Episode 44: Podcasting, Imposter Syndrome, and Female Run Online Businesses feat. Melissa Guller

Jae 0:00

I pledge myself to the pod loyal I'll always be appear to start a D at the end and an O sitting in between. Welcome back to an Omnia pratas I'm Jay like

Angela 0:16

the letter and I'm Angela also known as a vo

Jae 0:18

and today we have a very special guest a Gilmore fanatic bachelor nation member and also what do you think Angela? 50 60% of the reason this podcast came to fruition? 7080

Angela 0:29

I think a good 7580 will go 7580

Jae 0:32

Melissa Guller She is our podcast, poach guru, Big sis, perfectionist, amazing educator,

Angela 0:41

anything to add magical Fairy Godmother who popped up at exactly the right moment like when Cinderella was weeping over her dismantled dress. That's the moment that Melissa came in, just like magically in her wonderful cloud of fairy dust and saved us. Yeah, God, I think Instagram ads for some of the time. Namaste Jay, who's your special guest today?

Jae 1:05

Um, their name is blue, because I'm not sure what they are. So we'll go with

Angela 1:11

Oh, okay. Big shout out to blue everyone. Do you have their breed small? Melissa, do you have any pets?

Melissa 1:18

I don't personally but I'm a proud dog aunt to a lovely rescue sheltie named Sadie so we can give a little shout out to

Angela 1:26

Oh,

shout out to Sadie. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:28

so Melissa, do you want to do your quick little spiel on wedding wire your business how you help us and so many other people launch continue grow podcast?

Melissa 1:39

Yeah, I'd be happy to. And I have to say being introduced as a fairy godmother might just be the best podcast intro I have ever had. So that was very magical. I'm Melissa. I'm the founder of wedding wire where I help mostly online business owners, creators, people with passion, start their own podcasts so that they can either share something they love, like the two of you, or really get their name out there to build up their audience and their authority. So I really feel honored to help all of the mostly women who have taken courses through Witten wire. And I think one of the best parts is just seeing how different all of the hosts are and all their different topics, really everything from like marketing, to motherhood to witchcraft, to interspecies communication. It's really all inside of the program. And I just have had a blast getting to know, Jay through the program and excited to be here with all of you.

Jae 2:26

Yeah, the new crop of students, when they all gave their intros, and I've been reading through the community that's attached to your courses. I was like, oh, okay, they're topics I never would have thought to have a podcast on or topics that are great podcasts that I personally have no knowledge in, like, one that really stuck out to me, is there is a I think she is now a barrister in Ireland, I believe, who wants to do a podcast about women in the legal profession throughout history. And like, that's cool. I would listen to that, even though I have no law degree or more knowledge than suits. But still, if I can be a doctor, because of Grey's Anatomy, I can be a lawyer because of suits. That's how things work, essentially. So Melissa, I think the first place to start off is you recently left your full time stable corporate, would you say job to completely run your business? full time?

Melissa 3:25

Yeah, I think the more terrifying way to say it is that I left having a very stable salary at a growing startup to take a huge risk. But yes, I've worked at different I would say very corporate businesses in the past. And then my more recent full time employment was kind of in the startups world. And then yeah, now I'm just doing this whole online internet business thing that at least in 2021, people have more of a sense of the fact that it's real, to have a job online. But since I've been in this space for a long time, for a while, it just felt very spammy to say, I had an internet business. I don't usually use that phrase. But yeah, I'm excited to see where Whitmire can go. Now that I'm full time on the business. My gosh, yeah,

Jae 4:03

that reminds me of the early days of YouTube influencers and influencers just as a thing. We when I started watching over a decade ago, I think at this point, which is terrifying. It was beauty gurus. And then somehow along the way, it turned into influencers and then explaining that you filmed yourself for the internet probably was just a sketchy as I run a business on the internet, when we grew up in the era of like, you never use your real name, ever. At least that's how I was, you can't ever make a username with your real name, which is how I get all of these weird emails that I don't like to look back on.

Melissa 4:34

Really, it's interesting being in the online business space, but just because it does change so much. That's such a good example of how we used to all be anonymous online. And now a lot of platforms are exactly the opposite. You have to use a real name or even God forbid people might see your actual face and see that you're a real human being but the internet as ever just continues to change a ton, which definitely will affect I think podcasters business owners are really like anybody with a job and a human being because we're on the internet all the time. Fortunately, too much

Jae 5:01

my screen report just came up to tell me how much more I was on my computer last week, then the week before,

Melissa 5:07

I just can't even look at that it's too depressing, especially in the pandemic era, my screen time, as I'm sure for all of us, it just went way up. So it's not something I like to look at

Jae 5:16

out of sight out of mind. Angela, you currently work in the fraternity upgrade known as finance, and Melissa working in more of like a traditional corporate setting. I've never dominantly worked with men, if I've worked with very few men, I guess, is the correct way to phrase it. So what can you guys tell me about like your experiencing having men as bosses, or co workers or things just because I always had more women surrounding me and really wanting over? Sure,

Angela 5:44

it was definitely a bit of a transition because I like uj, I came from a more female dominated space in my job before finance. And I feel like this is just gonna lead into some sort of like stereotype. And I really don't mean it to. But occasionally, my boss, who was a woman would call meetings just to have us online shop with her. And that really doesn't happen with men. In my current position, everyone's a lot more to the point. They're focused on really efficient communication, they really value independent work. And in my previous position, it was all about like, how can we collaborate? Do we want a lunch meeting, let's extend our lunch meeting into this shopping meeting. It's just it's a very different dynamic, because working with women, you almost feel like you're working with your best girlfriends versus working with men where you truly feel like you have colleagues and co workers. But then five o'clock, you have bros? Yeah, I've

Melissa 6:38

worked in a couple of really great companies where my first job out of college was predominantly women in the New York office, out of the 17 of us, I think 14 were women, it was just an overwhelming amount of women. But the headquarters in California was a little bit more mixed. So out of the 100 something employees, it wasn't quite that overwhelmingly women, but you know, in our office kind of enjoy, like you're saying it very much felt like there was camaraderie there were shouting, there were engagement celebrations, wedding celebrations, there was a lot of I would say socializing. And to take it one step further, I would call it planned socializing, as opposed to just kind of like the let's grab drinks over work. And again, we're kind of generalizing just for the sake of contrast here. But then when I worked for companies that were predominantly men, like, I've been on leadership teams, where I'm the only woman in a room of five people, the only woman in a room of 10 people. And on that extreme, it was a lot different. And I think this is more about the company itself than every company. But it was very hustle culture. It was very not just efficient, and to the point, but it was how can we do more? Even when we're doing well? How can we do more? And I think the most dangerous part of that was just there was a denial around things that went wrong. And there was no I think space for people to say when they had necessarily made mistakes, because it wasn't as friendly. And I would say the best place I've ever worked, which was teachable, was very diverse, especially for a startup when it came to the balance of men and women. A lot of startups get a bad rap as being predominantly men. And I think obviously, certain departments like engineering still skewed that way, although they're making a huge effort, but I think with a more balanced company, the diversity of ideas, a level of conversation, it was just a lot more fun and productive and profitable. So at least for me, professionally, when I've been a full time employee, the more balanced the team has been. I felt like overall the better the business was doing.

Jae 8:32

Yeah, I was going to ask with both of you having experienced with more female spaces as well as more male and then Melissa, you said teachable, mixed. I feel like when the space was also dominantly women that also was a bit of a hinderance as well I don't know in my personal experience working with all what men are dominantly women I feel like it is nice to have that friendship and that camaraderie kind of like oh, it's a your time of the month and like you can kind of have some nice camaraderie with that. But at the same time, the lines can I feel get a bit skewed and the boundaries of supervisor versus friend versus colleague versus shopping buddy versus sister fellow makeup or beauty lover or video game lover book reader.

Angela 9:16

Oh, completely. And I feel like that's part of the bigger conversation right now about whether or not we as a whole want to preserve corporate culture. I don't know if either of you have seen these but I've been watching this tik tok series where this woman is actually outlining all of the problems that corporate culture brings up within workspaces. The one that I watched this morning was all about how your colleagues shouldn't actually be your friends. Why does knowing about someone's personal life actually make you work better with them? And to some point, I agree, but I also disagree because I think you do need you do need a level of personal connection to really empathize with someone particularly when things start to go wrong, but it is a very interesting point. Yeah,

Melissa 9:55

I agree with that. Because when I entered the workforce, I really wanted to keep my personal life. Separate from my work life. That's just how in a good way, that's how I kind of been taught. I had taken a lot of business classes, I had done internships, and I was prepared to be very professional, I was proud to wear pencil skirts like the whole bit. And I felt that it was a bit surprising when people would try to like pry into my personal life. And this was the office with a lot of women. And I think that what was great about the fact that not just that they were prying into my life, but I worked in corporate events. So we were on the road together all the time. So you really did get to know people, because you were spending time with them outside of strictly work hours. And I had a lot of empathy for everybody I worked with. And then on the other end, I've been at some businesses where you just don't know people at all. And I think there's maybe a middle ground where I agree that you shouldn't feel like you have to share everything about yourself at work. But I think if people don't know anything about you, it's harder to understand why you are the way that you are, what kind of communication styles work for you. So I think there's got to be some in between,

Angela 10:57

oh, completely. And honestly, as you bring that up, I flashed back to my very first job ever working at this law firm. And the head receptionist on my very first day came up to me after lunch and told me you need to tell me everything about your life. Like I want to know about your family, I want to know about your friends, I want to know where you went to college, like Tell me everything. She's like, I control the jobs around here. If you want a job, we have to be friends. And it was very intimidating because it was my first job. I was what 22 years old, that would terrify me. Oh, yeah. And I think after that experience, I definitely became a lot more guarded and all of my positions. But I mean, the company where I've been now I've been there three years. So frankly, life has just happened. So everyone knows, like a great deal more about me than I think any previous job has. But Jay to your point as well, just sometimes working with women like those lines do get crossed, because I've I've never had a man that I've worked with pry into my life like that.

Melissa 11:55

Oh, I totally have some men are gossips, I would say, really, don't be fooled. They want to know just as much. But I still definitely agree. It's more predominantly women. But then I'm thinking of are all like really good hearted. Some of them were like family man just trying to like live vicariously through young people in New York asking, you know, friendly, not too personal questions just about like, oh, gosh, what are those dating apps even like, so praying too much. It's just like a very innocent curiosity. But also, they definitely want to know about life in a way that has nothing to do with whatever we were doing at work. See, I

Angela 12:30

think my current male co workers are very invested in the lives of other male co workers, but they try to be very respectful of the women in our office.

Melissa 12:39

I've never really worked in finance or something as corporate or I would say traditional as what you're doing. So I imagine it's pretty different. Because the companies that I've worked for have all been either, newer startups, which is a very different culture, or they've been smaller, kind of like longtime, very family oriented businesses, people who have been there for years and years. So I've never really worked for a true corporate experience.

Angela 13:03

So Melissa, with everything opening back up again, knock on wood, fingers crossed, throwing salt over my shoulder, do you have any advice for anyone right now who's maybe considering life at a startup,

Melissa 13:14

I think it's a great time to join any startup because they pay really well. Not all of them. It depends on of course, like the level that the startup is at. If there are five people, it's a huge risk to join a startup, that's pre series funding. But if you're looking at startups that are a little bit further along, there's a lot of upside to be gained. But the reason I said that they pay well is just because tech startups have to compete for engineers. And because of that, the benefits are often really good. And I look around at a lot of my really smart, wonderful friends, male and female, and just depending on the industry that they're in the pay opportunity, isn't there, like one of my brilliant friends works in higher ed. And that field just does not pay the same kind of money as a tech job could and so she could double her salary, I'm sure I don't know exactly what she's making. I'm just taking a guess here that if she were to use her exact same skills in a different job opportunity, she could be making way more money. And that might not be the right fit. But in general, I think it's a big industry, because it's not industry is the wrong word. It's just a lot of companies that are proactive, that are thinking about the future that are coming up with ideas right now or within the last five years. They're addressing modern problems. And I think that that's what we need a lot of right now. And I think it's fun, it's creative. I look a lot to see if people enjoy the startups that they're at, like when I joined teachable. They had great reviews on Glassdoor, but I also knew people there. I had talked to a lot of people before I joined and it just seemed like people were happy at work. So I think that that matters more than anything like do people like working there and do you like the person who's going to be your manager to me matters almost more than the company itself.

Jae 14:42

I feel it's a bit of a catch 22 in terms of startup versus corporate and then kind of when we were talking about those lines getting blurred because a lot of startups are caring more about a work life balance about certain things because if your whole grind is in an office or at work And that's all you're doing 80 hours a week, you don't have any other sort of connection to the outside world connection to friends, anything else. So you want some sort of connection that's not related to what you're doing. But I think it's a symptom of not having enough time to have an outside life.

Melissa 15:17

Yeah. And with startups, something that is maybe not as obvious if you've not been on the inside is that growth is such a huge priority, because you have venture capital funding. And it's not just that your business needs to be successful or profitable, it's that your value as a business is measured based on your growth rate. And so because of that, there's a huge amount of pressure to always do more and to move faster. And on top of that, there's not as much structure, which is a good thing. But if you aren't comfortable with ambiguity, or things changing really quickly, or uncertainty, or things just feeling a little bit messy, then it also might not be the right fit, because I haven't, again, worked in a super corporate role. But what I've heard is that it's a lot more structured, there's a lot more processes. And I know some people like to complain about those things. But there are some benefits to structure depending on your personality and what you like. So if just things feeling a little messy and unfinished is not your thing that a start up could be a huge challenge. I also

Jae 16:15

know you referenced your friend who works in higher ed, who couldn't make more money in tech growing up in the Bay Area. And then a lot of these buildings and startups and tech companies came to the city when I was away at college. So coming back, San Francisco is no longer the San Francisco that I knew as a child and my friends, and I always have a lot of debates about the value of tech companies. And should it be so easy for young people or people to be making the obscene amounts that some tech people can. And I always kind of look at it as the symptom, not the cause. Because I don't think it's necessarily with tech being the future tech is where we're heading that they necessarily, I mean, I don't fully know if their value is compensated, because it's so competitive. But I also think that people in higher ed and people who are nurses, doctors, teachers, my mom was a teacher for your entire life until retirement do deserve to also be making those competitive salaries. Rather than taking away from another industry, I feel like we need to, as a society look and find ways to compensate those jobs, because without those society still couldn't function. As we saw from the pandemic grocery store clerks, teaching kids online through zoom, some of these jobs that were not as valued are so essential to the way we operate everything else.

Melissa 17:36

I think that's a great point. There's an interesting moment going on right now in hiring, at least from what I've heard with engineers, where there are more candidates than roles, I believe, but it's still really hard for hiring managers to get people into their jobs, just because there's just an abundance kind of everywhere. So with the rise of boot camps, coding boot camps, and more people going into engineering roles. At some point, I think it won't be the case that I think he said, you know, technology or engineering is the future. It's very much the present now. But I don't know if there's really going back and saying, Oh, you know what, we're just all going to agree across all of the major tech companies to lower our salary, I just don't think it's going to happen. So I think it's a good point to say, you know, how can other industries find ways to better pay their people instead of asking, Well, how could tech companies try to pay people less? Well, interestingly

Angela 18:27

enough to both of your points, because during the quarantine with how many people who did work at tech companies in the Bay Area moved out of state, a lot of those companies right now are trying to rework salary bases, and put pay caps on those who have moved out of state to then adjust per their cost of living. So I think in some ways, that's definitely helping, then, Melissa, like you said, coming into the workforce now there are just so many people to fill these jobs. I think it also goes back to your primary motivation and what you're looking for, and are you looking for a big payday? Or are you looking for something that's going to make you happy that you can also be successful in totally,

Melissa 19:06

I think advice that I wish I had had going into the workforce initially was just to consider not only what kind of work I wanted to be doing, but also what the industry was like that I wanted to go into and what that meant for work life balance. So for example, I started off in corporate events where we would do the scenic and the sets and all of the kind of things that you see around a big tech conferences. I'm not only tech, but that's the example most people have heard of. And so the work life balance on a regular week was great. It was nine to five, I'll go home and then one to two weeks a month I was on the road and it was just absolutely nonstop every day but I really liked it. It was very electric. There was a lot of energy when you were on site and getting to see these big events come to light but you know, the pay was not that great. And it would be a long time before you could make any amount of meaningful money. And then right after that I started working for general assembly and education tax. startup based in New York City and that startup and my role at that startup because I wasn't in a technical position was a little bit better, I would call it like average, it wasn't anything huge, not by any means a six figure salary, but it was definitely higher than I had been making. And the work life balance was in some ways worse, because every day was longer. And so depending on the startup or the company, you join consulting, and even I would say, finance. But Angela, you would know better kind of have a reputation as being very long hours, a lot of the time. And then I would say teachable. What I loved the most is that it was a tech startup. But we were fortunate we were doing really well. And so I felt like I was working pretty regular hours other than maybe a couple times a year where there was a lot going on. But I was making better money because I had entered a company that had a track record, I should say, of doing well. So I don't know, there's just a lot to be said for thinking about what kind of pay does the industry that you want to go into give like, what is your salary earning potential in this field, but also at what cost? Will you be working 100 hours a week to get it because I don't know if it's always worth it

Angela 20:58

completely. And I think just to expand upon that, when you're in those industries, I think they call it the like, always on mentality where maybe you had a really slow morning, you didn't do much from 10 to 3pm. But all of a sudden, at 330, you get this influx of emails and this paperwork that needs to be done or this report that needs to be signed off on and the next thing you know, it's 10 o'clock at night and you've been working, then it's kind of seen as this weird balance of Well, you didn't really do anything with your morning or during the majority of the work day. So you've just shifted your hours to when the company needs you to work. So it's almost like this weird justification process the company goes through, but then you as the employee, you almost start to buy into it because it's like, well, you're kind of right, I didn't do much today, I can give you a little more time this evening. But then it comes with the sacrifice of maybe not going to dinner with your friends, spending time with your family or just taking a little bit of time for yourself to reset before you start your next day.

Jae 21:55

I also feel though that was a privilege of sorts of corporate and tech, not the obviously the always on but in a lot of industries, particularly retail service, you don't get a set schedule to begin with Angela's You and I both know working retail weekends, nurses have weekends and night shifts, like it's not necessarily It is something we all kind of strive for. And a lot of people want to create their own schedules and want to do that, which is great. But I feel like that's one of those things. I don't know, either. If you've seen the Tech Talk trend, like what something that's classy if you're rich, but like not if you're poor, and I feel like setting your own, like working a non traditional schedule could go into that category,

Melissa 22:37

I definitely think so. Because like you're saying, Jay, especially if you're an hourly employee, or if you are in a central worker, those are just things that happen outside of work hours. So if you go in that direction, you no longer have the privilege, like you said, of working when everybody else is working. But now with my own business, I definitely do still work regular hours. But I don't have to like I have a lot more flexibility in how I want to work heartily for me to say I'm one of these big rich people in that other category. But I did have enough, you know, built up in creating the business to at least have that freedom.

Jae 23:08

And that is a great transition to talk about your business, your lovely business. That is the reason we exist. I know one of the things we've talked about, I've observed taking your courses and being part of your lovely weekly bi weekly coaching calls, which is one of the best things literally about your course will go on our whole reason why we love your courses and a little bit. But there weren't any men there weren't any men signed up. I didn't see anyone in the community. I mean, there might be I haven't gone through the full directory, but it was always very female focused, which I'm curious, was that intentional when starting this? Or is that just kind of how it happened? Is it because your color is like a light nudie pink and cursive. So it just deters them from the beginning.

Melissa 23:54

You bring up the branding. So when I started wedding wire, I wanted to identify a really clear ideal student in my mind, because just saying I want to help somebody launch a podcast is really broad. And even before you get into gender or how somebody identifies just thinking through what if I want to start a podcast that is you know, I'm a celebrity and I want to start a podcast. It's very different from wanting to start a true crime podcast very different from somebody who is a health coach, and they want to start a podcast for their business and the ways that you would produce those podcasts, the budget that you might have the marketing strategy, they're all very different. So I knew that wasn't specific enough. And I wanted to get really clear on again, this one person and I was a little bit torn honestly on if I wanted to target women in my gut I knew primarily I wanted to help women, a lot of men were talking about podcasting at the time, a few women were but this was before the pandemic. This was early 2019 and felt like more women could be helping other women get into podcasting. And so the reason I picked it up first was because I'm an experienced marketer, and I knew that having a clear target person would make it a lot easier to do things like run Instagram ads. And I was hesitant because I like working with men. I mentioned before that teachable was the best full time job I ever had. And I really liked the fact that there were men and women in the room, I felt like it brought a lot to the table when we would have these open brainstorms about what we wanted to do. And I enjoyed that kind of mixed energy of a lot of different people with different experiences, different genders coming together. So it was kind of hard for me to decide I was going to exclude men, because personally, professionally, I actually really like working with and talking to men, but just for the clarity of the business. By choosing women, I could do things like choose a soft pink as my brand color, I could do things like Target only women for my ads. And I think that it ended up working out for the best because the other thing kind of Jay, as you hinted at is that I felt like it would be helpful to feel like the women were student community with a safe space where I don't necessarily feel like men make a space not safe. But I felt like there were just a lot of topics that women wanted to start podcasts about, for example, motherhood, that maybe if they came on a call and wanted to talk about something like that, in group coaching, if men were on the call, I think it just changes the dynamic. And so I felt like a lot of small signs, were just pointing in this direction of not just targeting women, but targeting non white women to join my programs. And so that's kind of where it started was just this mix of I wanted to help women and that also, as a marketer, I definitely saw the value of choosing a very clear lane. And thinking that that could help not only need some more programs, but also have more women who joined the programs feel like it was exactly for them.

Jae 26:33

I have another question. But Andrew, we know how much you've loved talking about PLCs. I mean, we both do, but particularly your current I don't wanna say revelation, but your current learning process, I've been getting a lot of tech talks on the topic. So would you like to go into any more depth about that? Before I ask my question?

Angela 26:51

Well, Melissa, I'm just curious how when you talk about like reaching out to other women, and particularly encouraging to see bipoc women to join your course, how exactly do you go about that? Because I feel like one of the big things that I've been struggling with is how do we expand and keep pushing for diversity and equity and inclusion, but make sure that everyone knows that our intentions are genuine, and that nobody feels like they're the token in the room. And I mean, granted for Jay and I because we're both PLC women, hopefully people will not feel like the token in the room. And they will just feel like we're trying to enfold them into our space. But at the same time, like we want to make sure like everyone knows like it's coming from a good place. And we want to amplify their voice not use it as another platform to market ourselves.

Melissa 27:43

Yeah, it's funny that you use the word amplify because I did an annual scholarship that I'm likely going to do again, this fall called amplified because of podcasting and the kind of connection to sound. But I think there are a couple ways I've tried to have written a wire just be more welcoming, but I'm a white woman. But I think the worst thing that I could do is make my business all about me. And one of the biggest ways that I think I've just made it clear that wouldn't wire as a home for all women is to make sure that when I spotlight students that I'm spotlighting a diverse array of students, when I'm using imagery on my sites or examples, I'm trying to go beyond the obvious most of the imagery on my site is not of white women like it's of diverse women, women of different sizes. And those are really small things like that alone is not going to solve everything. But I think it makes a big difference even from the start where let's say you see one of my Instagram ads, if there is a black woman in the photo already, that is going to tell you that it's not just for white women, hopefully it's small. It's small little signposts along the way, it's showing off women of color who have launched podcasts in my community. And that's something I want to even do more on particularly my Instagram moving forward to show off more of my students and the very diverse people that they are and topics that they cover. But to me that's like level one, right? Like that's just making it clear that I am not only one person. But I think that not enough businesses even think about that. Like I like to talk about it just because I don't think I'm saving the world by using diverse documentary. But I don't think enough businesses look at their websites through a critical eye to think how exclusive there really being. So I don't know, I would say that's like a small start in a more real way. I did this scholarship last year, I'm planning to do it again, where I offered women the chance to apply based on merit and need to join my program, the podcast launch accelerator. And I think that that was almost the least that I could do, because I do incur a cost for every student who joins the program. But it's not quite like a physical good, where I would be mailing it out very literally paying for shipping or the item with an online program. I had the very real opportunity to enroll somebody in the course for free. And then the cost to me are things like you know, supporting the student or helping them throughout so it's either my time or my team's time. But as I was thinking about my mission to help more women of color launch podcasts, it felt to me that the obvious barrier to entry for some of them could be the price of learning How to start a podcast. And so if I could take that away and just enroll them in my program for free, I knew that that was something I could do that would make a difference where I could very literally give them a voice and a platform. So that's something that was important to me. Again, these two things put together are not enough. Like I often asked myself, What else could I be doing, but it's very hard to market directly. But it's hard to market directly to anyone really had to find exactly the right people. But the third thing that I've started doing recently is that I've started going on podcasts a lot to promote wedding wire. And I'm trying to go on a very diverse array of shows with a very diverse group of hosts, because I think that if I can get in front of their audience, whether it's a black woman whose podcast is for black women, if she only wants to interview fellow black women, I of course, respect that. But if I see that she's had a pretty diverse lineup, and I can go on and talk about how I would love to have more members of her community start podcasts in my course, then I feel like that's a smart way to spend my time to help other people. So I would love to hear if either of you have other ideas like what could I be doing to better be like an ally to better empower more minority women to launch podcasts? I would be all ears. But those are the few things that come to mind. Melissa, you

Jae 31:08

said you launched in 2019? And I don't know if this is too specific or not. But have you seen your demographics of women change as you've done different marketing strategies? Or as more people have heard about the course and recommended it and signed up? Have you seen it shift?

Melissa 31:23

That's a good question. I'm trying to think back to some of my earliest students. But even when I think back to the first 20, the first 30 students, there was definitely a mixed array of women. The other thing that I actually feel is really important is that it's a mixed group of agents, I don't only target women under 40. Let's say a lot of my students are in their 50s and 60s, and I think a few might even be in their 70s. But just thinking back to that moment, compared to now it's tough to say because I don't know, I don't know all of the ethnicities or ages or identities of all of my students, they don't have to tell me I only really know who shows up on the calls and who I can see, but I don't think I definitely don't think it's less if anything, I think it is more as you guys have been talking, I've just been thinking about different outreach points, see the one that immediately came to mind for me, and I'm not sure, Melissa, if this would directly work for you, because this is your business like your full time business now, but maybe even working with another woman who is focused on promoting podcasting education for other women to maybe try to expand your audience, maybe even if there was a woman of color out there who was trying to get her own platform started? Well, I think what's interesting about that is I think it's great to partner with other business owners. And in general, whether it's finding podcast guests, or like people to spotlight to my community, I actually feel like I dropped the ball a little bit on that this year, because I got pitched a lot inbound by people who wanted to be on my show or do things to my community. And so I said yes, but I've realized that a lot more white women are confident pitching. And so if I only say yes to pitches, instead of me going out and proactively pitching diverse guests, then I'm also not doing a good job with my platform. But what I was going to say is also just because I'm white doesn't mean I should only focus on helping white women. This is not at all what you said. But this is something where at first I felt like a fraud because like Who am I to try to do this and to help and to be more diverse and to try to empower more women's voices. This is like the deepest dark thought. I did not actually believe this, of course. But then I felt like what kind of awful society would we be in kind of to the point of a lot of the Black Lives Matter movement, like it really cannot just be black people who are trying to elevate other black people. So then I felt even more empowered to say like, I need to get out there and help as many different people as possible and talk about it, because otherwise, then I'm just kind of contributing to the problem more. So yes, I want to empower other black women, Asian women, all kinds of women in business. But I also feel like there's an interesting line when it comes to collaborating where I also have to build my own business instead of only building others.

Angela 33:51

That completely makes sense. And, frankly, to your point, I know you helped Jay and I with our first inbound pitch, is that the right term? I think so. I don't know, I think it was exciting because it was the first pitch that we ever had. But again, just thinking about in terms of our values, and what we wanted to bring to our audience and how we felt a relationship could potentially grow with this person down the road. It is something that you do need to think about and ultimately wasn't the right thing for us. And it was terrifying to think about how to say no, it's awful. And

Melissa 34:21

I have now started declining. So many people, I'm in a really fortunate position where as my business and podcasts have gained momentum, it makes sense that a lot of people want to be put in front of my audience. And it took me a little bit to realize that I needed to decline more of them to make space for the people who are never going to pitch themselves. So I think no matter how big or successful you get, it's still on you as like the leader of your own audience and community to find voices who are not being shared and to be the first one to give them an opportunity.

Angela 34:49

And I think just going into that point a little bit further as well. Jay and I were speaking yesterday about how to find a good course what makes that what makes one better than the others. What's being presented to us, particularly through Instagram ads, because that's how we found yours. And Jay brought up an interesting topic that most of her targeted ads were showing courses run by white women. But most of the ones that I was getting were courses run by PRC women. I wonder why that is? Exactly. It was definitely a little strange. But I think just to that point, as well, the way that social media is set up right now is like, we're really not getting the full view of what's out there. I think that maybe even particularly for minority women, it's not so much that they are not confident in pitching themselves, but that they might not even know that you exist, because they're only being shown 1/16 of what's out there.

Melissa 35:44

Completely agree, it reminds me of the social dilemma, the documentary, which has, I mean, obviously, so much great content, but just a big part of it is that you are shown content, and when you like it or engage with it, Facebook's algorithm makes a note, and then they want to show you more things that are similar to what you've already liked, which makes your entire social media experience incredibly biased. And I don't think a lot of people realize that it is not an all encompassing view of what's going on. It's such a small small section of what Facebook thinks that you'll like, based on what you already like,

Jae 36:18

this will come back to the point you guys are making just it's gonna take a minute or two, I was listening to another podcast and I don't know how much you guys are aware into kind of like the lifestyle influencers act, but a lot of people on various social media platforms who are plus size are more likely to get bathing suits and scantily clad photos flagged and or taken down before review before people even get to see it as opposed to people who are more slender. And someone on another part because I was listening to was explaining how scans picture how much skin is showing. So technically, a person who is larger has more skin shown by default. So therefore, the algorithm is more likely to flag it right away, as opposed to someone who's more slender. And going back to your points. If the algorithm can do that. I'm sure it has something for skin tone in there. If it can already kind of tell shape size clothing levels. I'm not saying that. That's the reason. But additionally, with some of the sites you do put your ethnicity in, and then they'll see the content creators you engage with. And they know more than we want them to. Yeah, that

Melissa 37:26

was gonna be my guess. So depending on who you follow what pages you like on Facebook, the tiniest single decision could put you into an ad audience for Facebook. And so I'm sure there's maybe just a slight difference in the people that you follow or engage with on social media where once you've maybe Angela gotten into one of those audiences, perhaps then more people are targeting you proactively, just because there's one page that Jay hasn't liked. She's not seeing the same ads.

Angela 37:56

Oh, I completely think so as we're sitting here, I swiping because I'm trying to make something happen here. And I've noticed particularly there's this one influencer that I really like her name is Alicia Tunis, and every time I interact with her page, it immediately throws me six more black creators, which I think is great because it's pushing out their audience. But at the same time, it's then overwhelming my feed with just one specific view.

Melissa 38:26

I also think a big problem with Instagrams algorithm is that when you engage with something, it's almost like there's a recency bias that's too heavy, like when you follow somebody, and then you feel like you see them all the time for when you like just one thing, and then you feel like you see them all the time, it just feels like maybe they're over optimizing for what you've done the soonest. And as somebody who has worked for tech companies, and understands the fact that humans have to program things with rules, I understand why that could be the case. But it is so frustrating, even as a business owner that with my Instagram profile, it's a business account. And one of the stats you regularly hear is that only 10% of your followers will ever see your content, which is of course wildly frustrating. So it's just a level thing is very tricky. And you really have absolutely no control over who sees your content. And even as a consumer, I feel like you really have no control over what's being shown to you.

Jae 39:14

I know a something that I've heard is to be more obviously conscious of where you engage in who you engage with. And I think that that can help obviously liking creators who are bipoc or neurodivergent, or disabled or whatever, to shine a light to show the engagement is important. And I think that I've haven't this most screwed up YouTube algorithms ever. If I google one thing, like I'm trying to find a review on a vacuum and then I get only vacuum videos for the next like two weeks. It's insane. I think that it's also about the amount of time you engage because I know Angela, you've tried to not be on Instagram as much so hypothetically, if only every time you go on Instagram they're seeing you will like Alicia's post So watch your stories and then like close the app, it doesn't know you. But then at the same time, you don't want to over engage with the app, you don't want it to give those like addicted dopamine rushes. So trying to figure out how to like play the algorithm for your benefit, but also not harm your mental health in the process. I feel like that's a very fine wire to walk.

Melissa 40:19

I also wanted to circle back cuz I know you asked about how do you know if a course is good, right?

Jae 40:24

Oh, we have a whole section on that in a few minutes.

We will I have a lot of thoughts and questions that I will jump back into here. Good stuff, we'll introduce anything to wrap up this part. And then I can I can start my brand from courses?

Angela 40:36

Well, frankly, I don't want us to get caught in this whole existential loop. But Jay, to your point on YouTube, the thing that frustrates me to no end is that I will listen to one song in Spanish and then YouTube for the next three day will have changed all my ads to ads in Spanish. What was that

Jae 40:54

happens to me all the time? I don't understand,

Angela 40:58

do they like I don't. It's just I know, I get way too upset about this. But the fact that they immediately this algorithm has now been taught that, oh, if you listen to one song in Spanish, obviously, you speak Spanish, and therefore all of your content now needs to be changed to this. It's very annoying

Jae 41:18

that happened to me all the time, when I would take Spanish classes in college, all of my ads were changed because I was using Google Translate. And I was looking up articles in Spanish and I was doing a lot of things researching Spain and all of the other Spanish speaking Latin American countries and all of a sudden for weeks, my ads would only be in Spanish. So I can tell you it's an it's not because you are

Angela 41:36

Oh, no, no completely. But I mean, at least that makes a little bit more sense because you're doing a very deep dive into it. One song is all it takes, you

Jae 41:45

know, it only takes one to trigger it. It just lasted longer because I continually did it but it only takes one but it's crazy. That's why when also when you go abroad, I don't know if you've had this experience. All my lives also changed when I go abroad or French or Italian or whatever country I'm in the ads are only in that language.

Angela 42:01

Oh, yeah. But that's kind of fun. I just treat that as part of the travel experience. Because I'm there I'm using their Wi Fi they think I'm one of them. Maybe whatever you need to tell yourself Exactly. Alright. j into courses. Well,

Jae 42:13

this will also go into a later episode that I read a delightful book that Angela so graciously purchased for me. Oh god. Melissa, have you heard of the you are a Badass series books? I have. I have opinions. Oh, so do I we're doing well. I'm doing a whole episode on this very generous book

Angela 42:35

financial purchase. For me. I would like the record to reflect again, this is something Instagram ads pointed me too, as did some of the people who I was following on Instagram, some people who I wasn't following. And it all had really great reviews and people said that it was life changing that people love this book.

Melissa 42:54

I think that she's a great marketer. But we Okay, I never wanted to do the book for booksmart my podcast with my co host um, but she kind of similarly sounding she was like, oh, how bad could it be? And so she started reading it. Needless to say, there's no episode. It's probably the best my favorite book.

Jae 43:14

Well, one of the things about it is was this woman starting and encouraging people to coach and I feel I'm not saying she's the reason. But I feel that everyone nowadays, I will hear if let's do this. Harpers Melissa's course, is amazing. her brain works very similarly to mine and the processes and the thoroughness of how it goes through it. procedurally, I really like it. I've had Angela, get some sections, because I'm still trying to get her to learn how to edit. But Melissa's course, is very thorough. And I think the biggest perk to me of your courses is the chatting and the group coaching. Because whenever I had a question, no matter how far into the course or behind I was, I was never really behind. Let's be honest, I could come to the coaching calls and ask about something I had, from marketing techniques to the sound being funny to our cover art to the description. Melissa's very engaged with her students and her students are very engaged with each other. And I don't think honestly, I'm not going to sign up for every podcasting course that exists on the internet. I really don't think one could be matched. And I'm very picky. And so it was antral are very hard on

Angela 44:23

these incredibly picky No. And I think just piggybacking off your point, Jay, the part that really sold me on your course Melissa was that you continually update your content and you're thoroughly in like thoroughly engaged with your students in the one on one courses. But at the same time, like you leave little notes throughout as well. Like when I was looking at editing, you were like initially like it was set up that you used one platform. And then a few years later, there was a new note that said Actually, this platform is new, a little bit better. I'm trying it out and I will leave you guys a full update when I'm finished. And that's not something that many people do. Well.

Melissa 44:58

I mean, thank you both for the kindness It means a lot to me that any of these details are going noticed because I do feel like creating an online course is kind of the dream that's sold or people call it passive income, make the course put it out there who will make sales while you're sitting on the beach in Aruba. That's the the pipe dream for online business. But I've worked in this space for a long time I was a teacher for adults at General Assembly and then obviously working at teachable, you just see what people are up to. And I felt like I wanted to treat people like humans and give them the kind of experience that I would want. And things like updating the curriculum seems like a no brainer to me. But you know, you do slowly start to realize that it's not something that most people are doing. And so I don't know, it does mean a lot to me that those things were awful. So yeah, I don't know. I really appreciate the kind words make me blush over here. Melissa's course,

Jae 45:40

sign up do it start a podcast everyone now on the other side of courses. Oh, the other thing that made us sign up for Melissa is she did a I believe it was a live masterclass correct. where it was, I don't know, it was on the zoom.

Melissa 45:54

No, it was on. It's a platform that I use. It's called EZ webinar. If anybody is curious, it's specifically for trainings online. Well, it

Jae 46:01

was a live workshop. So right then in there, if we had any smaller questions, we could ask them for any payment before signing up for the course before anything. And it showed an amount of care and thought and kind of like a buy in with your program. Because you were taking time out of your day. Obviously, it was to promote it and to kind of grow the awareness. But also, I've sat through other courses who are like, here's how to do this, get a million followers, how to run Facebook ads, how to run Instagram, grab social media growth, Pinterest growth, the names Go on, and on and on.

Angela 46:38

But they're all pre recorded, I was gonna say or the ones that are live, but they spend 45 minutes of it just saying, Oh my god, you guys, I'm gonna tell you the secrets are amazing. You wouldn't believe where I started. And they spend 45 minutes on their background, five minutes on what they're actually going to do in the course. And then 10 minutes on all the different ways that you can sign up

Jae 46:56

honestly, hot tape. Again, not Melissa, Melissa is excluded from the statement I'm about to make coaching and courses to me feel like the new MLM, especially these master classes they are because they're like, we have the tricks. Here's how I got like Sally Lou, and she was doing this and like full time soccer mom, blah, blah, blah. And then she did to this. And then they obviously don't want to give their tips away. But also, there's an amount, Melissa, I know in your Instagram episode with Hara and some other things you've talked about,

Melissa 47:26

you don't give all your chips away. But you get you need to give some kind of value when you're trying to reach out to people 100%. And people buy because they trust that you can help them solve their problem. And if you don't do anything to actually prove to them that you can be useful, and that you're generous with knowledge. I don't know why anybody would ever purchase from you. But I agree with you Jay completely that I have a really hard time with the online coaching and course space too, because I've been in it for a while. So I've seen the good and I've seen the awful, and I've been duped, frankly, I've spent money on programs that are awful, and it doesn't feel good, because then you feel like one's been pulled over on you, right? Like, oh, gosh, somebody's really got me with great marketing, but then their actual course or experience is just not at all what you thought it would be. And so I think that that's super frustrating. It's really hard for me to see even other businesses where they're talking about the, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars that they're making. And my two questions for them are number one, What on earth are you in doing? And number two? And how much are you spending? Because I think there's a lot that people don't say online, we all know like the you know, the highlight reel effect of social media, I think it is as bad if not worse, in the poaching and course space. So I don't know, I could rant on that for days and days. But I do think it's really hard to tell like who is legit and who is just a good marketer.

Jae 48:47

I'm sure we've all seen the ads. Like here's how I got financial freedom, which again, they'll unparallel about kind of that business and kind of the whole one of the things which Angela and I talked about in another episode, Melissa is like toxic positivity and girlboss culture boss babe culture, I

Melissa 49:02

know those are kind of some of the key keywords SEO things for finding some of the people who might be interested in the course. But Melissa, what do you do to kind of actively or not so actively make sure that you're I don't know, like walking? Not in that. But I think trying to kind of how do you like what kind of elements do kind of take the good and leave the bad? Like when you kind of think about the terms or the cultures around those things? It's tricky. I think with wit and wire A lot of it has just come down to me being a little more myself because who I am is not I have no problem with people like the term girl boss, but I'm definitely not the do it all person. Nothing about any of my programs or who I am online will make you think that my solution to being successful is to be on every platform to do all the things Jake has me talk about this all the time. Like if anything, I think it's healthier and more helpful for me to help people say no to things than telling them how to do all the things. So in that way, I think that In business, and my whole kind of persona is a lot different, because I'm not trying to pretend like I've got it all together or like I'm doing everything like I'm definitely not. But on top of that, I think in a literal way, the fact that my programs are not crazy expensive, but they're also not super cheap helps to weed out some people, because in order to invest, let's say, starting at like a couple 100 bucks in a program, you have a certain intention. And I think that it weeds out people who aren't at least somewhat serious about podcasting. And I also don't charge $2,000, because I think it's absolutely obscene because I don't believe it should cost $2,000. For a DIY with coaching support help, I don't think that should be the price point barrier to starting a podcast. So that was like a personal choice. But then I would say, if you are out there, and you are looking for a course, not a digital download, but a course if that course does not have a refund policy, I think it's a red flag, because all of my programs have a refund policy, I do two weeks because I think that gives people enough time to really check it out. But then if they decide it's not for them, they can ask for a refund. You don't have to do any homework, I'll get back to why I think that's a weird rule in a second. But to me, when I look back on the programs that I've regretted purchasing, they had no refund policy. And now I think it's because the creator isn't secure enough to know that their content is good. I have never had somebody request a refund from my program because they didn't like it. I've had a couple here and there for like unexpected financial issues like losing a job or a health situation or two, but not once in the I think I have nearly 2000 students in Whitten wires programs, not just the signature one, the Jason but across all of the programs I've ever offered, I've never had a refund from somebody who was unhappy. And I think it's because I'm really upfront about what they're getting. And then I deliver on those expectations. Like I don't sell the dream of you're going to get a million downloads, I think the bigger the claim on the course the more of a side I you should give it I don't know, those are a couple tangible things that I think you can look for. But I'm really curious to hear what both of you think when you're looking at courses or potential purchases to make

Jae 51:56

I think people who spend too much money on the photo that they use in their ad, like when it's a full on stage photoshoot? Most I think I don't know how you got your photo. But it's like simple, we can see your face, we can see you it matches the branding colors. But it's not like you got balloons and like a fancy car and like you put all this money into the promotion. I know I've seen this a lot. A lot of these people, which I agree with, I think are good product marketers, they're gonna marketing themselves and marketing them as a brand. They just don't have a lot of Personally, I've not found a lot of value with their courses or what their content I feel the biggest red flag for me, I think after watching a few of these, either live or pre recorded master classes is what can I take away from the class from this one hour or whatever? And I also think this is kind of a side question, I guess, let's say you have a website, which has a bunch of information, you have your Instagram, your Pinterest, and then your podcast itself for your podcasting to go in conjunction with your podcasting course, no matter how do you balance what goes in the course versus what you're willing to just put out there for free resources, because I feel like you do a real good job at what I think what we pay for in the courses and well worth what we get out of it. But also you it's not repeated necessarily, I think in your social media or your website content, either.

Melissa 53:17

It's so tricky. I actually think this is one of the hardest parts about being somebody who sells your knowledge online, whether it's as a coach or a course creator, whatever it might be like, what does that line for you. And I've heard a couple of pieces of advice that are specific. So one is that you should tell people what to do, but not how to do it. For example, you could tell people about the importance of I don't know promoting your podcast on Pinterest. But online, you wouldn't necessarily on your social media, let's say get into any Pinterest strategies, that would be something that you would gate or online, I definitely talk about my favorite editing tools. But I don't talk about any of this specific strategies on cuts and clears and all the different things that go into the walkthrough in the demos itself. And then another thing that I think is completely true is that some people give away almost 100% of their content for free, they usually say they give away 98% of their content. But the biggest thing that they do in the program is put things in order. Because ultimately you can google a lot of the stuff that's in my program, you can google a lot of stuff that's in anybody's program, but you won't find it organized in a way that really goes from A to Z to get you to the outcome that you're looking for. And I say this all the time, people don't buy courses, they're buying the thing at the end, like people don't just want to go to the gym, they want to have a six pack or whatever their fitness goal is. And so the middle part, the journey, the steps in between, those are the things that they're going to get from your program. But ultimately, people don't join my course to have a podcasting course they joined because they want to have a podcast. And so for me, I've just decided that there are certain parts of the program that I don't necessarily get into a lot of on my more public kind of free platforms, but some of the biggest pain points I do talk about things like microphones, anybody could Google that, but it's still the biggest question. I always gets things like how to find your first listeners or how to make money podcasting are my favorite editing tools, any of those things that are kind of like the greatest hits, if I can give people answers to those questions and show off my expertise, then they'll trust me that I could help them solve more problems. And then I think from a, you know, a pure marketing perspective, you can't solve all of their problems for free. Like when I'm telling you my favorite editing tools that actually introduces the new problem where now you have the tool, but you don't know how to use it. So I'm being helpful, I am answering your question. But at the same time, I've still left an opportunity for me to tell you now into a program where I could not just answer your question, but actually completely solve your problem.

Jae 55:38

As you were talking something that I realized that I love about your course. And I think because I we trusted you to help us walk through this podcast journey is that I trusted you to make decisions for me. And what I mean by that is when you told us in your course, when you say what editing software do you use, what hosting platform, what mic to get, I was just like, I trust her expertise. And I trust the way she's gonna say. So I don't need to do additional research. And I'm a big research person, I do research before buying mostly anything, but it was nice. And the older I get, I feel like this is my I don't know, if you guys experienced this, the older I get, I feel I'm having more and more decision fatigue, and I get the whole Steve Jobs wearing the same shirt every day. It's just there are a lot of decisions. And because in your course, we're sorry. Because we were able to trust you, we were able to trust the decisions that you recommended to us. And it's streamlined versus googling how to start a podcast how to find this, how to do this, how to edit how to do all the things you kind of gave us a path to do the things with optional side roads, whatever those toll road, I don't know what the call, they're called for sure.

Melissa 56:45

It is interesting too. Because as maybe if anybody is like an aspiring coach or course grader, it's tempting to think that what people want is as much information as possible. But in fact, as I go through the course, and even when I go through it to decide what to update, I often remove things or decide that people don't need something. And anytime I make a recommendation, with very few exceptions, I try to keep it to two or three things that max because if I'm recommending to you 10 different things, how helpful Am I really being so I think it's a kindness that I can show students to say, here's my number one, let's say podcast editing tool. Here's the one that I teach in the program, there are these two others, if you want to go that way, I'm going to focus on this one. But if you have a specific maybe use case, I would go for option two or option three. But I think just by making that decision for people, not only is it nice, because then you don't have to spend time doing the research. But I also think it helps people move forward because the more decisions you have to make, let's say for my students, it's between having your podcast idea and having a podcast, the more decisions you have to make, I think the less likely you are to end up with a podcast. So I think it's helpful to make those decisions for people not to say it's my way or the highway. I like to give people the opportunity to take what I give and make it their own. But yeah, if I just gave you every single tool that ever existed in the world of podcasting, no one would ever finish my program.

Jae 57:56

Another thing kind of going out of order, but our brains are always a little bit frazzled and coffee addicted. So this isn't new. I think a lot of things with podcasts. And one of the biggest things that Angela and I kind of stuck with originally when doing this is it feels like in some sense, it feels like podcasting. supersaturated I know that there was someone who posted this on Instagram elega, which shocked me, which is like over half of podcasts only have three episodes, or I think it was higher than half. I don't remember what it

Melissa 58:23

was me it was 44% of podcasts have three episodes or fewer,

Jae 58:27

which was mind boggling to me as well. We're doing great. But just I feel like in your course I've seen when we've been on the calls. A lot of people do mother podcasts and a lot of people do podcasts on spirituality or lifestyle or their coaches themselves are trying to kind of promote their business. And I feel like in some ways, when you Google a topic you want to talk about or you want to look up if you want to start a podcast kind of the imposter syndrome, I found six mothers who went through their experience of kind of why I guess the question at the end of this reflection is how to encourage realistically people to start podcasts and to kind of get heart about their space, while also being realistic about niches and about things that are already plentiful.

Melissa 59:13

I think this is one of the biggest things that holds people back. I hear it from students time and time again, that they feel this imposter syndrome. So I think it's a great question. I think a couple ways I can maybe lay people's ears on this. First of all, maybe you've had this experience, but sometimes I'll talk about a book that I loved or somebody who I think is huge, who everybody knows about and then without fail somebody around me maybe a friend will say who is that and they won't have heard of this like New York Times bestselling book. And I'm bringing that up because I think it says two things. One is that people are always being introduced to new things. And the things that you know about are still pretty small, doesn't matter how big it is like we all have our own universe of what exists to us but new people will find you all the time we'll find other things all the time. And I think that that's freeing because it also means that not everybody sees all the Guru's all the experts that you're seeing and especially if you have a passion for something like Jay, for skincare as an example, you I'm sure know so many things that I've never heard of that you probably think everybody knows. But I've had no clue about all the info that you could say about skincare right now, even though it's a topic that I'm trying to learn more about would be brand new information. And so I think we undervalue how much we know compared to the average person who could become a listener for our show. So I think that's the first thing is that we a under value, our own knowledge, B, we kind of forget that not everybody knows everything that we do. It's not all obvious or so common that they've all heard of it. But then on top of that, there are 600 million blogs. As of the last time I got this stat in 21, and only 2 million podcasts. And I think that really shocks people, because it seems like podcasting is so big that everyone has a podcast, but it's really not the case at all. The podcasting space is just getting a lot of attention right now. It's really buzzy. It's really hypee. And I think unlike other mediums, podcasting is kind of unique, because all of the audio we experienced called a podcast falls under one umbrella. So by that, I mean, if we looked at video, it's totally different. We have TV shows, we have movies, we have YouTube, we have reels, we have tick, tock, all of those are video, but they're called very different things. But with audio, it's really just podcasting, radio, and now kind of the world of clubhouse and the live audio experience. But in my phone, I could find a Netflix podcast next to your podcast. So it's just very weird, because we hear about big, big, big shows. But we don't hear about all of the podcasts that are much smaller. In fact, the median number of downloads per episode, which is just how many listens you get for an episode is like 130, it's a lot smaller than most people think. So that means 130 people listen to every episode of your show. And I think that that's very empowering. I think that people should see that as a huge opportunity. Because it means a you can podcast about anything, even if it feels too crowded, there's still I think space for you, I want to come back to the imposter syndrome. But I don't know, I just feel like we are clouded by the huge shows. And then when we think to ourselves, oh, I couldn't be that big, then we immediately right off doing the idea at all. But if you had 100 people tuning in every week to your podcast, that's amazing. If you picture those people in person, that's the analogy. I like to get it because that's a huge crowd. And I think the world of internet stats like followers and downloads and views and subscribers almost downplays the real impact that you're having on real human beings instead of just followers. So I don't know all of which to say the last part on this rant. And then I'm curious to hear what you guys think is that when it comes to imposter syndrome, I think we look out there and we see people talking about the topic that we like, even for me, other people talk about podcasting, other people talk about, let's say Gilmore Girls about skincare about motherhood, like other people talk about your topic. That's a good thing, though, that just shows that there's demand, there's interest in the thing that you want to talk about. But nobody has your exact point of view or your experience or your personality. And so qualifications I don't think are the only thing that make you a great podcast host. I think people will like you for who you are like, I think people like wooden wire because I come across as somebody who knows what she's talking about, and has experienced with a lot of different parts of the podcast industry like marketing and podcasting and courses. So I know I have expertise. But I'm also like a kind person. And I want to be helpful and have this kind of like big sister friend vibe, that is just who I am for real outside of my business too. And so that attracts people to me in the way that if you were like a super bro, like I went on a podcast, I want to hustle hard, nobody would ever buy my course, if that was their ml, they would find somebody else. So I don't think you have to be a big name to start a podcast. In fact, I think if you look around and nobody, like you was talking about your podcast topic today that says you should definitely start a show. So I just think there's tons of opportunity. And I hope that nobody writes themselves out, you'll become a better podcaster just by being a podcast or not. Because it's like an inherent talent or skill reserved for only the elite view.

Jae 1:03:33

I definitely agree with what you're saying. And I think that like we were talking about earlier, kind of your personalized Instagram algorithm and social media algorithm gives you that false sense that everyone talks about what you talk about, because you're only being fed things on the topics you like. And so when I see 30 other lifestyle podcasts on similar topics, it's like, oh, well, what is my voice doing? But then the more we we did an episode on skincare, and then Marvel and other things where it's like, oh, it's a different take, or it's a different view, or they there's a podcast that's talked about what we've talked about, but that's their only thing as opposed to us who are kind of talking about like anything and everything we want to and more than that I've said this before, what I've realized through podcasting is I always go back to this phrase, I don't even know where it's from, I'm assuming, I don't know, it sounds like it could be a drag queen or it's probably something that was appropriated from the black community of like, Who gave you permission, like Who gave you permission to be here like who gave you rush to be in the space and by kind of taking the reins and creating a podcast, we get to carve out our own place on the internet we get to people can listen or they cannot but when we have thoughts we would like to shout into the void of the universe. It's a way for us to do cathartically and healthy and creatively. So even if that's kind of all it is, is you feel like you have all of these thoughts and things you want to say and whether someone listens or not. You're giving yourself space and allowing yourself to do that. Regardless of listenership and I think for people who are doing it for a business, I understand that that could be a different motive. But I think for me, at least I want to start a podcast because I feel like I like listening to them. But I feel I don't know, I've been told certain topics and certain viewpoints I have should be shared. So not that it's like, oh, I have all of these great genius thoughts, but it's perspectives that like angels told me in certain topics, like I grew up kind of in a very fortunate, diverse unicorn bubble. And so my perspective on some of the darker things on the world just isn't the regular one, I guess we could say. So just making base and knowing that you're doing it for you, rather than doing it for the listenership is kind of how I got out of my imposter syndrome.

Melissa 1:05:42

I'm, that's great. I just think, too, we look at these people with huge audiences. And of course, their podcasts become popular for different reasons. But I think there's really something to be said, for being relatable, like if somebody sees you, and they see themselves in you even in a small way, or they just like your vibe and who you are, I think that that matters a ton. And often I relate way more to podcasts that are newer or smaller, people who are putting a lot of thought and care into having these podcasts, it's just that they don't have millions of downloads per week. Same thing with businesses, I just really find that those there's a lot of quality there over quantity. So I think that's super important. And I loved what you said about the algorithm because if I only looked at my let's say, Instagram feed, I would be talked out of having my own business, because my own feed makes it seem like everyone's talking about podcasting, and everyone's talking about online courses. So I have to continuously remind myself that that is not everyone's reality. That's the reality I put myself in because I'm trying to do research to stay up to date on my industry. And then it's up to me to just use that not to say, I can't talk about that, but instead to say here are the topics that are working for other people, and then put my own spin on things. But I think that the feeds and social media in particular are just a really unhelpful place when it comes to creativity and inspiration. And I've had to, frankly, like, unfollow a lot of successful, quote, unquote, you know, successful coaches and business owners who just talk about all the money they make, because it is not good for my mental health. So that's one of the reasons I have a hard time with social media, because I do think you just see the people succeeding and it's easy to have those, Oh, God, I can't do it. They're already doing it feelings. And so in some cases, I think it's helpful to just not look,

Angela 1:07:19

I think my final note on imposter syndrome is just for me, at least particularly once I said it out loud, it got a lot easier to manage. Like once I was just able to actually admit to myself, I was a little bit scared to be doing this. And I didn't know if anyone would really respond to it. And it I mean, it's still something that definitely freaks me out. And granted, like our listenership is still relatively small, like, we don't have like a big social media engagement. So I don't really focus very much on like the people outside of our immediate circle who are listening, but every time like one of our friends is catching up on the podcast, and they'll text me and they're like, Oh my gosh, like, I totally agree with you about this. Or I would love to hear more like you guys went on a little mini rant like half an episode about that. And it just reminds me that you know, someone is listening and someone is responding. And that

Melissa 1:08:08

circle just keeps growing. It is always so nice to hear when people like what you're doing or that they benefited and what you're doing. Like I mean, it's completely but when people say that they enjoyed my courses, or they submit testimonials, that always makes my day because then I feel like the work that I'm doing matters. And as a podcast host or even just anybody trying to do anything on the internet, sometimes it feels like you're shouting into a void. And that feeling I don't think goes away. As you get bigger. Definitely, you start to hear from more people more regularly. So you can tell I think, you know, your audience is growing, you've got momentum. But I think that feeling of imposter syndrome is a good sign. To me, it's a sign that you're getting outside of your comfort zone. And none of the projects I've ever started at the beginning felt totally comfortable. But if you felt comfortable, you wouldn't be growing. And I think the worst thing you could do if you're feeling imposter that an idea is just to do nothing at all. So maybe figure out you know, what's the smallest way you could dip your toe in the water if you like it, and then you'll become better by doing it not by just continuing to learn about it. And this is a mantra I had for yoga and a long time. But now it also applies to online business where in these yoga classes you look around, and all of these people were so strong, they could do handstands, they could do all these things that I couldn't do yet. And so I just had to remind myself that we were at different points in our journey. And that was always really helpful for me and yoga. And it's been helpful for me in online business too. So I just think if that's at all consolation, I think it's a good thing to feel like a little uncomfortable and then just kind of keep taking small steps towards it.

Jae 1:09:33

Anyway, here here speaking of journeys, one of Angela, one of my favorite journeys, but I also I got Angela finally hooked on 2625 seasons later, Bachelor nation, The Bachelorette, Katie, Melissa, what are your thoughts? What do you think? Who do you want to win? Overall,

Melissa 1:09:52

let me just say that I'm actually enjoying the season a lot and I always expected to because I really liked Katie and I'm equally excited for her. all season. I'm thrilled we've got two bachelorettes in a row. Here for all of both of these experiences these journeys, as we should say, with Katie's. I don't know if it's because of the pandemic. And Jay, you can let me know if you agree, I have felt that the casting in the last few seasons has been particularly strong. Or maybe it's just a comparison to what I would consider the worst casting ever, which had to be Colton season. But this season, I felt like we have a great group of guys. And my personal favorite, the most memorable man in bachelor nation must be Justin. I love this guy's face. I just feel like he's always absolutely wanting as hard on his face. And you just know exactly what he's thinking. And it's always exactly what I'm thinking. So he's a personal favorite not to win this season, but just sheer enjoyment. I think what I think is the most ridiculous about this season. Is that so have you watched unreal, the series love it. Okay. I love unreal. And I think because of watching that scripted show, it gave me a lot more healthy skepticism about how real this reality show is. And so I'm always thinking of what the producers are up to. And I think this season, it's just been so funny, because they've had to keep creating new villain based on absolutely nothing. We're onto at least villain number three at this point. And so I think that this season has been kind of ridiculous, because but like, they're all just normal people. They all have very strong personalities. Of course, they're still casting, but I would say overall, she's got a lot of great guys. I think that the first date she had with Greg, when they bonded about their fathers was like some of the most heartfelt stuff. And I think that this season, maybe more than any recent season I can think of, I really feel like I'm getting to know a lot of the guys and Katie on a deeper level, and I'm really appreciating a lot of the conversations that they're having. So I think Greg is my front runner, but I really do like a lot of them. What do you think?

Jae 1:11:44

I don't know. I feel like I've heard rumblings that something's gonna happen to Greg towards the end. I'm not sure definitely they've continued to make villains. I heard production didn't love Katie, which is why some of her outfits are as atrocious as they are, but I think it's also because Katie wouldn't stand when red flags showed up. Like when I was thinking about that, like they blow people's minds Cody. His name is Cody, right? The blonde Aaron's first save your move. I think his name is Cody. Yes, I am at all. Yeah, she was like Goodbye, like go away. And then Thomas and then ever when she's been sending everyone home, which is why they've had to keep creating more balance. Like it was very clear Hunter was at some point not going to be very liked. But I also love how much Katie has been defending her men on her social media. Like when everyone was bashing hunter for his bad behavior. She's like, we don't see everything like he has Tourette's and the fact that Nick vile on his podcast said he's allegedly if they kind of like upped his Michael you and decided to focus on him, Well, he was reacting a certain way, which is very uncool. If that's what they did, she was very quick to jump to his defense of, hey, let's not bully people, let's not do this. And when she's seen things on social media, and she's been highlighting all of her men, and she's been nothing but very respectful of them. I like how much she's taking ownership over the guys on her season. And I agree compared to last season, we're getting to know so many more people and having conversations but I also think without the tragedy that was last season of The Bachelor we would not be getting this much substance of the men and that's probably true.

Melissa 1:13:13

I also have a favorite moment of this season is when it turned into survivor and the men voted someone off the island. I was like how has this never happened before where they've just come forth at a rose ceremony be like You know what, we've we've all had a chat and I forget his name because they're all so forgettable. They were like he's got to go the one who wanted to be the Bachelor. What was his name? Thomas. Was that the one that they united against? Yeah, they were like Katie, collectively, respectfully. He must go i thought was hilarious. Right.

Angela 1:13:39

But also like, how dumb Do you have to be to like, openly be their mic on camera and admit, yeah, I hope I can be the next bachelor.

Jae 1:13:48

Okay, you know what, though? I think that was taken out of context. Okay. He didn't sorry. Well, if I'm with you know, with you, He did not say that. And I'm like, I think Thomas is an ass. Yeah, he's not a Greg. But the thing is, this franchise is a billion dollar franchise going on it. Everyone has the potential with the next bachelor to go into paradise to get all of their hair and T deals after this. You don't go on this to find love. You just Oh, yeah, the way it was fun as he came on here to be the next platform. The question asked was Did you at any point, consider coming the next batch for when you apply? And the answer for every one of those men should be? Yeah, unless you are a naive person and someone applied for you. And frankly, even then you have to go through all of the interviews. The answer is yes. 100%. I

Angela 1:14:28

agree. Frankly, I think it goes back to the whole thing. Like when you're interviewing, like there are things you say and there are things you don't say and even if that may ultimately be a part of your intention. There are some things that you don't necessarily vocalize because there's no good way to take that

Melissa 1:14:43

I think he was backed into a corner though because like Jay said, the question he was asked wasn't was your primary goal to be the bachelor? It was Have you ever thought about it? Yes or no. And I think at that point, he was just backed into this corner where if he had said no, he would have been an absolute liar, as any Have them would have been. So I think that this is a good example of I think they're like creating drama. They're making hunter into drama, they made air and into drama. I mean, no Thomas into drama, Aaron is drama, all of all of them are just taking like they have had to create the smallest things, which I think overall is just testament to the fact that overall, the guys here are like a pretty good bunch, some of them with very strong personalities who I would not date because they're not my type. But overall, I'm like very curious to kind of see where this goes, because they keep teasing. I don't do spoilers, so I don't know where it's going. But they keep teasing, like her breakdown and kind of wanting to end the whole thing. So I'm sincerely curious to see how it all ends up. But I love hearing that she has been defending them, because I always just kind of give them the benefit of the doubt, especially I don't know if you feel this way. But now that you edit your podcast, can you sometimes hear when they have clearly edited the audio to splice different pieces together? Because I can

Jae 1:15:52

I can't do that. But one of the things I heard that when one of the bachelor nation contestants was out of contract or whatever that they said, which I now hear all the time. And when you're asked a question like how did you feel your date with Katie went? They make them restate the question, I think my date with Katie went blank. So it's like they have more words, to splice. And to do that, with additionally realizing that the face we can be seeing in we don't know when the confessionals are done could be completely from a different segment of the show. I'm like, Oh, it was very clearly your face did not make that this moment. But they wanted that for here. Or like when they say like, oh, how do you think like 100? Like, oh, how do you think you're in? Like, do you think you're the front runner? I was like, of course I think I'm the front runner. And then that goes into his reasons like they can take the rephrasing of the question as the answer rather than the answer that was given itself.

Melissa 1:16:41

100% I think that's what most people don't realize. And now I actually think it is because of podcasting that I can tell even more where sometimes you'll see them sitting in their confessional, they'll start to answer something, and then they'll cut to a scene where you can't see them anymore. And I'm sure this doesn't happen every time. But I think sometimes they have to do that. Because you listen really closely, you can tell that they've either cut out part of the audio, or they've used audio from a different interview. Or sometimes it'll be during a scene and j to your point, they could be using a comment that they said week one during an episode airing week 10. So it's interesting, because it's not so much that they have forced them to say things during these interviews. It's just that you really can manipulate audio in a way that I don't think most people realize you can.

Jae 1:17:26

I'm not saying this needs to be your brand, Melissa. But if you feel like doing any reels when you hear this, I would be really training if like you did a real on like TV shows. I mean, I think the bachelor is one of the budget like TV shows where you realize like audio was spliced or reality shows that they did this with I think it'd be really fun like real or a tick tock to do. Well, another

Melissa 1:17:44

one is I am a little bit behind. But I just finished Season One of Never have I ever so of course looking to season two. And that's this is very different, right? It's a scripted show, but it's a single cam where you know, they film one person and then they film the other person. And I don't know exactly how it's done. But it's not like in live theater where both people are chatting and you see it all at once like they're doing different takes to set up each shot. And what I can hear because I know too much is that sometimes I can tell that they've recorded a voiceover later on, Debbie will be in a scene with Saviola. And as the scene is kind of ending I can hear just based on the audio quality that they had. What's the lead actresses name betray her? I'm definitely I need to look it up. So I say it correctly. But she I can tell that she went into an audio studio to like record a line and that they put it in later. That's fascinating.

Angela 1:18:34

It really is the worst. When that happens, though. Like I know the more film classes I took in college and the more you learn about like when things need to happen and timing and how they need to set up a story and that there are only like this many different plot variations. It almost took the fun out of watching movies for a while because I knew everything that was going to happen.

Melissa 1:18:54

I also think that with like this Never have I ever example. What's interesting is that sometimes you just need to do things in post production after it's been shot. Like some of the lines that I can hear that are recorded later in an audio booth. I wonder if they did it just based on the way that the video came together. Because I know you guys experimented a little bit with recording your podcast and doing a video form too. But you really have to edit them differently. Because what you see on video is very different or with audio, it's a little bit more forgiving, because you can kind of like cut things out here and there. So I don't know. It's just I think it's fascinating because as somebody who's now just been in podcasting for a while, the way that I hear audio is so different. And I think if more people knew they would show more kindness to people on reality TV because I really do think that a lot of them I don't know if I would go as far as to use the word manipulated. It's not that the people are being manipulated. It's that the storyline is being manipulated and I think that it's not necessarily reflection on the people on the shows like they're turning them into characters

Jae 1:19:52

100% agree and I think what unreal taught me about that was they don't the producers like kind of before unreal for me. It was like the big broad producers doing all of these things and fixing all of these things like they don't have too much because they can choose the timing like whenever unrealized, Blake came in the week before they showed it, and they like admitted it, because that episode was too long. We don't know what dates technically happen in what order unless we know what group of guys were on the day. But they play around with some of those timings in some of the organization to make episodes longer or shorter. Like I heard Katie season got cut short. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be less episodes because they have so much footage that they could just make one episode longer and like skip a rose ceremony and

Melissa 1:20:33

do that kind of stuff. Exactly. And actually, Do either of you watch love Island.

Jae 1:20:36

I know what is the big I've heard of it for years.

Melissa 1:20:39

Okay, first of all, I'm obsessed with it, obviously, my entire brand in the US all of the above. So right now they're both airing, which is really, you know, putting stuff into my schedule. It's a huge time commitment. But love Island is unique because it airs in basically real time. It's not live. But let's say something is going on in the villa right now, where a bunch of extremely hot singles are hanging out together. If it's happening today, we're going to see it on TV tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. And you can actually vote at different points, like who's your favorite couple, or who should go on a date with people and we the viewers influence what's going on in the show?

Jae 1:21:17

Oh,

Melissa 1:21:18

so it airs every single day, except for one for a period of like six to eight weeks. It's Yeah, it's the whole thing. And with the UK version, obviously, that's the original. And so the first season they're figuring themselves out, but starting from season two on every season has kind of its own flavor, I will see that this season for the UK edition, I'm finding a little bit problematic in the way that last season I really loved. And then with the US version, there are only five episodes or six episodes in so it's very, very early days. But what I like about the show is that with the bachelor in the bachelorette, much as I'm here for the whole experience and the romance and the whether or not it's real, I feel like there's some real human moments in the show that I just love to watch. And with love Island, because there are more people like there's usually anywhere from five to eight guys and five to eight girls, there's just more chances for connections. It's kind of why I really like bachelor in Paradise, it just feels like there's more odds of people meeting each other. So it has that kind of vibe. But then there's just like a little bit more fun to be had. And the thing I was really going to say is that unlike the bachelor where they film the whole thing, and then they start airing it. So from the time the first episode goes live, they already know how the story ends. And they can make edits accordingly. For example, some of these guys, you never see them at all, like it's weak seats, and they show up and you're like, Who are you? Have you been here this whole time? Brennan, like why did he get a rose, I didn't understand anything about that experience. But on love Island, they don't know more than 24 ish hours in advance, so they can't predict how it will turn out. So you're seeing a lot more of interactions between different couples that maybe it's the big drama of today. But in a week, it won't be relevant. But there's not there's no spoilers on the internet. In fact, in some of the spicier games they play later on in the season, because they play different games throughout like guys versus girls or in couples, they'll have to read tweets and guess who they're about and then in that way, the drama of the outside comes in. And we viewers are seeing a lot of things that the islanders aren't very spicy would recommend. I don't want to give it all away. But I would say that I definitely enjoy love Ireland more than I thought

Jae 1:23:15

I would someone listen if you were going to go on The Bachelor. So you were going to be contestant be The Bachelorette or skip straight to paradise or go on love Island like what do you think?

Melissa 1:23:24

Oh gosh, I mean, I think from an easy No, I would not want to be a contestant on The Bachelor. And I would not want to be the bachelorette. Because I think that that franchise compared to love Island is a lot more manipulated because they're making a story. Like we said before, they're they're doing the whole season, they're filming it, and then they're choosing what the story is. And I just think that every season they're trying to one up the last love Island is just gorgeous people hanging out in a villa. Like it's a little more stress free. I would say there's not as much manipulation of the experience. Obviously, there are manipulations, there's a game being played. And a couple does win money in the end. But the overall experience on love Island seems a lot more fun and chill. So I would probably go up Island until well, though, they wouldn't have

Jae 1:24:07

usually I guess we have a new show we need to start I know like I'm not

Angela 1:24:10

gonna lie it definitely does give me some black mirror vibes just in terms of the outside influence and the way that you're able to interact very minimal impact.

Melissa 1:24:20

So don't have that it's like once a week, they might do something like that. It's very for the most part insular in that it's only the people in the villa interacting with each other new people come and go throughout and then occasionally we'll get a say, but it's it's definitely not like every episode that happens. Okay.

Angela 1:24:36

Yeah, that makes me feel a little better.

Melissa 1:24:38

I would say the thing that is more in real time is just the fact that because it's happening and then airing so quickly after lots of people have opinions and like chat about it. That's probably why I see it on all

Jae 1:24:47

my social media all the time. That makes sense with the live ish aspect of it. Yeah. But I think what we can all agree upon is the status relationship that the bachelorette will no longer have this season is great. And Connor, unfortunately,

Melissa 1:25:02

I know I really love Connor as a human being, and still love her as a human being. But it was really fascinating to see their date and to realize that he was in the friendzone. Again, right. It's all storytelling like that had been a truth probably for weeks. So we hadn't seen it until it was appropriate or us to be let in on that little secret. I think before this episode, people probably thought he was a front runner.

Jae 1:25:25

I thought she made a comment about their kiss like the first night so I feel I thought that friendzone energy was always there.

Melissa 1:25:31

Maybe I just didn't pick up on it. But because I maybe just missed that comment. I mean, like, I could have been kind of multitasking. I never thought he would be the one in the end, but I was surprised to hear that it had been a friendzone vibe. But he's a special snowflake in the absolute best way.

Angela 1:25:47

And on that note, thank you for listening to this episode of in Omnia paratus a very special thank you to Melissa Guller, the host and Chief Executive Officer supreme Fairy Godmother of the world. Oh man, I completely lost my train of thought there. I'm changing my title. Oh. you're wanting to look great. I can't wait. Exactly very special. Thank you to Melissa Guller the host of the Wit & Wire podcast and just Supreme Leader a fairy godmother. I'm just gonna keep calling a fairy godmother. I will accept that. Yes, but seriously guys will link her course if any of you are interested in starting your own podcast you all and don't forget to grab your coffee bowls and rate download and follow on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts as always where you lead will follow. So head on over to @inomniapod on Instagram and let us know what you'd like to hear about in the comments.

Bye

Jae 1:26:41

bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai