156: From Launch to 1 Million Downloads in 90 Days, With Nicole Holleman

You are about to hear the story of a podcaster who launched a show from scratch in September of 2023. Just three months later by December of 2023, that podcast had reached a million downloads. This is Grow the Show with the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidland. I am your podcast growth coach. And today we are featuring Nicole Holliman. Nicole went through my Grow the Show accelerator program over the summer. And as you'll hear, she actually joined the program to grow a different podcast. And it wasn't too long after working with us that Nicole took what she learned within the program and applied it to launch a second show with her sister. That show has changed both of their lives. Since then Nicole and her sister Lexi have gone viral on TikTok. They have joined a big name podcast network. They're now represented by one of Hollywood's biggest talent agencies. And their families are super confused on how they have gotten so popular so fast. So Nicole joins us today to share exactly how they did that in this episode. You were going to learn how Nicole applied the frameworks that I teach to better define a podcast premise. You're going to hear how she and Lexi tapped into a viral trend on TikTok. And that trend along with them going all in and working really hard on the podcast would propel their show beyond what literally anybody else that I've ever worked with. Has achieved and Nicole is also going to talk about monetization because in this short time they have both joined a major podcast network which would help them sell ads and they launched a Patreon that got more than a thousand patrons in under three months. Now before we begin I should say that while I am featuring a client at the growth show accelerator to Cole's experience is not the average experience. Her results are not typical and if your show does not go from zero to a million in three months please don't feel bad because Nicole and Lexi have generated truly once in a lifetime results. That said I wanted to bring Nicole on the show so that we can learn from what they did and who knows maybe you can pick up a thing or two that you can implement today to at least grow your podcast faster than it's growing now. So without further ado please enjoy my conversation with the co-host of the fantasy fangirls podcast currently charting in a podcast app near you Nicole Holliman. Nicole Holliman hello and welcome to grow the show. Thank you for having me this is surreal dude this is fun. Yeah I was so about to have you it is so exciting I've been thinking back all day to our original conversations which technically was a sales call like I think it was like may or something like that and back then we were talking about a different podcast then we're going to be mainly talking about today can you take us back to that moment in time and particularly share you know before we linked up what was your show what was it called and what were you looking to change about it. So my gosh it feels like a different lifetime ago it's so funny. Before growing the show and you were brought into my life I had separately made this decision of I really love podcasting and it had been a branch of my business for a very long time but I knew I wanted to make it my full-time gig and I knew that the numbers that I was getting were not even close to what full-time podcasting could possibly be and so my show was called the Life Coach Baker Podcast which my business was called Life Coach Baker at the time and when you and I have to on the call one of the first things you mentioned was maybe the title is not something that brings people to the show because I think it was you or maybe it was someone else who said is it life coaching for bakers and I would literally started laughing because I was like I could see why that is so confusing and so it was me it was okay I couldn't remember so one of the things that I was really keen on doing was going back to quite literally the beyond basics yeah because I never really started the show with a premise I never started it with an idea I definitely never had a ten-word summary or anything even close and I think that that was one of the reasons why it was really struggling to capture people and he was struggling to even attract people to begin with and so that was really podcasting 101 even despite being a podcaster for four years of time was what I needed to go back to and that was when someone mentioned you and your program to me and I was like that's what I need and I'm pretty sure I signed up within like 24 hours I pick you know I'll move back yeah you were like let's do it I'm like okay let's rock a roll I'm a decisive person yeah love it very cool yeah awesome so yeah I remember you joined up we immediately started working on your show's premise and so what changes did you make after going back to those fundamentals is everything an option because it feels like the title was the biggest one so we mentioned the idea that life coach maker podcast was just not really bringing people it wasn't really a key word it wasn't really something that people were google searching because especially people went into you know Apple podcasts and they typed life coach a lot of other podcasts would show up before my own so I eventually settled on the title of imperfect success and it was really geared towards helping high achievers who have those really high standards for themselves learn how to go set and learn how to go set in a way that didn't kill them from burnout over and over again yep and I never would have been able to say that back in May like that's what the show is about so other than changing the title really getting clear on what is this show that 10-word summary that you know basic premise what's the problem it's solving that right there doing that work was probably one of the smartest things I've ever done was going back to the basics with grow the show so that was really the big thing that I think then tumbled yeah all of the other changes down the road you know making ads rotating was a big one that I loved the last classie taught on that like there were a bunch of little changes that I made here and there but those were the two big ones that I think made the biggest difference for sure and I started seeing pretty quickly I started seeing gross as people finding the show and then retaining on as listeners awesome which was a really cool see that now sits then you focus has shifted a little bit yeah yeah and things have changed so moment we've all been waiting for can you tell me about the origin because I don't even know how this came up so tell me about how and why you started your second podcast so back in july actually I had just gotten married and this funny thing happens after you get married is you have a lot more free time on your hands and so I was like I start reading again for fun and I picked up this book series and it was a fantasy romance series and I got lost in it to the point that my husband was hearing 45 minute divulging over here's what I'm reading right now on the nightly basis and finally he was like so why don't you start a podcast about this and I was like no absolutely not no way am I starting a podcast about this because I already have a solo show it's a lot of work to do a solo show and especially the type of podcast I'd want to do about these books which would be hyper intensive deep dives would be way too heavy a lift for one person and also there'd be no banter between so I started forcing my sister to read these books with no intention of podcasting and I say forced not exaggerating I did not give her a choice she's a mom and I still was like you need to read these books you don't have an option and so her and I started exchanging I kid you not probably 50 to 100 texts a day about these books and finally I started picking up a new series called fourth wing which was blowing up on book talk and I loved it so much that I made Lexi read it after the other romanticie series five book series I should mention that I made her read prior and she brought it to my attention what if we started a podcast about this and I was like universe come on so I eventually cave they took me a few days but I eventually caved and we started recording episodes about another series but we switched it to the series fourth wing and we had these clips I used a script so it was really easy for me to cut like you know social clips and all this kind of stuff out of the episode and we started posting them on TikTok as like a teaser of like here's what's to come from the fantasy fangirls and we went viral not even on day one it was day negative one it was before the episode even came out and we just started going viral over and over and over and over and over again for like 10 weeks straight now to the point where actually just yesterday we hit our first one million video which is insane to me to even say that so the listenership we originally had the goal of 20 listeners in the first week and you know for a new podcast like getting listeners was really hard yeah and I'd already had a podcast for a while so I knew that getting listeners wasn't going to walk in the park now I did do a lot of the premise work with Lexi so they'll be new the show from the ground up before we even hit record for the first time but I think the first week we got 5,000 downloads and then we're as of today recording this December 13th yeah we're just shy of hitting our first million downloads that's just and like so before we hit record you said that you're about 10,000 dollars away from a million and I said oh so you hit that by the end of the month and you said no probably by the end of today just unfathomable I mean that's the like by the rest of today that show your show will get more downloads than many podcasters getting in the whole month or even here yeah and that is not lost on Lexi and I like if we still look at our numbers and and look at our social media of all ways and and what's happened since then I mean we signed with the network we signed by the talent agency like all of these things have happened and fallen into our lap and we still look at each other like yeah what's happening oh my god this is a real life like you know having to pinch ourselves and and just it's it's this overwhelming gratitude and I'm not saying this I'm trying to make this not sound as cheesy as it is but it is true just like this overwhelming gratitude that we know not everyone is in this position and yeah the fact that this happened in I think three months we launched on September 11th so it's you know December 13th so three months and the few days is wow is unheard of and we do not take it for granted yeah well congrats and just ultimate respect to the two of you because you've been so humble as but also credits you both because the amount of work that you guys put into your episodes is unbelievable like because this you know this isn't a show where you two just throw the microphone and you know chat about you know what's on your mind you guys are doing a lot of work right can you talk about like what type of forever's going into each episode yes I'll just talk about like a week in the life of like fantasy fan girls podcast so Monday and Tuesday Lexi and I both separately sit down and write out the outline for the chapters that we're covering of the show so we'll cover anywhere between like I'd say two to seven chapters of the book that we're covering and that will take us anywhere from I'd say eight to 12 hours to do that really intensive deep dive we not only look at the text itself but we do you know keyword searches in the books that are out we go down tick-tock and read it rabbit holes of theories and and all these different things so that takes about you know eight to 12 hours then the episode recording itself can take anywhere between three to four hours and that's of just raw audio and then I'm still editing the podcast it's something I'm hoping to offload very soon and that can take anywhere between eight to I mean I think the longest I've ever spent on editing was 16 hours for our finale episode for fourth way wow so it is quickly becoming a full-time job and I'm happy that it's reflecting that in in things that we're actually able to make it a full-time job but it is not for the faint of heart and like when we share that with our listeners they're like oh my god you got like that insane like why would you take this on but I think that's why the podcast has been so successful because this is not for the faint of heart and a lot of people don't have you know 40 hours a week to devote to this and yeah and Lexi and I did decide to take that on as as our personal feet yeah yeah right well I mean you had the flexibility because you you know had your own business but you know you're you're right not everybody has that yeah let's go back to just the development of the premise of the show because you did the exercise of revamping the premise of your original show and so how would you say did you approach the show's premise of fantasy fangirls differently having done that already the big thing was I used a lot of the questions I'll say from from the premise work so what do you want people to get out of the show what is the basic idea and honestly the 10 words summary I think I wrote it on the first try and it's actually the thing I say every because I start the episodes I say welcome welcome welcome to the fantasy fangirls podcast where two sisters dive deep into beloved fantasy lore character scenes varies and more no obviously that's way longer than 10 words but it's become such a rally cry I'll say that all of our listeners like I'll be right in the night premiere recently and people would like repeat it back to us like it's crazy like how it's become something that people have now rallied behind so that was a big thing of just writing what is the premise of the show in as concise words as possible we actually use chat gbt quite a lot for title creation but one of the things I really wanted to be mindful of was the title one of the things that chat gbt actually came up with was fantasy fanatics and we were originally going to go with that but then we started thinking about oh fantasy football and fantasy sports that could really easily go down that road so we did some research and then we eventually landed on fantasy fangirls but really wanted to make sure that the podcast title was clear because I felt like I had really learned my lesson with that then obviously the cover art match and that we actually don't have any photos of us on the cover art we just have a book with like some fantasy things coming out so wanting it to be super clear without anyone needing to read a bio without anyone needing to hit plus play on any of the episodes we know exactly what this show is about yeah and I think that's one of the reasons that I mean our Spotify impressions have done really well so I think that's one of the reasons specifically on podcast platforms like that we do convert listeners because it is really obvious what the show is they don't have to do any thinking you see it and you're like oh okay I know what this is I know if I wanted or not right exactly and like that was something that we really wanted to be mindful and Lexi's in marketing so she has a huge background of PR and marketing on that kind of stuff so she was really on board with her and I sitting down and figuring this out now we were originally wanting this to just be a hobby so we were just kind of like oh what about this and we weren't really taking it super seriously but we did take the podcast premise itself of all the things that we were joking around about that was definitely the thing that I'd say we took the most seriously because we knew that was really important for people knowing what the show was yeah so let's talk about TikTok yes now you just before you mentioned the phrase book talk which I'm pretty sure means book TikTok right correct yes okay cool for those who are not TikToks out in the TikTok lingo and essentially I mean you said how you posted your very first video got tons of reach why do you think that is I think because the book itself was so hot on TikTok at the time and I think it still is because the second book in the series there's only two as of right now there's going to be five total in the series the ramp up to book two releasing which was on November 7 was massive the book itself blew up the first book is called fourth wing the book itself fourth wing blew up over the summer to the point where even the author was like whoa like this is crazy so I think that that was one of the big reasons a lot of people on book talk you could not scroll past five videos without one of them being about fourth wing so I think that's a huge reason another one is no one was covering this book or even these types of books in this way in this super deep analytical way there's a lot of book club podcasts will say out there and like those are great they definitely have their place there one episode where you're talking about one whole book and while Lexi and I love those types of podcasts we really wanted it to be almost like a chapter by chapter analysis because that's just how our brains work yeah so finding a niche where it was not only underpopulated but it was quite literally a niche of our own I think is also what made TikTok the algorithm be like this is exciting yeah so I think it's really those two things and also like Lexi nice dynamic we are sisters I've known her my entire life and so there's banter immediately right off the bat and the laugh at each other we have inside jokes and that's funny the laughter clips that we pull tend to always do better in reach than any like super serious polls I think that's another reason yeah I don't know I thought that was interesting too yeah so that's like encouraging almost yeah positive happy ones yay I'm glad to hear that so I'll highlight a couple things that you've shared just so that the listener you know listening to us today can really take it away first of all is that you established a cat one premise category of one so as you said there are many different book club shows that are discussing different books but you guys made a show that doesn't exist it is literally the only one on the planet that talks about these books in this way massive massive massive and like one of the best ways you can set your show up for success is to make it unique and make it not just like you know a copycat show just like all the other ones out there and then also you were will it once you got this opportunity because you plugged into this moment on tiktok but you know it's not like you haven't been working you've been working a full time job and doing like that week in the life is wild so again kudos to the two of you but what we'll call out is that you know you guys tapped into something in the moment and went all in right yeah something we've been doing on tiktok and Instagram because actually our Instagram account has almost met up with our tiktok account our tiktok account definitely hadn't worth that like kicking it off the ground but then we started going viral a lot more on Instagram but I think that one of the big things is we post three to five times a day on Instagram and tiktok like we do not hold back now it's really easy for us because we just pull I mean I pull anywhere between like 15 to 25 clips per episode so it's just like super easy for us to like put those in we do means we do fun filters stuff like that so we we make it a party to be quite honest I don't know how else to say it that has been really helpful but that also is not for the faint of part it has been literally 12 to sometimes upwards of 16 hour work days for Lexi and I over the past 12 weeks and I don't say that is like I hate the like who can be the busiest game I don't really say it that way like her and I are actively working on ways to make it sustainable all call and we have an executive producer now who literally we call our sanity manager anytime we take on something new you make sure that we are not taking on too much and that we're not going to get burned out his name is Hayden I love him he's amazing but having that kind of workload has been not easy I've been needy to lean on people way more often than I ever have before like with my other show and my other business I was working 20 to 30 hour work weeks like I had mastered the art of just chilling it was great I loved it so it was quite a shift but it was not a shift that felt difficult in a way that like we're going to get burned out it was it was capitalizing on the moment and we knew that what we do now would pay off later and boy oh boy has a hell of paid off right well I mean it's just to be getting to like the like just the start exactly because I imagine you you guys are going to continue on with other books in other series like is that the plan that you're just going to keep doing this yes so our plan is to right now we're covering iron flame which is a sequel to fourth wing but that is a 13 week deep dive one set is done we're going to take a little bit of a break and then we're going into the accord of thorns and roses series which is an incredibly popular remit to see series as well so then we're diving into that after that we have no idea we have a plethora of options to choose from but we also have you know Amazon has picked up fourth wing it's also picked up another incredibly popular book series like so we're expanding into what would it look like to cover tv shows what would it look like to cover all these different things so there's so many options which is both really exciting but we also just got off a call with our talent team and they had a bunch of ideas that we were like we never even thought of that so stuff like that is also on the table we're very I'll call it open we're very open is like where is this roller coaster going to take us and I think that that's actually been one of our big we haven't been gripping we haven't been trying to control this we've just been like very along for the ride and I think that's been really helpful for both of us yeah that's awesome I'm curious when you named the show fantasy fan girls was it intentional that you didn't make it about this specific series at the beginning yes because we knew we didn't want it to just be the fourth wing podcast now it has become the fourth wing podcast however we didn't want to walk ourselves in you know fourth wing fan girls or stuff like that where it was like we could only cover that thing yeah and a lot of people haven't actually really appreciated about that they have we get asked I'd say multiple times a day minimum what are you covering next what are you covering that's what are you covering next despite it being literally everywhere on our social media but that's fine you don't mind answering it so people are excited to see this have a long term effect and that was something that we were so excited and really blown away that it's about creating that rating fan yeah not them in the moment fan you know what I mean yes yeah 100% someone that's gonna because you're creating a basic listeners that are gonna just want to hear what you have to say about whatever right you get to that point where it's like let's check it with them well not something we really needed to talk with our network about because we were and still are I'd say a little nervous about the pivot into the new book series you know there are some people in our current audience who have not read it however we do get a lot of messages of people be like I heard that you're covering a guitar so I'm gonna start reading it and like all that kind of stuff so that's really cool to see that they're continuing on with us but one of the things that we're really mindful of is making it so that it's us reading these books it's not the books on the podcast it's having people fall in love with Lexi and I which I think we did not even on purpose really that's been a really cool side effect but like having people really enjoying us as hosts covering these books rather than just the book material itself yeah so that I do think that is gonna help make you know things like bonus episodes we do Q&A episodes every now and again and those are still really popular so it's like even when we're not covering the book itself and we're just talking about Lexi and I and our Hogwarts house in Patronis is which was a very popular question on that Q&A like that is still something people care about and want to listen to so that has been again very unexpected but it's something we're very intentionally doing going forward as we're kind of more strategic with this yeah I'm curious was there a moment in the past three months where the way that you thought about the show like really changed when you were like oh man this this is gonna be a thing when we got an email from a talent agency and I and we've signed contracts on the lot to say which one when we got an email from William Morrison Deborah saying hey we see this being a thing and we started sitting down with them and having conversations about what this might look like and they started dropping things that were like that's an option like what are you serious that was when it was like oh this is so much bigger than just a podcast and is it terrifying the crap out of me apps the fucking lately but it's also really really exciting as to see what this could be using YouTube honestly YouTube is I'd love to talk to you about that that's been a huge part of not only our audience growth but also a revenue stream as well for us which has been really great so one of the things that was really important to me this is something I heard over and over again in podcast movement actually that we attended this past year was YouTube YouTube YouTube and I was like that's a lot of extra steps my guy I don't know how I feel about that but because I edit on a primarily video platform described I was able to just basically upload it onto YouTube and we kind of just did it as like a cast and it why not like let's do that but then the YouTube started going I would say viral but like you know we have a few videos are like 20,000 plus views and stuff like that so it's like those started really getting up there and I think we're just shy of 8,000 subscribers on there so stuff like that really started taking off and we actually have a lot of people who say we would rather watch the show because of the banter because of how animated Lexi and I are with the material we have people who would say they'd rather watch the show and we wanted to be able to have that as an option and I'm really really glad we did so not only having it as an app revenue stream for ads and all that kind of stuff for YouTube partners but also having it as a visual aspect I never really considered especially within perfect success in perfect success was on YouTube but it was like just the audio version of it so it was the half-ass version of the YouTube of it being honest yeah but that has been really really helpful for growing the show incredible and is that monetized it's yeah you mentioned how you are posting would you say like three to five times a day on social media so can you talk a little bit about just like what your process is there it sounds like it's a lot of repurposing like when you talk about your weekly cadence how much of the micro content in social media falls into that a lot a lot of it I'd say because most of my evenings are spent doing outlines or editing stuff like that my days are spent primarily doing social media content so we have numerous different types we have the podcast clips like I mentioned and those I just pull from the episode but I highly tailor them to social media so any breaths any micro pauses I edit everything out especially just with the pace of TikTok it is fast talking so I want to make it so it's as easy to capture their attention as possible I also make it where it's just the juiciest little bit so if we go on a side tangent I cut everything out so a five-minute clip can suddenly become a 45 second clip yeah I also make sure that it's only the juiciest part of the episode so those are really the tactics of just that then we also do memes we use cap cut a lot it's just a super easy thing so we'll take little sections of the book and put funny memes to it and those get shared a lot so a lot of our followers have actually come especially on Instagram have actually come from those going viral and people sharing them and their stories and the people finding out oh this is a podcast and then they convert to podcasts listeners from there but then they also do something Lexi and I call this newscaster Nicole where I am a lot more comfortable in front of the camera I've been doing it for a lot longer I also went to acting school Lexi was a journalist so she's a lot more behind the scenes I'm a lot more in front of the scenes and newscaster Nicole is basically like for instance when the Amazon TV show was released it was me saying hey there's all the information but doing it in a really entertaining way so those also are highly highly shared in stories to friends all that kind of stuff so that again gives a lot of people with their eyes on our content and then they become followers and then eventually subscribers as well I know that there's more filters we do that every once in a while that's kind of like a we don't have anything posted for detail let's do a filter real fast and like those are really easy and it's putting our faces out there as much as possible and I was not about high amounts of social media beforehand to be quite honest because it was a lot harder for me to talk about the content that I was doing in my business in this kind of fun highly animated way yeah where it's so much easier when it comes to fantasy and girls so also the contents already written there's two five hundred plus page books about it so I could literally flip to a page and be like let's do a meme about this section yeah so it's a lot easier that a lot of that's already done for me but those are not worth sleeping on like they are really really helpful when it comes to building the audience we have it sounds like social media is like the nine to five and then making the actual podcast is is the night time you know I never thought about it that way but honestly that's exactly it and I'm still coaching on the side I still have my other business but I've basically taken it down to the bear bear bear bones like I've stopped taking on new clients of stop doing newsletters of stop posting on that social media I've stopped that podcast like everything for that has pretty much halted except for tailoring to my clients yeah so I still have those on Tuesdays and Thursdays but like Monday Wednesday and Friday is fantasy fan girls it's being in our discord it's being with our patreon members it's designing merch which is something like we started and it's taken off really well and like it's work it's having meetings with our talent it's having meetings with our network it's a lot of the business stuff and then the creative stuff is done at night right now you mentioned your patreon so can you talk about what you launched what went well maybe lessons learned yes so we actually we weren't planning on launching a patreon until we started covering a guitar with the accord author and zon rose's book which will be in the new year but when we got our executive producer on who basically was like hey I see what you guys are doing and I really want to be a part of this what can I do to help we were like well what are the things that are going to be able to make this a full time job for us where we can devote all this time and energy to it we're like what's the low hanging fruit you know what patreon patreon is a really cool thing we've had people asking us for it let's just go ahead and start it yeah and so he actually really took the brun of it and he ended up creating everything in the background he did all the set up for it he did a wonderful job I'm so grateful for him so to be quite honest but comes to lessons learned I actually don't know if I have any the lesson learned is have someone who knows what they're doing doing yeah get help for it and he made it a really seamless process we did a lot of social media promo we did a lot of baked in promo for it in the podcast itself and I think in the first day we got like two to three hundred people and we're just shy of a thousand now so credible having those patreon members also we're doing a bunch of events I think that's another thing that really helps like we're doing a trivia event this Saturday that Lexie and I are hosting and that's had a big spike in people signing up so not just having it be a one and done I think that that was a really really really important thing that we decided to do it wasn't yeah you signed up for patreon deuces it was hey you signed up for patreon let us nurture you because when we launch new merch they are the ones who immediately sign up for it we're talking out alive tour next year when we do that they're going to be the ones who are front row and center so we want to make sure that they know how much we love and appreciate them every single day we also have moderators on our discord that's been really really helpful so we have people who just raise their hands and we've actually become really good friends with them now so like having help has been a really really really big thing when it comes to launching that patreon yeah amazing have there been any surprises about what it's like to have a show reach this level yes there have type two stories so when the midnight premiere happened for iron flame Lexie and I had in the lead up to it mention on the podcast this was still when it was a little bit smaller here mentioning like you know we're gonna be at the Denver midnight release all this kind of stuff and then we were on a Facebook group and it was like hey guys just see you know the fantasy fan girls are gonna be at this well like it was like a blast of like where we're gonna be and I was like oh my god so we actually had my husband come as like Justin James like bodyguard like we out there we are bodyguards and it was amazing like it was awesome we literally walked in at Lexie and I were like joking and she started laughing and we heard someone be like the fantasy fan girls are here they just heard Lexie's laugh and that was it I mean literally we couldn't walk five steps without someone pulling us to the side asking for a photo so in those very niche styles of events it is wild being in micro celebrity I don't know how else to say it yeah now I was out to dinner the other day with a friend and I'm sitting there I'm talking to her and someone came up to my table and said are you fancy fan girls and I was like I'm sorry why say like I mean serious so starting to get noticed in public has been wild wild to experience and there's a level and anxiety that comes with that I'm not gonna lie you know like going out grocery shopping I look like a troll it's not really the time I want to take a photo with the fan but like it's so there's there's certain things that come with that that have been really really exciting and seeing their faces when I talk to them is just like the coolest feeling I've ever experienced in my life signing a book for the first time was wild like you know all these like micro celebrity moments have just been insane insane that has definitely been the most surprising thing that's come out of this that is so cool that is so wild dude that's so I'm just beaming over here because it's it's just so awesome like it's so deserved and like I said it before you guys have been so humble and when you were in the program you were one of the strongest action takers like hard workers like so it's just it's no surprise that you guys have been able to achieve this to me but it's so yeah I'm just like I said I'm just beaming over here because it's just so cool to hear this you joined the network yes so can you talk about how that went and what your considerations were so we shook around a little bit but we were also very much like we know with the rate that we're growing we're leading money on the table by not having ads as a part of this and so one of the conversations we had with our talent agent was what is the network we need to sign with like what the type of network I should say and they basically laid out five to six networks that Hayden actually our executive producer then went and met with and then he would bring the information to Lexie and I and it was pretty easy to tell which ones we were like yes and which ones we were like oh no the big thing for us was someone who'd be able to keep up with us we were growing at insane insane amounts and it's teetered a little bit but not much so like and we're still doing that and so by having someone who could basically help us build the plane while we're still flying in and the air was deeply important so just by that qualifier alone we could easily scratch off a few percentage splits was also another big one there were some that were a little bit not as desirable as others so those were quick qualifiers to nix people out and then also was just like do you work well with our team do you have fun batter do you know what our type of show is basically like are there other shows on the network that we could you know do crossover is with and stuff like that so with that we ended up going back and forth between two but eventually raining on one and it was the right choice by a million times so we're actually with the q code network and love them they literally hit the ground running with us which was our big thing that we wanted so signing with them the big thing was they are also a fiction podcast network they do a lot of fiction shows not only but they have a lot of fiction shows on their network so having us as also like the deep dive people it just made sense so that was really awesome and having our talent agent really step in and be our guide for it because we were just like we don't know but we don't know like we are building the plane as we're doing this and so having someone to really step in is like look I do this every day like let's talk about it that was really helpful so I would say I know what the values that you want out of a network are for us it was the monetary split it was the speed and being able to roll with us as quickly as we roll as well and also it was do we sit in with the network itself because there were a few that we looked at but then we looked at their roster and we're like oh we're just not yeah we're just not on the same even categories now we didn't want to have competition necessarily but we didn't want it to be like so polarly opposite where we couldn't do like any crossovers we couldn't see ourselves in the network also knowing that the ads sales team is going to be selling your stuff yeah having a network where you're in a similar category was helpful because they know how to sell our show easily it's why we've turned around ads theory very quickly and also they're just really good at their jobs so yeah yeah that's awesome so I'm just curious the podcast hosting to the show that hasn't really they may or may not have found traction yet maybe speak to yourself a year ago right as a podcaster from having experienced what you've experienced for the last three months what advice would you want to send back I'm an overachiever so I'm going to do multiple pieces of that's all right please do yeah big thing is go back to the drawing board go back to the drawing board the clear mind it's really easy to be biased you know we live in our show we are the birth of our show but go back with a mind that is completely blank and ask yourself over and over does this make sense does someone know exactly what this is right off the bat and do the nitty gritty dirty work it was like three to four weeks I think it took me to go through ivory video and really do the work and do all the meetings with people and all that kind of stuff and I would not have traded those three weeks for anything that was really really useful time to well spend so yes we high achievers especially I'm assuming a lot of people who listen to this podcast are very high achievers we tend to not want to go backwards but it's not going backwards it's laying the concrete foundation so by the love of God if I had not done that I do not think I'd be sitting here today the other thing is don't sleep on social media do not sleep on social media do need to post five times a day that might be a little insane because again we were capitalizing on the moment we've kind of scaled back a little bit more to like three maybe even two to four times a day I'll say our lowest is two but there's people on social and if anything we've learned from this experience is that people have no problem living from tiktok or instagram to a podcasting or a youtube platform it's just getting their attention where they want to know more and they're interested and they want to explore more the show would not be what it is if it wasn't for tiktok or instagram but by a country mile yeah I think that those are the two biggest pieces of advice I'd give to someone yeah that's awesome because earlier today I was like the two things I want to make sure we ask about our premise and so from media and so those are the two things I'm not blown smoke here that is 100% the reason that the show is what it is today now obviously like yes we had a very niche of our own show having a more unique I'd say absolutely for that in there but at the end of the day it's fine and our listeners hear that so yep yeah I think that's another big one too incredible last question what on earth did you tell your family at Thanksgiving this year you know our parents knew that this was a thing and they they've been following along from the beginning but to be quite honest they've been like oh that's really cool that's very exciting when I told them like oh you know we've been approached by a talent agency they're like oh that's cool like that's fine yeah sure and then when I finally was like yeah WME did I did that and my dad like does a quick google search he does do you mean a billion Morrison ever and I was like yeah he goes you mean like Adele and Hugh Jackman's talent agency that's when you're talking out and I'm like yeah this is like a month after we signed with them by the way so you were like oh my god so I think that the big thing they're so excited they don't really know how to react which is so sweet and it's really cute they're just over the moon now it is funny because our our show is not it is an R rated podcast for many different reasons mainly because these books have some space in it yeah so we have a very unwritten rule that mom and dad you are not allowed to listen to this I never even thought of that that's so funny we had some very interesting family conversations with people who are not our parents and I'm like I don't want to have that conversation with anyone who I'm very closely related to any time well here's to a future of some day having that conversation with mom and dad can't wait oh my gosh yeah well they're called that you've been so generous one more time congratulations to you it is so well deserved it's been so inspiring to watch super super proud of what you've done and it's just beginning I can't wait to see where you guys go with this thank you for being the concrete that was the possibility that this even happened I truly I said this to you in a call not too long ago but I'll say a year on air like I truly do not think I would be sitting here today if it were for a girl to show and you came in just at the right time that I needed everything that you were putting down and it was so helpful it's still so helpful and just for all you do thank you it is in freaking valuable I'm literally living my dream thanks to you so thank you very much for what you do oh this is so cool thank you and yeah this made my day made my week I've been looking forward to this conversation the call thank you so so much for sharing your story with us here on Grow the Show thank you for having me what an incredible story one more congrats to Nicole and Lexi so if you want a deeper dive into the strategy and into what Nicole learned during her time in the Grow the Show accelerator that helped her to launch this show into the stratosphere from the very start you can go to 12 days of podcast growth dot com one two days of podcast growth dot com and get a 12 day email course that gives you exactly the framework and the methodology you can also go to grow the show dot com slash master class to see the video version of me teaching what I taught Nicole so that you can also start to grow your podcast to the point that you want it to be this episode was post produced by our friends at podcast boutique if your show does not sound professional and you wanted to definitely head to podcast boutique dot com they handle audio editing video editing reels show notes you name uh they are highly recommended can't recommend them enough so shout out to max in the team over there and that's going to do it for today so for grow the show my name is Kevin Tridland and I will see you next week