Your Podcast Isn't Getting Clients Because They Can Google You: How Storytelling Turns Listeners Into Buyers

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Everything you said, they could Google. They don't need you. Why would I give you 30 minutes of my time when it takes me five seconds? I don't have to type it. I can just ask my phone, it'll tell me.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

What actually makes the podcast move the business forward instead of just existing? Deborah Loza, co-founder of Branded Media and author of Open the Book. She helps founders turn their own stories into a podcast that actually builds the business behind it.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

If you have a podcast and you are not telling stories, then you're probably one of the people that are creating a podcast, but it's just existing. It's not doing anything. We don't need podcasts to give us information. We go to podcasts for the human piece, we go there for the connection. It's the one thing that you can't get from Google. Right. It's your story. I had a client that was skeptical about this. And it was a really fun little like social experiment for me.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

So, Sarah, what actually makes a podcast move the business forward instead of just existing?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

That is a very simple question with so many ways to answer it. And it's never gonna be the same answer in every case, but I think it really comes down to what does that even mean? What are you trying to have your podcast do? And knowing the purpose of it, like a podcast for a business is almost like in its own employee. It needs to have a job. You need to be basically you're hiring this podcast to do something. What is it that you're supposed to have it do? And a lot of people start a podcast not having the answer to that question. So it does kind of just exist. And it's just like it's fun, and I get to make content and all of that, but they have no actual job for it. They don't have a purpose, they don't have the why, they don't have a strategy. And I think it really is gonna come down to having a strategy, no matter what the strategy is, that is going to impact the business. That's going to help the show move the business forward instead of just existing, as long as the strategy is aligned with the business.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

So the biggest thing is the ones that don't work don't have a strategy. They're just making the podcast, it's content, it's fun. But the people who have podcasts that are useful is that they have a priority for it. Uh it's treated like another employee that has a specific job. Can you give me an example of a working podcast that had a strategy from the beginning that ended up panning out?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I mean, there's there's so many like specific examples of like shows themselves, but there I I think it might even be more helpful to talk about the different ways it can like what are those jobs that it could be. And because every show is going to have a different one. And I I've kind of narrowed it down to five. Um, they're like the five doors that uh your podcast can open to impact your brand. And it's authority, relationships, conversion, longevity, and reach. And depending on what your goal is for your business, that's the door you want to be focusing on. That's the door that you want your podcast to be walking your business through. And like for me, I have a podcast right now. I've hosted different ones in the past. I'm launching another one soon. But the one that I have right now is my first stage. And it is conversations with public speakers. And the reason I started it was people would ask me, how do you get on stages and more stages and bigger stages? And I only had the answers to my experience. I could tell you how I did it. But I figured I'd crowdsource the answer and have other speakers tell me how they did it. And is it meant to build authority for me? Not really, because I am actively not the expert on that show. I bring on the experts and I admit in every episode that I am really bad at doing the thing that they're that they are suggesting. So it's not meant to build authority, it's meant to build relationships. So I'm bringing on public speakers. A lot of public speakers know they should have a podcast. So it's a chance for me to build a relationship with them and have them have a taste of the podcasting medium and see if that's something they want to continue to do. I build that relationship with them. They be if they think that they want to do it, I'm the one that they come to. Um, and it's a way to network with people that are gonna possibly become referral partners, people that are gonna possibly just become friends. I've made great friends from podcasting. So for me, I'm focusing on building relationships. A lot of podcasts focus on conversion. There's not too much conversion that can come from my show. Um, it actually has converted to um clients, but that's not the goal. And longevity is another one that most shows should probably lean towards. Is it going to say evergreen? Are you gonna continue to be able to see impact from it after it's already released? There's times where I can send an episode to someone that went out months ago, just like there's a story in this episode you really should hear. It's really gonna, I think, I think it's gonna resonate with you. Or if I don't have anything for for social media, I can grab an old episode and make a new reel out of it and post that and it's still gonna be relevant because the content's evergreen. So it really all just comes down to what is the job it's supposed to do, and is your strategy in line so that it does that job.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

You have the main strategy on that podcast of you're crowdsourcing, because people kept asking you that question, and now you're getting experts on, even though you don't see yourself as the authority. But interesting I've seen in podcasting is that there's still some overlap. Like just what you were saying, it's not meant for conversion that that particular podcast, but you got some conversions.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah. Yeah. I think you'll always have like your main goal, but other things are still gonna come from it. And uh I've con I've I've converted clients from that podcast that weren't anything to do with like the podcast is talking about being a speaker, and one of the ideas, if I were to want to convert from it, is would be have the speaker want to launch a podcast. I had someone hire me to help them write their TED talk because they heard me speak on my podcast to one of my guests who I helped her write her TED talk. And she's like, Oh, well, can you do that for me? Like, absolutely I can. But I didn't launch this podcast to help people write their TED talks. So you have to have a strategy, but you also have to create content that's engaging. You have to create content that is going to get people to know you. And I think that's really the most important reason that we have podcasts, it's we're putting our voices out there, we're putting our stories, our faces, and people get to see us and they get to learn from us and they feel like they connect with us. And whether you're directly asking them to do a thing, whether your call to action is, hey, hire me or not, they're going to start to feel like they know you. They're going to build trust with you, they're going to build connections with you. And when something comes up that has ever been mentioned, that you're able to do, you're going to be the name that pops into their head.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Because they've built familiarity and connection over the time of listening to your podcast and gaining all this value from the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah. Podcasts are mainly a brand building play. You're building that brand, you're building a reputation around whatever the topic is that you are an expert in or you're curious about or you want to talk about. And the more that you talk about it, the more you're showing up, the more your name starts to become associated with that topic. So it doesn't matter if you're in the room or not, if the topic comes up, so does your name.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

So you have a couple of your own podcasts and you run a podcast production company. And you were saying that this more current podcasts where the public speakers are on, those are potential clients as well. That's what I was gathering. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

The the guests on the show. Um, yeah, there is a strategy in podcasting where you invite your ideal client onto your show as a as a guest. And it is a way to a lot of people use it as a way to pitch them. And that can be very in your face and abrasive, kind of pitch slap uh them while they're on your show. I try to urge people to go more for the relationship play. So bringing people on the podcast to just start a relationship with them, start a conversation, get them into my network, uh connect with them on socials, be able to tag them in things that I post and just really use it as that first step to just more ways that we can collaborate, more ways that we can support each other. And I've had people that I've never met in person, but I know them through podcasting that are my cheerleaders online. And if I post something, I know the first person to like it is gonna be those people, whether it relates to them or not, just because they want to support me. And I do the same for them. So focusing on the relationship part is going to possibly convert them to a client or have them refer people to you later, or just have them sharing your content online so that other people can see it. There's never a bad reason to build relationships with people. You're always going to have a good outcome when you're just expanding your network and supporting other people.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Always a good outcome. Go for the relationship play, not the pitch slap. The pitch slap is an interesting way to put it. I like that term.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

And there's a lot of pitch slapping on podcasts, in LinkedIn DMs, all of it. You see a lot of pitch slaps these days.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

I believe it. What would you say is the main purpose of your own podcast and their strategy behind them for your business?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, for me, it's it's that relationship building. But part of it is kind of authority. So I am actively not the expert on my show. I bring on people that are public speaking coaches, that are um on stages all the time, that are certified public speakers, all of it. I go on stages all the time. I hate doing it. I'm uncomfortable on stage. I don't like public speaking. I'm an introvert despite my career being in podcasting. And so I'm able to just admit up front that this is not a thing that I'm good at. But what I am doing is sharing my own experiences, even when they are experiences that went badly. And I'm admitting publicly that I'm not good at things and I'm like sharing my bloopers. And not only am I putting my face out there, people are getting to know me. They're recognizing me, and they can connect with me because I'm sharing real stories that are superhuman that people can relate to. Like no one had a perfect first stage experience. I've had stories on my show of people peeing their pants. I've had people throwing up, I've had ones that like pass out or blackout. There's I've had every story on my show, and they're just getting more wild every day. And but it's human and it's relatable. So I'm not necessarily proving like, oh, I'm gonna be the best public speaking coach because I'm not supposed to be. That's not what I do. But I do I run a podcast company. I have to have a podcast. For a long time I didn't. I had stopped one and I hadn't watched one yet. And everyone asked, Well, what's your podcast? And I say, I don't have one right now. So part of be like doing what I do for a living means I need to basically drink my own Kool-Aid. So the podcast plays a little bit as an authority piece because it's social proof. It's I'm doing the thing that I'm telling you to do. So it has it has a few jobs. The biggest one is that relationship piece, but it also is podcasts always are going to help with your either your authority, your reach, your longevity, your conversions, whatever it is. There's so many ways that they're going to impact you.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

My mind went blank in me one moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

No, you're good. You actually know when you sent me the questions, my mind went blank. Because I've never been asked the questions that you sent me the way that you asked them. And I was like, I hope I have answers. So I know how you feel.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

So actually, I know I wanna. So you're saying that you're not the authority when it comes to public speaking. Sure, sure. But you saying that you also do uh a lot of public speaking. And my first question behind that is how did you even get into public speaking, if that's the case, if you say you're the introvert, like how did you even get there?

SPEAKER_02 13:12

It's kind of the same way, like with podcasting. If you have a podcast company, you need to have a podcast. Um, I think the first time I actually got on a stage stage, like a conference stage, I was 25 and I was at a finance media conference, and me and my then boss spoke together about how we were doing the things that we were doing together, how we were um building a financial company using podcasting and media. Um, but in for that, it was an authority play. I wanted to myself and my boss I was speaking with, we wanted to be seen as authorities in what we were doing. So we got on stage and shared what we were doing, how we were doing it, why we were doing it. And at the time we were um consulting with other financial brands to help them do the same thing. So we did it for conversions as well. We did it to show here's what we've done for here's what I did as the marketing person for him, the finance person. We can do this for your brand as well. So it kind of was a necessary evil for me because I didn't necessarily want to do it, but I knew that's what I needed to do in order to establish my credibility in what I was doing and um get in front of my ideal clients. So I kind of just sucked it up. And that led me to continuing to just suck it up. And it because I saw it work, I was able to keep going. It kind of just went back to knowing your why. I knew the reason I'm doing this is because I have a message that the people at these events can find value in. And I wanted to be able to share that. I wanted to be able to help them do a thing that I knew how to do. And I wanted to put grow my business and grow my brand. So it was working. I would go speak at a conference. Someone would ask if they could work with me. I'd say yes, I'd go do it again, just ransom repeat. So it's one of those things that even if you don't want to do it, you have to do it. And the more you do something, the better you get at it. So I stopped feeling like I was gonna completely pass out um and started to only feel like I was gonna pass out a little bit. Um, but it if it works, keep doing it. And now I'm at the point where I don't have to do it anymore. So I only I used to do about six to 12 conferences a year, and now I do maybe two. So when you get you get to a certain point where you're able to not put yourself in that position if you don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

From my perspective, you are the authority as well. So see, it's working. Yeah, yeah. I suppose so. So a big part of your brand is storytelling piece. You believe in storytelling and how it helps podcasting brands and whatnot. How what is one small quick way someone can just take storytelling and add it into their podcast to make it useful for them in their business?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yeah, I think if you if you have a podcast and you are not telling stories, then it's probably you're probably one of the people that are creating a podcast, but it's just existing, it's not doing anything. And the change that you make is adding the stories. It's kind of as simple as that. Um and looking at the different metrics and which ones are changing when you do add the stories are is really going to show you um kind of the power behind it. But I think the way that I do it is I have never answered a yes or no question with a yes or no ever in my life. Whether they want me to have a long answer or not, you're gonna, if you ask me the question, you have opened this door, you're gonna sit and wait for me to finish the story because I answer every single question with a story. And it's a lot easier than people think because storytelling is seen as this really massive undertaking, and you need to have this really big, dramatic, sensational story when you really don't. It's a matter of just you ask me about this. Here's one instance where I dealt with that. And that can take three seconds to tell, it could take 30 seconds to tell, it could take a few minutes. It doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be super detailed. Just especially on a podcast, we don't need podcasts to give us information. We have information at our fingertips at any moment. We have Google, we have Chat GPT, we have every book ever written, all of the anthologies, we have information. But if we wanted the information, we would just search for it there. We go to podcasts for the human piece, we go there for the connection. So if you are a podcaster that is relying on information instead of on stories, take a step back and think about the information that you're sharing. And instead of just here's the statistic, here's the fact or figure, talk about how that impacts you. Talk about how learning that changed something you were doing. How did you learn it? What was happening when you figured it out? Just adding context around the information is going to help other people understand the information better too. And you can share stories from your own life, but if you're not comfortable doing that, share stories that are professional, not personal. Share stories that your clients dealt with. Like sometimes I talk about myself. Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, my client was dealing with this. And here's what they did. So I can kind of pass the baton and take the focus off of myself, not have to give my own story, but give examples from other people. All you're really trying to do is get people to understand something better or understand it more deeply and relate to them. Because we relate to people based on shared experiences, talk about an experience. If they've been through it, if they know how that feels, they're going to relate to you a little bit more. They're going to trust you a little bit more. And it all comes down to building that trust.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Okay, quick one and then back to the episode. If you're a founder or business owner, also running a remote podcast, audio or video, and you're making the descriptions, doing the clips, editing, finding guests. Stop that now. That is not your job. You're supposed to be working on the business. The podcast is supposed to feed the business. At Pro Pod Concierge, you record, we handle the rest. Right now, we're taking on a handful of founders for a full free month. All I adds in exchange is for feedback or a testimonial if we knock it out of the park for you. Now, this isn't for everyone. If you already have your podcast handled and you don't feel like it's taking away from the time and bandwidth that should be working on the business, skip this. There's only a handful of seats available for those that qualify. Once the seats are full, you will be put on a wait list. If you're interested and want to apply, go to ProPyConcierge.com or click the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode. You said it is it is the difference between a podcast just existing and a podcast that's actually moving forward. So one practical thing that you gave just now was when someone asks a yes or no question, don't give them a yes or no answer. Actually give them context, start telling a story and don't be afraid to give it personal. But if you don't want to do personal, you can use a a per professional story, or it can be a story from someone else. It doesn't have to be your own story. Just make sure there is some sort of contextual storytelling going on between the facts. Don't just give the facts. Is that everything you're saying?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah. And like you're a podcast host. If a guest were to come on your show, you ask them a question, and they're like, Yeah, wow. I'm just wait for the next question. Like, how how would you feel in that moment? Like, would that be a valuable conversation for you?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

No, but I would still I would keep asking questions until they open up.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

And hopefully they do. Right. But maybe, but maybe they don't. And but you can feel the difference. You can feel the difference between, yeah, and yes, let me tell you about it. It's we don't go to podcasts because we want to hear like a job interview. We don't want to just hear, here's my resume. We don't want just a survey. We want people. We want to hear about people that are experiencing similar things to us. And the only way we know something. Someone is experiencing similar things is by them talking about it. So adding in those stories, it's also what captivates people. It's what gets them to keep listening. So you can have a podcast and people tune in because you use the right keywords. You had strong SEO. People found it, but then they drop off. And that's because everything you said, they could Google. They don't need you. And it's faster to Google. Why would I give you 30 minutes of my time when it takes me five seconds? I don't have to type it. I can just ask my phone. It'll tell me. So adding in the stories and getting people immersed in it, getting people excited to hear more, getting people to the point where they're, they think of the host as a friend of theirs. I know so many people that like they talk about podcast hosts as if they're talking about their best friend. They've never met them before, but they know so much about them because they listen to their show and they hear their stories that they feel that connection. And that's what you're going for. Because people don't buy from people that they don't know. They don't buy from people that they don't trust. And you need to build that up by letting them get to know you.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

The core thing there being that they could Google if you the information. If you're just giving information, there's no big difference. But if you're actually giving a human connection, a human story, and actually giving that portion of it, that's the reason they'll stick around. That's the reason they'll potentially buy from you. That's the reason they even come to a podcast in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Because it's like the one thing that you can't get from Google is your story. And I had actually I had a client that was skeptical about this. And it was a really fun little like social experiment for me. Because I'm in a meeting with her and I was supposed to be helping her rewrite her website copy. And I was excited about the about page because that's that's the story page. That is where we talk about your story. And she said, No, we don't need my story. All they need to know is what I do so that they know that I could do it for them. And I said, Okay. And then I just kind of stopped and I started to tell her a story. I told the my first company was called Favorite Daughter Media. And I just went into this long-winded story about how I named my company Favorite Daughter. And took a couple of minutes. She's just, she's sitting there and she's just listening. And I get to the end and I was like, How do you feel now? And I just saw it in her face that I changed her mind completely. She's like, I feel like I know you better now. I trust you more. I feel connected to you. I'm really excited that I'm working with you more than I already was. Okay, fine. We'll put my story on the website. All it took was just hearing a story. It had nothing to do with the conversation. It wasn't about her. It wasn't about anything, although it wasn't even a brand that I work under as much anymore because I've really been focusing on my other company. But it was very personal. It was very, it's very much tied to who I am. It's a story about me and my dad and how close we were growing up and the impact that he has had on my life and how I named my company Favorite Daughter Media, not because I'm the favorite, but because being his daughter is my favorite thing about my life. And it showed her a different side of me. It showed her that I'm not just the person running this business. I'm not just someone who offers a service. I was a person and I was a person that she could relate to. And when I asked her why I why would somebody want to work with you if they only know what you do without knowing how you do it, why you do it, what you've done. Why would they pick you? And she's like, Yeah, they probably wouldn't. So we finally got her to put her her story on her website and just seeing it on her face the moment her entire mind changed was a great moment for me. I was so excited.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

I love that example. I think that illustrates it very well. Proving your point on multiple levels in the story itself, but also telling the story in this moment. Going back to what you were saying earlier about your own podcast, I relate to that completely. Specifically, the reason you started making a podcast because you had your production uh agency, right? And people are asking, Well, what's your podcast?

SPEAKER_02 26:39

And he was like, Well, like, I can give you a roster of podcasts I produce, but no, none of them are mine.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Like this podcast for me is for the same reason. It's to prove that I know how to run a podcast. It's to show that proof behind a this is who I am, this is what I do, so that when people come in, they look at my offer, which is around the same thing that you're doing a podcast production, they can see that oh, okay, he has his own podcast, and it's around podcasting. So in my mind, the potential avatar of my buyer is also the person who would really listen to this, potentially learn a lot of value about podcasting, how they could be using their business, and then they associate me with podcasting, and maybe they buy from me and what I have going on.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

And I think that's another reason that like stories and stuff is so important because you and I, technically speaking, we're competitors.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

And there are so many other people that I consider my close friends that are technically competitors. There are people that have been on my podcast that are technically competitors where I've been on their show, technically a competitor. And in so many arenas, you're just like, I would never do that. Why would I bring a competitor on so they can talk about them doing it when that's what I do? But we don't do it the same. We don't do it the same way. We don't do it for the same reasons. We there's so much that's different. And we the only way to really portray those differences is through our stories by me talking about why and how I do it and what I've been doing, you you telling why and how you do it. And people will want to work with me because they connect with me, or they'll want to work with you because they connect with you. And those are not going to be the same person. And the I've had people that we are competitors, and my entire office is pink and sparkly, and I've got disco balls in a in a gumball machine. And I was on with one of my quote unquote competitors whose background background was a brick wall and he's wearing a bow tie. Worlds of difference between the two of us. And so to say we do the same thing, no. We both do podcast production, but we do it differently. We have different strategies, we have different goals, we have different ideal clients. And it all comes down to the stories that we're able to tell to connect with the different people that determines which person is going to gravitate towards me, which one's gonna gravitate towards you, who's gonna gravitate towards Josh and Justin and all these other people that do the same thing technically, but they do it differently.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

That's encouraging. That's encouraging. Thank you, Sarah.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Tell me about your book and what it is and how it fits into all of this.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah, my book, it's called Open This Book. It is the art of storytelling for aspiring thought leaders, and it fits in because it is what started it, honestly. Um, the way that I got into podcasting and the way that I learned how to tell a story was actually on a podcast live on air, basically. I was booked to be a guest on one of the like biggest finance podcasts in the country. It's Stacking Benjamin. So I don't know if you've heard of it, but amazing show, super, super successful. And they wanted me as a guest at 26, not to talk about finance, but to talk about a really embarrassing story of getting a tattoo messed up on a trip in Ireland. And I got myself booked on accident because he wanted not the expert I was trying to pitch to him. And I was like, he's an expert in this, this, and this. He's got all of these credentials, this alphabet soup after his name, like expert person. It's like, I don't care. I don't want an expert, I want someone with a cool story. So I just, do you want to hear about this story that happened to me? He's like, Yes, I do. And he loved the story so much that he booked me on the show. But it then became his job to make it a valuable story for his audience. So he had to find the value that they were going to be looking for. So he interviewed me in a way that was so insightful. It was so artful that I told him details that I didn't realize were connected. I was telling him like things that I experienced around it that had nothing to do with the stupid tattoo, but I didn't realize how much it all tied together. So while I'm on his show getting interviewed, I'm learning how to tell my own story. And I'm learning the impact that this whole experience of just this one week in Ireland had on my life that just ties back to I got the tattoo to remember it by. So I still have that as a reminder. But all the things that happened during that week before it and after it was the real value. So years later, I've already fallen in love with storytelling, with podcasting. I'm teaching people how to be better guests and I'm producing shows, I'm hosting shows. And I can't get past this whole idea of people aren't telling stories and they're not telling the right stories, or they don't think they have a story, or they don't think their story is worth telling. And I just remember that the story that I told on the biggest platform I'd ever been on was about a messed-up tattoo I got on a vacation. And if that story was that valuable that it changed my life, it helped me launch the company, it helped me do all of these things. There's no way that you don't have a story that has value. You just don't know which one it is, or you don't know how to tell it. So I wrote the book to give really easy ways that anybody can figure out what their stories are, where they're hiding, what how to pull the value out of them, where to tell them, how to tell them. And of course, I tell everybody don't teach with information, teach with stories. So it's almost a memoir because I write it through my own stories. The whole stacking Benjamin's how that happened story is in there and all the things that happened around it. And then the host of that show actually wrote the foreword for it, making it like a really cool full circle moment.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

That's that's actually kind of wild.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

It was it it was an interesting time. I kept it G-rated, I didn't tell you what the tattoo was.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

It's fine. It's we got the idea. Went from on a finance, on a finance podcast.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

I work, I worked in wealth management, so I was trying to get the CEO on, who was a financial advisor, and he didn't want an expert, he wanted someone with a cool story. And uh the idea he had to find a way. So, full disclosure, the tattoo looked like a penis.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

That's why it was bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Okay, then.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

So if you say you want to hear about the time I got a tattoo of a penis while I was in Ireland, you're you're booked on the show. That is a really great hook, a really great punchline. And he wanted the hook. He wanted to get the hook on the show, but he needed to tie it to finance. So the idea going in was going to be that, like, well, I paid for it and then I had to pay for it again because I had to get it covered up. I'm not going home to Thanksgiving to show my parents the penis on my arm. Absolutely not. So, yes, this is one of my smallest but more expensive tattoos because I had to buy it twice. That was the idea. That was like the plan. And the questions that he asked me just were had nothing to do with that. It ended up being, I was in a dead-end job. I was offered a better position. And the president of the company I was working for is like, why would they want you? So I immediately get slapped with like devaluing who I am. And I like makes me feel like I'm not worth worthy of more and bigger things in my life because she what she said was, you're just a copywriter. So now I'm feeling like I'm just a copywriter. And then I'm supposed to go to Greece to get engaged, and my boyfriend instead goes to jail. So now I cancel Greece, but I still have the PTO and I have this money set aside for the trip. So I take myself to Ireland because I'm like, this is a country where I'll know the language, I won't feel unsafe. It's a very kind country, from what I'd heard, and I can go there by myself. And I spent a week proving to myself I can do things on my own. And it was terrifying to do go across the world alone, but I did it. And I learned that I can rely on myself and I can get myself out of problems. I can be lost on the side of a hill, uh cliffside in Ireland without phone service, no idea where I am, and still find my way back. All of these things that I did taught me what I was capable of. And I came home realizing that what I was settling for wasn't enough. So I quit the job. I left the boyfriend. I moved across the country. I launched a company, I launched a second company and built myself a house when I was 25. There's so much that happened just because I spent a week learning what I was capable of. And now that tattoo is the reminder of that. It's the reminder of all the things that I was able to do. That it has nothing to do with the stupid tattoo anymore. It has everything to do with what I learned.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

That makes a lot more sense now when you give it the context. I can see how that's useful on a finance podcast, suddenly.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

It it wasn't going to be, is the best part. Like, even he was gonna try, he's like, I'll just try to tie in like how much is paid for it or something. He just wanted the hook.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

And that's how, because of just the way that the conversation went and how he interviewed me, I learned on the spot how to tell a story. And I learned that great stories happen if you know how to tell them. And that the whole story from going a little too into detail of how crappy the relationship was and the job and everything, it's all in the book. I basically write it as a memoir. But the idea is I want you to find those stories that you never saw value in, that you never thought like someone needs to hear this and figure out what that value is and how you can tell it in a way that someone does need to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

All right. Final question. And I know you could like just tell stories for days. You could keep going on and on.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

You don't have to stop me.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

But if 60 seconds, one minute, a founder has a podcast and is using it for their business. What is one way they can add storytelling that'll make a difference moving forward the next episode?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Open with a story. If you're asking, if you're interviewing someone and asking them questions, don't ask the same questions that everybody is asking. Ask for the background. It's not about like, tell me about your book. It's why did you write it? It's what was happening in your life when you came up with this idea and just knew that people needed to know it. Um, I think we just need to put a little more thought into the whys instead of just the what's and hows. And if you bring in the why and ask yourself these questions too, before you even hit record, you're going to have a more engaging show. Was that 60 seconds?

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Felt like 60 seconds. I think you did it. I think you got it.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

I never answered that fast.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

All right. Sarah, thank you for being on the show. This has been awesome.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

All right. This has been the Founder Podcast Lab. See you in the next episode.