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- [00:00]
Natalie
Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I'm really excited to dive in and talk to this week's guest, who is actually a CEO mama client. And we get into the nitty gritty of her success story. So what has her career looked like? The full trajectory from getting started in consulting to really crushing it in real estate to now being in the podcasting world. One thing she shared with me is, hey, you know, you can make a million dollars through podcasting without even having your own podcast. And so I really wanted to have that full conversation and also just to really highlight that you can pivot so many times in your career. When you start out doing something or you've done it for a few years, you are never married to that. You always get to pivot. You always get to move on and lean into what feels fun and interesting to you. So it's always really nice to listen to other people's journeys when that serves as a reminder, like, you know what? I always get to change my mind. I always get to decide do something different. One thing I do want to share is just a little trigger warning for this episode. We do go into a scene that involves kidnapping and just might be a little too much for some of you. And so I just want to put that out there in case it is. But I really, really enjoy this episode. Joanne's story is really incredible, and just hearing what she's been through and what she has come out on the other side of and what she helps people with now is incredible. So this was such a gift to do this episode with her. She has been an incredible, incredible client to get to know as a friend, and I just really want to bring her on here. So I hope you enjoy. Joanne, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:44]
Joanne
Thanks for having me, Natalie. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:46]
Natalie
I am really excited to dive in with your real estate background. First, understand how it led you to where you are now, because every time we have a conversation, it feels like you were just like. Like all the jigsaw pieces have come together.
- [01:59]
Joanne
And it was.
- [02:00]
Natalie
Yeah, it was really built off of your previous career. So let's start there. Let's start at the beginning of your career.
- [02:06]
Joanne
Sure. So the beginning of my career actually was before real estate. I was a consultant for Accenture Consulting and then decided that that really was not a freedom at all. You were constantly on the road. And so I quit my job one day, literally just walked in, told my boss, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. And in the true consulting firm style they said, then hand me your laptop and go home.
- [02:28]
Natalie
And how old were you at this point?
- [02:29]
Joanne
Oh, I was like 23.
- [02:30]
Natalie
Okay, so how long had you been in consulting?
- [02:32]
Joanne
Two years, two and a half years. Yeah. So right out of college, y and I hopped a flight because I was in Denver to fly back to Atlanta. And I nervously called my brand new husband at the time, and I was like, hey. So I did a thing, kind of quit my job because I don't want to live this life and I never get to see you, you know? And he kind of freaked out on me. And he was like, you are the main breadwinner of our fledgling little family. And I was like, no worry. I will do what everyone does when they don't know what to do with their life. And I'll just get a real estate license, I'll sling some houses, and then I'll figure out my big girl job. And I came home and I took the online course for real estate. Passed it on the first time, walked into the broker's office and said, hi, I'm here. You know, like, that was a big thing. And they kind of looked at me like, all right. And I was like, who do I interview with? They were like, nobody. You just hang your license. I'm like, well, hell, this is easy. And I started in real estate and I, you know, I looked at my broker and I said, well, how do you make real estate work? And he looked at me and he was like, well, you go in the back room and you start calling. We have these list of homes that didn't sell in the MLS system. And you just start calling them and asking them if you can give it a try. And I was like, so you just cold call people? Yeah. Or you go knock on doors? I was like, no. Just no. Because if you knocked on my door, A, I'm not gonna answer it, B, if I do, I'm probably gonna slam it in your face. And if you cold call me, I'm gonna hang up on you. So I was like, I'm not gonna do anything that I don't want done to me. And so I was like, okay, how do I make this thing work while I figure out my vicarol job? And I kind of went back to something that my dad had always taught me, which was you have to create a career that brings in clients for you, does your selling for you, and you have to make something you can control. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do this all in relationship building. I'm going to go completely Referral based, which was not actually a big thing in the real estate world when I started. It is now, but it wasn't then. And so I started going and sitting in coffee shops and I started talking to people, and I just started, you know, heading to the local playgroup areas and talking to the moms, you know, the dog parks. I would take my dog, and I just started meeting people and I started figuring out that the very best way and the fastest way I could build my team was to not just ask my clients, hey, if you know, anyone buying or selling a home, send them my way, but to really specifically script it for them. Because human psychology, we have this thing where if we're asked very specifically, we're more likely to respond. So when all the brokers were teaching the agents, hey, just ask your clients for a referral generically. Like, no one does that. No one just thinks, oh, sure, okay, let me do that. And so I started saying to my clients, you know, if we had just bought their first condo, who else do you know who is going to buy their first condo right now? And when you ask them specifically, they. They immediately start thinking. And that's how I began to build that business. And I built a $56 million business over the course of five to eight years. And I ran a team of eight people completely on referral based, only. We never took out an ad. We never cold called. We never did anything that made us feel icky.
- [05:43]
Natalie
I'm just going back to when you walked in and quit your consulting job. Did you have in your mind, you know, this is what I want to do with my life, or was it very much? There's no freedom in this. This isn't working for me. But I know I won't figure it out if I'm here.
- [05:56]
Joanne
I had no idea what to do. I had no idea I was really going to quit. I just knew that I was newly married. I didn't even know if we wanted kids yet. But my boss walked in one day and she said, my toddler's birthday is, you know, we're going to have to celebrate it in three months. And I remember looking at her and I was like, well, how old's your toddler? And she was like, oh, well, his birthday was last month. He doesn't even know. I'm just never home to celebrate it. And I thought, huh, so that's what it's like to be a partner at Accenture at the time. There's no work, life, balance. I already knew that. I lived in Atlanta. Accenture had open roles on projects all throughout Atlanta. And I would apply for them and get told no because they wanted you traveling because you work harder when you're out of town, because you, you don't have friends to go hang out with at night. You, you know, you're not going to go home and go to the gym or go to the happy hour, see your spouse or partner. And so those two things combined, I was like, I don't know what I want to do, but this is not it. And if this is not it, why keep doing what it's going to take to climb a ladder I don't want to climb. And so I just thought, okay. And I just, I walked in actually to my boss thinking I'm gonna have a discussion with her. And I just end up looking at her and saying, yeah, you know what? This is not for me. Y'all don't need to pay me to do a role that I have no interest in doing.
- [07:12]
Natalie
Like, I don't want to climb this ladder. I don't really want to get out the graduate program. Like, I'm, I'm done.
- [07:17]
Joanne
To be fair, I've always been like that. I'm, I am a very jump in with both feet, you know, like, let's jump off the clip and hope the skydive parachute works. You know, I mean, just, I've always been that way. Thankfully, it's never bitten me too hard in the ass, you know, so my husband wasn't completely surprised when I went from I don't think I want to do this to I just quit. But, you know, maybe looking back, it wasn't the smartest thing, but hey, you know, here we are.
- [07:42]
Natalie
And so you built a 50 something million dollars business. Was that toward your late 20s? Give me a timeframe of when you were building this business in real estate.
- [07:50]
Joanne
I actually built it twice. So I actually built it. The first time I was 27, 28 when I exited it the very first time. And I exited it due to safety issue.
- [08:01]
Natalie
Okay.
- [08:01]
Joanne
And then had had two kids, was kind of bebopping around the stay at home mom thing, and I just, it's not for me. Like, I love all the moms that can go to muffins and moms at preschool. It's not me. And, and I was driving everyone crazy. I'm a better mom when I work. And so I tiptoed back into the real estate world by first. First I got my mortgage license. My God, how boring is that? No offense to all the mortgage people listening, but I would like, look at these contracts that were getting turned in, and I'm nitpicking the contracts. I'm like, ugh, they wrote this wrong. Ugh, they did this wrong. Oh, my God. This is. You know. And my mortgage broker was like, joanne, you're just here to do the loan. I'm like, I can't. I can't do this. And so then I went back into real estate. I had no database, because when you exit real estate, like, all your people kind of forget that you were ever a real estate agent. I was in a completely different area of town, and I was at a completely different broker. And I thought, well, it worked the first time. And now I'm in my early 30s. I'm not, you know, 25, trying to sell people homes, and they're looking at me going, have you ever even bought one yourself? Like, this is a whole different, you know, experience. And so the second time around, I wasn't on my own with an admin. I actually, from the get go, said, but I can only scale this if I have people out in the cars for me, going on appointments for me. And so I immediately began building a team, and that's when we hit 56 million. Quickly.
- [09:28]
Natalie
Do you feel comfortable talking about the leaving of your first.
- [09:31]
Joanne
Oh, sure, yeah.
- [09:33]
Natalie
So what happened?
- [09:34]
Joanne
I was featured in a Atlanta based magazine. Well, jezebel magazine, I actually think now it's nationwide. And I was featured as being one of Atlanta's top 40 agents under 40. I mean, I was 26 years old.
- [09:49]
Natalie
I was so far from 40.
- [09:49]
Joanne
I was so far from 40. Like, now I'm like, oh, I thought those people were grandmas in the real estate business. And sorry, ladies, but I was featured in that magazine and I had a potential client. And I'm air quoting that because he called and he. He wanted to look at homes, and he claimed to be a. A baseball player. And I had actually worked with a recruiter for one of the minor league teams. I mean, we have a lot of that in Atlanta. And so I met him at the office, and he walked in and sat down, and we started talking about, you know, what he wanted to purchase. He looked like a baseball player, you know, like that short, stocky, like he. He looked the part. He dropped the right names. People that I had worked with, you know, didn't ring any huge bells. And turns out he was a con artist who then pulled a knife and a glock and put it in my back and said, we're gonna leave the office now, and you're gonna figure out how to get a bunch of money for me. And so we drove around for a few hours, emptied out my ATMs, we bought Rolex watches, we ran up my credit cards. And, you know, finally, after several very harrowing hours, when he'd finally figured out that he wasn't getting anything else out, like there was nothing else to give, you know, I'd run up every credit card, I'd hit every atm, like there was no other way to get money out of me at that point. Then he ended up dropping me off at a CVS pharmacy about a mile and a half from my office. Stole the car, took my wedding rings, took all my jewelry. I walked barefoot back to my office at 9:00 at night. Thankfully, my broker was still working. And so I was like, pounding on the door and he came and got me and called the police, but exited the building for a while after that.
- [11:39]
Natalie
How did you even process something like that at that age, too? Just.
- [11:43]
Joanne
I don't know that I did, to be honest. I think it wasn't until the second time around in real estate that I began to really process it, because here's what I learned about, and I do believe, Natalie, this is human nature. People never want to admit that the worst can happen. We always think that's a movie. We always think it's something we see on tv. And, oh, it can't happen to me. The real estate world's reaction to it. I had either hot or cold. It was either, oh, my gosh, how are you? Or how could you have let this happen? You know, like, they blamed me.
- [12:16]
Natalie
Oh, blaming women. What a surprise.
- [12:18]
Joanne
I know. But I really do think that that was more out of their own fear.
- [12:22]
Natalie
Right?
- [12:23]
Joanne
Like, it came home to them that I wasn't at an open house by myself. I did not meet someone I didn't know at a home. I met them in my office for 45 minutes before anything occurred. Like, that's as safe as a real estate agent can ever get. And so when that fear hit for them, then they kind of attacked me. And then it became, how could you let this happen? And I didn't need all that. On top of trying to also process, like, we had the news at our. At our door, you know, I was getting calls nationwide from all kind. It blew up on the news everywhere. So I couldn't go to the grocery store because I was freaked out, quite frankly. Like, I was taken in plain daylight. So for me, it was scarier to go to the grocery store where I was surrounded by people than it was to Walk through a parking lot at night, you know, and so we ended up having to move because the guy took my driver's license. He knew where I lived. Like I just couldn't sleep.
- [13:16]
Natalie
Like the dark side of success, right, that you don't often hear a lot about. But for you, you know, being so young and so proud, you get listed in this magazine and this huge level of publicity and then that happens on the other side of it.
- [13:30]
Joanne
Yeah.
- [13:30]
Natalie
Was there any, anything in your mind of like, I don't want to be that public again, I don't want to be successful again. Like, how did that shift in your mindset? Because it's just something you would never expect. But we don't often, often think about the dark side of all of this.
- [13:45]
Joanne
No, we don't. Thank you for pointing that out. Actually, the second time I went back into real estate, the reason I did mortgages first was because I was too scared to go back into what I was really good at. And then when I went back into it, I thought I wouldn't create a business card. I didn't have a website. One of the reasons I built the team was I wasn't going to work with people even if I knew them. I didn't care, you know. And so it really caused especially what really the down the road ramifications even to this day. Like one of the reasons I went into podcasting at first was you have to show your face. It was so audio back, you know, three back then. Like it was so long ago. Three years ago. I'm still not great to get on Instagram. I know social media probably would explode my business and brand faster. I sit and look at it and go. And I don't not post as often because I'm afraid of what I look like or what I sound like. It's because I've had success before and look what happened. And that's that kernel that no matter how hard I work to overcome that belief, like, it's still there.
- [14:51]
Natalie
Thank you for sharing that. I think it's really incredible that you're also sharing a process that you're still in too. You know, we hear a lot of stories of, I went through this and I came out the other side and you did. But also to share things like this trauma has a lasting impact on us and it does impact the way that we run our business and it does change the way we, our mindset approaches things. And it's not just as simple as, oh, I'm going to commit to posting every 30 days. It's like, no, for a lot of people, there's actually a lot behind that, and there's a reason that you don't want to be front and center or whatever, Right.
- [15:24]
Joanne
I'd rather build a business where I wasn't.
- [15:26]
Natalie
Right.
- [15:27]
Joanne
I'm aware I have to build a business where I am, but that took me, as, you know, probably two years to figure out in my brain, like, oh, I can't come out of nowhere and build a business and nobody know who I am. Not in today's day. But if I look, think back on real estate, when we were at the height of the real estate, people knew who I was because of the relationship building. It's just that I didn't have to do it on Instagram or LinkedIn or TikTok.
- [15:49]
Natalie
And so just going back to that point in your life, just knowing you now, just being able to share your story, I think is really powerful, to be able to explain why you do what you do and how you've become the person that you are. So going back to that point, you know, having to move house and uproot your entire life while also dealing with this huge trauma, how did you deal with that? Did you decide, you know what, I'm stepping fully away from my work. Did you guys have to struggle financially in that interim? Like, how did that work for you?
- [16:18]
Joanne
Thankfully, it came right at a time when Jeff's job wasn't traveling quite as much because he could not have been traveling at that point. And I've always been really, really good business wise of you have to keep a certain percentage aside for a rainy day.
- [16:36]
Natalie
Right.
- [16:37]
Joanne
You know, again, my dad taught me that from day one. You know, no matter Joanne, no matter what you make, you tie this much to the church and you tie this much to your rainy day. And I had done a completely separate bank account to where we had a good two or three years where I didn't need to work and Jeff didn't want me to. He was like, if you never. Like, if you just want to stay home and have babies or not have babies and just stay home and play tennis, you know, and be a tennis housewife of Atlanta, he's like, you just, you know, I mean, he went through. When I was abducted, he went through an hour and a half where he knew something was wrong and not what it was.
- [17:12]
Natalie
How come?
- [17:13]
Joanne
Because when we went into the jewelry store with my credit card to buy Rolexes, American Express called Jeff after and said, hey, she just bought $35,000 worth of, like, this is not a normal Purchase. And Jeff was like, she's supposed to be at her office with a client. And then they started calling me, and they couldn't find me. And, you know, we didn't have life360 back then. And. And so he knew for a good hour and a half that something was wrong because they had it on videotape that I was in there with this man, and he knew I wasn't cheating on him.
- [17:47]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [17:47]
Joanne
You know, like, he. He knew something was wrong. The police were looking. They, you know, alerts were going out. So because of that hour and a half fear of, like, I don't know if I'm ever going to see her again at all, he was like, honey, you want to stay home and eat bonbons, Go for it. Like, I learned to cook. I started watching the cooking channel. Like, let me just tell you, you're.
- [18:12]
Natalie
Like, my nervous system needs to relax for a while.
- [18:15]
Joanne
I was the. The girl who burnt grilled cheese because I wouldn't put the butter on the outside because it was fattening, and I would burn the girl. Like, I did not. I would try to cook fro chicken. And then all of a sudden, I'm sitting at home all day, and I'm like, well, okay, what do I do now? You know? And I started watching. I didn't want to watch soap operas. I didn't want to watch dramas. I could not watch shows like, see, you know, cis. And, like, those were too real to me. And so I started watching cooking shows. And then I would be, you know, calling Jeff, hey, on your way home, I need you to pick up. And I give him this long. And he'd be like, I don't even know what turmeric is.
- [18:50]
Natalie
And I'm curious, too. Going through an experience like that, did it change the way you thought about or saw money or financial things?
- [18:58]
Joanne
It didn't change the way I saw money.
- [19:00]
Natalie
Right.
- [19:01]
Joanne
It did change the way I saw success.
- [19:04]
Natalie
Tell me about that.
- [19:05]
Joanne
So for me, before that, I grew up with money, and so having money wasn't ever anything I had an issue with. I always knew, you can make more money. I was very fortunate in that. What it changed for me was I was always searching for the. You know, when I was in high school and I was a cheerleader, I wanted to be head cheerleader. If I went to prom, I better be prom queen. You know, I went to college my senior year in high school because I. I was just done. I wanted to be the best. So I went ahead and took college classes. Like, I was Always looking for accolades.
- [19:36]
Natalie
Right.
- [19:36]
Joanne
That was success to me.
- [19:38]
Natalie
Can relate.
- [19:39]
Joanne
And so when I hit the success and I was in the magazine and I was getting the awards and I was top agent at Keller Williams, and then all of a sudden, something hugely negative happened as a result of that. It's. It made me rethink, like, well, what does success really look like? Do I really want it?
- [19:55]
Natalie
Yeah. Like, is success really all of these external things?
- [19:57]
Joanne
Yeah.
- [19:58]
Natalie
Is it something that I'm chasing?
- [19:59]
Joanne
Right. Or is it just as successful to decide to have two kids and stay at home and raise them right? Every person's different. They have to define their own, you know, version of that. But for me, it wasn't about the money. It was about that internal feeling of like, oh, I have now failed, or I have made it.
- [20:15]
Natalie
And that's interesting, hearing that you. You're talking about you grew up with money because you're still incredibly motivated. And I'm always so curious about that. I didn't grow up with money. And I know so much of my motivation comes from the fact that I didn't. So growing up with money, I love that you shared. You had the mindset, I can always make more money. I think that's incredible. Like, what a blessing to grow up seeing that and knowing that. But what had you be so motivated then?
- [20:42]
Joanne
My dad, maybe. Maybe I'm just born with it. I don't. I'm a high D, you know, on the disc profile, I'm a enneagram8. But I think at the end of the day, now that, you know, you're asking that question, it's kind of making me think it's probably that my sister was a complete and total train wreck. And my parents always were having to deal with getting her through high school and getting her like. Like, where is she right now? What is she doing? And so if I did good, I did good grades, I made the best in the class, I got a job when I didn't really need to. If I was always motivated to be who my dad, I think, thought his two kids were going to be, then I got the attention from my dad because he didn't have to worry about me. And then that just sort of became something I. I did. I was always motivated to keep that making proud.
- [21:31]
Natalie
And it's so interesting because I feel like you hear that kind of story a lot where there's maybe two siblings, and if one isn't really getting the attention, you can go two ways. You could also become a train wreck. You could. And get your attention that way, or you could get your attention in a different way and you're like, you know what? I'm going to be praised every time I come home with this, and I'm going to get that kind of attention. So it's always so fascinating, I think, retracing back, going back into childhood, where did this come from? Where did my drive to really push and succeed and get good grades and all of that come from? Yeah.
- [22:03]
Joanne
And then I think the more I realized that it's easier to be motivated than it is to not be motivated. Like, it's one of those things where if you surround yourself by really motivated people, you know, you'll also be motivated versus if you surround yourself by people who aren't, you tend to be lazier. And I looked at, I looked at some of my friends, and those of us that were motivated and did well, success became easier. And the ones that weren't motivated, that they were struggling, right? They were struggling to make paychecks. They were struggling to, you know, and so it just kind of became part of me.
- [22:36]
Natalie
So then fast forwarding to you taking a break and you took some time, had your kids talk to me about that period of your life. Were you in that place exploring, do I want to be a stay at home mom? Would this be fulfilling for me? Do I? Like what? Where was your mindset at then?
- [22:52]
Joanne
Oh, you're gonna laugh. I still couldn't sit home, you know. I said I wasn't a good stay at home mom. So even in between the abduction, leaving real estate and having the kids, I started working on a volunteer basis for my sorority. So I got this random phone call and I went to the University of Georgia. We had a really big chapter at that university. And I got a phone call from the national president of my sorority. And she's like, hey, Joanne, we're starting up a new chapter at this little bitty college, you know, about 45 minutes from you in North Georgia. I had never even heard of it. I didn't even know our interstate went up that high into. Into Georgia. And she said, since you came from uga, you guys really know how to put on a big rush. Do you mind just spending a few hours a week volunteering for them?
- [23:38]
Natalie
Wait, I'm not American. What's a rush?
- [23:40]
Joanne
It's when all the sorority girls, it's like a one week process where you go and visit all the houses and then they tell you that they want to see you the next day or not see you the next day.
- [23:50]
Natalie
Like auditioning, pretty much. Okay.
- [23:52]
Joanne
To see who, which group you're going to get to. An. An invitation to join.
- [23:55]
Natalie
Got it. Okay.
- [23:56]
Joanne
Okay. Kind of ridiculous now that I look.
- [23:57]
Natalie
No, I love it. Like on it. Growing up in the uk we hear about stuff like this on TV and movies. So I'm like eating it all up. Like, tell me everything.
- [24:05]
Joanne
I could tell you some horror stories too, but so I went up to, you know, I was like, okay, I can give a few hours a week. I'm actually not working right now and it's not that far from my house. And I learned, I fell in love with teaching those girls how to have. Now we call it recruitment because I walked in and taught them. Okay, if you have a 20 minute party and you're going to meet 18 women during this 20 minute party, here are five questions to ask to get the best information from them, to make a determination if you think they would fit in with you guys. Because at the end of the day, you know, you made a list, you don't get invited back. You do get invited back. Well, if everyone's just asking you what your major is, how are you going to make it like everyone has almost the same major or undecided as a freshman. So I was like, okay, well here's how you ask open ended questions. Here's how you don't ask yes or no. Here's some great, you know, if you get this answer, here's a good follow up question. Like I taught and classes on that at North Georgia and then the president of Sigma Kappa said, hey, could you write up some of these classes and maybe, maybe we can teach some of, you know, these workshops is what we called them nationally again. I was like, well, I've got time on my hands. And so for the next three years I worked my way up the political rung of Sigma Kappa. I was on the national recruitment team.
- [25:25]
Natalie
And so fascinating too hearing, you know, even in real estate you're like, well, I give them a script. Yeah, I told them how to follow. It's like the threads keep pulling through.
- [25:33]
Joanne
I know I didn't even know it's called scripts, but now I do.
- [25:36]
Natalie
And so you were doing that and you had your kids and what had you start to think about, you know what, maybe I am going to get into entrepreneurship again. Maybe I could be ready for something like this.
- [25:47]
Joanne
Snapchat happened. What I know there was this moment in time and I was at the University of Florida and I was teaching them their recruitment tactics and I was there for a full week to, we called it pre rush and then I was there for the whole week after, during rush, to make sure all the lists got turned in and everything. And Snapchat came on scene and these girls, it was horrible. Like, it was not Snapchat like it is today. They called it sex chat.
- [26:17]
Natalie
Oh.
- [26:18]
Joanne
And it was because, you know, you, you took the picture and it disappeared and it was all kind of body parts and all kind of. And I was like, okay, I'm so old. And I was only in like, I don't know, my early 30s. But I was like, holy crap. I keep getting older and they do not. Like, they're still 18. Every year I get a new class of 18 year olds and now this is what. And so I was like, I can't.
- [26:39]
Natalie
I'm not qualified to deal with this.
- [26:41]
Joanne
I am not. I can't. I can't do this anymore. So Snapchat ended my foray into the sorority world.
- [26:51]
Natalie
And did you have to really kind of pep talk yourself into being able to go back into real estate?
- [26:57]
Joanne
Yes and no. What actually happened there was Jeff and I started talking about like, okay, it's time for me to do something. I, I can't just volunteer in the world of 18 year olds on sex chat. You know, Snapchat, you know, he was like, let me see that. And I'm like, no, no. And so we started talking about what do I do? And I hadn't even really thought about entrepreneurship. It was more of a, I don't know what I can do.
- [27:18]
Natalie
Right. You may have heard that I recently co founded a brand new company, Glossy, which is a skin routine you can drink. And I wanted to tell you a little bit more about it. It is incredible. It's this powdered supplement that you drink at least once a day. I'm personally a morning and afternoon kind of person and it is so good for your skin and your gut. One of the ingr that I want to call out is probiotic D111. So it helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome. It supports digestion and skin barrier function. It's also really good for helping to reduce any discomfort in your stomach and bloating. I swear by Glossy, that's just one of the key ingredients. We also have vitamin C, magnesium, hyaluronic acid, coconut water powder, sea salt, zinc. It really comes from all angles to support you inside out. I love it. In a morning I drop in in hydrogen table just to really boost things. And then in the afternoon I normally add some B vitamins. It makes me feel absolutely amazing and I really feel the difference in my gut, specifically. I'm more regular, I'm less bloated. I just really feel a difference. So if you're interested, go to get glossy.com, that's G L O C I dot com, and use the code boss babe, and you'll get a huge discount off your order.
- [28:37]
Joanne
You know, like, I've had all these years in between college and my first job in. In real estate, and now, like, all my skill set, like, who would want to hire me? I mean, I came into consulting out of college with an IT degree. I was like, it doesn't look the same now. Like, I have no idea what I can do. And so we were floating in the lake one day with some friends on their, you know, the back of their boat. And he was a mortgage officer, he owned his own company. And he laughingly was like, joe, why don't you just come work for me? You speak real estate? I speak loans. You can help bring clients in to me. You know, you can, you can go on the coffee lunches and all the dates and stuff with the real estate agents to convince them to use me because you speak their language. And I was like, okay, so turns out when he went and really looked into it, you still have to have a mortgage license to do, because that is so highly regulated. And so then I got the license, and I was like, well, if I'm going to get the license, I want the commission off of it. So then I kind of eased into doing the loans. And then that's when I was like, oh, you know what? I kind of miss it.
- [29:37]
Natalie
And then that was it. Just five years in, you just really started building this huge team.
- [29:41]
Joanne
I did.
- [29:42]
Natalie
And so talk to me about when you're at the real peak of your business. What did that look like for you and your business? What did that look like for you in your life?
- [29:49]
Joanne
I had two administrative assistants, anywhere between three and five agents on my team at any given time. We wrote 56 million the last two years consistently that I ran real estate. And I put my name on one contract the entire time.
- [30:04]
Natalie
What does that mean?
- [30:06]
Joanne
It means my agents on my team were doing all the work, all, all the actual business. They were out showing, they were out listing, I was overseeing. So I would train them, I would teach them, I would help them get leads into the real estate world, and then I would oversee all their contracts. So I was basically. I mean, they didn't have to go to a broker for questions. I was the broker with extra knowledge because I knew who their clients were. Because most of them were people I had worked with and was now handing off.
- [30:33]
Natalie
Right.
- [30:34]
Joanne
So I was teaching one agent on my team to specialize in condos, like for first time home buyers. And like we specialized her in that. And I taught another team member how to specialize in divorces because that's a very different mental status you have to have when you're working on that kind of thing. And so we started specializing on my team because quite frankly, I was bored, which is buying and selling anything. So I was like, let's specialize. And so I was just figuring out how to create verticals almost within my own real estate team and run it.
- [31:03]
Natalie
And so why leave? Why walk away from something like that where you've really, you know, leveraged your time, you're building this huge business. What led to that decision?
- [31:11]
Joanne
A couple of things happened. One, I started looking at the industry and saying it's, it's broken, it's just not okay. When a seller had to pay 6% commission, part of that went to a buyer's agent. So if you're, this, if you're selling your home and you hired me and my team to sell your home, you interview me, you meet me, you make a decision to pay this. Why in the world should you also have to pay someone else's agent that you didn't get to interview, that you didn't get to meet? You don't know if they're good or not. It just made no sense. You don't go to the dentist office and pay your dentist and every other person that they may or may not work with.
- [31:51]
Natalie
Right?
- [31:51]
Joanne
You pay your dentist, he then pays, yes, his office and stuff like that. But it's just the whole industry did not make sense to me. And I'm looking at it going, okay, 6% doesn't make sense to me. You know, million dollar homes, we're talking 60, 90, $120,000 to sell a home. And half of that's going to an agent that may or may not know what they're doing. Because the real estate industry is not as regulated. Almost anyone can get a license. And so I started being very vocal about the fact that I didn't agree with it. I felt the industry should change. And I felt like the industry was probably on the cusp of changing. Well, no broker really wants to hear me say that. And so I started losing a lot of my speaking opportunities and my teaching opportunities because I was too controversial for real estate. And then I was getting so frustrated with the whole thing, I realized, and this Was again, kind of that, like, jump off cliff moment for me. At some point during COVID I was talking to my team and we hung the phone up, or we hung the zoom up. And then like 20 minutes later, one of my agents called me. I didn't even pick the phone up. I didn't care. I didn't want to answer her questions. I knew at the end of the day I was going to answer a question for her I'd probably answered 15 times before. I can still remember sitting there on my couch, looking at my phone and thinking, I'm out. Because it's one thing to not work with your own clients, but if you're not willing to lead your team anymore.
- [33:13]
Natalie
Yeah. Like, if you've really lost the passion for working with your team, it's not something you can do. And was that just. You just felt like the industry wasn't for you anymore, or do you feel like you just were like, you know what? I've done this for so long, I think I'm complete?
- [33:26]
Joanne
I think it was both. Yeah, I was very complete with it. There was nowhere else to go with it, really. And the industry itself, rumblings were starting to happen about, you know, massive class action, lawsuits and changes. And, I mean, I'll admit, Natalie, there was this little piece of me that wanted to be like, told you so. Couldn't do that, you know, and so it was just done.
- [33:47]
Natalie
And so what next?
- [33:49]
Joanne
And so my friend Tina and I started a podcast.
- [33:52]
Natalie
And how old were your kids at this point?
- [33:54]
Joanne
They were 8 and 10. 10 and 12.
- [33:57]
Natalie
So you were still reading in the Thick of it with young kids? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
- [34:01]
Joanne
Yeah. So my friend Tina and I, she ran a big team up in Boston and I had my team in Atlanta, and we, we always talked back and forth. So we started a podcast because a friend of ours named Gogo, she was really hitting it big on Instagram at the time with teaching agents how to be an agent. And she was doing. What were they called at the time, lives, like, she's going live. They didn't have reels back then. So she'd go live for like two or three minutes, give these little tips, and she was just killing it in the real estate coaching world.
- [34:30]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [34:30]
Joanne
And so Tina and I were like, well, what if we did this podcasting thing where we could actually talk for 30 to 40 minutes and actually teach these workshops on being buyer's agents and listing agents and actually teach, you know, the mechanics of running a business behind being an agent and not just opening doors? Because I think that's really what made me different. I treat it like a business. I had a profit and loss. I had a marketing budget. I, like, it was a full blown business to me. And I wasn't just hoping a client came along. And I opened a door. And so we started this podcast, which was hilarious because I'd never listened to a podcast in my life. I thought they were all like, npr. But Tina's like, I promise you, this is gonna be great. I'm like, sure, okay. So, you know, we googled how to start a podcast and she created some canva art. And the next thing I know, we're both on zoom and we started recording these things and we. I mean, we did nothing, right? Nothing. We did not know how to edit. We barely knew how to get it onto Apple. Like, it was literally Tina on Facebook going, hey, friends, we started this podcast and the. And it blew up. And we started getting coaching clients left and right. And I was like, okay, well, if I don't want to run my team, I can just run a coaching business. Natalie, the problem is, if you've lost your passion for an industry, then moving into coaching that industry doesn't reignite the passion.
- [35:48]
Natalie
Right, because instead of coaching your team, you're just now coaching people that aren't even part of your team.
- [35:53]
Joanne
Correct. And I'd be like, wait, I'd have a, you know, call with these people. I'd be like, well, you know, you should. You should do this, this, this, this, and this. And the next week, they would call, complaining to me or crying to me. I was like, they're a therapist. Oh, Joanna can't get clients. I can't do this. And. Well, did you do any of the stuff we talked about last week?
- [36:13]
Natalie
No.
- [36:14]
Joanne
Okay, if you do it and it doesn't work, then let's find a different system. If you choose not to do it, of course it's not going to work. And I was just like, I can't. Same business, same industry, just different states. And I was like, it's same problems. So then I started. I started thinking about, okay, what do I enjoy the most about coaching the real estate agents? And it was working with people to see change in their lives. And it was the business end of it. It was, you know, P. Ls and spreadsheets and understanding that at the end of the day, you have to have funnels and you have to have leads. And if you don't have leads, you have no one to call. And if you have no one to call, you have no clients. And it's this circle that has to keep going and keep going and keep going. And so then I started leaning in on Tina and I. She wanted to keep coaching, so she kept doing in that direction. I started a new podcast, which I still have today, and I just leaned in onto the entrepreneurial teaching aspect of things, and that kind of snowballed into where I am now.
- [37:13]
Natalie
Tell me about your podcast. For anyone that wants to go listen.
- [37:16]
Joanne
It's called the B word. Yes, Very intentionally called the B word. It is a play on my last name, which is Bolt with a B. It's also a play on the fact that when I was at the height of real estate, a lot of women were haters. You know, they were haters when I was abducted. They were haters when I did really well because they. They didn't like the fact that I did really well. You know, nine out of 10 agents don't. They don't sell more than four homes a year, and I'm selling 30 and 40. And so I got called a bitch a lot because I have confidence. And anytime, if you are someone without confidence and you want to be someone, this is the other thing I've learned about human nature. We can go one of two ways. We can either ask them how they got there and learn from them, or we can be snarky and rude about it. The snarky, rude ones will never get anywhere in life. The ones that ask questions will, but the snarky, rude ones are louder.
- [38:08]
Natalie
So much louder.
- [38:10]
Joanne
So much louder.
- [38:11]
Natalie
Tony, tell me about that.
- [38:13]
Joanne
You know, and so I started. I started the B Word podcast kind of as a. A little bit of a snapback at all of those women that were like, oh, well, you only do good because you don't have to rely on your income because your husband makes money or, oh, did it. Well, of course you've got big boobs and you're blonde. And I mean, like. Like that has anything to do with anything.
- [38:32]
Natalie
And I think it's sad, though, because I totally see how women and men. But I totally see that, how that happens, because as women, often we are. We are brought up being compared constantly. You know, oh, you're so pretty. Well, what does it mean about this other person? You're the best at the. Like, the comparison from such a young age is so real, and it can take a lot of rewiring. So I hear that, and I'm like, I get it. I totally get it when. When women are brought up with that constant comparison or, you know, the mindset, especially in Corporate of there's only X amount of seats for women. Women at the top. It's like some people will feel like, well, I can't help them, like I, I need to get there kind of thing. So I get it. But it's such a shame that that happens.
- [39:16]
Joanne
It happens for everyone. You know, even when I first started the B Word podcast, I was listening to Amy Porterfield a lot. And I realized at one point I had had this thought in my head, well, of course Amy Porterfield is doing really well. She worked for Tony Robbins. She had a leg up before she ever even start. And then I was like, oh my God, I'm just, I'm doing to her what they did to me. Even when you know it.
- [39:37]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [39:38]
Joanne
You have to catch yourself because it can still happen.
- [39:40]
Natalie
Totally. It's. I was listening to Mel Robbins book the Let Them theory, which by the way, you guys, it's so good.
- [39:46]
Joanne
Oh, the Let them love that.
- [39:48]
Natalie
Oh, it's so good. And there was one chapter specifically on this and she was talking about comparison. She was like, it's always going to happen. We're always going to compare. But could we, instead of comparing that we're not good enough, can we actually compare that? Wow, look at where I am. Look at what I've achieved. Look at how lucky I. It's fascinating because it is human nature. We're always going to do it. But you have to catch yourself or just constantly comparing. I'm. I'm not good enough because I'm not doing X, Y, Z. And it's like, right. But I get it. With women, it's, it's even more pronounced because a lot of us grew up that way or we see it in magazines and I mean, probably for our gen, the generation of kids we're raising now, it's probably even worse with social media. I can't even imagine.
- [40:28]
Joanne
When my daughter tells me things, I'm like, oh my God. Time.
- [40:31]
Natalie
It's hard. I mean, for me, I can't speak to the male perspective. I'm not one, but surprise. But for women, yeah, I totally get it. It's really challenging.
- [40:42]
Joanne
Well, I can tell you, raising a son, it happens on their end too. You know, Hunter will sit down a lot of times and he's like, I need my hair to look like this. Or mom, can you do this with my eyebrows? I'm like, why are you, why are you worrying about your eyebrows? And he's like, because all these guys on Tick Tock that all the girls. And I'm like, oh my Gosh, really? Yeah, it's wild.
- [41:00]
Natalie
I mean, I have so many questions about you. You're. You feel you're parenting, like, in a completely different age bracket now I'm like, tell me everything. But anyway, going back to red wine.
- [41:10]
Joanne
Will be your friend. I'm just saying it's like every time.
- [41:15]
Natalie
We talk, I'm like, oh, such different. Such different. So going back to. You started a podcast, and that really launched you into this world of podcasting that I know you're really passionate about. And one thing I really love about what you do and how you teach it differently is like we were talking about just before we started airing, this was, you were saying, a lot of the times you see people talk about launch a podcast, grow an audience, then monetize. Whereas I do feel like that is a bit of a luxury because, you know, not everyone has a stable income and the time to be able to work on something, grow something. You know, they have a business, they want to get it off the ground. What you're really passionate about, you were saying, is, yeah, launch the podcast, but monetize it and then focus on growing it. You can do that on the earlier side. So what's your perspective when it comes to the process of launching, monetizing, growing?
- [42:01]
Joanne
I think it's a mindset. And the mindset comes from, if I'm going to launch a podcast, I can either choose to chase sponsorships and affiliate deals and subscription deals, which I really don't have a lot of control over.
- [42:15]
Natalie
Right.
- [42:16]
Joanne
Or I can develop an irresistible offer, become the expert in my field on the podcast, so that when my listeners are ready for my offer, I'm selling my own offer. And so I'm not relying on, for lack of a better term, call it the algorithms of sponsorships.
- [42:34]
Natalie
Right.
- [42:34]
Joanne
You know, I'm not worried about how many downloads I'm getting. I'm worried about am I getting the right downloads with the right people because I'm selling my offers.
- [42:41]
Natalie
Right.
- [42:41]
Joanne
And if you look at it from that perspective, you can monetize from day one with a small audience.
- [42:47]
Natalie
I guess that's the thing, though, is, like, how do you even get that small audience in the beginning? Let's say you're starting absolutely from scratch. You are not on social media. You don't really have an audience to carry you over. But let's say, you know, best practice really would be pick a really defined niche. What is the thing you're an expert in? Make sure you've got your offer ready to go. How do you start even Getting in.
- [43:09]
Joanne
Front of a small audience, I teach two things. One is a podcast lead magnet and the other is podcast guesting.
- [43:19]
Natalie
Okay?
- [43:19]
Joanne
So the very first thing I teach out the gate is that you should have 50% or more of your business come from guesting on other people's podcast. They've already built their audience, they've already grown their podcast. Get on their podcast, talk about your offer. Most coaches will teach you that you talk about a lead magnet. No, you already have a relationship with the Boss Bay people. So I don't need to give them a lead magnet because I'm only going to be here once, maybe twice if I'm lucky later on, right? So this is my time to talk about my expertise and then offer my offer. So I teach a system around that. Once you've got those people who listen to you on someone else's podcast, you've borrowed their audience. You've borrowed their, you know, their relationships that they've already built. Now through that offer, I can start building up another audience who will listen to my podcast, share that podcast with other people. And now I'm starting to build an exterior amount of listeners. But I didn't have to grow it from day one on my own, right? I used other people. And then the other area that I teach is a quick podcast lead magnet, a three to four part series. Some people call them the secret podcast that is four to five framework step. What is your expertise? You can put that out there as a lead magnet. You can use meta for ads. You can, you know, offer that up in emails, send it out to your friends. You don't have to do a full blown podcast. You do a four part little series that is a lead magnet into your email system. Grow that email system up, grow your list up, keep guesting on other people's podcasts, and when you've got a decent size, then release the full podcast permanently. I think a lot of people jump into launching too fast. They think it would be so much fun to launch podcasts and then they, they don't realize it's a lot of work.
- [45:05]
Natalie
It's a lot of work. And the consistency. I really love that you said that. I, I had a lot of success doing, I call it the podcast funnel. Just doing a secret podcast. I picked a niche. It was all about launching launch with Boss Babe and then we sold right at the end of it. And it was really powerful because it was such a different way to connect with the audience. Like they're gonna get all of this value and then the end they can either decide, okay, great, I'm gonna buy it or maybe no, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna go listen to your podcast anyway. So I really like that.
- [45:32]
Joanne
Here's what's so wonderful about a podcast funnel is if you make those four, you know, four to five episodes and you run them for six to eight months and then you, you learn that everyone drops off after episode two, go rerecord episode two and like just replace the audio. You don't have to re release the podcast. You don't have to do like you just literally go into your, your hosting system and upload new audio. So you can a b test and see with your lead magnet as your podcast funnel, how great is it working? You know, you can put worksheets along the way. Does anyone, you know, if they're listening to episode one, do they go and download the worksheet? Oh, okay, that didn't work. Let me do something else. And you can ideate on that without having to have your own podcast.
- [46:17]
Natalie
Yeah, I really, really like that. I mean it's just like with any funnel, knowing your data, know your numbers, where are people dropping off, are people converting? I love it. And one thing you also said before we started recording, which I really loved, was you can have a million dollar business from podcasting without having your podcast. Talk to me about like what other.
- [46:38]
Joanne
Industry can, can say that, you know, an influencer on social media cannot have a million dollar business and influencing without being on social media.
- [46:46]
Natalie
Right?
- [46:47]
Joanne
But you can have that million dollar business in podcasting without having the podcast by having a really good strategy for guesting. It all comes down to ideating, knowing your numbers, knowing exactly what you need to do, and treating guesting as a business and not as just a, you know, let me just be on anyone's podcast. I can, you know, you can be on 300 podcast and if you have no strategy around it, it was a waste of your 300 podcast hours. So you can choose to do that and then you can choose to do something like a four part series or a really good lead magnet and make a million from people who listen to podcast.
- [47:25]
Natalie
So what kind of strategy then for someone who's listening, who's like, well, how do I pick a podcast? And secondly, how do I get on the podcast? Because I'm emailing and no one's saying yes.
- [47:34]
Joanne
So I teach a strategy that there's a three tier system. Tier one or your top levels, they're the boss babes, right? Tier 2 is your up and coming. Like they've Got a pretty good engaged audience, but maybe they're not ranked at the top of Apple. And number three is you're emerging like they've got potential. So you want a good mix of your 1, 2, and threes, because unless you're well known, you're not going to get on many ones, right? You're going to stick to the ones and twos. The mistake I see most people in guesting is they try to only stick to the number three, like the low level emergers, because they feel like those people will just take anyone because they just want someone on their podcast.
- [48:08]
Natalie
They're just fearing being rejected.
- [48:10]
Joanne
Exactly.
- [48:10]
Natalie
So they're like, well, if I just apply people that are going to say yes, I won't get rejected. Right?
- [48:15]
Joanne
So you need to. You need to have a mix in there of where you're appearing on. And you need to be really careful that you're not on just anyone's podcast. If their audience does not align with your ideal avatar, it is still a waste of your time. I mean, let's be honest, I could go on Jay Shetty tomorrow, but his audience isn't my people, right? And so it would be like an ego check for me to go on Jay Shetty's podcast, and it would be awesome and fun, but it probably wouldn't bring me in any business, right? Because his people aren't my people. They're not my avatar. And so if you pick the right audiences and the right level of podcast and you do a good combination of that and you have a good strategy behind it, you make sure that your CTAs are very clear, you have, you know, very distinct ways of handling things, then you will make money on podcasting.
- [49:04]
Natalie
What made you want to teach podcasting? What led you to this point of like, you know what? I actually want to teach people how to do this.
- [49:10]
Joanne
I think I'm a sucker for low barrier entry industries, right? I mean, real estate was low barrier, so is podcasting. And I'm a sucker for taking something that almost anyone can get into and saying, okay, now why are most of you failing at it? And how can we help you not fail? You know, because if you really want to make this successful, the 8 out of 10 podcasts never make it past episode 10. You know, if you, if you didn't just start a podcast because you were having too many margaritas with your bestie one night, like, you really actually want to make this a thing, like, okay, then let's make it a thing. But when you research it, there's really no classes out there. There's no regulations. You look on YouTube, there's a million different advices on how to launch one and how to monetize one. But, I mean, you can listen to a million different people, or you can stick to one sound advice of someone who's actually doing it every single day. You know, everything I teach, like, these are things that I'm doing every single day. If I did something and it helped the podcast grow last year, but it doesn't work this year, I take it out and I tell everyone the industry changed. So I think that's why I stuck to podcasting as the next piece of the career was I just like to help people figure it out.
- [50:19]
Natalie
And you've gone from really, like you say, not really even knowing how to upload a podcast to like, you're so savvy.
- [50:26]
Joanne
Thank you.
- [50:27]
Natalie
How's that came about? Just. You've just committed to learning all the.
- [50:31]
Joanne
Things I constantly learn.
- [50:33]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [50:33]
Joanne
I am very coachable, and you are very coachable. I've always had that attitude is, you got to be coachable in life, that someone always knows something more than you. And I also fully believe, and I kind of learned this when I was in real estate, that I think what made me a better coach on my team was because I spent several years selling myself the coaches who are out there that haven't sold a home in 20 years, like, they're not relevant anymore. And so I like to get my hands dirty and do some of the technical stuff and then hand it back off to the editing team, or I like to play on YouTube first and then maybe hire someone I can hire better when I really know what it takes to do it. And so that's. It just. It's just who I am. I'm naturally curious.
- [51:19]
Natalie
I love it. I really love it. And I love. I love your curiosity and just how coachable you are. You're a very curious person of, like, tell me more about that. How do I learn about that? And you can obviously see it in your entire career trajectory. It's like, I don't care that I'm going into something I don't really know a lot about, because I will. So what's led you to launching a membership, then? Tell us all about the membership.
- [51:38]
Joanne
The membership has been this long and windy road, which has frustrated me. And I will admit that, because unlike real estate, I didn't just become instantly successful with the podcasting stuff and, like, that it was the first time really in my life that I've that it took Me a while to kind of, like, figure it out. When I first started the membership, I was going to create a network because I kept trying to apply my podcast to some of these bigger networks, like HubSpot, and I kept getting rejected. And of course, me, you know, the girl that wanted to be captain the trillion squad. And I was like, well, why won't you take me? You know, well, watch me. I'll just make this crap happen. And so I figured out how to triple my downloads. I figured out how some of the bigger podcasts are getting their downloads that nobody talks about. Like, there are actually ways that you can pay to get this done.
- [52:29]
Natalie
Wait, tell me about this. Give me some hacks.
- [52:32]
Joanne
Give you some hacks?
- [52:33]
Natalie
Give me some hacks.
- [52:34]
Joanne
Almost every podcast player out there has a way for you to get at the top of their charts. So one of the ones I was doing it was like $3,000 for 3,000, you know, subs valid subscribers. So, you know, when you open up your podcast player and it recommends others for you, that's not an accident.
- [52:53]
Natalie
Wait, I'm. Tell me more. So you can pay an agency to send you subscribers, and are they, like random people in a call center or are they actual subscribers?
- [53:04]
Joanne
You have to be careful on which platform you're playing on. Okay, so the one that I was playing on, I tested it out for six months. The first $3,000 I spent, I saw my downloads increase, I saw my followers on their platform increase, and then I stopped paying. Oh, and I was going in the back end of my analytics. None of my listeners were from, like, Thailand or Bangladesh, which is typically where we see if you're paying, bots show up. And so then I waited 60 days and realized that my listens only dipped a little bit, which means those were valid subscribers now.
- [53:38]
Natalie
Wow, that's fascinating.
- [53:39]
Joanne
So then I did it again, and I had the same experience, and then I let it go 60 days, and then I did it again, and I had the same experience. Then I tried a few other platforms, and now the minute you quit playing, boom, you lost all the downloads on their. Their platform.
- [53:55]
Natalie
Got it. So you found some platforms where you could actually pay for listeners, and they're recommending you, like, Facebook ads kind of thing.
- [54:02]
Joanne
It's pretty much like when you open up Apple.
- [54:04]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [54:05]
Joanne
You know, if you were listening to someone's episode, and at the bottom it would say, you know, recommended for you.
- [54:10]
Natalie
So that's not algorithmic.
- [54:11]
Joanne
I mean, I can't guarantee that I'm. Apple's not ag. Because they are very Sneaky.
- [54:16]
Natalie
You know so much more about podcasting than I do.
- [54:20]
Joanne
Well, I mean, I went through the whole, like, how dare HubSpot say I'm not good enough? I'll show you.
- [54:24]
Natalie
Okay, I need to go. Look, I did not know about this. Okay, cool. So. And that's, like, not gonna harm your podcast best. Or, I guess, depends who you're gonna go with.
- [54:32]
Joanne
Depends on who you're gonna go with. Okay, so, like, I've tested them. I will never recommend something I haven't done myself.
- [54:37]
Natalie
Right.
- [54:38]
Joanne
You know, that's fascinating. Yeah, exactly. Huh.
- [54:41]
Natalie
Okay, Good to know. So you were gonna go for a network. You understood how to do this kind of thing?
- [54:46]
Joanne
Yes.
- [54:46]
Natalie
Okay. And then what happened?
- [54:48]
Joanne
So I started the network thinking, I will create a network for the female podcast hosts, you know, that would get rejected by the hubspots because we're not in the top five of Apple, and realized really quickly I had a big audience for that. However, the only way those networks make money is off sponsorships. I don't do sponsorships. Yes, you can monetize a podcast with sponsors. I personally don't. I don't teach that. I can help you do it, but I don't teach it because then you are relying on pitching to sponsors or you're relying on getting sponsors. You have to have your downloads up. You have to. You know, quite frankly, half the time, the sponsors are telling you how, when, and where their ad has to be read, and it may not really work with your audience at the time. You know, if you're in the middle of a huge launch for Boss Babe, do you want your podcast to stop and start talking about, like, chewy dog food? Like, maybe not, you know, but a lot of these networks you get into, you don't have a lot of control over who. Who you are promoting, and you're giving up a large portion of that commission to the network or to the agency. And one of the things I learned way back in real estate was when you had to hand over 50% of your commission and you've done all the work. Like, that didn't sit well for me.
- [56:03]
Natalie
Right?
- [56:03]
Joanne
So I go against the grain and say, if I take a sponsor, I'm taking them on my own accord, and it's on my own contracts. But because of the fact that networks really only make money with sponsorships, I was like, okay, well, then this is not working. I can't build a network and then not, like, do the sponsorships. So I pulled back, and my team started. We just started really focusing on Master Classes on getting the word out, kind of like on what I teach. And the fact, you know, a lot of people had to wrap their heads around the fact that I don't just teach you how to monetize, I teach you how to run a freaking business. And that kind of rocks in people's worlds for a while. But we were selling a lot of a digital course on how to start a podcast because I took five of them when I was starting my second podcast. And all of them teach pretty much the same stuff, but leave you at that. Oh, and what now? Like, great, it's on Apple now. What? And so that has evolved now into. A lot of my students started saying, okay, Joanne, but they would DM me after the press press record digital course and they would say, can I have a private coaching? Can we talk about this or this or this? And I was like, oh. And I looked at my team and I was like, you guys, this is the membership. You know, and we, we kind of had a membership for a while. It was called the Studio. And then we pulled it back and I said, nope, I'm going to revamp. We're going to put out a 90 day curriculum that teaches guesting, building the business, how to create that secret podcast, how to monetize. And then the third month of the 90 day is all about growing. Because once you figured out the money piece, then your only job as a podcast host besides creating content is growing the show. That is it. That is your job. And so we put together that curriculum and now we're relaunching the membership where it's a very comprehensive start to finish. If you already have the podcast, you can come in, skip month one, that's fine. Go to month two and three and then stay in the membership. If you don't have the podcast, take month one of the curriculum. I'll teach you how to launch it. We just took the whole digital course and condensed it.
- [58:01]
Natalie
I love it. So where can everyone find your membership?
- [58:04]
Joanne
Actually, they can. And this is part of what I teach is when you're going to strategically podcast guest, they can go to podcast her.comforward/boss Babe, and they can get a hundred dollar discount on our membership.
- [58:16]
Natalie
I love that. Well, thank you for doing that.
- [58:18]
Joanne
You're welcome.
- [58:18]
Natalie
Thank you so much for being here today. It was, it's just so fascinating to be able to dive into your story and see how all this evolved. And I really love that you're doing the membership because I really, I am so passionate about podcasting and I, I was even on a call with some of my clients this morning and they were saying, you know, I love podcasting and things like that, but I don't know how to turn it into a business. So I really love that you're doing this for people that you know aren't coming into this with big audiences, but know that they do have something great to share, whether it's interviewing other people or sharing their expertise. So I love it. So thank you for being here and it's having me. The B word.
- [58:52]
Joanne
The B word.
- [58:53]
Natalie
I love it.
- [58:53]
Joanne
Yes.
- [58:54]
Natalie
Thank you. You're welcome. Wait, wait, wait. Before you go, I would love to send you my 7 figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift. All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom based daily, weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight figure CEO, mama and high performer. And I'll walk you through step by step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug and play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997. But I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it and then head over to bossbab.com/review to upload it and then you'll get instant access to the seven figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to BossBabe. Com review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported.