[KATHRYN]: Imperfect Thriving is a part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you thrive imperfectly. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.
Welcome to the Imperfect Thriving podcast for all of us women in midlife to discover yourself limiting beliefs, determine exactly what you want your life to look like and the imperfect actions to get you there.
This is the Imperfect Thriving podcast and I’m your host, Kathryn Ely. I am so glad you are here today. I’m super fired up about today’s podcast. We have Joe Sanok today, but before we jump into today’s episode, if you enjoy this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. This podcast is designed especially for you. And if you haven’t already done so, head over to imperfectthriving.com to get your very own Blueprint to Thrive, the free email course I designed to guide you step by step to assess your satisfaction with your current life, determine exactly what you want your life to look like and how to take daily imperfect action to get you there.
Now let me tell you a little bit about Joe. Joe is a keynote and TEDx speaker, business consultant, and podcaster. He has the number one podcast for counselors, the Practice of the Practice podcast with interviews with Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, and Lewis Howes. I hope I said that correctly. Joe is a rising star in the speaking world and I’ve gotten to know Joe personally. He is an amazing guy and he’s my podcast coach. So, in my opinion, everyone can benefit so much from what he has to say. So, Joe, I’m so excited to have you here today. Welcome.
[JOE SANOK]: Kathryn, I am so excited to be here and so proud of all that you are doing with the Imperfect Thriving podcast.
[KATHRYN]: Thank you very much. So, I just kind of want to start with your background and for my listeners who don’t happen to be counselors or maybe haven’t had the opportunity to listen to your podcast yet. Just tell us a little bit about how you got where you are today.
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah, so for a number of years I worked at nonprofits and worked in the world of foster care, community mental health and then landed a job at a local community college and kind of that whole time I had a side private practice that, it was really just to pay off student loan debt, you know, a couple of thousand dollars and there working a night a week to be able to pay down student debt a little bit faster. And it really wasn’t on my radar to have a counseling practice be anything that I did more than just as a side gig an evening or two a week. And then as I started to grow that I added clinicians to the practice, my website started to grow and you know, really started making more money off of this side gig private practice than at my full-time job at the community college.
And so, as I was doing that, I was just documenting it through my website, Practice of the Practice. I’d launched a podcast to just talk about business issues in private practice and it started to grow more and more. And then when our second child was born, I used the full family medical leave act to just work 20 hours a week to kind of pay for health insurance and to test out whether I could leave that full-time job to go on my own in private practice and consulting. And at the end of it, it worked out. I went to my boss and I said, “You know, out of respect, I’d like to give you an offer and I’m pretty sure you’re going to refuse it.” And that was that I would work 20 hours a week for a full-time salary. She laughed, we have a good relationship and she said, “You know I can’t do that.” And I said, “I know, but I want to at least offer something rather than just quit.” And so that was in 2014 and then actually last year in 2019 I sold my counseling practice and have been doing full-time podcasting and consulting since then. We’ve grown a team where we have three people in South Africa, one in Florida, we have four other consultants and then we now have four sound engineers. So, it’s quite a different life than I had expected when I first started the counseling world.
[KATHRYN]: Yeah. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you is you are a man who’s always moving forward and always doing something new and I definitely want to talk about that later. But so, you’ve been podcasting for a while now, right?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. So, 2013 is when we launched it. We planned it out during 2012 and I say ‘we’ meaning me, because there was no big team.
[KATHRYN]: No big team at that point.
[JOE SANOK]: No, I was a nap-prenuer, so while my wife would nap and my babies would nap, I would go podcast in our upstairs.
[KATHRYN]: That was pretty early in podcasting, was it not?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. You know, at the time it felt like I was late to the game because I was listening to all these podcasters that I adored and it seemed like everyone had started a podcast. But you know, statistically speaking, every podcast of all the podcasts that start this year, in a year, half of them will be gone. And so honestly, the best time to start podcasting is right now. And you know, it’s always the present because you can always look back and say, “I should have started last year and,” you know, Kathryn, you’ve got this new podcast, but a year or two from now a lot of the podcasts that are out there won’t, they’ll pod fade. They won’t be around anymore. And so, I think it’s still a great time to start a podcast.
[KATHRYN]: What has podcasting done for you that would make you want to recommend it to other people? Tell us a little bit about that.
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think if you live in a large city like New York or LA, you know, you have a lot of people around you that if you want to start any business, you can host a meetup and you’ll get 50 or a hundred people that might come out to a meetup on a specific topic. I live in Northern Michigan, there are 40,000 people in my hometown, we live in this great place that’s right on the water. It’s this beach community in Traverse City, but if I host a meetup, I did a podcasting meetup and I think seven people came. So, it’s like I’m not going to be able to make a career off of the people of Traverse City. And so, for me, podcasting, it’s allowed me a number of things. It’s allowed me to explore issues with experts that I kind of have no business talking to that I can say, “Hey, I have a podcast. Can I interview you for an hour or for 45 minutes?” And they say, “Yes.” Whereas if I said, “Hey, can I just pick your brain?” They’d say, “No. Like, who are you?” So, you know, I have access now to people that I really kind of have no business talking to.
Also, it’s allowed me to scale the consulting on a level that I just never would have thought of. I mean, we have a membership community, we have mastermind groups, we have other consultants that I get a portion of what they bring in. We have a ton of affiliate links and e-courses. So, to be able to build income while I’m sleeping and to genuinely help people it’s just something that I never would have even dreamt of being what my life would look like.
[KATHRYN]: Yeah. That’s amazing. Do you ever have any limiting beliefs that get in the way because you’re always scaling up, you’re always moving forward? Do you ever have anything that tries to tug at you and hold you back?
[JOE SANOK]: You know, I think there’s, I think in general I’m just an optimistic person. I have a friend that he and I were college roommates and every Monday, we’ve walked together for the last 15 years or so, every Monday. And he definitely describes himself as a pessimist and he’s like, “You’re so optimistic.” So, I think I do have a natural optimism that for whatever reason I have, but you know, there’s still limiting beliefs. You know, I was just at a podcasting conference and I went into it thinking, “Am I going to have anything to contribute here? Like, who do I think I am?” I just had this, you know, in my world, kind of a smaller podcast compared to a lot of these other people, but then as I talked to people I realized that the way we’re monetizing our podcast is very unique in the podcasting world and some of the keynotes took me out to dinner to pick my brain. And so, I mean, that was a boost to the ego.
[KATHRYN]: Oh, that’s cool.
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah, they’re like, “So how are you making this much off of those numbers?” And I think that it’s, I mean, the quick version is we’ve identified a pain that people are willing to pay for and we actually genuinely help people transform. So, whether that pain is, “I don’t know how to start a counseling practice. Can you help me?” Or “I want to launch a profitable podcast. Can you help me?” We start with, you know, can we help this person genuinely transform and if we can’t, we’ll refer them out. And so really being able to serve our clients well, to be myself whether I’m on the podcast or in a consulting call or hanging out with people at a conference, there’s not a difference between the kind of who I am in each of those environments.
[KATHRYN]: Right. And you don’t just consult with counselors or private practitioners anymore, right? I mean, if somebody else that wasn’t in counseling or private practice of some sort wanted to learn how to do a podcast, they could come to you as well.
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. So, for Podcast Launch School, that’s for anyone that wants to launch a podcast. It’s still because our framework is aimed at people that have a big message for the world. You know, if someone wants to start a true-crime podcast or they want to start a I don’t know, just like a hobby podcast or fiction podcasts, Podcast Launch School would not be for them. But for anyone that has a message that they believe the world needs to hear and that they want to have solo shows and they want to have interview shows and consulting shows of anyone that has any sort of consulting love, so counselors, massage therapists, financial advisors, it would definitely be kind of in their world. Even someone that’s really good at quilting, we can help them figure out how best to monetize that through Podcasts Launch School.
[KATHRYN]: So, kind of take me through, say a woman just like me, in her midlife has something that she wants to get out there and say, but she doesn’t know anything about how to do it, whether she should do it, whether it’s a good idea. Help her out.
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. So, I would start by really identifying the pain that they want to help that person work through in the transformation. I’m going to go back to that over and over because really that back and forth is so key. So, take the interests that you’re into, the things that frustrate you about the world, your own family experience. So, say you have a child with disabilities and you know you’ve been a stay-at-home mom for a while, you felt isolated from that. You’re describing your pain. “Okay, I felt alone. I felt like I didn’t know what access was out there. I didn’t know all these different things.” So then what would that podcast look like? Well, could dive into the podcast right away but even before that, we want to start with building out an email course.
The reason we start with an email course before we dive into podcasting is to really help that client to hone their message. So, these email courses are broken into three specific parts and there are three emails in each part for a total of nine emails. So, the first part would be kind of deconstructing society. So, for this individual who has a child with disabilities, those first three parts, those first three emails in that section, they’re to be around how has society set you up for failure? So, we’re given this image of what the perfect family is. We’re given this image of what it means to be successful. And then, you have a child with disabilities and that doesn’t fit that model. So, then you feel some grief inside of you. Basically, you feel like you are set up to fail. And so those first couple emails are really around helping the person, the reader, the listener, feel like you get them but then even more so that it’s not their fault that they have these feelings. And so, it kind of helps them let their guard down and say, “Okay, I’m not just a terrible person for feeling this way. I was set up to fail, but I’m not going to stay there.”
So, the next section that we go into is all-around quick wins. And so, we want then that reader to experience some quick wins. And so, this week here’s one way to do something for yourself. So maybe, go out for coffee with a friend of yours and do it guilt-free., do some small step that puts you first when you’re in a really challenging situation. And then the next three emails, that next section is all long-term habits. So, what are long-term habits that people need to enact in order to continue to transform within this specific pain that you’re working on? So, once we build that out, it’s great because we know where they’re going over those nine emails, and then you can design a great handbook or opt-in that goes on the front end of it when someone first subscribes. So, like you have your Blueprint to Thrive. That same model that I’m talking about takes people through that entire process with your particular specialty. And so I always have people start there so they can craft their message before they start talking into a microphone, because if you just stand in front of a microphone without having a very clear message, then you’re going to be someone that’s just saying something instead of having something to say.
[KATHRYN]: Yes, okay. I love that. So, what comes after the email course?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah. So, after the email course, there are three types of shows that we recommend for the podcast. So, in the first five to seven episodes, we really recommend that you do solo shows. Even if you plan to do a consulting show or to do mostly interview to really layout like what are the pillars of this podcast. And so, you know, with Imperfect Thriving, you’ve got your eight domains, so, you know, maybe you kind of go through each of those or for this hypothetical person that has a child with disabilities, maybe you start with what does that look like in the schools? What does that look like in social situations? What does that look like in regards to your marriage? And so, what are those pillars that, you know, even if you go outside of the particular area you’re talking about, they’re probably always going to be the pillars that hold up the rest of the podcast. That really shows your audience that you have something to say.
Next, we want to move into interview-based shows with experts so that you’re quickly aligning yourself with other experts so people say, “Wow if she’s interviewing those people, how does she get that person from Yale? Or how does she get that author on there? That’s amazing. She’s really big time.” And so, you’re moving from, yeah, you have something important to say, but now you’re also around other people that are experts in a variety of areas. And then the last section we recommend is interviewing potential consulting clients or your ideal listener. And so, for our hypothetical case study here, that would be, you know that the podcaster is maybe interviewing other parents that have children with disabilities. So, it might be someone that has a child with autism, someone that has a physical disability, someone that has a visual impairment. So, it might be kind of helping them out with their particular issue.
And so, the brain naturally thinks, “Okay, yeah, you just said something that’s really smart. That’s awesome. I buy in a little bit. Okay, now you’re around a bunch of experts. Okay, you’re pretty smart. Like you kind of held your own in those interviews, but can you talk to a regular person or are you just an academic?” And that’s the important jump for ideal clients that if someone’s going to eventually buy your course or by your membership community, can you speak to me like a normal person instead of like all these academic people? And so that’s what those final types of shows do; is it really kind of shows that you have the skillset to be able to talk to someone in a regular tone of voice to genuinely help them.
[KATHRYN]: Oh, I love that. So how, once you’ve done this email course and your end of these podcasts, what do you do with it and sort of, is there a way to monetize it or what do you do next?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah, so I mean, I think the average podcaster, they get their microphone and then they just start recording and then maybe they build out an email course and then or they build out an e-course without talking to their audience at all and then nobody buys it. And they say, I just spent all this time and money getting video equipment and creating this whole thing, getting it set up and teachable. It took me months and no one’s buying it now. What we encourage people to do is build the audience first and then they’ll disclose to you what they’re most willing to buy. And so, some typical numbers are within usually six to nine months, we see that our podcasters are getting at least a thousand downloads per episode. And we watch those numbers with them really carefully because if they’re not on track for that, we want to say, “Wait, what’s going on? Why aren’t you getting more downloads? We need to get you out onto more interviews, we need to connect you more, we need to promote you more.” And so, when they’re at that thousand downloads per episode, you statistically should have at least a hundred people in your email course.
And so those are the numbers that we watch. A hundred people in an email course, that’s not a ton of people, but it’s enough people to start to notice trends of what people want. So then at that point, you reach out to your audience and you say to these most invested people, so I mean these are people who, they’ve listened to your podcast, they’ve taken action and gone over to your Blueprint to Thrive. They’ve given you their email, they’ve read through the email, and now they’re in there to then say to them, “I’d love to do a 15-minute phone call with you. I’m thinking about launching some things within the Blueprint to Thrive community or the Imperfect Thriving community and I just want to pick your brain. I’m not going to sell you anything, I just want to pick your brain about what you would want.” And so, the first question you ask is, you know, “What’s it been like to experience this pain?” And so, for our case study of the woman that has a child with disabilities, “What’s it been like to have a child with disabilities?” And so, you hear how they describe it and it’s probably different than you, and so you then start to notice common phrases people use. And so if, you know, out of 20 people, they all use the word ‘loneliness’ or they all use, like, “I just wish I had more information,” or, “I’m so confused that the internet has so much to say, but I don’t know what I should listen to.” So, then you start to learn how they speak about it, which is going to help with any sales copy later on.
Second, you then ask them, if there was a magical product out there that helped you feel less lonely, so you’re reflecting back what they say, it helps you feel less lonely like you have more information, it’s not as confusing as the internet usually is, like what would that be? Would it be an e-course, a member community, would it be worksheets or a small mastermind group? Like, sketch out for me what that would look like. So they may say, “If I just had a private Facebook group for maybe once a month, there was an ‘Ask the expert’ and you know, maybe you did like a Q&A or we got deals on different things that you negotiated deals for things that we need to buy and we can do that as a collective, that would be amazing and I would feel so much more connected to other women that have a child with disabilities.”
And then you ask, “How much would you pay for that?” And so, you know, if they all say, “I’d pay $4.50 cents,” and you’re like, “That’s not going to be worth my time to do this.” So, by doing these interviews have saved yourself months and months of building something that nobody buys or somebody pays hardly anything for, versus, you know, later on being able to really launch something that people want to buy. So, one of my consulting clients Chrissy Lawler she has The Peaceful sleeper on Instagram. I think she has 20 or 30,000 followers. When I first met her, she was mildly monetizing their Instagram and but wasn’t doing it as well as she could. And so, she followed this exact approach and found out that people really wanted to have an e-course around helping, you know, young babies sleep. So, you know, anywhere age like zero to three. So, our target audience is young moms that have new kids. And so just recently after following kind of all of this, she did a $6,000 launch in 15 minutes, selling this course that was all about helping babies sleep.
So, when you do it, I mean the numbers can get pretty wild pretty quick. If you take, you can take your calculator out with me right now as well, but like say we have that thousand downloads per episode and do that for 48 weeks a year. So, you take a couple of weeks off, say only, I don’t know, save 3% of your audience converts. So that’s 1,440 people and say you charge a really kind of cheap e-course of 197. So, we’re looking at $283,680 from that one e-course, that one launch. And so, it’s like 3% of your audience at 200 bucks. That scales really quickly. And that’s the magic of podcasting; it is that you have this deep connection with your audience that goes so much far beyond anything you could have developed in person or on the scale of in person.
[KATHRYN]: Yeah. So instead of thinking of an idea, getting married to that idea that you think is the most wonderful thing in the world, you do the much easier thing, which is reaching out to the people who are listening and ask them what they want?
[JOE SANOK]: Absolutely. And you think about, you know, I’ve had so many people that say, “I wrote this book and it’s not selling.” Well, like what was it about that topic that you cared about? Like, we shouldn’t be married to that it comes in the form of a book. In the same way that we don’t care what, whether, you know, a delicious meal comes on a plate or a bowl or a slate of wood. Like the food’s still delicious. And so, if there’s something you care about, say families that have a child with different abilities, like that’s the core thing that we want to hold on to. I want to help families where there are unique abilities amongst their kids. Okay, well then how did they want to be served? It’s really the client first rather than, “I want to write a book, I’m going to write a book and I’m going to make people buy my book.” Like okay, maybe some people will buy it, but if you just listen to your audience, they’ll say, “I don’t want a book. I would rather have a PDF that’s 99 cents, that has some quick tips on it.” Okay. Why spend all the time writing a book if you could do a PDF.
[KATHRYN]: Yes. It seems so simple, but it’s just not what our minds think of immediately. That’s so helpful. So, a podcast is a big idea, right? So many of us walk around with these big ideas and we just never try them. We hang onto them thinking that they’re too big or someday when the time is right, I’m going to do this, or I need to learn this and do this before I can try. What advice do you have about getting big ideas off the ground?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah, I mean, I think just starting to think about what would happen if your big idea takes off. So not just, “Oh, I’d buy a fancy car,” but like what really is your why? Like what would your life look like if all of a sudden you had more free time? You know, I work three days a week. I usually start around nine so I can drop off my kids at school or exercise. I’m almost always done by 4:00, unless Kathryn wants me on her podcast, then I might go to 430. Yeah, but it’s, you know, for the most part, my kids get home from school and then I go play with them. So yeah, I have more money than I expected to make as a psychologist, but even more important for me, I get tons of time with my kids.
My wife and I can choose to do things on Monday and Friday, like go skiing together or go for a walk or just do errands so that our weekend is full of fun family activities. And so, before you get attached to the big idea, I think just thinking through, “If my life had an extra a hundred thousand dollars, what would that mean?” You know, a lot of people in your audience probably are in the sandwich generation where they have kids that are going to go to college soon, they’ve got parents that are getting older. Like even just to be able to provide for those folks, you know, in a different way, like that just is a way to impact the world that’s different than how we’ve been taught to think.
[KATHRYN]: Absolutely. Oh, I love that. And you know, I could talk to you all day long, but I know that you’ve gone over your workday for me already. So where can our listeners find out more about you and what do they need to do if they want to start a podcast or get some consulting on their big idea?
[JOE SANOK]: Yeah, I would say the best place is to go to podcastlaunchschool.com and that’s where we have a nine-part email course all about how to start a podcast. There’s plenty of ways that you can bootstrap it. I’m a firm believer that if you want to put in the hustle like we’ll teach you how to do that. So, we have an e-course that’s coming out soon that people will have access to from your community over at Podcast Launch School and we also have some of the Done for You services as well there. So, if you’re looking to have us do all the backend, all the show notes, all the sound editing, and then you show up and you just do the recording, we have options there too. So podcastlaunchschool.com is the best spot.
[KATHRYN]: And I can’t recommend you and your team highly enough for what all you have done for me. So, thank you, on a personal note.
[JOE SANOK]: Oh, Kathryn, I’m so proud of all the work you’ve done. You’ve really hustled so strong with this and the message is so important that you’re sharing with the world.
[KATHRYN]: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Now I end every interview with the same question. And that is what one imperfect action would you advise our listeners to take today to get closer to their best lives?
[JOE SANOK]: Ooh, the one imperfect action for their better life. You know, I would say an imperfect action, I would say, I would go relationally. Find someone that you haven’t reached out to in a while. Maybe it’s a brother, a sister, an old colleague from school. And I would say just text them or surprise them with a phone call. Those old relationships are so important. I once heard that old friends were once new friends, but you know, those old friends, to me, that’s something I really value. I surprise my friends frequently with just random phone calls, even if it’s just a message, “I’m thinking about you. It’s been a long time. I hope you’re doing great.” I would take that imperfect action and don’t get caught into the outcome. Like if you think, “Oh, I hope my brother answers the phone and we talk for an hour.” Like, don’t worry about it. Just leave a message and say you’re thinking about that person.
[KATHRYN]: Oh, I love that. That’s a great idea. I am so glad that you have joined me today, Joe, and I’m so glad that all our listeners have been here today for this episode. So please take Joe’s advice on the one imperfect action you can take today. Reach out to someone who’s important to you that maybe you haven’t talked to in a while. And when you do that, pat yourself on the back, celebrate the fact that you took one action toward the life that you want.
And until we meet back here next week, go out and find a friend or a loved one to add to our community of women striving toward our best lives, supporting and nudging each other on the way. Share the website or the podcast with them and go out and take imperfect action or your best life.
If you loved this podcast, will you rate and review it on iTunes or your favorite podcast player? Also, I have a free nine-part Blue Print to Thrive email course. It’s a step by step guide to finding out what you want your life to look like, exactly what’s holding you back and how to get to that life you want. Head on over to www.imperfectthriving.com/course to the course today.
This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice or guests are providing legal, mental health or other professional information. If you need a professional, I encourage you to reach out to one.