Former HubSpot Director of Marketing Shares Timeless Frameworks to Grow Online

Summary

Podcast Summary: Content Is Profit
Episode Title: Former HubSpot Director of Marketing Shares Timeless Frameworks to Grow Online
Release Date: August 7, 2025
Host/Author: BIZBROS

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Introduction and Guest Background

In this insightful episode of Content Is Profit, hosts Luis and Fonzie welcome Steph Smith, a seasoned growth marketer with an impressive track record. Steph has held pivotal roles at renowned companies such as HubSpot and The Hustle, and currently serves as the Senior Director of Growth at Brook, a leading AI firm. With a diverse background spanning chemical engineering, business consulting, and self-taught coding, Steph embodies versatility and innovation in the marketing landscape.

Notable Quote:

Steph Smith [07:42]: "I'm Steph. For anyone listening. I'm from Canada originally... I've been location independent mostly for the last six or so years."

The Importance of Identity in Professional Growth

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the concept of identity and its impact on personal and professional development. Steph emphasizes the necessity of maintaining a small identity to remain adaptable and open to new opportunities.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [10:53]: "If you keep your identity small, then it opens you up to all of these possibilities."

Steph Smith [13:03]: "Anything that you decide to do that is outside of that identity creates resistance and friction."

The hosts agree, highlighting their own experiences of shifting identities—from athletes to content creators—and the challenges that come with such transitions.

Frameworks for Success

Steph shares her approach to setting clear success parameters before embarking on any new venture. She underscores the importance of defining what success looks like to avoid wandering aimlessly.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [19:02]: "Define what the hell success looks like to you is so key... For me at the time, it was I would be fully remote... what you really want to do today or in the future."

Steph Smith [23:00]: "You have to have a plan. You can't just like, Well, you can actually just stumble into it."

Content Creation Strategies

The conversation delves into effective content creation strategies, emphasizing authenticity and passion as key drivers for consistent and meaningful content output. Steph recounts her journey from resisting blogging to launching a successful blog by focusing on topics she was passionate about, such as remote work.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [25:35]: "I just did it as if I was just telling a friend... That kind of just to, like, wrap this up... it was... equivalent to something else."

Steph Smith [30:37]: "When I figured out that I was doing it in my own way... that was a game changer."

Podcasting Insights and Growth Strategies

Addressing the challenges of podcasting, Steph provides actionable insights into growing a podcast audience. She acknowledges the difficulties in podcast discoverability and offers practical tips to overcome these hurdles, such as leveraging audiograms and optimizing content for platforms like Twitter.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [37:34]: "Podcast growth is notoriously hard... primary discovery methods are limited."

Steph Smith [40:03]: "Another quick tip on Twitter is... if you like this tweet, then you know you'll love this episode."

Steph also touches upon the ROI of podcasting, discussing how it serves different purposes compared to other content forms such as blogs and newsletters. She highlights that podcasts excel in building strong, personal relationships with listeners, which can be invaluable for businesses targeting high-ticket programs and account-based marketing.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [47:32]: "Podcasts are on the other end of that spectrum... for me, right now, in my personal brand, I'm trying to build up my brand in a way that I have really, really strong relationships with people who are following me."

Research Methods for Content Creation

Steph elaborates on her research methodologies, advocating for a curated and purpose-driven approach to avoid information overload. She recommends subscribing to high-quality newsletters, utilizing tools like Keywords Everywhere and subredditstats, and focusing on meaningful content discovery.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [58:44]: "Make sure that you're only subscribed to a few newsletters that are amazing... Only follow people who are truly driving value."

Steph Smith [63:28]: "I have a block on Sunday where I just go through all of the newsletters... use tools like Keywords Everywhere to get real-time data."

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

As the episode wraps up, Steph offers actionable advice for aspiring content creators and entrepreneurs:

1. Define Your Goals: Clearly outline what you aim to achieve with your content.
2. Choose the Right Platform: Select the content medium that best aligns with your objectives.
3. Commit to Consistency: Dedicate yourself to a consistent content schedule to build and retain your audience.

Steph also reflects on her professional aspirations outside of content creation, expressing a desire to return to the sciences, which underscores her multifaceted expertise and continual pursuit of growth.

Notable Quotes:

Steph Smith [54:14]: "Write down what you're trying to achieve and choose the content form that aligns with it."

Steph Smith [72:03]: "My site is StephSmith IO... you can also find my podcast, book, and other resources there."

The hosts express their gratitude to Steph, highlighting the episode's value in providing clear, actionable frameworks for turning content into profit. They encourage listeners to connect with Steph through her website and social channels.

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Key Takeaways:

• Identity Flexibility: Keeping personal and professional identities flexible can unlock new opportunities and reduce resistance to change.
• Clear Frameworks: Defining success and setting clear objectives are essential for effective content creation and business growth.
• Authenticity in Content: Passion-driven and authentic content resonates more with audiences, leading to faster and more sustainable growth.
• Podcasting for Relationships: While challenging to grow, podcasts are powerful tools for building deep, trust-based relationships with audiences.
• Strategic Research: Curated and purpose-driven research methods enhance content quality without leading to information overload.

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Connect with Steph Smith:

• Website: StephSmith.io
• Podcast: The Shit You Don't Learn in School
• Book: Doing Content Right

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For more episodes filled with expert insights and actionable strategies, subscribe to the Content Is Profit podcast on your favorite platform and join the BIZBROS community.

Transcript

[Luis]

Hey, guys. Welcome to Content is Prophet. Today is a really special one. I am taking you to the Vault and is a very special occasion because the guest that we're bringing on or that you can listen to, I think that her episode, it was in the 200s and it's been 400 plus episodes later. And the information is super relevant. She has been a mastermind behind the Hustle, if you're familiar with them. She was the director of marketing for a little company called HubSpot. Not so little. And currently she is the senior director of growth for Brook, a leading AI company. And we cannot be more proud that Steve is part of the legacy of content is profit. And we bring you this episode because in the community business creator club, we have been dealing with a lot of the items of these conversations. Right. Um, we're talking about how to not get overwhelmed with podcasting, blogging, social media, YouTube. Right. And this is relevant today. Not only that, but also she shares some frameworks that helped her be super successful. Taking her podcast when she first launched it to 20,000 downloads a month in just six months. We go over strategies that she used in HubSpot and on the Hustle. Enjoy the show. And a little throwback. You'll see the old format. Let me know. Is this something that you want back? With that said, guys, enjoy.

[Steph Smith]

Whenever I hear a CEO or someone of the like, be like, it's time to start a blog. I'm like, for what? Like, just because your competitor has one or because someone else has one? And so I am all for content, but it is important to know what you're trying to achieve. Most things in life are really, really simple. They're not necessarily easy. So, for example, like, for you guys to show up three times a week, like, that's not easy, but it's really simple. And I have to, like, think about that. It's like, who is truly driving value? Who's sharing things that I've never seen before? And I make that decision I saw in my brother.

[Fonzie]

Just so you know, I saw you. You did.

[Luis]

You.

[Fonzie]

You made the right choice, Steph. Just saying.

[Luis]

Steph, it's okay. After today, it's. I'll. I'll earn it back.

[Fonzie]

Hey, I'm Luis. And I'm Luis.

[Luis]

Are you listening to the Content is.

[Fonzie]

Profit podcast, where we talk about entrepreneurship, mindset, and of course, how to turn your content into profit.

[Luis]

That's right. But most importantly, where we are here to have fun with you, baby. Let's go. That was not smooth enough. But it doesn't Matter because you can go to conscience profit.com and join the family.

[Fonzie]

That is right. That's right.

[Luis]

I saved it.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, you saved it. You, you like. I'm still not used to a little bit of style to swoop in in.

[Luis]

There, but I don't care because I care more about the topic that we're going to be talking about today. Tell me what it is.

[Fonzie]

Today we're going to be talking all about leveraging frameworks to do content. Right. I gotta say, I definitely leverage today's guest headline in their website to build our own headline.

[Luis]

So you want to know, when I read this title, I peed a little of excitement.

[Fonzie]

What?

[Luis]

I got so excited. You know what, what word was it?

[Fonzie]

What?

[Luis]

Frameworks.

[Fonzie]

I know.

[Luis]

I knew we talked about this this morning.

[Fonzie]

I knew you're gonna be very excited about the frameworks.

[Luis]

I know, I know.

[Fonzie]

I'm gonna assume the reference is because you are potty training your kid right now.

[Luis]

Absolutely. Every time he excited, there's an accident. So that's exactly what happened. Fuzzy, who's our sponsor today?

[Fonzie]

Good question, good sir. Today's sponsor is your own, the Biz Bros. Yes, we sponsor our own podcast with Content Momentum. And you might be asking yourself what is Content Momentum? Well, if you produce a long form piece of content just like this one that you're listening to or watching and you need a fractional content team so you can get daily consistent with content. Guess what? We are here to help you out. So slide in the DMs at Bizbrosco, on Facebook, on Instagram.

[Luis]

That's right. If you're enjoying this show, make sure to follow it in your favorite podcasting platform. Because every Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturday, these episodes are dropping right on your phone with incredible value to gain momentum in your business and in your life.

[Fonzie]

That is right. And if today's guest help you move one step forward and closer towards your goal, please don't forget to share this episode and and leave a five star review.

[Luis]

We are back.

[Fonzie]

I should just say unsubscribe. Jonathan last. Follow. Follow. Come on man, get it right. I got a raggedy right.

[Luis]

Okay, good. Is it drilled in there?

[Fonzie]

Get a raggedy tight. Sounds good.

[Luis]

We are back with another epic week. And today we have one of the best up and coming growth marketers out there. She is a productivity machine.

[Fonzie]

That is right. Today's guest has worked for some incredible companies like the Hustle and now HubSpot while being location independent for six plus years and traveling to over 50 countries.

[Luis]

And she did all that while also writing her first book, which made over $100,000 in its first year, building projects that got her number one product hunt. And if that's not enough. If that's not enough, guys, she is also starting a podcast and scale it to 20,000 downloads in six months.

[Fonzie]

You can tell I'm the one that writes this intro, so, boy, you can tell she knows content. Please welcome director of Marketing at HubSpot, co host of the shit you don't learn in school podcast, the one and only Steph Smith.

[Steph Smith]

You guys are the best, best intro I've ever had.

[Fonzie]

Yeah. Thank you. Mission accomplished.

[Luis]

We can end the podcast now. No, I'm kidding.

[Fonzie]

Stephen, we're so excited to have you here. Like, I was, you know, telling you behind the scenes, I actually reached out to you a while back, and I was like, man, she's awesome. You know, she's like, behind the hustle and trends. I'm an avid consumer of trends. And I was like, she seems so amazing. Like, she has so many insights, and she really knows what she's doing, and that actually didn't go through. But everything happens for a reason, and today is the right day to have you here on the show, Steph. So thank you so much for being here. It's a total honor.

[Steph Smith]

Thanks for having me. You guys got me all stoked for this episode, you guys. All that intro music is so fun. And, yeah, I'm really excited.

[Luis]

We like to party with Venezuelan. So we're like, you know, if we're going to do this, you know, funny story, quick story, like, before we dive into yours. When we first started our podcasting adventure, we had this show called Bruise and bros. And this thing was, like, done at 10pm at night. Trying to debrief a challenge that we were doing at the time with beer and two DSLR cameras, trying to find that perfection. And, you know, yeah, it did not come out right.

[Fonzie]

Lots of friction.

[Luis]

Lots of friction. No music in the background. We're not having fun. It was all stressful. And then those episodes have not seen the light of day. So the day we decided to do this again, we're like, we're gonna have fun, and it's gonna be us. And this is why the colors are there, because all the set that you see and the music. So thank you so much for acknowledging that. It's so important for a creator to create. Create that environment. So I really, really appreciate.

[Steph Smith]

Where are the beers, though? You missed the beer.

[Fonzie]

That is the right question to ask. There we go. Part two. Part two. We'll ship you a six pack and then while we're here and we can have that. That part two with some beer. But, you know, before we. We go there, we would love, you know, not just for us. Right. We know a little bit of who you are, of course, a little bit of your journey. But for those that don't know who Steph is. Right. Who are you? Where do you come from? Right. All this amazingness on frameworks, on content, what you build with the hustle and Trends, and now HubSpot, right? Like, where did it all come from?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. So I'm Steph. For anyone listening. I'm from Canada originally, as you mentioned. I've been location independent mostly for the last six or so years. Now I'm mostly based in California just while we sit through this pandemic. But I never really know how to intro myself, partially because I'm all over the place. So a lot of people have gone down one pretty linear path for many years. I started my career, I did chemical engineering in school, and then I graduated. I went into business consulting. After that, I got hired as a growth marketer for a tech company. After that, I got hired as an analyst for Trends. After that, I was a product manager for Trends. Oh, and there's the train that always comes. Every podcast that I do. And then now I work for HubSpot. We were acquired. And after leading Trends, now I'm building a really exciting project creator program. And so, yeah, it's kind of all over the place. And then alongside all of that, I guess, more official stuff, I taught myself to code. A couple years ago. I have my own podcast. Like, you guys mentioned, the shit you don't learn in school. I wrote a book, created a course. And so, yeah, I never really know how to intro myself because it's, quite frankly, all over the place.

[Fonzie]

That was.

[Luis]

You did a perfect job.

[Fonzie]

And I think that is. Honestly, I think it's the first time that somebody mentions that about, like, I have such a difficult time because I feel you've done so many things. You haven't just, like, stayed in a lane and it's like, this is just me. This is my identity. You're actually figuring things out. Hey, let me try this. If I'm not 100% happy, let me move on to the next thing. I mean, I didn't know you. You graduated with a chemical engineer degree, right? I think that's absolutely amazing. Right? And then consultant, the way you've moved up, taught yourself how to code. My mind is blown right now. We're definitely gonna go there in a little bit. But this is something I notice that we've mentioned in a few episodes. I don't know if people remember this, but we have a theory, Steph. We say all the very successful people are from either Canada or Boise, Idaho. And you just proved that theory right. You are from Canada, super successful.

[Luis]

We're trying to put our. The chip in for Venezuela out there somewhere. Like, we're trying. We're doing our best. Yeah, Steph, like, obviously, you know, I identify a little bit with what you just share about the different things. Right. And, you know, our identity until, like, 18, 19 was soccer. Like, that's. That was our life playing soccer. That's the reason we're in the States that we got here. We got opportunity. That's our, like, previous life. When that ended, there was a. There was a shift of, like, I guess, identity or trying to find a new identity or, like, and we were lost for the longest time. And I think we're still in that journey of trying to find. What is it? What drives you to find these opportunities and kind of pursue and, like, just. I mean, you taught yourself how to code. That's so impressive to me. Like, I. I don't know if I'm ready to start that journey. I should maybe, who knows? But what drives you and what motivates you to chase that and actually build something? Because you build something for each of the things that you mentioned.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. I think to first touch on this idea of identity, it's so important because I, too, have crafted various identities throughout my life. Whether it's a marketer or whether it's a woman in tech or whether it's a chemical engineer, and you invest in that. And the more you invest in that, there are positives, but there are also a lot of negatives with associating your identity so heavily into something. Because it's basically like a sunk cost if you think about it. Right? So if people are familiar with sunk costs, it's like, okay, I bought something, and now I feel the need to use it all the time because I invested in this and I can't get my money back, even if it's not driving me any benefit. Well, the same thing happens with your identity. Right? So if I say I'm a chemical engineer and I invested four years into my degree, and I feel great about that, but I no longer want to go that route, and it's no longer serving me, the sunk cost element would be like, well, I'm going to still go down that path. Anyway, right. I'm going to still trek up that mountain, even though I know I don't want to reach the top of that mountain. And so the reason I'm mentioning this is it's really important to, as Paul Graham says, he's an essay on this is to keep your identity small. Because in most cases, what your identity is basically doing is just driving you down these sunk costs, right? It's driving you to make decisions based on the past and not what you really want to do today or in the future. And so I guess that has been, like, a foundational shift for me once I realized that, that if I keep my identity small, then it opens me up to all of these possibilities. I mean, you hear. Hear people saying all the time, like, oh, I can't learn to code because I'm an artist, or something like that. And it's like, no, no, no. That's your identity talking. And you can learn to code just like everyone, you know, the millions of people who have learned to code before you. And so when it comes to, like, creating these projects, I think that's what drives me is where I realize, like, if all these other people can do it, like, why should I restrict myself in being able to do these things? If I recognize that I'm just as capable as these other people and I'm not putting myself into this, like, arbitrary box, then it's like, why not? Anytime, like, something gets me intellectually curious, then I think that's the reason I'm more willing to pursue it is because I haven't put myself in that box like many other people have.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, well, absolutely, I did. This topic of identity has come up actually, a few times in the. In the last few episodes that we've done, we had somebody, Katie Richardson. She's really big in identity and kind of like helping entrepreneurs navigate through that. And I actually recently did, at the beginning of the year, a challenge on identity. And something that really caught my attention that I never saw it this way, is that, you know, your identity becomes your. Your human nature. So anything that you decide to do that is outside of that identity creates resistance and friction. And your identity works as a magnet to bring everything back down to. To that place, right to that flat line, if you want to call it that way. So, like you mentioned, if I see myself just as the artist, right? And I am telling myself, okay, I want to try to code is going to be so difficult for me because inside my mind is just going to be saying, why are you trying this when you should be. I Don't know, drawing or doing X, Y, and Z, Immediate friction is going to happen, and it's crazy. And I want, you know, the person listening right now to do this exercise. I think this is the easiest way I could have felt it. It was. I usually have friction to get up early and go and do exercise. Right. Because I told myself, yeah, I like to work out, but I don't do it in the morning. Right. I don't identify there. But if you start telling yourself, oh, I love running in the morning, and you actually visualize yourself, like, in the cold morning running with your shoes and making enjoyable, you're going to, like, visualizing that identity. And you can kind of, like, feel it inside of your body, like, oh, that'll be cool. I kind of want to grab my shoes right now and go there for. For a run.

[Luis]

That would be rude with her.

[Fonzie]

So. No, don't do it. I won't do that. I won't do that. Okay. But, you know, I think is. Is so key, and it's such a. It's an awareness thing. I feel like. And I'm curious, when were you became aware of these things? Right. When you became aware of. Okay, I need to perceive myself differently and let go of that song cost, which I'm sure it wasn't easy.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, I think it was through a couple of realizations, which weren't all intentional, but to give you one example, like, I remember being in consulting and spending a year there and looking ahead at my trajectory, which was to become, like, a partner in five years or something like that at that firm. And I was like, okay, I know what it would take to get there. I'm not so much against this, but, like, what else is out there and why is no one else considering it? Why are all these, like, people sitting around me, like, so willing to put in five years into something that I don't even know if they want? And I kind of certainly realize I don't want. And basically what I did is I just, like, took the leap. I left and joined, like, a fully remote company, a tech company that had a way less certain path. And I've made a couple jumps like that in my life, and every time it's become easier because I've realized that when you make those jumps, you're like. You kind of realize that you have the power to create whatever future you want. And that is so empowering. Once you realize that again, like, if you read your identity and you're like, I can literally become whatever I want. Like, I don't have to be a chemical engineer or a soccer player. I can do those things for a period of time and then be equally amazing at something else.

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Steph Smith]

Once you start, like, kind of like getting in those reps, similar to what you were saying about like becoming like someone who works out in the morning, there's so many like, identities. I've told myself, like, I'm not a morning person or I'm not, like, I'm not that girl who's super fit. And every so often I kind of just like, I'm like, wait, like, why aren't I? Or like, why can't I be? There's like, it's like super tropey. But a lot of people look at life and they're like, you know, like, why would I do that? Or I couldn't do that or something along those lines. And it's, I think the like, very simple way that you can look at life that completely transforms your ability to like, make some of these decisions is just like, why not me? A lot of people look at life like, why me? Like, why, why would I be the one this award? Or why would I be the one to write like a best selling book? Or why would I be the one to, you know, quit my job and travel the world? Like, why me? But, you know, you can flip that to very simple phrasing which would just be like, why not me? And if you start looking at the world that way again, it's so corny. But if you really look at the world that way, it completely changes your perspective and allows you to just be like, yeah, like, why not me? Like, why can't I be that person? To like, be the leader and make a decision that no one else is making.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, I love it.

[Luis]

This is so cool because we've, we've gone through that, right? Like, it was so hard at the beginning. And we're like, well, why not? We do a live show three times a week, right? Like, and it was like, people are like, how are you going to keep up with that?

[Fonzie]

Right?

[Luis]

Well, 244 episodes later, here we are. And, and that created a ton of opportunity. So I remember an interview that you did. I was listening earlier and when you were, I think it was in Bali maybe, and you, you, you were looking online and all these things, like how to be a remote worker or how to be like, freedom of space or whatever. And there were all these paid things and you were like, well, you guys were kind of making fun of that. And you're like, the only thing that you needed to make that decision and just buy the plane ticket, Right? Like, that's it.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luis]

And I. And with that, you know, I was listening, I was laughing, because that's true. Like, the second we decided this. Right. Or the second that we decided to chase our business opportunities or whatever we're doing. Right. It was the decision that marked the start. Now, after you make that decision, I'm very curious. Do you have. Because you've done many things very successfully, and I'm sure there's many more to come, do you have a framework that you follow? Since you're so big on framework, do you have a framework that you follow? Okay, this is the idea. This is the decision I made. And how are you going to tackle that decision? Or is it just, like, as it comes. It's very organic. Like, how do you. How do you then do the first three steps?

[Steph Smith]

Yes, I think what's important is, yes, you have to have a plan. You can't just like. Well, you can actually just stumble into it. You can just book a plane ticket. You can just, like, start a podcast and just start recording one day. But it's like, this isn't so much a framework, but defining what the hell success looks like to you is so key. Because if not, you know, I know it's, again, very corny. But if you imagine each of these journeys is like a path of a mountain, if you don't even know, like, where you're trying to get up that mountain, like, you're just gonna wander around, you're gonna stumble, you're gonna go in the complete wrong direction. And so you do roughly need to know what you're trying to accomplish. Is it to make $5,000 a month so that you can live in Bali and get passive income? Is it that you want to hit X thousand downloads a month for your podcast? Because that unlocks certain ad dollars and xyz, like, what are you really trying to accomplish? And then set, like, an ambitious deadline. That's what a lot of people miss as well, is they're like, let me just, like, venture down this path, and eventually, if I just keep going at it, it'll. It'll work. Like, when I decided to go remote, I didn't just go and buy. Buy a plane ticket. I was working in my consulting job, and I basically said, like, what are the elements that I need? What. What would success look like to me? And for me at the time, it was. I would be fully remote, right? So fully location independent. But it also meant I would get paid X dollars and it also meant I was taking on a job that I would feel proud of, that I would. I was not, like, sacrificing my, like, future career just to have, like, that freedom element. And so this is really simple. But if people are, like, looking to make one of these leaps is just a jot down, like, what are the, like, three to five things that I need for this to be a success, where I'm looking back and I'm like, God, I'm so glad I made that decision. And then just ask yourself what it takes to hit those things and then make them happen. I know that's overly simplistic, but a lot of people will either just, like, avoid thinking about it entirely and never make the leap.

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Steph Smith]

Or they'll take the leap and then, like, a month out, they'll be like, oh, shoot, I, like, moved to Bali. And it didn't work out because, like, they just didn't think about what they were actually trying to achieve. Was it the freedom? Was it, like, passive income? Like, what were they actually trying to change in their life instead of just, like, following someone else's decision?

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. And you said it might be overly simplistic. Leonardo da Vinci said simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And I totally believe that. Right. Like, the more we try to grow our own business, I realize how many times we try to complicate things. Instead of, like, is pretty simple. Like, probably the things that move the noodle forward are pretty simple, and we're still trying to complicate them incredibly.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah.

[Fonzie]

And it's the same with making these decisions. Right. Something that I don't want people to miss is the fact that you decided to consciously take a look at. Okay, what are the parameters? Right. And that's tough word, rather. Right. But the parameters of why I. Like, what would make this move a positive experience, instead of focusing on, like, oh, what if I buy the ticket? And then I have this problem? On this problem. On this problem. And I think that's where naturally most people's minds go is to the problems. Right. And if we put it in the context of business or content creation. Right. It's like, okay, I gotta start a podcast. Oh, well. But I don't have the equipment. How am I going to edit this? How am I going to do that? Right. Instead of, well, what if I want to do a podcast? I want to make sure, like my brother was saying, that we have a good time doing it. That is fun. We remove the friction. So guess what? Let's just go live to make sure. It goes out there. And let's aim to do at least 10 episodes consistently, and then we can take the next decision whether we want to continue or not. Right. And is that what is very simple, as long as you know exactly what are those? I don't know if call it boundaries that you want to have inside of, you know, your. Your next experience, but I don't know, People do tend to complicate this thing a lot. Yeah.

[Luis]

And there is totally. Yeah. Oh, sorry, Seth, go ahead.

[Steph Smith]

No, I was just gonna say I think most things in life are really, really simple. They're not necessarily easy. So, for example, like, for you guys to show up three times a week, like, that's not easy, but it's really simple for. For people to lose weight, it's really. It's simple for them to figure out, sorry, I might mix them up. But it's simple. It's not easy for them to show up. Right. So it's simple. If you knew you had to lose 10 pounds in the next month, you know what you have to do. It's not necessarily easy to do it, but you know what you have to do. And the same thing applies to life, to business, to marketing. Like, all of these things, it's actually really straightforward. All the information is there. You just need to be really clear about, like, what you said, your boundary conditions, what you're really trying to achieve, and then you fill in the rest. And it's not always easy. But you know what you need to do.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. My brother knows what he needs to do to lose 10 pounds. We gotta take the. The Oreos away from you. Man is girl.

[Steph Smith]

It's not easy, but it's simple, right?

[Luis]

Yeah, man. And when they're there with the milk, oh, so good. And also right now, it's like girls, girls. Girl Scout cookies season, too. So, like, I woke up to, like, three, like, boxes in the kitchen. I'm like, you had those for me? And Katie's like, no. And she hit it. So, yeah. Anyways, super. Okay, tangent alert. The reason I asked that question, right, is because obviously we live in this world of content, right? And you're like, the expert, and for us was somewhat of a challenge to try to find the flow, right? The flow of creation, the flow of distribution. I know you're super big on the distribution, probably more than just the creation process. And we found that out very early in our process as well. But also trying to find first what feels right to you, kind of defining that success that you said, Right? Okay. If I decide to publish consistently. What's success to us? For us, at first was like, can we be consistent with just Facebook lives? Just us? Right after that, it was like, okay, let's do the show. What does that look like for us? We didn't see our metrics. We barely see the metrics right now. Because the show is a. It's a very strategic part of what we do as a business. We're starting now. We're like, okay, sweet. Let's learn more, right? Because we have the capacity. But it's like, okay, the success was just get it out there first. Now we also have to have the flexibility to be, like, to adapt, right? What's. What's the audience saying? What's the market saying? What's your. What. What are the topics that are there? So how do you. First, I want to kind of explore, like, your story on publishing, right? And then from there, what have you seen? Like, what.

[Fonzie]

What.

[Luis]

How was. How's publishing for you at first? What, did it come easy? Do you do it out of necessity? You were like, no, this is like, I really enjoy doing this. How was that?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. So when I first started publishing on my own, it was through a blog. And for a long time, actually years before that, I had been debating launching a blog, probably similar to many people out there who are like, should I start a podcast or a newsletter or blog? And for years, I told myself, like, no, no, no. There's, like, enough blogs out there. Like, how the hell are you going to differentiate? Or actually, like, be something in the sea of so many other things. And eventually I just simplified it. And probably similar to what you guys did with the podcast, I said, by the time I was actually launching a blog, it was just because I had something to say. I just had something to say. I had something. I had conviction around, something that I was passionate about and something that I knew a lot about. And at that time, it was mostly about remote work, but that's all it was. And I think that's actually really important because a lot of people, as we just talked about, overcomplicate things, but then they also try to gamify it in a way where they're like, look, let me do a bunch of, like, keyword research, or let me go look up, like, what I think people will care about, and then it just comes off is really disingenuous, but also harder for them. Right? You're kind of like, alluding to, like, how difficult it is to show up every day. If you're showing up every day to write or Podcast about something that you just don't care about or that you're just like, you don't know very much about. It's really, really hard. And it actually brings me back to something I talk a lot about because people come to me now and they're like, oh, but you're a writer, right? And I'm like, well, I don't know if I'd consider myself a writer. But I can tell you that in grade 12 English class, I wanted to kill myself because I found writing the most difficult thing in the world. And I think it's important to remind yourself, like, why did English class suck so much? And it was because you're writing about things that you don't care about, right? So you're given topics, you're asked to write about them in very, very rigid ways, right? Like write your three paragraph essay and you're graded on it in a way that is also unnatural, right? Where you're like, okay, let me turn this around in a short period of time. And it has to meet all of these very specific metrics or ways of evaluation. And so remember how bad that felt. And then keep that in mind when you're debating if you want to go create content online. So it's like, try to get rid of all of that friction, right? So only talk about things that you know a lot about because it's going to be EAs, it's gonna be fun, it's gonna be painless. Do it in ways that feel natural. Because as a reminder, if we take ourselves out of that English class, all content is is us communicating one idea from our brain into many brains. And there's many ways you can do that, right? And so get rid of this notion of, like, I have to write my newsletter in this way or I see everyone podcasting in this way, so I must do it. Like, there's way too many interview style podcasts. We talked about this actually before we went live. So get rid of the notion that you need to do it in some sort of. I do think there is an argument for being really consistent at the beginning. But don't hold yourself to unrealistic standards if you can only show up once a week or once every other week. But that's what it takes for you to create great content that you're excited about. Then do that to get back to your question. That's how I reworked my system. Because for years I was like, no way. I'm writing. This is not something I want to do. And then finally I just came to a Point where there was, like, topics that I was excited to talk about, and I just did it as if I was just, like, telling a friend, right? Like, just blurting out all the things that I wanted to say on paper, but on a screen in this case. And that actually worked incredibly well. My blog grew way quicker than I've seen most blogs grow, because whatever I was saying, I was knowledgeable about and seemed to resonate because it came from a place where, again, there was, like, no motive behind it other than having a concrete point of view. And that kind of just to, like, wrap this up. I think that's what a lot of people get wrong with content, is they think they need to be, like, the most deeply researched or like, the expert of the experts in order to talk about something. But most of the time, when people read content, they're actually looking for you to not necessarily be the most knowledgeable about the thing, but to do it in an interesting way. So some people, like, you guys are like. And there's the train again, are, like, way funnier, right? Like, you guys are like, like, personable and like, you're like, I want to be around these guys. Other people, like James Clear are just very concise. Right? And so some other people appreciate that the same way that you appreciate the branding or the way that physical products are sold, the branding or the way that content is produced is equally important. And that's what a lot of people get wrong. And so I know I kind of just, like, went in a bunch of directions, but that is, like, so key is that when I figured out that when I wanted to write, I was doing it in my own way, and I was doing it in a way where I could have that differentiator, because it was really just like, it was coming from me then that, like, was a game changer. And. And that's, I think, why my blog ended up being a lot more successful than most blogs that have a lot more, like, forethought when they're going live.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you're talking about, it goes even beyond the, you know, the cliche advice, you could say that of finding your voice. Right. A lot of people say, oh, you gotta find your own voice. And I think, yes, that totally, you know, has a point in this side of the conversation, but. But at the same time, I feel like you're going beyond that, beyond just finding your own voice is what is the stand that I can take in regards to a topic. Right? Because when people are reading something at the same time, they're evaluating with all their previous knowledge, whether they agree or disagree or if it's just blah. Right. And I feel like more. Most content falls in the category of being blah. Right. And then people don't have any sorts of emotions toward it or don't want to share it. They're like, okay, next, let me look for the next piece of content. And first I want to clarify. You don't need to be like a total crazy Persona to resonate with somebody or to have a point of view, a clear point of view that makes a stand. Right. I mean, Steph. Right. I feel like your voice, how you present yourself is super clear, very data driven. I feel like I want to dig into the whole analysis and how you do research and all that stuff. But. And I think that attracts people. Like, she is a well educated person that knows what she's talking about. And you give this sense of. This is gonna make no sense. But it's like online confidence. Like, when I read your stuff, I'm like, she knows what she's talking about. Like, this has to be true. Right? And some other people, you can tell, like, oh, they are. Is they're just making this thing up completely. For example, I think like orange, like you mentioned, right. Like, we try to make this fun and our personality. And we actually had a previous mentor that, again, we love him, we don't have anything against him, but when we ask him who should, who should be the face of our content? Right. Just one of us. Like, the two of us.

[Luis]

This was before we started the podcast. The podcast, yeah.

[Fonzie]

And he was like. Because of what he knew at the moment, he was like, I think there should be only one attractive character. And we were like, oh, man, like, that's rough. We look at each other, we're like, okay, sure, like we're gonna do that. And then as we started debating the idea of publishing the podcast, we realized, like, whatever, let's go. Let's. Let's both go at it. We both have different opinions sometimes. You know, we're getting discussions, we get, you know, a little bit of banter here and there. And at the end of the day now, when people come into the show, just like you did earlier, you told us, like, I love the mechanics that you two have going on. Right. I think is, it's, it's a lot of fun. And that turned out being like one of our edge points when publishing this podcast. Yeah.

[Luis]

It's become, it's become an asset. Right? So now, like, sometimes I don't think we've ever done an interview. It's just one of us. Like, it's. And you know, maybe for some people, like, looking. Looking ahead, would that be an asset or would it become hard to sustain? We don't know. But at the. At the moment, right today, we're really enjoying it, and we're just making sure that it's out there.

[Fonzie]

We actually leveraged the whole thing with a competition. We start a competition, hashtag pkbro. So, Steph, be prepared. At the end of the podcast, we're gonna throw you under the bus. You're gonna be like, which one is the best, bro?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, that's so funny. I was gonna say just quickly. Like, I think that's one thing to keep in mind is like, I know we love getting feedback or advice from a lot of people, but, like, I bet that mentor of yours had never grown a podcast. Or maybe he had. But, like, it's important to remember that if you're getting advice from anyone, have they actually built the thing that you're looking to build? And even with podcasts, something to keep in mind is a lot of the podcasts at the top of the charts are at the top of the charts, not because they're the best, but it's because they had external audiences to grow a podcast because podcast growth is so difficult to do. Just go down the line of all of the top podcasts out there. They're all either part of a large network or they, as an individual, had a large network. And so I think we're seeing that change over time as, like, more people launch podcasts and, like, there's better growth mechanisms. But just keep that in mind that, like, I think a lot of people, especially if they haven't done it themselves, would look at the top charts and be like, oh, you have to do like an interview style, individual podcast about business to hit the top of the charts. And it's like, no, no, no, that's not. They're not at the top of the charts because that's the best format necessarily. But that's just the only. Those are the ones that have been around the longest and that had those external networks.

[Fonzie]

Interesting.

[Luis]

Thank you for bringing that up. I think that's like the elephant in the room in so many of these conversations that people are not willing to talk about. Right. We've never done a promotion like that, for example, like for our own show, because, again, the objective was to be consistent and to connect and build the relationships we've been part of. We've seen some of these campaigns, right. And it's like, it's. It's crazy to see, like, okay in the next period. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, totally, like, awesome boss move. Like, marketing move. We. I've been Frontline on the daily. The Daily Hustle show launch. Like, for example, I feel like what you guys are doing there is incredible. And every marketer, every person trying to, like, do something that should go and. And see what you guys are doing, because it's. It's awesome. It's leverage. It's like, okay, how can we. At the end of the day, your message, you want. If you really believe in what you're talking about, in what you're sharing with the world, more people should listen. Right? So, okay, if that's really the objective, how can. Now we leverage whatever network connections, people, friends, family, to make sure that as many people as we want listen to it, so totally okay with it. It's just sometimes from the outside, like you said, people observe that, and that could be a big element for them not to publish. And we don't want that to happen. We want you to. To publish, to put your message out there.

[Fonzie]

Yeah. So now that we're, like, diving a little bit into podcasts, you have your own podcast, right? Didn't. What was. I'm sorry. I'm like.

[Steph Smith]

No, you're good. It's. It's kind of a long name. You don't learn in school.

[Fonzie]

You don't learn at school. I knew it had the word and the word school in it.

[Luis]

You struggle saying that. You're so polite.

[Steph Smith]

We'll just call it Shit School.

[Luis]

Shit's go.

[Fonzie]

Shit's cool, right? And first of all, I absolutely love the name, but you have some good growth, right? 20k downloads in six months. So let's talk about that growth for you and your show. Do you leverage the network that you built through, you know, launching your book, or that book came after that, or the network that you build, you know, writing the blog? How was that process for you in launching your podcast?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, so as I mentioned, podcast growth is notoriously hard, and that's for several reasons. You guys have probably run into all of these reasons, but, like, one, analytics are terrible, right? Like, if you look at just a comparison of the analytics in a podcast platform versus something like YouTube, it's just, like, ridiculous, the difference. And then in addition to that, the, like, traditional ways that you discover content, just, like, compare written content versus audio content. Written content. Where do you find things? Well, you can search for them, someone can email you something. You can Be on something like Reddit or hacker news. There is like so many different forms of discovery that you get with written content. Think of the way people discover pods. It's like you hear about it on another pod or your friend tells you about it. Of course, someone could say, yeah, like you could search for an Apple podcast. No one does that. Right. And so the main ways that people discover podcasts are really, really limited too. And so for those reasons, and I'm probably missing some others, it's so hard to grow podcasts, which is again, why all of the podcasts that are at the top of the charts have these, like, networks that they're. They're basically able to get their growth from.

[Luis]

Absolutely.

[Steph Smith]

So understanding this, I was like, shit, well, how are we going to grow this pod? It's going to be hard, especially because another growth mechanism that a lot of people deploy is guests. Right. So bring a guest on, they promote it. Our podcast doesn't have guests. It's me and my co host talking back and forth about an idea. And so we have. It's been hard, but I guess a couple things to call out. One of them is that a lot of the time when people share their podcast, they're sharing the entire episode. Think of the, like, friction it takes for someone to, like, see something and be like, I'm going to buy into this whole episode. And so that's why you've seen the, like, rise of all these audiograms. We used a script, but lots of other tools like Headliner or Air A I R R. I love that one. All of those tools. Yeah, I'm not affiliated with any of them, but those tools allow you to take snippets of them, post them on places like Twitter, which actually, which enhance your ability to almost like bite size, to show people a part of something and make them interested. One little quick tip on that is if you do add, if you do post those on Twitter, I've been like speeding mine up by somewhere between 30 to 50% because people get bored on Twitter so quickly. And so if you have it at that 1x slow speed, people are bored, they're scrolling by. And so that's worked really, really well.

[Fonzie]

Wow.

[Steph Smith]

Another quick tip on Twitter is, which is where my audience is. So I would say people should apply this to, of course, wherever they have an audience. But on Twitter specifically, Twitter hates external links. And so what I've been doing is like, is tweeting about something related to the podcast topic we're talking about, not including the podcast link. It's not a promotional thing. But then once it blows up, if it blows up, then you know, you've seen lots of people do this, I'm sure then adding like, if you like this tweet, then you know you'll love this episode. So an example of this is I tweeted this thing about the 40 hour workweek that totally blew up. I think it, you know, got over 10,000 likes on Twitter. And then I added that the like appendage that brought in like thousands of downloads to that episode because people, it was like directly related but didn't feel overly promotional. And also Twitter didn't discount the original post because it had a link in it.

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Steph Smith]

So those are a couple things to do. Another really unrelated one that I'll just, I'll stop after this one is just.

[Luis]

Anytime you see someone, keep spilling the secrets.

[Fonzie]

Okay.

[Luis]

Again, we don't have to go anywhere. We can just be here.

[Steph Smith]

One of the other underrated ones, which is not going to move the needle for you, but it will help you get traction early on, is just all the time if you're seeing people tweet about your podcast or even mention it or comment on it, DM them or email them or whatever platform you're on and just be like, hey, saw that you talked about this thing. Any chance you could subscribe, leave a review, send it to a friend? Anytime I've done that one on one, people are like, oh yeah, of course. And that's led us to like our first 50 reviews or whatever. And so those are a couple of things that have helped us. And then I would just, you know, say that ultimately the best way to grow podcasts unfortunately still is being on other podcasts. So I was on my first million. That really helped us. I think I'm joining Indie Hackers sometime next week and so that's hopefully going to help. But like that's. It's unfortunate that there's not more dependable ways to grow podcasts other than using your existing networks.

[Luis]

By the way, you just did like the quick guide to podcasting growth. Awesome. We'll co build that.

[Fonzie]

And quick question, I know the last chapter of your book is about growing podcasts or these tips in there. Can people go find them in your book?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, yeah. So I actually had like a mini chapter, like a bunch of four different videos and slides that I created a year ago, but that was actually before I had built my own. So I worked on other podcasts and like helped my first million and stuff. And so there's actually like an Upgrade coming to that, which is based on actually doing it myself and going from 0 to 20k. So. So, yeah, that's probably going to go out in the next couple weeks. And so, yeah, if people are interested and they're like, I want to get everything you just talked about, but way more about podcast growth, they can find.

[Luis]

[e-mail] yes, we're going to leave the links right below. All you got to do is scroll down and click in there. Now, Fonzie, I know that you're dying to ask something.

[Fonzie]

I'm like itching to ask your question.

[Luis]

Yeah, I had one that came up as soon as you said podcasting is so hard to grow. Right. So how do people justify podcasting?

[Fonzie]

Right?

[Luis]

Because like for. I have an answer for us, like that is coming from us. But we were at this event this weekend with 12 CEOs, right? And the one part of the event is. And we were probably the most under qualified in that room.

[Fonzie]

It's like a brainstorming session where somebody stands in the middle of the room, they share one of their problems and then everybody starts, you know, helping them solve that issue.

[Luis]

And here's the background on the group. There are people that they had a 7 million dollar a year event company. The other one, 14 million. The other guy invested this 1 million in a machine that didn't work and he was like, oh yeah, we just invested 1 million. So it's people that have been in this game for a while and they have resources, right? So one of the people that jumped on there to ask questions, their main product has to do with content. And one of those pieces is podcasting. And one of the feedback that came back to them was, how do I measure this was the roi. It's so hard. And everybody that podcasts, for some reason, we're massive fans of this platform and we continue to do it consistently over time. So how do we justify podcasting? We have our way to explain it in the business way. But I'm very curious to your point of view.

[Fonzie]

I'm just going to say when you said roi, Steph had like a little smile in there.

[Steph Smith]

So I'm pretty sure anyone roi, data, spreadsheet. Yeah, automatic, like dopamine, dopamine receptors firing. It's a great question and I actually think a question that's not asked enough. This, like, why should I podcast? And it's actually the question that I don't see enough people asking about content in general. So we all know content is so powerful. Creator, economy, all these Flagship terms that are being thrown around. And it is true that content is probably more exciting than ever. But then you also see these CEOs or random people who basically just feel the need to create content because it's time to do so. A CEO will be like, well, sounds like we should have a blog, or sounds like we should have a podcast. And that is the worst thing, because any CEO that says that is not going to be putting the right investment or understand what they're really trying to achieve with content. Because remember, content has many different forms of ROI even, right? So it's like, are you trying to make dollars off of advertising? Are you trying to grow your brand awareness so that you're reaching millions of people, but not actually directly monetizing it? Are you trying to create this so that instead of advertising other companies through ad dollars, you're actually advertising your own business and, you know, getting ROI that way? Like, there's so many ways that you can drive ROI through content. And unless you know what you're actually trying to achieve. Whenever I hear a CEO or someone of the like be like, it's time to start a blog, I'm like, for what? Like, just because your competitor has one or because someone else has one? And so I am all for content. But it is important to know what you're trying to achieve. And then within content, as you're mentioning, the ROI that can be driven through a podcast is much different than a newsletter, which is much different than a blog, et cetera. And so podcasts, because of their lack of attribution, are likely one of the worst content paths that most companies can invest in just being straight up, yeah, 100%. If you're looking to build a lot of strong relationships with your listeners, and strong's an important word there, do podcasting. But, for example, if you're looking to reach mass audiences, like real mass audience, podcasting is one of the hardest mediums to grow. And so you're much better off launching a YouTube channel, building a newsletter, creating a blog, if you're just trying to reach as many people as possible. Similarly, podcasts are really, really hard to make a lot of money off of in terms of advertising. And so if that's your goal, podcasting, again, is, like, much less lucrative than a newsletter or some of the other forms of content. And so the place that I see podcasts fitting, which they obviously have a place and I have one of my own, is just to think about it like this. Different forms of content, people engage differently. So how many newsletters do you guys read in a given year, let's say, and I'm not mean, like, how many different ones hit your inbox, Fonsi?

[Luis]

Like 300. Me, like three.

[Fonzie]

No.

[Steph Smith]

Okay.

[Fonzie]

I've tried to limit it. I've tried to limit it a few. Five at a time. So if there's a six, one come in one of those previous five, they.

[Steph Smith]

Have to go, that's great. That's great. So you guys are probably much better than the average person. I'm sure you guys have seen this. But most people think of the number of newsletters they have hitting their inbox. It's probably like a dozen plus. Right. Of ones that they read at some point. They're not going to read every article or every send from that person, but they're going to. They're going to see quite a few, but not hundreds. Blogs, on the other hand, are even more on the less strong relationship, but larger network where in a given year you don't even realize it, but you're reading articles from hundreds of blogs throughout the year, whether it's a large media company like the Verge or some niche blogger. You're reading tons and tons of articles from these people. But you don't know. You're not checking who this reporter is or you don't feel like you have a direct relationship with this.

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Steph Smith]

Blogger who wrote this article that your friend sent to you. Right. Podcasts are on the other end of that spectrum. So you imagine blogs are the least relationship driven, but you can reach the most people. Newsletters fit somewhere in the middle where you may be you do recognize the people, but you're allocating a fraction of your attention to quite a few different people. Podcasts. On average, people listen to six podcasts. Total. Total, Right. Yeah. And so the podcast that you listen to you are much more dedicated to. In fact, I'm sure you guys have heard this. When you have podcast listeners, like, they feel like they know you. And it makes sense because when you read a blog article, you're spending what, three minutes. When you're reading a newsletter, you're spending maybe five to 10 minutes. And when you're listening to a podcast, you're spending an hour with that person most of the time. Right. And that's every week. Right. So it makes sense that it's a totally different dynamic. And so we're podcasting. Play a role is really cementing relationships with your audience. Right. It's a much different mechanism. And so that definitely has value. Right. And that's. I've had people ask me you know, of all the things you could create a TikTok, you could create a YouTube channel, you create a podcast, why did you choose a podcast? And it was because for me, right now, in my like, personal brand, I'm trying to build up my brand in a way that I have really, really strong relationships with people who are following me, who would buy my products in the future, who would want to meet me at a conference, who I could become friends with. That's what I'm looking for. But a lot of brands aren't looking for that. And so that comes back to your question of is it the right move? And my answer is, in most cases it's actually not the right move for especially a lot of businesses.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, well, I love it. I'm going to add a little bit of our point of view and I'm going to salt BAE with podcasting over here. And you mentioned that trust and kind of like that depth in the relationship with the audience, what whisper experience on our end, right? Because let's be honest, we don't have a massive audience, right? We do have some people that come in and they, they reach out to us and they're like, oh, this conversation was awesome. And it's, it feels amazing. Right? Don't get me wrong. But for us, the main leverage point, let's go that way for us, has been again, based in trust and relationship. But with the guest that we're bringing on into the podcast, right? Those relationships have literally change our life and our business. Like, we've met people that we would have never thought about meeting or we never thought about them, giving us an opportunity of having a conversation with them for an hour on a one to one basis. And then that creates an opportunity to follow up and even build that relationship in a deeper way. I mean, 90% of our business has, has come through the guest that come to the podcast, right? So we put that focus so much on, okay, let's build our own community based on the guests that we're bringing on. And that can either lead to clients, partnerships, opportunities, right? You never know. And it's absolutely amazing. So I love what you're saying and I love the honesty and the transparency on being like, hey, look, it might not be the, the best. It actually, you know, probably recommended not being the strategy for most businesses. But let's say what we found is if you're a business that have a extremely high ticket program, right, Something that you can, you're probably in the ABM side account based marketing side of things, where you're Targeting specific accounts. Right. Specific type of businesses to work with. Podcasting is a great medium to build those relationships as well, because as soon as you bring them on and you spend an hour talking to them, you're going to build that report, that trust, and then just following up on those conversations is going to be so much easier because now you get direct contact with the person that you're trying to talk.

[Luis]

Yeah, Steph. So just a little background to like, where maybe in the world that you move. I mean, totally assuming and correct me if I'm wrong.

[Steph Smith]

Right.

[Luis]

Like, there. There's a lot of investment. There's some capital available to explore different possibilities. Right. Maybe not with you. You, but like, maybe, you know, I listened to my first million. Right. And. And. And the way that.

[Fonzie]

That's one of our six podcasts in the.

[Luis]

That's one of the six. Absolutely. Like, that has to be in everybody's rotation. But. And. And when we started, we did not have access to capital. Right. We have to, like, go out and sell, like, the. The service, for example. Right. So for us was really challenging to first decide what platform to go on and then how can we stay consistent. Right. So for us, that's why podcasting means so much, because it was the fastest path to that person that we could develop a relationship with and see what the opportunities come. But also is a great platform to leverage. The micro assets, for example, you know, the tweets that you're talking about, the micro content that we create for us and for the people that we work with. Right. Those things helped a ton because it creates a safety net of content that when people listen, hey, I met the business or I saw the business somewhere, they're gonna go to those accounts and they're gonna see like, oh, they've been publishing for a long time. Maybe you don't consume every single piece of content like we mentioned earlier, but they're gonna be like, oh, I'm Bill. I see that they're being consistent. They're showing up for this amount of time, and that helps also build that rapport. So that's where we're coming from as well. And that helps a ton. So what will your advice be for? And maybe you were in this position, right. For people that are starting to transition into, you know, they have the day job, they want to transition into building their own thing. They want to create that consistency in their content. What will be, like, maybe one or two action points that they can take there.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. So I think what's really important here. And you guys isolated this for yourself really clearly is for people to understand what they're trying to achieve and just to give a couple examples, because people are like, oh, that's such a simple question. There's only like two answers to that. Well, it's like, if you're starting a podcast, are you looking to convey a new idea, to build your personal brand, to be seen as an expert, to be connected with other experts? Like you guys are saying, to drive funnels or drive top of the funnel traffic to other products, to increase direct mrr, to grow your professional network, to teach a particular skill, to just have fun, right? Those are just like, there are many more examples, but it's like, what the hell are you trying to achieve with your content? And trust me, if you were to basically write this down, write down all the things I just said or any that I missed, and then write down the different forms of content. If you've discerned that you want to create content, write down blog, newsletter, podcast, etc. And then TikTok, you know, whatever you, whatever you're considering, and highlight the one that you, that is your North Star. What are you really trying to achieve? And that will automatically remove some of them if you're really thinking, thinking about this critically. And you'll basically be able to like, see which platforms, rate them 1 to 10 in each of the categories and then figure out which categories are most important to you. This is like a classic ice matrix, but you don't even need to be as analytical about this, but really just highlight what is your main thing that you're trying to achieve. And to your point, if your goal for you too was to build this professional network or build this network of other really cool people that you can work together with, that's like impossible to do with a blog, right? Like, you're never gonna do that with a blog. Or it would take years to do with a blog. And so you're not gonna do a blog. Can you really do that with a TikTok channel? Not really. So you're, you're, you know, you're starting to eliminate the ones that don't facilitate your true goal. And I think even though this is a similar or simple exercise, people don't go with this exercise at all. Most of the time they're just like, well, I saw my friend start a newsletter, so it's time to start a newsletter. Or I saw the Biz Bros and they have a podcast, so I should probably start a podcast. And so that is what I would. That's like the step I would encourage people to take. If they're considering doing any content, and then, yeah, double down on the channel that you choose. Because the other thing to keep in mind is we've all done this, but if you split your attention across five channels, you're not going to make any progress across any of them. And so I think it was really smart for you guys to realize podcasting is the channel we want to focus on. And then you've gone all in. You do three episodes a week. That's. That's amazing. And so that's what I would encourage. I encourage people to follow that similar playbook.

[Fonzie]

Thank you. This takes me back to part of the beginning of the conversation where we said, it's simple, but it's not easy. Right?

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Fonzie]

That's what you're saying. Put it all on paper. Right. Try to define. And it goes back to making that decision to go into Bali. Right? Put it on paper. What is it that you want? What is it that you're trying to accomplish? Well, what fits in there? Right? And where's. Where is it that I'm gonna go? And then just make the committed. Make a committed. No. Make. Wow.

[Luis]

Make a committed decision. Wow. Good job.

[Fonzie]

That was a tough one. Yeah.

[Luis]

Studio club.

[Fonzie]

I need to stay better, hydrated.

[Luis]

I've been trying to convince Fonzie to. To go dance and Tick Tock, and he doesn't listen. So, you know, I was trying to. Hoping. I was, like, putting you on private message him. Like, tell him tick. No, I'm kidding.

[Fonzie]

After we have. After we dominate the podcasting world, we'll. We'll go. I think you.

[Steph Smith]

I think you guys would do well on Tik Tok.

[Luis]

We have a conversation tomorrow that might come up.

[Fonzie]

We. We have two videos that we posted on Tik Tok. It was actually a pretty funny one.

[Luis]

They were hilarious. My wife didn't think it was hilarious. She was like, what are you guys doing with your life?

[Fonzie]

All right. We're getting close to the end, but I've had this question, honestly, since I started reading the Hustle, and I knew you were involved, and then when I saw you were super involved, obviously, with trends, I was like, I've been wanting to ask Steph this question. So it has nothing to do with podcasting. It's going to be like a 180 over here. But I'm so curious on how do you do your research, because you guys and I know you have a team. You guys work with a lot of people. But I'm so amazed by the things that you find out, and it's like, how. How do you come across this information? Like, where do you even start?

[Steph Smith]

So a lot of people ask this, and I was on my first million in December, and that was, like, the number one question. People are like, can you create a course around this? And I might at some point.

[Luis]

Yes, please.

[Steph Smith]

I think people would be candidly, a little disappointed that it's not this, like, crazy workflow where we have, like, machines, like, finding stuff for us or anything. Like, I think one of the amazing parts of the Internet is that there is so much that you can find, but also that is the downfall, right, that you like, because there's so much information, and you get lost in the sea of it. And so the critical parts of being able to find interesting things is making sure that you're not paying attention to the uninteresting things. And that sounds simple, but an example of this, like, you guys mentioned you subscribe to a couple newsletters. I know people that subscribe to 1020. I once asked people this question, and they looked, and there's a setting in substack where you can see how many newsletters you subscribe to. And they had 80 newsletters that they subscribed to. And I'm like, how are you ever gonna find the best stuff if your mind is just completely overloaded with the shit that's online? And so the first thing I would encourage people to do is make sure that they're only subscribed to a few newsletters that are amazing. Some of the ones that I subscribe to, for example, Exponential View is an amazing one. Numloc is another amazing one. Charter is another amazing one. So make sure that you're only getting the best stuff. That's the same thing for, like, for example, Twitter. I have a rule where on Twitter, I only follow 99 people. Now, that's not to sound like this, like, you know, this person who's so cool and only follows this number of people, but because I used to follow more people, and I realized that I was basically giving my attention up to this algorithm that, like, is gonna surface whatever the hell it wants. And so now if I go to follow someone, I have to unfollow someone, and I have to, like, think about that. It's like, who is truly driving value? Who's sharing things that I've never seen before? And I make that decision.

[Fonzie]

I saw you following my brother. Just so you know. I saw you. You made the right choice, Steph. Just saying.

[Luis]

Steph, it's okay. After today, it's I'll earn it back, by the way.

[Fonzie]

I don't know if that's true, but I'm messing around.

[Luis]

You just threw her under the bus, man. What are you doing? You don't do that to the guest.

[Fonzie]

I'm sorry, Steph. Keep going with all.

[Steph Smith]

No, you're good. That was a great joke. So that's one thing to keep in mind. And then another thing is, I mean, we go down the rabbit hole of like, tools that do this. But as an example, the other amazing thing about the state of the Internet today is you have sites that aggregate the stuff that people find the most interesting. Here's what I mean by this. In the past, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you got whatever happened, you happen to find on the Internet whatever your friend sent you. Today, you can go on a site like subredditstats, you can look at all the top subreddits that exist on that site. And then within the subreddits, you can look at all of the top upvoted posts on a particular subreddit in a given time period. The last day, the last week, all time. So instead of you having to sift through all of, again, junk that exists online, you have sites that allow you to do this to basically see what is truly the most interesting. And so again, I probably could create a course that maybe would be slightly more interesting than what I'm saying now. But it's all about, as people say, crafting your information diet and using some of these tools like subreddit stats that basically do the work for you. Right. Where you don't have to go, guess what people find interesting. You can just find out for yourself. I mean, another example of like these little hacks like you can. You guys know how to use like Twitter advanced search?

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Steph Smith]

So a lot of people don't know that, but you can, for example, go to someone that you find interesting, their profile. You can go and search like StephSmith IO minlikes 10,000 or something. And then you can see all of their tweets that have gotten over 10,000 likes in all of history. You can do that for 50,000, you can do it for less. Right. And that can show you what has resonated with people and doesn't mean go copy their work. Certainly if you end up using it, credit them. But there's also an element to, I think what we've gotten really good at trends is understanding what people find interesting. And so just by going through that exercise, go through your 10 favorite Twitter follows and then do that exercise and just see like what people like in terms of what they're creating. And that'll give you a sense of what people find interesting.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, absolutely. Do you have like a time that you dedicate every day for research time, blogs, or. No. You're like, as you go, you start pulling notes and putting them in your evernote and all that.

[Steph Smith]

So there's a little bit of both. So I have like, for a lot of my emails, I like remind myself instead of reading them at the time. I have a block on Sunday where I just like go through all of the like, newsletters that I go through. But there is just an element of. A lot of people surf the web and then don't like, take bits and pieces of what they're finding and put them in an evernote or a notion and then they just forget everything. Right. Because their brains aren't built to retain that much information. But there's also interesting tools. Like another tool that I encourage people to use is Keywords Everywhere. Not affiliated with any of these tools. But the amazing part of that is it's native to the browser. And so when you search something like one time I searched Hard kombucha and I was just looking for hard kombucha because it's popular here in San Diego. But Keywords Everywhere has the search volume for each of these things. But also how that's trended over time and that just pops up natively as you're searching, which is really neat because you get this information real time where I'm like, I wasn't even thinking that this was an interesting search, but as soon as I searched it and I saw that graph, I was like, oh, well, this is actually something that maybe is. Is growing and maybe not as, not as common as I thought. And then, yeah, I searched it in Google Trends and it's true. It's just, it's mostly in California and not in many other places.

[Luis]

That's so awesome. This is, this is what the course is, by the way. Ready? It's a five minute. The five minute video of like what we just said. Super simple, right? And then the resources like step one, step two, step three. That's it? Yeah, that's it. I love it. I love. By the way, thank you so much for simplifying this. Right. Like, for example, I, I honestly had.

[Fonzie]

In my mind that it was like this big monster of an activity that you would do that you like, you know, did like half an hour of yoga before diving into the activity just to make sure, you know, you can focus on it. But yeah, thank you so much for putting it in this way is. Honestly, it's pretty empowering. It's like, I feel. I personally feel like I do decent research on stuff, and I. I'm actually trying to build, like, my own subtle casting and all that stuff. You know, we can talk about that another day. But I geek out around those stuff. But at the same time, I'm like, man, am I doing it right? Like, I don't feel like I'm finding stuff that is. And. And maybe I'm juicing my mind, you know, tell myself, like, I'm not finding enough or that good of stuff, and I'm actually are finding good stuff. Stuff. But just hearing your process is kind of like, empowering. Like, okay, okay, I'm on the right path.

[Luis]

You have information fomo, because you find information, and then you're like, how many more hours should I stay here and try to find something?

[Fonzie]

Reading about this. Thank you.

[Luis]

Thank you, Steph. You just saved us many hours.

[Steph Smith]

Well, you know what's funny about that is just many people, Trung, who also works at the Hustle, is, like, incredible at surfacing all types of stuff. And people have asked him the same thing. They're like, trung, can you please do a research course? And he hasn't said this explicitly, but he's basically said, like, you guys, I just spend a ridiculous amount of time online. I just spend way too much of my time on my computer. And I would say the same thing about myself. Like, I spend a lot of time online. So it's only natural that I'm going to find some cool stuff if I spend most of my day online. And so I wouldn't encourage other people to. To do the same, but what I would encourage people to do is, like, craft that information.

[Fonzie]

Okay, sorry, last question about this. I promise, I promise I won't bother about the research side of things, but I'm curious. Okay. You said that he spends a ridiculous amount of time online. Does he spend a ridiculously amount of time online with a purpose? Like, I am doing research for X topic, or he's just literally online and then just pulling a bunch of stuff.

[Steph Smith]

That's a great question. So I can't necessarily speak for Trung, but I do know that I think most of his time is actually with a purpose. And that's actually a great point, is that I know tons of other people who spend, you know, 12 hours a day online that don't find interesting things. But he writes for the Hustle. He also Has a podcast of his own. And so he's out there creating things. And by the nature of creating things, I think you actually, you orient yourself to go down better rabbit holes because they're like, meaningful rabbit holes you'll be writing about. Like Trung, for example, recently wrote about, like, Warren Buffett's incredible investment in Apple. And so just having an orientation, when he starts going down those paths, he ends up finding all types of other stuff. But at least he's got, like, a map versus, I think, to your point, you can get. You can be very unproductive if you have absolutely no map of what you're actually trying to find.

[Fonzie]

Absolutely. I love it.

[Luis]

I think, you know, going back to. To the beginning of. Of the interview to. Or the conversation is, you know, simplify. Start doing it. Make the decision. I'm going to start doing this. And as you continue to put the reps in, whether that's publishing or doing the research, you're going to find frameworks on how you individually work, and then you can build your own system to collect either this research and then to, like, express it out to the world. So I think that's also, for us, has been massively, like, every episode we debrief, and we're like, almost every episode now, we debrief and we're like, what can change? What can move this process forward? And so on. So I think as you execute the research, you're gonna be finding these tools, these sites that your own mind, you're gonna understand how you work and how you can turn that into. Into this content. Now, Steph, last question of the show that the train is calling your name again.

[Fonzie]

We got the.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah, I was gonna say we got the horn.

[Fonzie]

We got the train three times in the show. Look at that.

[Luis]

The train wants to make.

[Steph Smith]

You guys are lucky. Normally it's only once.

[Luis]

Steph, you have to send us a picture of the train. So, like, that will be the COVID for the thumbnail of the episode.

[Fonzie]

And the train.

[Steph Smith]

I was gonna say we had two guests today.

[Luis]

Absolutely. A 2v2 over here. All right, Steph, where. Where will you be if you did not publish?

[Steph Smith]

Where would I be? As in, like, professionally or.

[Luis]

Yeah, I mean, you could take both.

[Fonzie]

If you want to share.

[Luis]

Yeah, I could say you can take it however you want.

[Steph Smith]

So, yeah, if I wasn't focused on content, I was actually thinking about this recently because I never thought I would be what people might consider a content creator. Like, that was never my goal. As I mentioned, I stumbled into it because I had something to say, and so emotionally, I think I would actually, like, struggle to stop posting because I've gotten so used to being able to express myself in this way. It's almost like an outlet for me to share the things that I find uniquely interesting and engage with people in that way. But I think professionally, if I wasn't working in marketing per se, I do actually want to move back to science at some point. Exactly what aspect of science? I'm not sure. I mean, there's a ton of work, obviously, on climate change, but I miss aspects of, like, the, like, scientific approach and experimentation. And you get a lot of that in marketing. But I also miss, I guess one aspect of marketing that I think isn't fully true but speaks to me, is that, like marketing, you're often not discovering anything new. Right. Like, you're using existing processes and maybe, like, playing around with them or maneuvering in a way that someone hasn't before. But the thing that I find fascinating about, like, more of the hard sciences is that you're really, like, you're. You're like, on the frontier of discovering new things. And so I do miss elements of that. But I also, like I said, I think there are a lot more parallels between marketing and something like biology or chemistry than people think. So, yeah, if I wasn't podcasting or tweeting, I would probably be doing that.

[Luis]

Yeah.

[Fonzie]

So interesting. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.

[Luis]

Very unique. I think we've heard one like that before. We love this question. So, Steph, where can people connect with you? Where can people see your content, your blog, your everything? And obviously, we're going to put all the links right below, but for those listening.

[Steph Smith]

Yeah. So my site is StephSmith IO, so that has all of the links. The most prominent ones are Twitter. I'm on Twitter StephSmithio because of my site. And then my podcast is the shit you don't learn in school. You can also find it at listenandlearn.co. and then my book, which we mentioned, is doing content. Right. You can find [e-mail] and. Yeah, I think that's it.

[Fonzie]

All right, we're gonna put all those links at the bottom. So make sure you scroll down, tap them all, open all the links, buy everything, sign up on everything, support. Yes, Seth, I think today I'm going to have to remove one of the newsletters that I follow, and I'm going to add you to my five newsletters that I read on a consistent basis. I mean, I. First, I got to ask, do you have A newsletter that you send consistently.

[Steph Smith]

I was going to say I haven't sent it for a very long time, like over a year. So I'll let you know when it relaunches, if it ever does. But. But next time we're going to have to do this again and bring some beers and yes, hopefully by then I'll have a new newsletter.

[Fonzie]

Let's go. That sounds amazing.

[Luis]

Contents. Profit is always your. So, yes, we're gonna, we're gonna do that. Steph, anything else you want to add before we head out?

[Steph Smith]

No, just hopefully next time the train won't be surprised.

[Fonzie]

It's all good.

[Luis]

That was so good.

[Fonzie]

Next time we'll include the train, you know, and we'll do like a whole hook with the train and everything.

[Steph Smith]

The train needs a formal invite.

[Fonzie]

Yeah.

[Luis]

Yes, we'll do that. And at the train. Fonty, anything else you want to add?

[Fonzie]

No. Thank you so much for coming, Steph. This was absolutely amazing and I can't wait to share the. The surprise. Yeah, coming.

[Luis]

It's coming. All right, with that said, guys, thank you so much for tuning to the Contest Profit podcast. Go ahead and follow the show and our social media at Beast Rose.

[Fonzie]

Go.

[Luis]

I got it.

[Fonzie]

That is step today. Help you move one step closer towards your goal. Please don't forget to share this episode and follow and and leave a five star review. See ya.

[Luis]

Bye, guys.