Creating a podcast that resonates with your audience AND supports your business goals

Sep 26

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Love the idea of a podcast but not sure if it's really where you should be spending your time? In this episode, Sophie shares her journey of starting and growing a podcast. She's also sharing what she's learnt about creating a podcast that resonates with your audience AND supports your business goals.

Here's what we're covering today:

The key reasons for starting a podcast (and why you might want all three!)
My journey with podcast formats and how it led to reaching the UK's top 5 marketing charts
The reality of producing two episodes a week (and why I'm dropping down to one)
What's next for the Lionhearted CEO podcast

You'll learn how to develop a podcast strategy that aligns with your business objectives and keeps your audience engaged. Whether you're considering starting a podcast or looking to refine your existing one, this episode offers practical insights to help you make the most of this powerful medium.

Grab a cuppa, and let's dive in!

READY TO LEAP INTO A

LionHearted CEO Mastermind:

How would it feel going into January knowing you had already secured 6 figures for 2025? THAT is what we're going to be creating in the Mastermind.

You've already got your core offers and some scalable offers (maybe too many...!). You might have a podcast or have written a book (or both!). But you know if you truly want to create a business where your revenue isn't tied to your time and energy, you need to be a hell of a lot more intentional about how you're growing your business.

You know you need to probably streamline your offers, invest in team support and actually start leveraging ads... but left doing it on your own, you know it won't happen (well, not fast enough!).

Sound perfect?

The LionHearted CEO is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the Mastermind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

INEVITABLE Minimind:

You're not new to running your own business. You love running your business. But you are ready to take it up a level and start really seeing yourself as a business owner with secure, predictable revenue.

You're probably aiming for around £3-5k/m, you have a core offer but want to start to introduce additional revenue streams, ads, systems maybe some team support.

You know you want to scale and you want to prioritise getting the right foundations in place so that once you are ready, you can dial up the revenue, without burning out.

Sound perfect?

The INEVITABLE Mini Mind is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the mini mind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

If you found value in this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and mention this episode. It would mean the world to us!

Subscribe to the lionhearted cEO podcast

Episodes release every Thursday & Tuesday. Make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing on your favourite app:

Apple podcasts

Spotify

Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday and Thursday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

Okay, let's jump in. 

Hello, welcome to the second episode this week. 

Today. I wanted to talk a little bit about podcasting. 

Now I'm by no means an expert on podcasting. However, I have had a podcast for four years now. I've had almost 10,000 downloads. [00:01:00] I get a lot of feedback on my podcast and most of my clients, when they work with me say they have at least listened to one episode. But over the years I have had a bit of a love, hate relationship with it. 

I absolutely know that voice is my preferred communication. You'll always find me preferring a voice now over writing a message out. However, it's not as simple as that, where the podcast now, when I started my podcast, I was pretty naive. 

I just was like, I just want a way of communicating with my audience way I've got more time and space and, I can go into things in more detail. I can have guests on, I can connect with people more. I can just share ideas. I was just really excited about the idea about, and as I mentioned, what I've seen over time is that people do consume my podcast before they start working with me. And it's been an incredible way to allow people to get to know me more, to build that connection that trust. Over a longer period of time. Now I also was clients see that when they have some form of long form content, whether that's a podcast, whether that's a YouTube [00:02:00] channel. Sometimes clients with blogs, but generally it's more podcasts on YouTube. Or even sometimes if they've got a book or do a lot of speaking events that can work too, but generally speaking, whether they have a podcast or they have a very strong podcast, guesting strategy where they're a guest on a lot of people's podcasts if they have that strategy. And that long form content there for that audience to consume and binge on, they tend to get much better conversions of clients when they're running ads and just generally within their business. 

So having some kind of long form content is absolutely core to my business strategy. However, a lot of clients come to me when I'm talking to them about their strategy. 

And we sort of say like, right, you want to start a podcast or you've got a podcast. I really encouraged them to look at the strategy behind that podcast before they jump into it. Or even if they've got it going, how can we optimize the podcast to support with sales? Now? I am not saying my podcast is perfect and 

this is an [00:03:00] area I'm working on over time. But what I have discovered and what I have learned from experts who I've worked with. Is there's a few core reasons why you might want to create a podcast. Now the first is connections. So when I first started the podcast four years ago, now I really actually just wants to build my network up. 

I wanted to have a way of connecting with people and saying to them, I'd love to have you on my podcast. And then when they're on the podcast, I get to know them. Some of my like online friends that I've known for the longest time originally were podcast guests on my podcast. Oh way of sharing their knowledge of having conversations. 

Like I absolutely love that concept of guests on the podcast. For the longest time, I had a lot of guests on the podcast and it is something I want to bring back, which I'm going to talk about a little bit later on. The second kind of reason, I guess, to have a podcast is to really position yourself as an expert. So, this is slightly different from the collaboration side, because if you really want to position yourself as an expert, you need to be talking about your subject, your area of expertise consistently and in a [00:04:00] lot of depth as well. And this is something I realized I was not doing is I was inviting all these other people on to talk about their areas of expertise and not really talking about my own area of expertise at all. So, this is something that I was really thinking about when I rebranded into the lion hearted CA. And then the final reason really is to grow your audience. 

So to get more people in your world because obviously podcasting is it's an entire growth strategy in itself. People search for podcasts. They use keywords. Getting people into your world who are looking for podcasts like yours. So that another way, like growing your audience that way as well. Now. What I realized was I wanted all three. A little bit greedy that might sound. 

If I wanted to, have connection and collaborate and have guests on, I also wants to grow my audience. Obviously, always looking for audience growth. And they wanted people to think. I was an expert in my area. So mostly Facebook ads. Now a few times over the years I have we don't do the podcast. So it started off as growing pains. And that was when I had a [00:05:00] lot of different marketing experts coming on about talking about their area of marketing expertise. Now, at the end of each episode, I try to link the area of marketing expertise back to Facebook ads. 

So how PR works with Facebook ads, how email marketing works with Facebook ads. But it wasn't really showing my expertise. So I did that for, I think it was about a year. And then I took a pause over the summer and I was like, yeah, I'm going to come back to after summer. But as I sat with it, the more and more I realized, this is just not quite doing what I wanted to do. So I took a break, I think actually ended up being about nine months. 

I took off in the end. And then when I rebranded my business renamed the podcast lion hearted marketing. And then what I did was I alternated between guest episodes. And episodes of just me. So I was like, . It's a way of keeping both there. So it was like episodes of me talking about things related to ads. And then also episodes with guests. 

So I could invite people on. At this point though, when we started it, I didn't really have a team. I didn't really have a huge amount of systems in place. I knew I [00:06:00] really wanted to do the podcast, but every week was an absolute fluster to get out. Recording with the experts was really hard. 

, if someone had to cancel last minute, I ended up having to like shift everything around. I found it really stressful and I ended up just getting episodes out for the sake of it. Rather than really feeling like I was really connected to him. I did it for about six months and in the end, but in like November last year, I was just like, actually I think I just need to pause this and really go back to this intention for the podcast. Like, what is it that I really want this to do? 

Take away the vanity metrics, like take away the download numbers, take away everything else, that I feel like I should be doing, I'm really leaning into like what I want to be doing. So bought the podcast back a game with a slightly different name, not hugely. 

So it's called Lionheart is CEO now rather than Lionheart in marketing. Now the reason why I have not gone down a really specific ads route. 

So like Mehta ads. Made easy or simple [00:07:00] matter ads. It's because I am someone who, yes, I probably love ads more than your average person. But I'm not obsessed with ads. I am not someone who works with people, so they get incredible ad results. I am someone who works with people, so they get incredible business results and we use ads to do that. 

As one of the mechanics I use to support people. And what I really wanted the podcast to do was to share that, to share that actually I am much more about business growth as well as matter ads, but I really wanted also to solidify my expertise. 

So when I bought the podcast back, I consulted with a podcast expert and we came up with a plan. To a kind of start building the credibility of the podcast. And the first step of that was getting into the top 10 of the UK marketing charts. The second thing was to solidify my expertise by creating a series of shorter episodes that answered common questions. That my clients have. 

So for example, like how much should I be [00:08:00] spending on my ads? Which campaign objectives should I be using? How do I build an audience? There's real like core, fundamental ads questions. I get asked all the time. And a mix of shorter episodes. That someone is likely to complete, At least 80, 90% of versus the longer episodes that I favor because I'm a chatterbox. And the reality is that the completion rate of those episodes is a lot less because not everybody has like 30 to 40 minutes to listen to me. You know, chatter on. 

And the more people you can get to complete episodes. The battery is for your rankings for the Childs. And also just for promotion, kind of within the apps. That was the strategy. And I always knew that for the first three months it was going to be really ads focused. 

So as you look back over the episodes, you'll notice that I've done it two episodes a week because I couldn't quite bear. To only do the short episodes. Cause that's just not where my energy is, guys. So I ended up deciding to do was launched it. With [00:09:00] five episodes in a week. So it was one a day for five days. With relatively short episodes, I think they were all 10 to 15 minutes long. So having that launched in the five short episodes in the first week men, I did hit that. 

Number four at the UK marketing charts. So it's now a top five ranking podcast. I then decided that for three months I would do two episodes a week, one longer, one on a Tuesday and a shorter one on a Thursday. 

And I would use the Thursday shorter one to do all those tactical ones that I talked about, you know? Answering those common questions. And then on the Tuesday, I would still make sure it was related to ads. But maybe in a slightly more holistic, slightly bigger business way and allowed me to kind of delve into more of those topics. 

I love to do. We haven't done is any guest episodes there for three months. That's what I've done now. I'm not going to lie. Doing two episodes. A week is tough. Even with a team in place and systems in place and a real intention to prioritize the podcast. It has been really tough to fit in some weeks. 

I am not the best at [00:10:00] batching. Doing things in advance. 

And that's on me, but I still have found it really challenging. 

Even though it might only be a 10 minute episode on a Thursday. It still takes time to plan record edit, you know, write the show notes, get it up online. There's so much to it behind the scenes. So that's what I've done. And now I'm at the end of the three months. So this is the last Thursday episode for a while. And I'm really pleased that I did two episodes a week. 

I feel like the last 12 weeks of content has been incredibly strong. Feel it, when people are searching for podcasts, they're going to come across episodes to answer their questions on matter ads. 

I feel like I've really been able to talk about My ethos, my systems, the way that I work with clients, it's given me, I think a really strong foundation. If someone wanted to binge my content, they could go through these episodes and really get to know me. And the way I work. However, now we're at the end of the three months, I'm really at a point where I am going to stop the second episode for now. 

That's not to say I would ever do a second episode because sometimes I've just got a lot to [00:11:00] say but generally speaking, I'm only going to commit to one episode a week, which will be the Tuesday episode. And probably from November, I'm going to be bringing back guest episodes as well, which I'm incredibly excited about. I have so many incredible women in my world that I work with that are my clients that are coaches of mine. That support me. I cannot wait to bring them onto the podcast and really share their wisdom with you. So this episode, I guess, has been a little bit of an update about the wisdom behind how do I go to number four in the marketing towards. Y I've been doing two episodes a week. And what exactly the reasoning was behind that and also the ethos of my podcast. And I guess how it changes over time. The last three months has very much been about cementing my expertise. The next three months are going to be much more about collaboration and growing my audience. 

For me, I feel like a podcast can be adaptable over time. But if you are thinking about doing a podcast or you have a podcast that you're like, oh, it's just feels like a lot of time and energy. I'm just not sure it's worth it. We really [00:12:00] go back to, why are you doing it? What do you want? Do you want it to be for clients who listened to it, binge it, and then come and sign up to you. Or do you want it to be for good audience growth or do you want it to be because you want to connect with other people really anchor into that. It doesn't have to be forever it's just for now. 

I would really think about like right now, what would benefit your business commit to that for like three months? It does take time. And then assess it and think, is it really still doing what I want it to do? Is it worth the time and effort? Because I know it's a huge goal of a lot of my clients to have a podcast to have long form content. 

But if it's just taking you time and energy, that you could be spending doing something else, you really kind of need to look at that and make sure it's absolutely worth it for you. I hope that has been a useful and a little bit of an insight into podcasting and how I've kind of grown my podcast and where I'm going with it. I am really, really looking forward to the next phase where I get to collaborate with more people and also grow the numbers as well. Because where I've been doing such niche specific [00:13:00] content, the numbers are stable, but they're not growing. And that for me is the next phase is to start growing the numbers of people who are finding the podcast. 

I hope that has been useful in the Lionheart dizzy mastermind and the inevitable mini mind. 

This is the kind of thing we really delve into, looking at your strategy in particular in the superfan strategy, where is this long form content that we can create that will really nurture, connect and build that trust with our clients and potential clients. 

So if this episode resonated with you and you think you had these are the kinds of conversations I want to be having, this is the kind of support I want to get. 

I don't just want to start a podcast and hope for the best. I really want there to be some kind of strategy and someone there to guide me and other people as well. Who've been through it who have tried a podcast, you have their own podcast, the mastermind and the mini mind are exactly the place for me to support you to do that alongside other incredible women who were doing exactly the same kind of thing as you. Both of them launch in October. I know it's slightly unusual.

And if you want more information, then that are links in the show notes or come on [00:14:00] over to Instagram. 

And there's a lot more information over there. And for the last time on a Thursday, I will see you next week. 

Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and leave a review, your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community.

Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.