this is what it takes sometimes sitting back and thinking really hard about making sure that you're not just phoning it in, right? You're not just sitting on the mic interviewing whoever. You're really taking someone who is going to be valuable to the audience. That's why you're here, because I knew with your broad experience, experience and success and monetization, this is going to be really valuable to our listeners here at the Bench Actor who hear lots of successful podcasters every single day, right? So this is truly the industry, though tie in for you is absolutely essential, pun actually intended, right? Essential to the growth that you've had, that the two things go hand in hand. So you chose well with your industry and then you chose well to be the right resource to that industry. That's the essential bid factor for you.

It's so key. It's so key. And I think for anyone out there trying to decide what podcast they want to start, that's such a essential question to ask because I almost didn't start this podcast, Tracy. I almost started a podcast about something completely different, a lot more broad, not in this niche at all, thinking, who's going to want to listen to Something so specific and so niche. And I just kept hearing this advice from John Lee Dumas, who was my, you know, kind of mentor from afar at the time. He says, niche down, niche down again, and then niche down till it hurts. And I was like, well, this is definitely the one that, you know, this one's hurting. Whoa. This is real niche, you know, and. But that is the key. And so, you know, when there's like something new and exciting going on in the world, I always tell someone that's, you know, they want to start a podcast, but they're not sure what it should be about. I'm like, what's new and exciting in the world that, like, no one's jumped on yet that gets you really jazzed? Like, is there new that you could talk about forever that just came out that you're a super fan of? You know, like, start the podcast. Like, do it, jump on it.

Absolutely. Well, let's jump into some of our three things, because you have really great guests, they have really good authority in their marketplaces or their areas of expertise. How do you go about finding those great guests?

Number one, I outsource it because that is definitely the most time heavy aspect of what I do at the Essential oil Revolution. Finding guests, a weekly podcast, constantly having guests lined up. And we try not to repeat our guests very often either. So it's a huge time commitment. My assistant, that is her main job and I've trained her, you know, how to do that from the beginning. So different ways we do that. Sometimes if we know we want to cover a certain topic, we'll just Google it and see if there's any bloggers that come up that kind of fit our criteria for the show. We search Instagram hashtags a lot. You know, if there's a trending topic or just simply searching hashtag essential oils and, you know, see what kind of influencer pops up. See if they feel like we feel like they have a grasp on the knowledge that we're looking for. Those two things have been very helpful. And then we just have our system of, you know, reaching out on a. Either a direct message or an email. We've got our kind of canned responses lined up. I've learned over the years, keep that first message you send out real short and sweet. You kind of got to not give them the whole, you know, 10. The whole spiel. Yeah, here's what we expect and here's where you pick your day. You know, it's like, nope, just start out with a little like, hey, we love your Stuff we love to interview on our, you know, number one world, number one essential oil podcast. That's pretty much it. You know, that's like.

Right. I feel the same way. I think the shorter, sweeter, like, I do it personally on mine, as you know, because that's how you got. You got to me. But I do it personally only because I'm really picky. If somebody comes through and they will go through my assistant, she'll tell me about it, but I'll at the end of the day, make the, you know, make this, say, make the offer, whatever. Yeah, that's kind of how we do it here too, because I feel that hands on makes a big difference in sort of making sure you're curating the right people, so. Wonderful. Now let's talk a little bit about promoting your show and getting new listeners, because I think that's the part that everyone struggles the most with, is like increasing listeners and getting engagement in them. Promoting your show. What do you think you do most successfully on that marketing and promotion side?

Yeah, I think the most consistent way we've been able to increase listenership is to just stay smart about our SEO with inside our the podcast app itself. So what are you titling your episodes and are there keywords that you can put into those titles? Are there trending topics at the time? Like, I remember there was a time where the Internet was just going crazy with bloggers and people basically saying, hey, essential oils are killing all the cats in the world. Like, there was this big thing about essential oils, cats, like a big thing. So I was like, we got to do an episode. You know, let's do an episode of. I think we probably titled it like our essential oils killing your cat or something like that. You know, just being clever about what are you naming your titles, because that will increase your chance of someone searching for that in a podcast app and that coming up towards the top or getting share, you know, what are titles? Are they share worthy and that kind of thing. So that to me is probably the number one thing that we've done.

So you talked about monetization through ads and through sponsors. What's the one thing that you think you do really well to attract those sponsors?

Kind of my answer for the other question, I outsource it. I don't have time to be chasing down the perfect sponsors for my show. So I was very blessed. I think it was maybe year two that I outreached too. I just started looking up, you know, podcast sponsorship. I don't even think I knew the word for it. Was agency. I think I probably googled something like how to get someone else to get sponsors for your podcast or something and ended up finding an agency that was kind of small at the time and they focused on female driven podcast as well and just really hit it off with the owners there and signed on and have not had to negotiate my own contract since, which has been a super blessing. So they send me emails all, all the time. Hey, this is a potential new sponsor. Does it look like a good fit? And I probably turn down more sponsors than I approve because I'm very picky about who I promote to my audience. You know, I've been able to build a lot of trust with my audience and they know if I do an ad for something, I'm going to have personal experience with it and, you know, if I don't like it, I don't promote it. So I'm very picky and turned down a lot. But they just keep sending them in, so that's great. And then sometimes if there's something I know is a really good fit, I'll reach out to them and say, hey, can you reach out to this company and see if they want to do sponsorship deals? That's really great.

I'm glad you're picky. I think the Audible thing that you mentioned earlier, like being an Audible affiliate and saying something about that, while it's not a misfit, because obviously if they're podcast listeners, they're probably likely to be Audible buyers too. You know, I mean, it's, it's not a foregone conclusion, but it's not an out of left field.

It's not like I go on my podcast and be like squarespace.com, you know.

Right, exactly. That's a little weird.

Right?

Right. Yeah. And you definitely don't want something that's going to damage your brand. And that can happen if you, you know, if you're promoting the wrong thing, especially in the health and wellness space, that can really happen and go wrong for you. So good for you being picky. I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I'll say one more thing on that topic too, though. I have been able to for people that are like, I'm not big enough to go to an agency and you are in the position where you're having to negotiate your own sponsor deals and things like that. You know, I've been able to build relationships with so many people through my podcast. You know, your podcast is an asset not just for the downloads that you're getting or the money that it's bringing in. But for the people that you might get to interact because of that podcast and interact with, because you have that podcast. So I've been able to build a lot of relationships with people in my industry throughout the years and they know that I have this asset. I have the ears of people who love essential oils. So I've been able to make really great business deals and collaborations with a lot of those companies in my industry. So again, know who is listening to your podcast and then find the products, services or companies that align with that and then, you know, approach them and say, hey, I've got this audience, I've got this asset. Like, let's collaborate, let's do something.

So what's next for you? I mean, as you head into the next 300 or so that you might want to do, how are you keeping ahead and relevant and in touch with what's going on in the industry and keeping it fresh for yourself as well as your audience?

We don't vary a lot on my podcast. The format, the general feel of the show has not changed much over 300 episodes. And I kind of like that. I like being a consistent presence. People know what to expect. But coming into January, we're actually planning like a four episode, seven series that is kind of bringing us back around to basics. But usually my episodes are 40 minutes long, give or take, and we're going to do a couple short, like seven minute episodes that cover kind of the big FAQs that people have about essential oils and kind of launch that as a series. So occasionally we'll do something different like that. But I will say the guest that I bring on to my show, keeping those changing up, and I really rely on them a lot to bring, you know, the new essential oil research that might be happening, happening, and they might say something that I've never heard of and go, oh my God, that's fascinating. And I'll start researching that myself and be like, we need to do a whole episode about this. You know, and I'm lucky, I'd say that my show is about a topic that really is constantly evolving and changing and having new research done or new controversies come up or whatever. It's nice.

Like the cat thing, which I never heard of before.

Oh yeah, there's a lot. You wouldn't know it, but there's a lot of controversy that goes come up in the oil world. So try to. We don't shy away from it and we kind of lean into it when we need to keep things fresh.

That's so wonderful. Well, I'm amazed by what you've accomplished. I think it's absolutely the perfect case study of a podcast plan from the beginning that just had everything right from the start and just kept going and going and building off that success. And what it shows me is that you really are a listener at heart. You mentioned it before that you knew how to listen to podcasts, but what are some of your favorite ones?

I'd say Criminal is probably my favorite podcast. Like, do you listen to Criminal? Phoebe Judge, who is the host of that show, she just has the most amazing podcast host voice ever. I mean, just. Oh, I love it. And it's.

See, I love that. That's what inspires you about it. It's like, not only is a good podcast, but I just love her voice.

Exactly, Exactly. And just the way they weave stories. They're so smart in the decisions they make about their backgr and their sounds and the way they weave stories together. And it's like the most egoless true crime podcast I've ever heard. You know, a lot of true crime can just kind of go into the like, bleed and bleeds. It leads, or the host is like all up in your face and stuff. And I'm like, phoebe just wants to tell good stories, and so she does that. So I can't say enough great things about Criminal. But I also love. There's this short series called Uncivil that is done by two African Americans who really deep dive into the Civil War from that perspective. And I wish they had another season. I think it won a Peabody, but it only had one season. I'm like, why did it never come back?

That's so many shows. That pod fade, right?

Exactly, exactly. Like, bring it back. And then there's a spinoff from Radiolab, which of course, everyone loves Radiolab, but there's spinoff called More Perfect is a deep dive into the Supreme Court cases and stuff, which sounds really boring, but it is the opposite. It is the most fascinating podcast. I love it. I wish they would do more. See?

So you're out there still getting inspired.

Yeah. Dolly Parton's America was one of their spinoffs. That was a short series. Love it, love it. So I could go on.

I love that you're a passionate listener, because that's the ironic thing, is that the more and more people I meet, there's a big distinction between those that listen and those that don't. It manifests itself in two ways. One is that sometimes the people that listen fuss with the format of their show. Too much because they're trying to emulate somebody else. I love that that's not what you took away from being a podcast listener. Instead, what you took away is the audience experience, and that's the other side. And when I see someone who takes away, I'm really trying to build this great listener experience because I know what it likes to be a listener when it's not a good experience. And so I'm really trying to create that consistency constant and making sure that I'm building that. That's the takeaway that I think ends up more successful. And you certainly have done that from being a podcast listener. Before we go, I want to give you one last chance to tell everyone really, a little bit about that story of starting your podcast, because you kind of alluded to it, and I do this opposite when I can, which is, why do we always have to start with the origin story? Let's end with it instead. And you have a really interesting start because you were at kind of rock bottom when you started. Even a year in, you were still getting your lights almost turned off. So tell us about what made you decide that you were going to start this podcast and dive in.

It was really the invention of necessity. I needed a way to earn money from home, which people might hear and kind of laugh. They're like, you needed to earn money, so you started a podcast? Because that's kind of the joke these days. I don't know if you hear that all the time, Tracy, but people are like, oh, there's no money in podcasting. Like, podcasters don't make any money. And I like to challenge that. And maybe I'm able to challenge that because I fell into success, whether that be skill or luck or a combination of both. But I was stay at home mom. I had just given birth to my second, and my husband worked construction 40 hours a week, but seasonally. And we were just a new family getting started that didn't have really solid careers. I had no college degree. I didn't have enough money to send my kids to childcare, even if I could get a decent job, because what job could I get? It was just a lot.

Cute, cute kids. By the way, I have to say.

Your kids are adorable.

We'll make sure and add that picture to the blog post for this episode, because it's adorable.

They are amazing, amazing kids. I love them so much. So, yeah, we were broke, and I needed a way to make money, so I needed to be able to do that from home. I had been working my essential oil business For a while, the kind of traditional way of doing a lot of classes and just hustle and hustling, and that just wasn't fun. You know, I take that back. I had a lot of fun doing it, actually, but it wasn't sustainable, and it took me away from home a lot, and I didn't want that with two young kids. So I needed to be able to do something while they were napping or do something at night when they were going to bed, or, you know, whenever I could get that time in at home, I did that. And since, as you could tell, I've been a big fan of podcasts for a long time, that's, you know, the idea just hit me, hey, there's no one. Because that was the first place I went to look when I started learning about essential oils. Was. Was podcasting, and I was like, oh, there's a couple essential oil podcasts out there. But, you know, to be honest, they're not like the caliber that I want. So I'm like, man, someone really needs to step in and do start this podcast. And then I had.

Why not me, right?

You know, that's like the most powerful question you can ask, right? Why not me? That's where I started. And I had to. Yeah, I bought my $40 ATR 2100 microphone, which now they've upped the price to, like, $90 because everyone started buying it, and I had.

They're having a shortage, that's why.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then my. Someone that I. One of my colleagues covered the cost of my media hosting for the first year, like, that's. That's how broke we were. So.

Nice. Nice. Love that start. I think it shows in your show because that sort of scrappiness of, like, necessity really comes across in how and how you put, you know, you put your own effort into it and really made it into something great. So. Congratulations, Samantha. The Essential Oil Revolution is a fantastic show, and you deserve all the credit for what you've built.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. And thank you for having me here. And the show you've built is incredible. You've built such an amazing community, and you give such valuable content. So thank you for all that you do. And, you know, I'm going to ask your listeners to subscribe or leave a rating and review for Tracy right now.

Aw, thank you.

She deserves it. Let her know, you know, she works hours and hours every day on this show. Take two minutes out of your day right now to leave her a review.

Thank you for paying it forward. Appreciate that.

There was so much information to unpack here, and there's so much that she gets in the process of podcasting. She gets that this is a repurposable media type, right, that she can use so much in so many different places. She's using it on our blog. She's using it to help her get Google ranking. She's using it all over on Instagram and other places, and that's really helping her grow her show, and it's helped helping her grow the attraction to the business portion of what she's doing now. Lots of that have shifted over time. She found exactly what I found when we did our 3D print podcast, that there was power in advertising, there's power in affiliates, there's a power in the association, there's a power of being the source for the information in an industry that is dying for some new information. And that's really what she's got here. So. But, you know, this is really the exciting thing about it is she completely debunked here the myth of having of no money podcasting, right? Like of there being no money in podcasting. That's not true everywhere. There is a large part of that that isn't true for all of you. And many, many of you will never make money off your podcast because it's not the right model for you. But this is the model where it works. This is the model where it works best, and this is the model where it can be exploded and work even better, depending on the strategies and the systems and the processes you put in place. So I'm so glad that Sam came on the show today and really talked about how the essential oil revolution has turned into more than just a side hustle for her. It's turned into her entire business. She's moving into podcast teaching, she's moving into coaching, she's moving into some of these other things. And while those may be her future big ticket gifts as well, I still think there's such a power in what she's got going on because there's so much growth in that essential oil market, she's not going to be able to let this podcast go anytime soon. So I think she's going to go 500 episodes or more, and I'd love to see what she does when she gets to those levels. So we'll keep touching base with her. So, Samantha Lee Wright, the Essential Oil Revolution, you're going to want to check it out. You're going to want to go to the blog post for this episode and find all the links to Samantha Lee Wright, find the links to her podcast, find the links to the Essential Oil Revolution, find the links to her book and all the other things that she's got out there that might be a resource for you as well. So thanks everyone for listening today as we explore another successful podcaster. And 5 million listens plus is really off the chart for what we typically get to review here. So I'm so glad we got Samantha to come on the show today. So thanks everyone for listening. I appreciate you and I'll be back next time with another 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 the bingefactor.com guest and apply.