We Audited This Podcast—Here's Why It Isn't Growing

Summary

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Podcast Playbook: Helping Coaches & Advisors Convert Podcast Content into Clients

Episode: We Audited This Podcast—Here's Why It Isn't Growing

Hosts: Justin Peters (with guest cohosts Emily & Cassidy from Finance Girlies)
Date: July 28, 2026

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Overview of Episode

This episode inaugurates a new "live audit" format on the Podcast Playbook, focusing on Emily & Cassidy's Finance Girlies Podcast. Justin conducts a deep dive into why the show isn’t experiencing clear growth, despite strong consistency and branding. The main theme is "How niche is niche enough?"—a universal problem for business podcasters seeking to transform their shows from content drains into business assets.

Justin explores the critical aspects of audience focus, podcast positioning, and sustainable growth, with actionable advice and real-time coaching for the hosts.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Strengths of Finance Girlies Podcast

(00:59 – 03:44)

• Visual Branding
  • Commended for strong, cohesive, and on-brand cover art, website, and Instagram visuals.
    • "I love your visual branding...your cover art, your website, your Instagram...very fitting with the niche that you’re trying to target." — Justin [01:23]
  • Cassidy is credited as the design lead.
• Consistency
  • Weekly publishing for 18 months with no significant lapses.
    • "Consistency is your girl superpower...18 months now is fairly impressive." — Justin [02:07]
  • The duo dynamic makes sustained consistency possible.
    • "It’s only easy because there are two of us...If I was trying to do this podcast by myself, it would not be consistent at all." — Cassidy [02:33]
• Relatability as Hosts
  • Apparent through storytelling, transparency in both wins and mistakes, and accessible attitudes (not “over-expert”).
    • "You’re down to go out, do the real things in life, come back, share the results, and you’re okay saying where you messed up or where you felt like you got wins." — Justin [03:27]

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2. Quick Wins for Immediate Improvement

(03:51 – 06:29)

• Add RSS Feed to YouTube

  • Unlocks distribution on YouTube Music.
  • "By adding your RSS feed to YouTube, you’ll be on YouTube Music too..." — Justin [04:01]

• Revamp Podcast Description with a Strong Listener-Focused Hook

  • Move away from generic intro lines; lead with a compelling, empathetic question.
    • Example: "You’re smart, you’re capable, and you’re doing fine in life. So why does money still feel so confusing?" — Justin [05:09]
  • Early lines should immediately address potential new listeners' curiosity.

• Drop “The” from Podcast Title

  • "The" dilutes keyword weight in search; move “Finance” to the very front.
    • "The earlier the word in the podcast title, the more heavily weighted it is...‘Finance’ might be, ‘girlies’ maybe." — Justin [05:33]

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3. The Core Growth Challenge: Are We Niched Down Enough?

(06:29 – 38:16)

Defining the Niche

• Current Avatar:

  • Millennial and Gen Z women who feel alienated by traditional “bro-y” finance advice.
  • More creative personalities with whimsical goals rather than aggressive accumulation.
    • "We are a money podcast for Millennial and Gen Z women who have traditionally felt shut out of financial advice." — Cassidy [07:41]

• Listener "Personas":

  1. Knowledgeable but non-expert, stable earners looking for depth.
  2. Creative entrepreneurs, novices, or hesitant to invest.
  3. Family-supported creatives needing a foundation.
  • "We do have these great, like super fans I would call them, but they’re kind of different..." — Emily [08:38]

• Who It’s Not For

  • Explicitly excludes “finance bros,” men, materialistic status-seekers, and “self-centered” earners.
    • "The most obvious one is like...the dude bros of the finance world. Men." — Cassidy [11:03]
    • "People who are not interested in using money to make the world a better place..." — Emily [11:52]

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Drilling Down: Audience Transformation, Stage, and Cohesion

• Focus Areas for Sharpening Niche:

  1. Listener’s Desired Transformation/Goal
     • "Is your listener in debt right now? Is your listener making good money but just doesn’t know how to invest?" — Justin [15:34]
  2. Stage in Journey
     • Are listeners true financial beginners, or “beginners to investing” already managing their basics?
     • "Beginner honestly too also needs to be defined. Where are they beginning and what are they beginning?" — Justin [17:25]
  3. Income Structure
     • Should the show lean into freelancers, W2 earners, or another group aligned with the hosts’ own lives?
  4. Money Goal
     • Debt freedom, investing first $100K, or values-based spending?

• How to Niche Down Over Time

  • Justin recommends choosing one segment to focus on each month and aligning all content to it, then gradually iterating.
    • "Make one decision every five episodes, and then I kind of pick another narrowness and go down another narrowness path." — Justin [19:36]
    • "Over the course of the summer...pick one segment that you really want to focus on." — Justin [20:41]

• Content Cohesion: The Key to Stickiness

  • Every episode should clearly serve the chosen niche, even if the surface topic varies—reframing is crucial.
    • "I also do like how...you can still kind of talk about what you want, but it’s all in the framing of how you’re talking." — Cassidy [25:14]
  • Episodic consistency ensures new listeners find multiple relevant episodes in a row.
    • "Someone listens to one episode, they love that episode...they look at the next three episodes and they’re like, yep, I need that one, and I need that one..." — Justin [24:51]
  • Example: Debt payoff episode could be reframed for the “nervous investor”—"How to pay off your debt so you can start investing faster."
  • Allow 1 in 8 episodes to be “for the fun of the game” or off-pattern.

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4. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It’s only easy because there are two of us. If I was trying to do this podcast by myself, it would not be consistent at all. And I can say that with my full chest." — Cassidy [02:33]
• "The branding alone eliminates 50% of the population and men shouldn’t be tuning into it. And I love that you guys lean into feminine topics sometimes." — Justin [11:14]
• "Framing is not something that I have thought about before as we’ve been planning content—it’s just been kind of random...it needs to kind of tie back to this overarching thing." — Cassidy [25:34]
• "You guys got the makings of hosts. For content, I just want to start tying it together so there is that stickiness." — Justin [27:50]
• "Internally we have started saying WWJD—What Would Justin Do?" — Cassidy [27:43]

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5. Guest Strategy: Moving from Reactive to Intentional

(29:33 – 34:50)

• Current State:
  • No strong filter; most guests self-pitch, and stories are taken at face value.
    • "At first it was like, you know, who wants to come on our show? And then we got a lot more interest than we anticipated." — Emily [29:40]
• Recommended Upgrades:
  1. Outbound efforts to source guests serving your chosen niche/topic.
  2. Proactive framing of guest requests so each story serves the core audience transformation.
     • "Our primary goal is to help people move from not investing to investing their first dollar—can we frame your story to fit that somehow?" — Justin [32:30]
  3. Seek guests with overlapping audiences for cross-promotional collaborations beyond a single episode.

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6. Metrics That Matter

(27:50 – 29:33)

• Track Return Listens (Downloads per Listener)
  • Use listener/download ratio to measure audience “stickiness.”
  • Healthy sign: ratio rises above 2–3 (i.e., listeners are coming back).
  • "Podcast growth is two part…how many listeners can I get to come back and listen...once all the new listeners are just stacking on top of your existing listeners, that's when you start seeing the hockey stick effect." — Justin [28:50]

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7. Actionable Takeaways & Closing Wisdom

• Clarify your audience in increments.
• “Framing” is a powerful, underused tool: you don’t need to change topics, just shape every episode to target the ideal listener’s current problem or stage.
• Be intentional in your guest sourcing and overall content map.
• Measure what matters (repeat engagement, not just total reach).
• Don’t expect instant clarity—audience focus should evolve steadily, not all at once.
  • "I find really narrowing in on your listener avatar a very challenging exercise to do. I don’t find much success trying to narrow in fast. I find success chipping away at it slowly." — Justin [19:36]

Final Note:
Niching down isn’t about limiting your show—it’s about giving your audience a clear reason to care, listen, and subscribe.
— Justin [38:16]

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Recommended Episodes to Start With (from hosts)

• "Investing Before You’re Ready"
• "Rethinking the Emergency Fund"

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Important Timestamps

• 00:59 – Justin’s three favorite things about the show
• 03:51 – Three quick, actionable wins
• 06:29 – The main audit begins: Have we niched down enough?
• 15:34 – Defining target listener transformation/goals
• 20:41 – Gradually niching down: monthly focus strategy
• 24:51 – Framing episodes for audience stickiness
• 29:33 – Guest strategy evolution
• 27:50 – Tracking downloads per listener
• 38:16 – Key takeaway: The purpose of niching down

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Tone:
Supportive, practical, and direct, with in-the-trenches anecdotes and plenty of friendly teasing and affirmation.

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This summary captures the full scope of advice and live audit insights for business podcasters wanting to transform good content into sustainable show growth.

Transcript

[A]

Have we niched down enough? That's the question at the center of today's listener audit featuring Emily and Cassidy from the Finance Girlies Podcast. Welcome to Podcast Playbook. I'm Justin Peters. In this new episode format, I'm working directly with listeners to audit their shows in real time, offering live coaching focused on clarity, position and long term growth. Over the next five months, I'll be producing five of these audits. So if you'd like the opportunity to have your podcast reviewed, join our email newsletter and reply with your question. You can sign up for our email [e-mail] Newsletter or simply use the link in the show notes. So today we're going to be exploring how the Finance Girlies can sharpen their focus and answer the question many creators eventually will face. How niche is niche enough? Let's get into it. Emily Cassidy, welcome to Podcast Playbook.

[B]

Thank you. We're happy to be here.

[A]

Yeah, I've known you guys for what, over a year now at this point in time? Love your guys show. It's not really built for me, but as someone that has created a lot of podcasts in the personal finance space, this one touched home for me and I got really excited thinking about your show both from that perspective and honestly, just as a podcast coach. But first, I really want to start with a couple of three quick things that I really loved about your guys show and I'm curious to see if you guys thought the same things for your own show too. Number one is your visual branding. I love your visual branding. I don't know which of the two of you guys do a lot of the branding here, but your cover art, your website, your Instagram, you guys are such good designers or have or have hired the right designer. I think it's very fitting with the niche that you're. You're trying to target. And I'm like, man, I need to hire these girls to do my stuff.

[B]

Wow. That's all, that's all Cassidy. She has a gift.

[A]

Good stuff, Cassidy. Even like the, the friendship bracelets on the, the COVID art and I feel like that's really good messaging through visual branding. Number two is consistency. Like consistency is your girl superpower. You guys have been doing weekly episodes since December 2024. So we're almost 18 months in on weekly episodes and the weekly grind is hard. So the fact that I know you guys can do this over and over again for 18 months now is fairly impressive. Do you guys feel the consistency is something easy for you guys to do or is It a drag sometimes.

[C]

I personally feel like it. It's easy. And I will say that it's easy with the caveat of it's only easy because there are two of us. So I feel like when one of us is struggling, the other one can pick up the slack. If I was trying to do this podcast by myself, it would not be consistent at all. And I can say that with my full chest. But because we have each other, I feel like we just keep it going.

[B]

That's true. I think that's honestly the. The hack is like the accountability with each other, so makes it easier.

[A]

I should have figured that one out. But now Kyle and I work on this show together, which is a lot better. We can move things along pretty nicely together. The last thing that I really loved about your guys, this show is your relatability as host. I really think you guys got something going on here. You guys don't act like the expert, but you're not also afraid to, like, shy away from, you know, sharing your opinion, which I really appreciate. And you're down to, like, test things out and share results. I found that really refreshing with a couple of your guys episodes. The car buying experience. There were a few episodes where I was like, ooh, that was fun. That, like, they tried this. Oh, the travel reimbursement episode too. I thought that was fun. Like, you guys are down to, like, go out, do the real things in life, come back, share the results, and, like, you're okay saying where you messed up or where you felt like you. You got wins, which is kind of cool.

[B]

Yeah, those episodes are fun, and we have experience in some of these things, and anytime we can share that, we're willing to.

[A]

Let's move on to three quick wins. These are three things that I noticed kind of immediately that I think you guys can put into play within 30 minutes after this episode. And number one is just adding your RSS feed to YouTube. I don't know if you guys have done this or tried to do this before. I didn't see a YouTube page out there at all. And by adding your rss feed to YouTube, you'll be on YouTube Music too, which is quickly becoming a pretty hot podcast player that's out there. So if you guys need instructions afterwards on how to add the rss feed to YouTube, I think it's a super easy thing to do. Requires no maintenance after the fact either. Number two is to add a hook to your podcast description. I shared a little bit in the written audit about this, but it starts with welcome to The Finance Girlies podcast, a money podcast for Gurley's whole. And there's still nothing really there yet with all of those words. I think just adding something kind of hooky that's really focused on the listener could be great. One example I wrote down here is you're smart, you're capable, and you're doing fine in life. So why does money still feel so confusing? Kind of starting somewhere there. And then you can immediately go into that next line of welcome to the Finance Girlies podcast. But honestly, they already know they're reading the Finance Girlies podcast description. They know it's a podcast. They probably already know it's a money podcast too. So most of those early lines there aren't really hooking a listener in immediately. And the people who are listen reading podcast descriptions are typically people that are stumbling on a new podcast and doing a one layer deeper search, trying to figure out, do I need to listen to this podcast? Is this podcast for me? And then last but not least is I don't know how you guys feel about this as writers at heart too, but just dropping the from the podcast name, uh, it's the Finance Girlies. And I don't know if you guys feel confident or comfortable with it just being Finance Girlies. It can still even be the on the COVID art itself, so you don't have to change the COVID art. You guys can refer to it as the Finance Girlies or the Finance Girlies podcast. But I know that podcast search weights podcast names so heavy. And the earlier the word and the na in the podcast title, the more heavily weighted it is. And your heaviest weighted word right now is the. And you're probably competing against a lot of other podcasts who use the as the very first word too. And I'm guessing the is not a part of your guys's podcast strat the search strategy whatsoever. But finance might be girlies maybe. And you also use money and women and your guys subtitle. So all of those are great and rich. Would love to get those closer to the front and just remove something like the. That's probably not adding a lot of value. Anything that jumps out to you guys

[B]

on that, that seems like a great idea and one we've never considered. I'm glad you brought that up.

[C]

Yeah, I had no idea that it weights the first word the most. So I'm learning something over here.

[A]

But let's get into the big hurdle. So I asked you guys, like, what do you feel like is your biggest hurdle right now as content creators? Specifically podcasters and you guys came back with four questions. You said audience growth primarily. But we really want to talk about these four specific questions. What are the numbers actually telling us? Are we getting the right guest on our show? Is our content cohesive? And have we niched down enough? And I don't think we'll have enough time to cover all four of those questions, but I really want to spend time on that very last one, which is have you niched down enough? So before I share any thoughts on that, let's flip things to you first, like, who does the finance girlies podcast serve?

[C]

So it's funny that you say this, because we, I feel like, for most of the past year, have felt like we had kind of no clue who we were speaking to outside of Millennial and Gen Z women, which is an incredibly large group of people. And so we actually did a coaching call with you several months ago, and you gave us the feedback to try to niche down a little bit. And from that call, I do feel like we have niched down much more than we have before, but definitely still not enough. And so what we landed on that felt much better than what we had previously was that we are a money podcast for Millennial and Gen Z women who have traditionally felt shut out of financial advice. Like, maybe it felt a little bit too bro y or like it wasn't focused on the right thing. I think a lot of the women, specifically who we're speaking to, like, maybe they identify as being, like, more of a creative or, I don't know, they have fun and whimsical financial goals that they're trying to reach. You know, definitely fit. They definitely fit into, like, more of the girly vibe. So, yeah, like, we. We have. We know specific people in our lives where we're like, okay, whenever we think of who we're trying to create an episode for, we think of Paulina, for example, you know, so I think we have just, like, that's as far as we've gotten.

[A]

That's fair. Emily, how about you?

[B]

I want to add, like, our listeners are interested in money as, like, a tool to live the life that they want to live and not just, like, getting really rich just to have a lot of money or, like, you know, working as, like, the number one priority in their life. And then also, Cassidy, to what you said about, you know, we have these actual listeners who we think about when we're creating episodes and creating content. I think that's almost. That can almost trip me up a little bit, because, I mean, we do have these Great. Like super fans I would call them, but they're kind of different. Like, I can think of like three off the top of my head who are in different financial places in life. So yeah, I don't know what to do with that.

[A]

Share more what are those three different financial places from the three listeners that are in your mind right now?

[B]

Okay, so one is, I would say, checking all the boxes. Probably knows quite a bit more than the average person in her stage makes a decent living, but by no means is like a super high earner, understands like the basics of investing and insurance and all these things, but, like, is curious to go deeper and just wants to learn more. So that's one. And then another, I would say is like a creative entrepreneur is somewhat curious but like not ready to like invest, for example, thinks that's still out of reach for her and is more just trying to figure out, like, can I make money work for me on like a day to day, month to month basis? And then that last person might be somebody who has like family support, is able to pursue a creative career, but knows that like those two things, lifestyle and income, don't totally mesh and is just like interested in, you know, kind of building more of that foundation on her own.

[A]

Cool. I think that's helpful to some extent. What about the inverse of the question? Sometimes this almost brings more clarity whenever I'm talking with clients and prospects. Who is someone that this podcast is not for List. Some people just bullet it out. Let's go back and forth. Maybe you each give three.

[C]

I mean, I think the most obvious one is like the dude bros of the finance world Men.

[A]

Let's just call it. Let's just call it men in general. Like, I don't, no offense to you, but I'm probably not listening to the Finance Girlies as one of my podcasts that I'm listening to, but I think that's great. I think the branding alone eliminates 50% of the population and men shouldn't be tuning into it. And I love that you guys lean into feminine topics sometimes. So yeah, I love, I love crossing out men, especially finance, bro.

[C]

Even I was going to say, I do think there are some girlies at heart who are probably men, but that's like a very small subsect where I'm like, you are more than welcome to come over here into our space.

[B]

Yeah, we have one, like, favorite listener who's a dude.

[A]

Yeah, I love that the, the small resident men group that are allowed to listen to the show.

[C]

Yeah, right, right.

[A]

Another one.

[B]

I would say people who are not interested in using money to make the

[A]

world a better place, their reasoning for having money is not self centered to some regard, I guess. Or.

[B]

Yeah. And this might be a little too abstract, but in my mind, like the people who are listening to our show, who we want listening to our show are like just very down to earth. Down to earth, like want to earn money but. And to like live a great life but also support.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good causes.

[A]

I see that come across in some of your guys's content. You've done a lot of conscious consumerism episodes. You know, your Valentine's Day episode was. Was that. So I definitely see you guys tilting towards values based spending and earning to some degree. So I think you guys are. Are definitely trying to eliminate a population of people who are once again probably finance bro Y and I want to be rich for the sake of being rich and I want to buy big things and I want that to show up in my life.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in that same vein, like I can think of one platform that is geared toward women, but it's, I don't know, it's like very materialistic and like buy all of these like fashion designer things and live in your like high rise New York apartment that probably cost 10 grand a month and all that stuff. And I, I will say that like, if any of our listeners decide that is what a fulfilling, enriched life means to them, then I'd be like, you go for it. That's beautiful. But I don't think by and large we are trying to attract that subsect of the women population either, where it's like, I really care about all of these materialistic and like beauty standardy things.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's good. And I've definitely worked on a show where it was elevated finance. It was people that anything less than $250,000 of income probably felt small. And there was some big goals in terms of financial purchases for this population and they served that population very well. They use rich a lot and the language and in the framing of podcast episodes. And they attracted that. And I like that. And I like that you guys are, you know, immediately girlies and finance girlies. You got to figure out, is this, is this a show for girls that know a lot about finance? Is this a show about. For girls that want to get rich? Is this a show that maybe is somewhere in the middle, which is kind of where you guys are trying to carve out your space right now with some of this in mind and some of the responses that you're getting. I think one big thing that I would really suggest for you guys is starting to bring some of the broadness into more focus. And over the course of the summer, I left in your guys's written audit too. I'd love for you guys to just pick one area and narrow it in every single month. And I gave some suggestions, but I really think three areas that I always talk to clients about in terms of a listener avatar and getting more clear to who they're serving is what is the listener's desired transformation or goal. So I think I would think through that and I would be probably even more specific than you are. You are now. You know something for me that I'd love to ask you guys, like, is your listener in debt right now? Is your listener making good money but just doesn't know how to invest? Like, there are a couple of different goals that I think could probably show up for your listener. And are you helping them? Is their transformation getting out of debt? Is there transformation that they want? Investing for the first time confidently? I think there are a couple of goals that could float around that if you guys narrow in on one, you guys could really serve a specific kind of finance girly. Next up is where they're at in their journey too. And this one felt a little muddled. At first I thought you were a beginner friendly podcast and I think most your episodes do reflect beginner friendly. But then there are a few episodes that kind of stray from that to an extent. Like Sean Mulaney's episode is probably the most obvious. And I know Sean Mulaney well too, and he's a wealth of knowledge. And I think if I remember, even in your intro you said, hey, this is probably a little intermediate. And don't worry, we have other episodes that cover these kind of topics. The title was so good though. It was like Roth versus or a 401k versus Roth. Where do you invest first? And I that felt like a very beginner friendly episode. But within five minutes, I didn't feel like it was beginner friendly anymore. And I think you guys kind of knew it accidentally went that direction. That episode probably just needed a little bit of framing if it was gonna stay beginner friendly or I don't know if you guys are serving maybe the intermediate crowd. It was a great, I felt like, intermediate crowd episode. Where do you guys feel right away, Are you trying to attract the beginner friendly finance girlies or are you trying to serve to Emily's call out earlier that that one listener who probably knows a little bit more than the average about finances.

[B]

My like, immediate reaction is like, I, I do want to be beginner friendly. I think where I'm like interested in the intermediate person is like the level of interest they have. I feel like, and maybe this is just kind of a limiting belief, but to me a challenge with attracting like people beginners is like the beginning is hard. And it's like until you know a little bit you're almost less interested in why should I care about an HSA until I know you know a little bit more? So that's my unfiltered thoughts. Kassidy, what do you think?

[A]

Can I follow up on that real quick too? Oh yeah, Beginner honestly too also needs to be defined. Where are they beginning and what are they beginning? I think are two questions that you might want to ask yourself on that front too. I am with you, Emily. My original show, at one point the focus was trying to convince people to care about personal finances. And you know, and I saw how powerful it was and how much freedom it was going to give me and I really wanted to help people that were at the very, very beginning, probably not even thinking about personal finances. But it was so hard to convert that crowd. It was so hard for them to care about personal finance topics and especially spending their time listening to podcast about them. But I did find a certain beginner. It was the person that had taken a couple initial steps. They had income stability and they were doing some of the right things. They were out of debt. They were usually making prudent, you know, financial purchases. They were the people that, hey, I never spent more than what was in my checking account. But then they were stuck at that obstacle where they're like, but I know I should be doing more with my money right now. Like, I'm at the beginning of my investing journey. But I just, I feel very safe with $40,000 in my checking account. People are telling me I should invest, but I also hear the stock market is bad and you can lose all your money. And I don't want to do that. But I know I need to start doing something right now to set my future self up. So like, once again, maybe it's not a beginner to personal finance, but maybe it's a beginner to investing and that's who you're serving.

[C]

I agree with everything that you said then I do think if you are brand new to investing or haven't done it yet, you are in that position where you're like, I think that financially I'm doing Okay. And also I feel stuck about what to do next. And I know that I need to do more and I know that I should do more, but I'm just confused and fuzzy on the details. And I think that, that truly, if I had to pick someone that we're speaking to, it would be more of that crowd. Are they a beginner in some way? I guess technically, but they already have the buy in of being somewhat good with their money and being interested enough to learn more. And that feels like an easier crowd to speak to and kind of hook in than like a true beginner where it's like, here's why you should be interested in getting your money in order in the first place.

[B]

Yeah, I agree.

[A]

I find really narrowing in on your listener avatar a very challenging exercise to do. And I don't find much success trying to narrow in fast. I find success kind of chipping away at it slowly, where I make one decision every five episodes, and then I kind of pick another narrowness and go down another narrowness path. So like I said, my recommendation for you guys is over the course of the summer, May, June, July, pick one segment that you really want to focus on. And I, I, I left a few, and I'll read these few to you here. The very first month could be something like their financial stage. Where are they actually starting the conversation that we were just having? They're not actively investing yet. Maybe they recently started investing, but they're confused if they're doing the right thing. They're actively investing, but they're not sure if they got it all right right now. Maybe they're in debt and they're trying to get to investing, but the debt's weighing them down. Like, you guys make a, like, decide at what is the financial stage that we're typically serving our ideal listeners. And that's all you focus on for May. And where it's got to show up is every episode that you do in May, you ask yourself, are the questions I'm asking, the content I'm covering focused on that specific stage, and then you move to the next. So something like June might be income structure, and you guys have mentioned this a couple of times, it could be W2 earners, it could be freelancers. Like, a lot. I know. I feel that you guys want to bring some of your freelancer personality into the podcast. Like, I feel you guys holding that back sometimes. But, like, you guys have such interest right there. So maybe you do lean into freelancers or you lean into business owners, or maybe you don't lean into any of that, but you actually lean into income stability or, you know, instability with income. Like a freelancer would show up. And then maybe finally you do money goals. Like, what are they optimizing for? Are they optimizing for, you know, sustainability? Are they optimizing for investing their first hundred thousand dollars right now? Do they want debt freedom? Do they want finance freelancing success? Do they want to retire early? Like, pick one of those goals? A lot of those goals intertwine, but I think if you guys picked one of those goals and really got focused on one of those goals and served, you could. And I think the dovetail on that.

[C]

It's.

[A]

That's going to fall into content cohesion then. So let's look at, like, your last couple of episodes and where this might show up kind of differently moving forward. Like, let's say that you, you know, Cassidy, you are. We're starting to serve those people that are at the beginner stage of their investing journey. They haven't pressed the buttons. They haven't made the connection between, okay, I got too much money in my checking account and I want to start investing it. They haven't done that step yet. And that's who you're serving, and that's trying your help, who you're trying to help. And you. A couple of your episodes really land with this audience. You know, episode 67, why you don't feel ready to invest and how to start anyway, hit the bullseye with that episode. But something like your latest episode, she didn't want to shrink her lifestyle, so she paid off $150,000 in debt fast. Probably doesn't hit that bullseye. I think we know if you decide that the listener is stable, they don't have any debt, they're starting to stack money in their checking account, but they, they have this fear of taking the next step and starting to invest. Well, then this person doesn't really care about debt. Or you could maybe slightly ref. Like reframe that podcast episode where it's, I want to start investing, but I have debt. So you know that that episode could be about how to pay off your debt quickly so you can really start investing. And you could have the exact same conversation, but you could just frame it just a little bit differently, a little bit stronger. So it's always for that person that wants to start investing. Or it could have just been simply, should I start investing if I have debt? And you tackle that question instead. So, like I said, just a little bit of framing on that. And that one felt almost Contradictory too, to the conscious consumerism. Like she didn't want to shrink her lifestyle. Like she didn't want to. She didn't want to be more frugal. She didn't want to take a step back. But then on the same sense, that kind of conflicted against this whole values based spending too. Or maybe it didn't. Like I didn't, I didn't have time to jump into that, that episode. But just looking at the title felt a little contradictory. And then, yeah, I'd run it down. These whole things, like, seven smart ways to use your tax refund in 2026. Love that episode. It was fun, it was light, it was very beginner friendly. Once again, if you're really focused on the person that's got to get started investing, I would have probably had an episode about how to use your tax refund to make your first investment. If you want to stay on the people that are just trying to get over the very first hurdles there, then I think that episode was great. If you want to focus on people who are trying to overcome debt, it would have been how to use your tax refund to pay off your debt. So I, I find this really challenging as a grader because I love covering a bunch of different topics that probably serve a lot of different listeners. But at the same time, the stickiness episode to episode then starts to fall apart a little bit. And then all of a sudden you have someone that's tuning in for one episode. Then there's like three episodes that don't really relate to them. They might come back for the fifth episode. They might never come back to your podcast feed and find the right one. We want to really quickly figure out. Someone listens to one episode, they love that episode. They look at the next three episodes and they're like, yep, I need that one, and I need that one, and I need that one now.

[B]

Yeah, I have the same thought as you. Like, I'm afraid of getting bored.

[A]

You know, I hear you, but I

[B]

also see the value. I mean, I've even been a big fan of podcasts that feel like, oh, one episode is for me, one isn't, and then I kind of fall off. So I do understand.

[C]

I was gonna say, I also do like how I feel like you're saying you can still kind of talk about what you want, but it's all in the framing of how you're talking about what you want. Like, it needs to kind of tie back to this overarching thing. And truthfully, the framing is not something that I have thought about before. As we've been planning content, it's just been kind of random. Like, this sounds interesting. We're gonna do it without the secondary step of being like, okay, but how can we kind of twist this just slightly to still fit this one thing or this one avatar or whatever? So I do really like that suggestion. It feels like a light bulb moment in my head.

[A]

I loved, like, the individual episodes themselves. You guys are. You're good content creators. I can tell you've gotten the reps in, and I'm not surprised that you're, you know, round episode 70 right now. You feel like a experienced podcaster at this point in time. And every episode, you're very good at the intros. Like, you. You can frame an episode great in the introduction. You're good at asking deeper questions in your interviews. You, Emily and Cassie, you guys both kind of play off each other well, and you're open to sharing. And Cassie, you share a little bit more. Emily's a little bit more reserved. You guys can poke fun at each other. Like, you guys got the. The juice on that. I think now it's, how do you take those individual episodes and then tie them all into a podcast mission or a podcast theme? Like, how does. How does this become. This was the episode. I shared this episode because it was good for my friend versus I want to share this podcast with you now. Like, this podcast is for you, not just this episode is for you. And like I said, I think just a little bit more cohesion and all of these episodes would be great. And I think a good something that you guys could spend some time on this summer is always be looking at your last eight episodes and just look at those and be like, is there a through line between all of these? Like, is there a reason? And, you know, one or two every eight is allowed to be for the fun of the game. Emily, like, like, you just wanted to cover this topic and it was fun and we did our best to, like, kind of frame it to our ideal listener, but maybe it just didn't hit the bullseye, but seven out of eight of them should be hitting the bullseye with whatever you decide is the overall podcast promise. Like, the one thing that your podcast is really delivering on episode to episode, month to month, year to year, Love it.

[B]

I think we can start to do that in our content planning also.

[C]

I just want to throw in a little aside, but Emily and I. Well, Emily has really spearheaded, like, diving deep into all of your resources, Justin, and taking notes to be like, this is these are the changes you need to make to our podcast. And internally we have started saying wwjd. What would Justin do?

[A]

Oh my God, I love that, I

[C]

love that we have said it several times.

[A]

So that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, you guys are so fun. Like I said, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't feed your guys ego. I'm actually, I, I, I like to be a straightforward podcast coach and I like to like really meet people where they're at. And I'm happy to like pat you on the back where you're doing well, but I wouldn't pat you on the back where I felt like you're not doing well, but you got the makings of host. And for content, I just want to start tying it together so there is that stickiness. I do want to see a really good metric that you guys could also start looking at. I don't know, oh, you guys host on Buzzsprout. So I don't know if they give you the number of listeners, but you can get numbers of listeners and Apple Podcast Connect and Spotify and then divide that by the number of downloads and then you can start to see how many downloads per listener. And the higher the number, the better. Like most people are going to fall in between 1 to 2. So like for every listener they have, a listener has got to listen to one to two of their episodes. Once you start getting in the two plus three plus four plus range, you know, you have some stickiness that's happening. Like, you know, people are coming back and podcast growth is two part. Podcast growth, of course, is how many new listeners can I get to the show? But then there's the secondary, how many listeners can I get to come back and listen to an episode? And once you, you stop losing or cycling through so many people and having to replace them, but instead all the new listeners are just stacking on top of your existing listeners. That's when you start seeing the hockey stick effect or just like the slow growth that happens. You know, it's 80 listeners one month, then it's a hundred listeners the next, then it's 125, then it's 200, then it's 400. Like all of a sudden you're gonna have to start thinking less about growth metrics too, because your listeners are gonna start doing the word of mouth marketing that really escalates a podcast growth.

[B]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[A]

How do you guys feel like you're doing on the guesting fronts?

[B]

We don't have much of a strategy behind It. At first it was like, you know, who wants to come on our show? And then we got a lot more interest than we anticipated. And so we honestly just had, like, a line of people, you know, wanting to be on the show, and we kind of said yes to everybody. And I think it wasn't until, like, maybe around last fall, when we, like, went to fincon and met a lot of people and had kind of, like an uptick in interest again, that we started somewhat, you know, having to say no to some people. But there has not been much thought about it.

[A]

Cassie, anything to add there or mostly agree?

[C]

No, I. Yeah, I think that sums it up. We've kind of had no strategy up until this point, but I've been very fortunate to just have an influx of people that have reached out to us that want to be on our show. And I. I think also, to go back to your point of framing, a lot of people, we have a podcast intake form that they fill out, and then we just look through the Google spreadsheet and be, this person looks good. This person looks good. And a lot of them are pitching kind of their own area of expertise. And we. We have just been like, that's the. How. The episode where the person paid off 150k in debt. Like, that is her story that she shares whenever she's on podcasts, for example. And so we've just kind of been taking whatever they say is their expertise and being like, we think this story would be good for our podcast. And that's as far as we've gone.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. No surprises there. I think you're doing what a lot of podcasters are doing on that front. But I think you're ready for the evolution of stage two. And I think stage two shows up in a couple of ways. A outbound becomes way more important. You guys are searching for the right guest. You guys hit a topic that you're like, I. I have to cover this topic. Like, our audience wants this topic. Therefore, it's my job, my responsibility, to curate the best guest for this topic. So I'd love to see some more of that happening, too. Second is, I can typically make any guest work, but to cast to your point, it's the framing. So maybe you get a very interesting guest. The pitch kind of works, but you might need. Need to spend a little bit more time back and forth with that guest. Like, oh, your debt story was really interesting. But our primary goal with this podcast is to help people move from not investing to investing their first dollar. Can we frame that Somehow, like what are your ideas? Like how does your story relate to that? And I might go back and forth with a guest a little bit, especially if it's like a friend that I would love to promote on the show or just a person that I would be personally interested in, like doing more research on. But just try to get to a topic that feels aligned with the audience that I'm trying to serve with the podcast. So spend a little bit of time on that. And then I think lastly is selfishly too, seeking out guests that have your ideal audience and really starting to use outbound guest pitching opportunities for them as a way to initiate and nurture a relationship that you want to grow into. Something that's probably going to be a little bit bigger than just a one time podcast desk appearance on the Finance Girlies. Hopefully a podcast appearance on their show or an invite to share with their community or a collaboration on a future project or course that you create or something like that. I don't know if you guys listen to like Money with Katie, but you guys, I feel like are straddling a little bit of like the Money with Katie audience. I mean there's tons of your guys's audience that's out there. The non finance bro y shows, of course, the non super beginner debt payoff people, but the people that are really serving the audience that you're trying to curate and like I said, using some of your guesting opportunities to or your guest spots to build relationships with those people.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. We have been starting to finally put ourselves out there as like we want to be guests on other shows, you know what you're saying? Like people who have audiences that we want to tap into. But I don't think we've really considered the reverse of that, like bringing them into our show to kind of achieve a similar goal. Yeah, but it's a great idea.

[A]

I say this all the time and I'm sure you've probably seen me write about it or talk about it too. I don't rely on inviting guests on and them potentially sharing it to their audience as a legitimate strategy for growing. Like I can expect and I can't assume that someone is going to share it, but it's typically the start of a relationship that ends up turning into multiple times where we overlap our audiences. Like I said, maybe we do a joint Instagram live or I write a guest post in their newsletter or I come on their show or we do a limited series on our shows together. Like there's usually like, once they come on my show, I go on their show. We both really love working together. I'm always like, okay. They immediately go on this list of like, high value content creator collaborations for me. And every year I'm thinking about how can I. How can I create something or work with this person? Because our audiences overlap so well.

[B]

Yeah, we've like naturally had a couple of those things happen, but they were not strategic. They just happened. But yeah, it's good to like, recognize that as a possibility.

[A]

Yeah. And I think that kind of leaves us on my, like, my general recommendation for you guys. I think just bringing a little bit more intentionality into who you're serving, the content that you're creating because of the person that you're serving, who you're having on the show. You guys are. Like I said, you guys need to be rewarded for how hard you're working on this show. The consistency that you've put in, the hard work that you've already done in the skill sets has already showed up. Like, I want that to start paying off for you guys. And to some regard it has. Like having 100 plus people tune into an episode is a huge accomplishment. And I work with lots of shows that have not reached that to some degree. I want to give you guys a pat on the back and say that you got something here, like, you got the kennel started. I'm ready to turn it into a giant bonfire for you guys now though, because, like, I'm stoked for you guys. You guys are creating a cool show. And I think once again, with a little more intentionality, a little more specificity, you're really got to help yourself out in this regard.

[C]

Thank you. Yeah. I think we both feel in our guts that we have the potential of something really great. It just hasn't really started manifesting outwardly yet. And totally, I do take. Yeah, and I do take a lot of comfort in what you said, that even you feel like you're constantly like, this is something you're constantly chipping away at over time. Because I do think it's very easy to be in your head and be like, I don't have a crystal clear vision of what this should look like. What is wrong with us? We've been doing this for so long. But it's good to know that it is a gradual process for even people who are very successful.

[B]

So.

[A]

Yeah. And auditing your guys show made me put like four more things on my podcast list too, of like, I need to go back and do that. It's probably time to like, revisit this. Like, where am I with that? Like, the evolution of our thinking changes and I think it's okay to be like, it doesn't. We don't have to go from 0 to 100, but even just 0 to 10 or 0 to 20 or 0 to 30. So I do like gradual focus. And especially with your ideal listener avatar, like, I think it's going to take a little bit of time for you guys put it. Take it off of the maintenance mode and put it onto actively thinking about. Spend three months there and then shift your focus to something else and let that ideal avatar sit for a little while. And then I'm guessing six months to a year later, you're going to want to revisit it and do some more fine tuning.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey, girls, you want to shout out the show, the Finance Girlies? If people tune in, I'm guessing everywhere. Well, outside of YouTube, but hopefully by the time this airs, it's also on YouTube music too, but people listen to the show, they want to tune in. What, what, what's a great episode that they should start with?

[C]

Well, my, my first instinct is to say the investing before you're ready. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I think that was great because

[C]

I feel like that will hopefully become the crux of what we kind of shape our identity around in the. In the future. So.

[A]

And as someone that's in the personal finance space, I also really loved rethinking the emergency fund episode. I think I messaged you guys about that one, but that just sparked a couple of thoughts for me and some things that I was thinking about. So, yeah, if you've been thinking about your own emergency fund and how it plays a part and how you don't want it to feel reactionary, this emergency type thing, and instead a cushion or a safety net or something that should bring you calmness, then I thought that was a really good episode. So, Emily Cassidy, thanks for spending the time with me. Thanks for being open and vulnerable to sharing and saying, hey, we don't have it all right here and how can we make it better?

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

Thank you.

[C]

We feel very grateful to have crossed paths with you last year and we are grateful for all of your advice. So thank you.

[A]

That's gotta do it for today's listener audit with Emily and Cassidy from the Finance Girlies. I really appreciate both of them for being brave enough to come on here and get some feedback from us. And it was really fun to put these together. I think the one idea that I want to leave you with as a takeaway from this conversation is that niching down isn't about limiting yourself or your show. It's about giving your audience a clear reason to care, to listen, and of course, to subscribe and stay around. As a reminder, I'm going to be doing five of these live coaching audits over the next five months, so if you want a chance to have your show reviewed, simply join our email [e-mail] Newsletter or use the link in the Show Notes. Just reply back to one of our newsletters. Let me know that you want a podcast audit and what the primary question or obstacle you're facing with your podcast is. Thanks for listening to Podcast Playbook. I'm Justin Peters and I'll see you in the next one.