Ep 250: The One Thing ChatGPT Can’t Do for Your Business with Sara Lohse

SHOWNOTES

Sara is a podcast producer and strategist, and the founder of Branded Media and Favorite Daughter Media. She started in advertising, landed in wealth management where she was handed a podcast and told she was now the executive producer, and fell so hard for the medium she went all in — now helping everyone from wealth managers to solo creators use podcasting and storytelling as genuine marketing tools.

We Also Talked About

• Why “I don’t have a story” is almost always false — and how to spot the story you should tell first.
• The “use your outside voice” test for finding a podcast topic you’ll never run out of steam on.
• Why we’re not short on information anymore — we’re short on connection, the one thing AI can’t fake.
• The counterintuitive trick of giving away the ending up front, and why it works especially well for ADHD brains.
• What podcast monetization really looks like — and why “return on impact” beats “return on investment.”
• The reframe that turns 20 downloads from an empty stadium into a crowded living room.
• How short-form video and long-form audio feed each other, and why your face on screen builds the trust that sells.

Want this kind of practical, expert help every week — before your competitors do? Get tips and strategies for growing your business delivered straight to your inbox: https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

Resources Mentioned

• openthisjournal.com — Sara’s hub: download her storytelling journal exercises free, grab the book, and find her socials and calendar.
• Open This Book: The Art of Storytelling for Aspiring Thought Leaders (affiliate link) – Sara’s book
• Branded Media — Sara’s podcast production company.
• Favorite Daughter Media — Sara’s strategic podcast guesting company.
• Podmatch (affiliate link) — the guest-matching tool Trudy uses (and how she found Sara).
• Descript (affiliate link) — the tool Trudy uses to transcribe and edit episodes.

My newsletter is for people who want to build a real income from home — practical, doable ideas each week for creating a better life for you and your family, without the overwhelm: 👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

[00:00:00] 

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host, Trudy Rankin. And today I’ve got Sara Lohse with me, and she is the founder of Branded Media and Favorite Daughter Media. She’s a podcast producer and strategist, and this is something that I thought would be really interesting to bring somebody on to talk about because I’ve had a number of people recently, talk to me about starting a podcast.

They’re interested in starting a podcast, or they’ve just started a podcast, and it’s kind of not going the way they thought it might. And basically, Sara helps business owners and consultants use podcasting and storytelling to build trust and basically strengthen your brand voice and to turn everyday experiences into content that converts.

And that’s the most important thing, I think, is that people think they maybe [00:01:00] they have to be an expert in something or they have to be really special at something, but that is not what people are listening for. They’re looking for stories about stuff that happens to other people that they can connect with.

And so I wanted Sara to come onto the podcast today and just talk about that intersection between podcasting, marketing, and storytelling, and how that can actually help your business. So Sara, thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Sara Lohse: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. So before we start, just… Or before we get into the sort of that whole podcasting side of things, maybe just share a little bit with our listeners about your backstory, where you come from, and how you got to what you’re doing today. 

Sara Lohse: Yeah. I took a winding road. I think most people kind of do these days, to get to where I am.

I started in advertising and marketing, and ended up in finance working in wealth management, which if you can see my sparkly pink [00:02:00] everything, you know that that did not last very long. I was in that for about two years, but while I was there, I was the director of marketing, and I was handed their podcast and was told I’m now the executive producer, here you go.

So I got thrown into that world, and that was a really good decision on their part for me, thankfully, because I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the medium. I fell in love with storytelling and the industry. And after two years, I kind of just went all in and launched Favorite Daughter Media, which was my first company that was focused on helping people be better podcast guests.

And then about a year or two later, I launched the production company, Branded Media, to launch podcasts for businesses as strategic marketing tools. So went from, “Oops, now I have to do podcasts,” to, “All I want to do is podcasts.” 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. That’s really cool. Because for people who have been [00:03:00] thinking maybe about doing a podcast, yes, it is a lot of work, but it is also really, really fun.

Sara Lohse: It’s so much fun. The amount of friends that I’ve made that I’ve never met in person before, and I basically just get to hang out and have coffee chats with strangers, and that is my job. And that is just insane to me that this is actually a job, but I love it so much. 

Trudy Rankin: That is so cool. So is that your favorite thing about podcasting, is being able to go out and have coffee, sort of coffee conversations?

Sara Lohse: Yeah, I think one of my favorite things is definitely the people that I’ve gotten to meet, and whether it’s I met them because they were on my podcast or I was on theirs, or I met them at a podcast conference, the people that I’ve met have just been so fantastic and so supportive and influential in my career.

And the other piece of it is just the storytelling piece. I fell in love with storytelling. I have a book out on how to tell your story, [00:04:00] and just the way that podcasts give us a platform to tell our stories, no matter who we are, I think it’s so powerful, and I just wish more people would take advantage of it.

Trudy Rankin: So yeah, if you want to share your link just before we finish up, we’ll make sure we put the link to your book in the show notes so that people can go and, and hunt that up. So just really quickly most listeners might know that I use Podmatch to actually help me find podcast guests, and I find great podcast guests there, and I found you on Podmatch.

So just how did you get into… How did you find out about Podmatch, and how did you get into it? 

Sara Lohse: So the Sanfilippos, the people who created it, Alex and Alicia, are friends of mine. I’ve known them for years, and I have spoken at their events. I’ve done different collaborations with them over the years, so I have been a huge fan of Podmatch since the beginning.

I call myself the president of the Alex Sanfilippo Fan Club. If you’ve seen my podcast where he was on, he tells the really embarrassing [00:05:00] stories of how I met him and when I gave him a friendship bracelet that said, “Will you be my podmatch?” on it at an event, after asking his wife’s permission so she didn’t think I was actually flirting with him.

So I am a big fan of the Sanfilippos. I regularly ask them to adopt me. 

Trudy Rankin: There you go. Yeah, I find it really useful. This podcast is not sponsored by them or anything. It’s just that it’s a tool that I use. I find it really helpful and I like sharing tools that I find helpful.

I want to just touch now on the part of podcasting that I think that a lot of podcasters miss out, and that is the storytelling aspect of it. So if somebody, let’s just make a, an imaginary scenario, but which is really true for a lot of people, and that is, is that you’re thinking about starting a podcast, and you’re thinking, “Oh, but I don’t know what to talk about,” or, “I’m not an expert.

Why would anybody even want to hear what I have to say?” But they would still, they can tell that podcasts are really powerful. They like podcasts, and they have this gut feeling that it would be a [00:06:00] helpful thing. What kind of advice would you give somebody who’s in that situation where they’re going, “I have no idea what to talk about.

How can I do this podcast thing if I don’t know what to talk about?” 

Sara Lohse: Yeah, I think the first place that you have to start with that, and this is probably something that so many people have already said, it’s not super original, but it’s why. Like, what is the why, and why do you want to start a podcast?

I think going into it with the idea of, like, “I should start a podcast. No idea what I want to talk about” is, like, a little bit backwards. Like, why do you want to start the podcast? There has to be something drawing you to it, whether it’s a topic that you want to talk about or something that you want to explore.

What is it that’s making you want to start a podcast? And I always have this saying, like, use your outside voice, because when we were kids and we’re constantly being yelled at to use our inside voices, always told to be quieter, and sometimes if you were like me, you were too loud, so you’re told to use your inside voice when you’re outside.

And there’s always that one topic or [00:07:00] idea that comes up, and you just cannot use your inside voice. You get so excited about it. You have to scream about it. It’s the people that, like your partner sitting next to you, it comes up, and they’re just like, “Oh, don’t get her started. She will not shut up about it.”

That is the thing. That is what I want you to talk about more. That is what your podcast should be about because it’s not supposed to be challenging. It’s not supposed to be like, “Oh, I have to do this podcast. I got to come up with something to talk about.” It’s supposed to be, “I need to hit record because these ideas are about to come out, and I need…

someone’s going to have to hear these.” You have to just really be excited about it. So why do you want to start a podcast, and what is it that is so exciting to you that you will not shut up about it? 

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s really good advice, because that immediately sort of… When you have something that you want to talk about and it’s just so exciting, there’s often some sort of story or some sort of catalyst that made you want to [00:08:00] talk about those things.

Talk a little bit about that, the reason why storytelling can be so powerful if it’s done right. 

Sara Lohse: Yeah, storytelling is such a buzzword right now, but it’s the oldest concept. Storytelling has been how people connect with each other since the beginning of people, and the cave paintings on the walls were stories, and even before we had written language, it was verbal storytelling.

Everything has always been about stories because that’s just how people connect. And we have Google, we have ChatGPT, we have dictionaries, we have every book ever written. We have information. We are not starved for information. We’re starved for connection, especially these days with AI and with everything feeling a little bit fake and not really being able to tell what’s real and what isn’t.

You can Google any information that you want, you can [00:09:00] get any information that you want from any source at any moment, but the thing that ChatGPT can’t do is tell your story. So we don’t need you to give us the information. We have the information. We need you to relate it to a story and tell us how you came about the information, how the information has impacted you, how you’re using it, and use your own stories to just help make sense of it, because we don’t need you to give us the data, we need you to give us a piece of you so that the data makes sense.

Trudy Rankin: So I’m going to ask the sort of almost the obvious question. What would you tell somebody who’s thinking, “Yeah, that’s all very good, Sara,” but what if they feel like they’re somebody who nobody cares about their story? 

Sara Lohse: That is the question I am asked almost every day, and I hear all the time like, “Well, I don’t have a story.”

And that’s the most common. It’s this, is, “I don’t have a story.” Or it’s the, “I don’t have a story that’s worth [00:10:00] telling,” or, “Nobody would care about it.” I think the biggest problem there is that we are just in this 24/7 news cycle, and we are always being hit with headlines, and we’re inundated with all of these just crazy, life-changing stories that are just not relatable.

And we have all those headline stories, and they’re dramatic, they’re traumatic, they’re sensational. But you can hear those stories and be like, “Wow, that’s crazy,” or like, “I feel for that person,” or whatever, but you don’t relate to it because you’ve never experienced that and you probably never will.

And we need more people telling the little stories, the stories that are a little bit more mundane and aren’t ever going to be a headline news, because those are the stories that people relate to. And it’s all about shared experiences, and the more people you can share these experiences with, the more people [00:11:00] are going to connect to you.

And I’ve told the same story so many times, and it is the stupidest story. It is about a embarrassing tattoo I got on vacation, but that is the story that got me accidentally booked on the biggest finance show, and it’s the premise of my book. It’s all of these things, but it was a stupid story that I never planned on telling.

But it worked because it was so real and relatable, and it proved to me just by itself that you don’t need to have that massive story. You just need to tell it to people in a way that connects with them. So I don’t think the problem is ever you don’t have a story. Maybe it’s just you don’t know which story you need to tell first.

Trudy Rankin: That’s an interesting question because I’m going to kludge up two questions at the same time. Because if you don’t know which story to tell first, and you know that from a psychological perspective humans tend to gravitate towards the sensational and the [00:12:00] dramatic, how do you balance those two things out so that you can pick a story that people can relate to, but that they’re also going to be interested in enough to click on whatever so they can go listen?

Sara Lohse: I think one of my favorite quotes is Ira Glass, and, “Great stories happen to those who can tell them.” I think it’s not about how insane or how sensational the story is, it’s how well you tell it. And one of the, like, storytelling methods that I love the most is the one where you tell the punchline up front.

You just ruin the surprise, and you just hit them with it. And it’s kind of like the, “I bet you’re wondering how we got here” kind of storytelling that you see in movies. Because if you just give the ending of a story, you don’t give any lead-up to it, it’s automatically unexpected. And there’s a few things that you need for a story to be really compelling, and it [00:13:00] needs to have the right amount of details, it needs to have an emotion involved.

But one of them is that it needs to be unexpected. So if you don’t take the time to give the details and give the lead-up and tell the real full story, you just skip to the end, you get that unexpected piece of it, and you can make any story seem a little bit more exciting. And then you go back and tell the details after. 

Trudy Rankin: And that’s an interesting tactic because the concern would be how do you make people stick with you right to the end? If they already know the punchline, why would they stick to the end? 

Sara Lohse: I started telling stories this way a little bit on accident because it’s how I got started with telling stories.

It’s how I got booked on a finance podcast to talk about a tattoo because I was trying to book someone else. I was pitching him as an expert and just kept saying, “He’s an expert in all of this.” And he looks at me, he’s like, “I don’t [00:14:00] need an expert. I need someone with a cool story.” So to get him to not just walk away, I just said, “Do you want to hear about the time I got a tattoo of a penis while I was in Ireland?”

And he did. And I accidentally got booked to be on the show. But what I learned was that it actually works really well with the way my brain works because I have ADHD. And if you’re telling me a story chronologically, I’m not following you. I am not actually paying attention to the details. My brain is trying to race you to the finish line.

I am trying to guess what is coming next. So even if you’re giving me all of the details, laying it out step by step, I am trying to be 14 steps ahead of you. So I’m not actually taking in your story. But if you tell me the ending, I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have to race you to try to find somewhere to go.

It’s, “This is what happened, [00:15:00] and now you can go back and tell me how that happened, and I can follow it.” It’s like that set up in shows and movies where they start in this insane scene, and then they say, “I bet you’re wondering how I got here.” And when you start a story like that, yes, they are wondering.

They want to know how that happened and how you got there. So instead of making it something that they have to really wait, you have to try to build it up, you already told them where it is, and they can relax and kind of just follow to see how you got there. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s really, really interesting. If you’re comfortable with this, maybe we can just delve a little bit more into that whole the ADHD end.

And I know it’s … There’s a huge, huge range of what that actually means. So we’re not talking for precise details or anything like that. But a lot of my listeners are people who have ADHD, and I have talked with a lot of people with ADHD who actually, they have this secret dream.

They would love to start a podcast. They would [00:16:00] really, really like to start a podcast.

Sara Lohse: That’s not surprising at all. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah.

Sara Lohse: For a person with ADHD. 

Trudy Rankin: Can you share just a little bit about with that lens, the ADHD lens, just focus a little bit on what that lens means or meant for you when you were just getting started.

The good, the bad, the ugly, the really joyful. You know, what did that… How did that impact on that whole journey that you’ve had into podcasts and storytelling? 

Sara Lohse: Yeah. No, that’s an interesting question. It’s actually not something I’ve been asked before. I think one of the things with ADHD is that we are constantly searching for novelty.

We need something new because we don’t get dopamine the normal way. Like, our brains are just lacking dopamine, and new experiences, just novel experiences give us those little hits of dopamine. It is why we are the worst at the little, when you’re at the store and right next to the cash register, they sell all these really fun things that they’re like, “I’m going to get them to buy [00:17:00] it right here,” the impulse section. 

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. 

Sara Lohse: We are the impulse section’s best friend, and it is our wallet’s worst nightmare because we’ll spend money just for the dopamine hit. So I think with starting a podcast, it’s something that is new experience for a lot of people, and it’s one of those things that it seems like it’s going to be a really fun thing to do, and it is.

But the other problem that we see is that we start the podcast, and then we get a few episodes in, and we quit the podcast because the newness has worn off, and now we’re realizing, oh, there’s a lot of work that has to go into this. It’s not as new and fun anymore. And it becomes one of those hyper-fixation hobbies that we invest a lot of money in, and then it sits in a drawer.

For me, I have an entire closet of that stuff upstairs. So I’ve seen a lot of that with podcasting. I think for me, the best thing has been having a [00:18:00] team because I’ve been able to shape my own career around focusing on the new and exciting things for me, and I get to hand off the mundane. I get to hand off the everyday tasks that don’t give me that dopamine hit.

So if I didn’t have my editors to do the production, if I didn’t have my show managers to do the scheduling and the show notes, I probably would have gone back to getting a day job and not done this at all, because my brain just does not let me do task lists, especially not in order. So I think it really is figuring out which pieces of it excite you and will continue to excite you, and finding someone else to do the rest.

Trudy Rankin: Well, that raises a whole bunch of questions for me. I’ll try to ask them one at a time. In terms of that whole consistency thing and the ability to do task lists in order, which you kind of need to do if you’re going to produce a podcast or a newsletter [00:19:00] or YouTube videos or whatever you have. What would you suggest for people who are, sort of have that same sort of approach and mindset and things, just the way your brain works and stuff?

What would you suggest to somebody who would really like to do this stuff, but they’re going, “I don’t have enough… I don’t have the money to hire a team. How do I know I’m going to stick with it anyway? Is that going to be a waste?” You know, how would somebody who’s like that start and give themselves the best chance of being able to continue if they don’t have a lot of money?

Sara Lohse: It’s definitely something that you’re able to DIY, and the fact that I’ve been able to build this into a company that I don’t have to do the pieces I don’t is, like I said, it’s amazing to me that this is my day job. For people that are doing it, the DIY, it really comes down to what you’re talking about, like what the topic of your podcast is.

Because if it is something that really does excite you, [00:20:00] it will continue to excite you, and that, as long as it pulls in that dopamine enough, that’s going to carry you through and let you continue to do it. So you have to just have a content strategy for the show so that every episode that you’re doing is really exciting for you.

And honestly, those podcasts are the best podcasts, because you can tell in the first, like, minute of listening to a podcast if the host is really excited about it or if they’re just going through the motions. And I’ve had people spend, like, 10 minutes telling me why podcasts are stupid, they don’t need one, they don’t want one. And then they’re like, “So now talk me out of it.

Convince me to start a podcast.” And I’m like, “Absolutely not. You just told me all the reasons you shouldn’t have one, and now if I tell you to start one and you do, it’s going to be terrible. Because you’re just going to be just blabbering on about something that [00:21:00] you’re not passionate about. And if you don’t want to make the content, why would anyone want to consume it?”

So I think it really is finding something that gets you that excited, that you’re able to talk about it continuously, and the rest of the to-do list that comes with it just becomes part of that main task. You can’t have the podcast without having these other pieces, so you force your brain to do them, because you get enough of that dopamine hit from the content itself.

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Oh, that’s a really good answer, because I know that for myself, the production side of it is the most painful side of it. I love talking to people. I really enjoy learning new things. But I’ve learnt how to put together, I’ve used AI tools to help me put together a process that then walks me step by step through, but it does all the heavy lifting.

Do this, then you do that, then you do that, and by the time you get to the end of those few steps, it’s all done. You know, you basically have it all done. And then I am really fortunate. I have somebody who helps [00:22:00] me edit the transcript in Descript, which is the tool I use for editing my podcasts.

They edit the transcript to a very high standard, and that’s all you’ve got to do. It’s done your video. You know, it’s pretty almost finished your video. It’s done just about everything you need to do, and it just takes almost all of the painfulness out of that whole processing system.

But for people who do struggle with step A, step B, step C, step D, and you don’t have the money for a team, yeah, I agree. The whole motivational aspect or the dopamine hit comes from knowing that you’re talking about something that you’re interested, your listeners are interested in, and there are tools and ways to actually help with that stuff that’s just so energy draining and sapping.

I want to ask a question around something that a lot of people think, you know, “Oh, I’m going to start a podcast, and I’m going to get rich from it.” Well, ha ha ha, guess what? Life doesn’t work like that. But how do you monetize your podcast? How do you help your customers, your clients monetize their podcasts?

Sara Lohse: That is the other million-dollar [00:23:00] question, literally. There’s such misconceptions about podcasting and monetization, and honestly, the way that we see it most often, which is what people are expecting, is like, oh, I have sponsors that are putting ads on my show. And I know you’re in Australia, right?

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. Yes. 

Sara Lohse: I’m in the US. Right now, the average CPM, so the cost per mille, cost per thousand downloads, for that model of monetization is about 20 bucks. So for every thousand downloads of your podcast, if you’re doing CPM style advertising, you’re getting $20. A regular everyday person’s podcast that’s pretty good numbers is getting, like, 150 downloads per episode.

It’s the really big shows that get the big numbers. So that is not going to do anything other than maybe cover the hosting platform that your [00:24:00] show is in, and I think that is why people put so much focus on the download numbers. Because they’re like, “If I can get these download numbers up, then I can run ads, and I’m going to get all of this money.”

It’s really not about that. I focus on monetization either internally or through how the show is impacting your brand. So you can monetize internally by using the podcast as a marketing tool to sell other things. People use podcasts to sell courses, to sell digital products, to sell books, all of that.

So you use your podcast to sell to your audience, or you’re just using it as a brand-building tool, and that’s really where I focus. 

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. 

Sara Lohse: And I don’t even like the term ROI when it comes to podcasting, because return on investment, I’m just like, I don’t know. You can ask me what the ROI is on the podcast I do for you, and I’m not going to have any answer.

Like, I have no idea. [00:25:00] But if we look at it as return on impact instead of return on investment, I can show you how it’s impacting your brand, and it’s going to take you at least a year to monetize a podcast, minimum. But you can start having it impact your brand the day you put it out, because it’s giving you content for social media.

It’s driving traffic to your website. It’s giving you content that you can send to prospects or send to your clients, build those relationships. It’s giving you instant credibility by just saying, like, “Oh, I post a podcast on that topic.” People think, oh, they probably know something about that topic. You get credibility.

You’re putting your voice out there. You’re becoming a trusted source on things. There’s so many ways that from day one it’s going to positively impact your brand, and that is going to turn into revenue. It’s going to turn into money down the road. Podcasting is just not a [00:26:00] fast process. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and never will be.

It’s always going to be a long game, and you have to be ready to play. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, and I think people don’t realize how much of a long game it is. And I also think they underestimate the power of the consistency. If you keep showing up every time, you know, if you post consistently like you said you were going to post, and you’ve got them up there, you’ve got this backlog of assets that you can go back to again and again and again, and it just, it’s that intangible authority building thing that’s there in the background.

It really is powerful. It is very powerful. Because I know that for myself for my podcast I’ve had things happen that are a direct, the reason they happened was directly attributable to the fact that I’ve been doing podcasts for a while. And people are going, “Yeah, you’ve got it. You’ve got one. You’ve been doing it for this long. You must be able to do X, Y, Z, or you must know X, Y, Z.” So it is very [00:27:00] powerful. Very powerful. I want to ask this question before I forget it. I want to come back to what you were talking about earlier and talking about the whole, the dopamine, and the search for new things to sort of keep your brain engaged and stuff like that.

And this is just a curiosity based question because do you ever combine or do you find that travel is one way of being able to have new experiences for you personally? 

Sara Lohse: Oh, 100%. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, so do you wrap that into your podcasting in any way? How do you do that? 

Sara Lohse: I don’t per se, but I do… Like, I travel for conferences.

Like, I go to podcast conferences every year, and I’m meeting people at those conferences that are becoming guests on my show, or I’m going to guest on their show, or I’m just learning more about the industry and making connections. And any time I go to a conference somewhere, I am using it as an excuse to have a vacation tax write-off.

So if, like I just did a conference in Portland, so I then did a [00:28:00] weekend hiking in the national park out in Oregon. And I did, there’s a podcast conference, PodFest, every January in Orlando, Florida, so naturally that means we’re going to Disneyland or Disney World, or we’re going to SeaWorld, or like one of the parks.

So I always find a way to turn a podcast conference into a little vacation to get a little travel hit. And right before our conversation, I was actually planning my next trip, which is the first one that has nothing to do with work that I’ve gone on in years. So I’m going to not podcast while I’m there, and I’m actually very excited about that.

Trudy Rankin: That sounds like it’d be a lot of fun. Oh, I had a question. It’s gone straight out of my head. In terms of the podcast experience itself, do you tend to prefer online type things, like what we’re doing right now, Zoom, whatever, or do you take the opportunity to do live interviews whenever you get the chance?[00:29:00] 

Sara Lohse: I mostly do this. I mostly do virtual, and I love the virtual ones because it doesn’t matter where we are. You’re in Australia. I’m in Texas. I’ve actually done several podcasts with people in Australia. I have a lot of virtual friends in Australia. I’ve done shows with people in Africa, like all over the world.

And that is amazing to me, just the fact that technology is at this point where we can just have this conversation face-to-face basically is amazing. I have done in-person podcasts, or I’ve set up in-person podcasts for my clients at conferences, like using the expo hall. This fly will not stop flying in my face.

Trudy Rankin: Just before we went, we started recording, we were saying, “I’ve got a cough, and Sara’s got a fly that’s flying around and bothering her.” So, that’s where that’s coming from. Hopefully, it’ll decide to go away. 

Sara Lohse: Anyone who’s lived in Texas in the summer, you [00:30:00] know my pain of flies.

But almost every conference that I’ve gone to has some sort of podcast setup, where the people can record their podcasts from the expo floor, or from these little secluded, quiet rooms. And I love that, because you get to be face-to-face, and actually in person, and there is a little bit of added just power to those conversations, and especially at these events where it’s someone that you probably never would have met in person any other way.

I have clients who only do in-person interviews, and they just take a little lavalier mic set and record on their phone. And she actually drove from Houston to Austin, which is about four hours, and had coffee with me so we could do an episode of her podcast. And it’s so fun to be able to have that in-person experience, so. There’s reasons for virtual, there’s reasons for in person.

Both of them are amazing experiences, and do one of them. It [00:31:00] doesn’t matter which, just do it. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s kinda interesting. So I’ve got a couple questions. So this person that came and interviewed you, drove up and interviewed you, you said they used their phone and a little lav mic.

Did they do a video? Was it video as well? Just, it was just audio?

Sara Lohse: Hers is audio only. 

Trudy Rankin: Audio only. Okay, that’s all right. No, that’s interesting for me, because one of the things that I get questions about, and that I’ve obviously experimented with is basically putting videos, the audio and the video up onto YouTube.

Do you do that? How do you… what do you do… Well, I’ll let you answer that one first, and then maybe talk a little bit about what you do do with your audio files, your video files when you’re done with them. 

Sara Lohse: Yeah. I am a big proponent of video for podcasts, and it’s because of the way that content consumption is changing.

You can look at the data, and I know podcasts are not a place for data, so I’ll be quick. But the way that people are consuming content, it’s short-form video, long-form audio. Those are what’s [00:32:00] really crushing it. So you need to have that full episode, that audio episode on the audio platforms.

People listen to podcasts in their car. They listen on their runs. They listen on the treadmill, whatever it is. So you need to have that long-form audio content. But it’s the short-form video that is also just really, really killing it right now, and that’s the Reels, the YouTube Shorts, the TikToks. And without the video for the podcast, you don’t have the short-form video for social media.

So it’s like you need one to have the other. YouTube actually did become the number one podcast player, and you can have audio-only podcasts on YouTube, but a lot of people do have the video episodes. And are people sitting there and actually staring at you while you have just a conversation and watching the whole video episode?

Absolutely not. It’s on another tab while they’re doing some mundane work tasks. Like, I usually have Netflix on my phone while I’m working to distract the [00:33:00] ADHD part of my brain so my normal part can work. So people are like listening to a podcast on YouTube in another tab. If you say something interesting that they want to see what’s happening on screen, they’ll tab over, and then they’ll go right back.

So is it 100% necessary that you have your video episodes out? No. But it does give you more opportunities to reach your audience, especially with YouTube being the number one player. But it’s really crucial that you’re getting those social videos because those are really what people are consuming the most often.

Trudy Rankin: So I want to, based on what you just said, I want to come back to the monetization question then, because if you’re focusing on short form videos, people tend not to necessarily look at the description so much. They just click. It’s the title, the picture, the thumbnail.

Yeah. They click, they watch, listen, and, you know, 60 seconds later or three minutes later, they’re done, and how do you use that as a way of monetizing your people’s businesses? [00:34:00] 

Sara Lohse: Yeah, so YouTube monetization is different than podcast monetization. So with YouTube, you need to hit a certain number of followers, hit a certain number of view hours, and it’s different for shorts and full videos.

So once you hit those numbers, you get put into their advertising platform, and you’re getting money just based on your views. It’s very similar with the TikTok creator program and things like that. So you’re getting monetization from the number of views that you’re getting. So the goals are a little bit different.

And a lot of the times if you’re putting up those short videos, it’s not necessarily because you want to monetize in that way. Sometimes it’s just for brand recognition. Sometimes it’s just the more you put your face out there, the more people see you, the more they recognize you, and they start to trust you.

It’s like you need to have, what is it, at this point, 74 touchpoints before someone buys from you. Might be a little less than that, but not by much. I think it’s, like, [00:35:00] 13. But you have to be constantly visible by your audience for them to start building that trust and want to purchase from you. So the more content you’re putting out that has your face on it, that’s the important thing, it’s they need to be able to see that it’s you and that it’s real and it’s not an AI robot behind a screen.

That is going to help you monetize even if it’s not that specific video, it’s looking at your brand as a whole. 

Trudy Rankin: It’s interesting, because the reason I was asking is, is that there is a strategy for longer form videos where you basically have affiliate links in your description, or you point people to your course, or to whatever it is that you’re pointing people towards.

And that is a very definite and effective strategy but you’re right, it’s not the same for… And that’s why I was asking. It’s not the same for when you have a short form video, you don’t have the opportunity to do it like that. So you’re basically saying the short form videos are more for awareness, brand awareness, recognition, authority building.

But in terms of, because my [00:36:00] understanding is, is that if you want to be able to earn from your short form videos, you have to have, like, 3 million views in a year or something like that. That’s a lot. 

Sara Lohse: Yeah, I’m definitely not a video TikTok expert any of that.

But I do know, like, when you post a Short on YouTube, you can link it to the full video, so you can send it. But you can also make very specific content that talks about the course or talks about something that you’re selling, and you can use them directly to sell. So that is another strategy.

But the way that you were saying with the long form, that’s basically the same strategy as podcasts. We put the link to all these things in our show notes, and we’re, talking about it as our calls to action. So it is a very similar way to go about it, but I think really the most powerful impact you’re going to have is that brand awareness.

And as that grows, your views will grow, all the other monetization pieces will start to grow. So everything has to just play together. It’s never really like there’s one silver bullet that’s going to, like, you do this one [00:37:00] monetization thing and you’re set. Everything has to work together. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s really good advice because yeah, it can take somebody who’s just getting started a while to actually get all those pieces, first of all, up, going, and then working properly.

So what would be your, your advice for somebody who’s just getting started and just going, “This is way too much. There’s just overwhelm, up the wazoo”? 

Sara Lohse: Take it slow, and remember the scale of what you’re doing. I hear all the time from brand new podcasters, like, “I want to be the next Joe Rogan.”

That’s really great for you, sweetie. You’re not going to be the next Joe Rogan. There is a very definitive difference between a podcaster and a celebrity that has a podcast. 

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. 

Sara Lohse: And we look at the most mainstream podcasts, and they just added podcasts to, like, the Emmys or something, and [00:38:00] of course, the winners are, like, Amy Poehler.

She is a celebrity. She has a huge audience, a huge platform. She is not a podcaster. She’s a celebrity with a podcast. They don’t need to do all of the legwork. They don’t need the long game to build an audience because it’s already there. They already did that in the rest of their career. This is just another project that they’re doing.

So I think people tend to compare themselves to the Joe Rogans, the Amy Poehlers, the really massive shows, and even the ones that didn’t start out as celebrities, they’ve been doing this for so many years before it got popular. It’s the same thing with music, the overnight successes that have already been doing this for 10 years.

We just didn’t know about them yet. It’s the same thing with podcasting. So you can’t compare your episode 1 to someone else’s episode 1,000 and expect to have the same result. And I think we also need to change how we see the data. We look at [00:39:00] vanity metrics the most, and we look at those download numbers, and I think it’s because we want our podcast to almost be like the Eras Tour, and we want our podcast to be us on stage in this massive stadium.

And if you’re on stage at a massive stadium, and there’s 20 people in the audience, that is an empty stadium. You are playing to crickets But if you look at it a little bit differently and look at it as this is 20 people you’re having a conversation with in your living room, that is a crowded room. You are tripping over people, and there’s a line for the bathroom.

You have to stop looking at it like you’re supposed to be in this big platform that you don’t have. Just look at the platform that you do have, and how are you using it? Are you using it for good? Are you using it to reach your goals? And are people letting you know that the content you’re putting out is making a difference to them?

I had a podcast I only kept for two weeks. I think I did [00:40:00] 10 episodes, and I had, like, 50 downloads per episode or something, and even with that small shows, people were messaging me like, “I’m glad you put this out, because it’s really, like, I needed to hear this today.” That, to me, was a successful podcast, even though I quit in two weeks.

I didn’t have a stadium of an audience, but I made an impact. So just stop looking at vanity metrics, and look at what actually matters, and I think your perspective of your show will change. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. That’s really, really good advice. Sara, it’s been really great having you on the podcast. Before we finish could you maybe just tell people just a tiny little bit more about your book and where they can find it?

And then where we can get in touch with you or people can get in touch with you if they’re interested. 

Sara Lohse: Yeah, absolutely. So my book is called Open This Book. It’s the art of storytelling for aspiring thought leaders. It is all about how we figure out what our little stories are and how we can tell them.

I teach it in my own story, so it’s basically a memoir, but it’s also part journal. And if you want to get the journal [00:41:00] exercises, completely for free, you can actually just download them on my website if you go to openthisjournal.com. So that’ll send you to my site. You can download all of the writing exercises and start writing your own story, and then while you’re there, if you want to check out the actual book, all of my social links are there as well.

You can book time on my calendar, and we can chat. Everything’s right there. 

Trudy Rankin: Sounds great. Fantastic. And we will put those in the show notes. Sara, it’s been really lovely speaking with you, so thank you so much. 

Sara Lohse: Thank you, and I hope you feel better. 

Trudy Rankin: Well, there you have it. And if Sara’s got you secretly dreaming about getting your stories down on paper, well, here’s an easy way to do it. Just grab your phone, find the app that will let you record your voice. It could be voice memos or something like that. Hit record and just talk. And don’t worry about the ums, the ahs, the pauses, and the stumbles, because those can easily be edited out later.

Then load up that file into an app or a service that’ll create a [00:42:00] transcript for you. I personally use Descript, and now you’ve got something that you can use in so many different ways. Now, Sara’s book and all her links are in the show notes, so have a look in there. And if this one was useful, hit follow so that the next episode just turns up without you having to remember.

And if you’ve got 30 seconds, a quick review really does help the right people stumble across the show. And when you want practical help building the online side of your business, and when you want practical help building the online side of your business landing in your inbox each week, come grab my newsletter at onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter.

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