Ask the Expert: Turn Listeners Into Leads With a Premium Podcast with Carla White

Amplifyou Intro/Outro: 00:00:03

This is Amplify You the podcast about you discovering your message and broadcasting to the world. If you're a coach, author or speaker, you'll want to tune in. If you're looking for the best return on your time investment, to get your message out to the world in a bigger way. We're giving you full access behind the scenes look of how we're running our podcasts, how our clients have found success, and what you can do to launch your podcast today. The world needs your message. I'm Michelle Abraham, the host. Join my family as we unleash your unique genius and find the connections you need to launch your venture today. Join us and let's get amplified.

Michelle Abraham: 00:00:44

Hello, everyone. I'm so glad you're here. I am so excited because I'm here with my different Carla white. Let me tell you a little bit about Carla. Carla is the founder and CEO of kiro.fm. And she's the first woman to launch an iPhone app. What that's so amazing. She's been featured in New York Times, Oprah, NPR, and on all major networks as and is the author of two best sellers. Carly's have 1000s of entrepreneurs and podcasters increased profit reach in using AI and next generation tools. And Carla and I have a love for podcast, we do podcasting a little bit different ways. She does private podcasting. I do public podcasting. But we have a love for podcasting. And we're coming together on a project, which we'll tell you about in a few minutes. But he currently How are you doing?

Carla White: 00:01:32

Oh my gosh, it's so cool to be here. Hi, Michelle. Hi. Hi. Hi,

Michelle Abraham: 00:01:36

well, super excited for you to be here. We're talking all the authority, influence and profit today. And what better vehicle to talk about that is in the power of podcasting. And so you have created this amazing loft. Like, first of all, let's just take it back a few steps here, like first woman to create an app on the iPhone, like holy crap, what is like, insane. I knew that about you. But just when I read that again, I was like, wow, like, wow, that is so cool. Tell us a little bit about that first before we move on

Carla White: 00:02:08

kind of dates me though, doesn't it? Whatever, those people might have been in diapers back then.

Carla White: 00:02:17

That's all good. But yeah, I'm a, I'm a I'm a I'm a nerd. I'm a such a nerd. And I love it. So I have been developing software, gosh, for decades, right. And I am an early adapter to a lot of this stuff. So when the iPhone came out, I created an app called gratitude journal, it's still on the App Store, like I don't know, well over a decade, 15 years, something like that, like, no funding, no marketing, none of that. It's still going strong. So that pushed me into entrepreneurship. So I was working for like Microsoft, and NASA and all these things that you probably heard of these organizations. And the iPhone came out and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to create an app and went viral and then wrote a book about making apps. Then I wrote this book, and people are like, Oh, that'd be a really good lead magnet per funnel. And I'm like, Okay, what are those? That sounds interesting. So I got into the whole marketing world, and created challenges. So people would get my gratitude journal app, and I create a challenge. And I'm like, 30 days, we're gonna, I'm going to show up live for 30 days, like, talk about hard and try to get these people to adapt new habits. Obviously, it was not a huge success, because people would drop off. And that's what led me into audio.

Michelle Abraham: 00:03:53

And love it and you created this audio. I don't even know what it's called. It's an AI. It's this audio, amazing thing that just has these features that are incredible. So let's talk about hero for a second and what it does, what it's all about how it's like totally transforming the way that we can help support podcasters.

Carla White: 00:04:13

You Yeah, so I Hiro is in the interactive audio platform, meaning not only are you listening to podcasts, but you can send them an email or send them an SMS, like right when you mention a URL or sign up for my thing, you can trigger these events or if they don't listen, you can send a little message saying, Hey, you haven't listened for a while. Can I help you out somehow? So it's interactive, which is really cool. Because really, when it comes to marketing, it's about a two way conversation, not just a one way. So I got into it because I had this challenge, and people weren't finishing it and this woman jumped into my challenge and she sends me an email I'll saying look, I'm not watching the videos, I'm not watching the replays and I'm like bracing myself for this refund request and she just says, Send me the audios. And I'll listen to it. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's brilliant. I'll just rip all the audios. So here I am spending days ripping all the audios, put them on a G Drive, when she shows up, like a day or so later in our private Facebook group. And she's live going, I downloaded everything and I'm binge listened. And I feel like a totally different woman. And I'm smashing the hearts like this is so cool. Yes, yes. But then she started crying. And she said that her son was he confided in her that he was contemplating committing suicide. And he wouldn't have told her had she not had this transformation herself. And I was just like, it was like eating a tuna sandwich. And it just fell out of my mouth. I was like, Whoa, this is so crazy. So I went gave everybody audio, like every training thing I created. I just made an audio version. It was terrible. It was horrible. Like, people were like, What am I supposed to do with this? How do I listen to it? How do I access it? So when the world closed down in 2020, I'm like, Okay, I'll create a software that'll do this, I'll just create an easier way to do that. So that's how Hiro was born. And I shared it with some friends. And then like, this is incredible. And so it just kept snowballing from there. And yeah, that's how I got started. And the idea is you can share your courses, you can create private members only podcast, I like to use it as a really good lead magnet. I figured that out. That's been the best. Like, imagine people just texting you. In fact, I got one just yesterday, a boxer from this lady going, Okay. How do I sign up for your coaching again, because I just listened to your challenge. And I got like, that was so good. So where's the link? And I mean, that's so awesome, then the closing calls is more open every morning. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's it makes it so easy, because that show is strategically set up kind of like a webinar kinda like a challenge, where you're getting them through specific events. So they have a really big win at the end. And they know they can do it. And so the next logical step is, Let's book a call and talk about working together and partnering, so yeah, love it.

Michelle Abraham: 00:07:30

You know what I really love about what you're doing with Hiro. I mean, you're turning listeners into leads and for podcasters. Like, sometimes we feel like we're speaking into this like microphone. And it's like, hello, anyone there is anyone there wasn't even listening. I don't even know who is there right now. And so what I love about Hiro, and how we've implemented it into our business, is we use it as a lead magnet to help our listeners. So here's the cool thing is that when you're listening to a podcast, typically you're probably an audio learner you like audio is like your, your way of consuming things. So if I'm going to send my listeners to like an ebook, hell, no, they're not going to read that thing, right. But if I send them to give them a number, first of all, this is the easiest thing. They're always on their mobiles, these texts are my number, or you text them a word, and they text it to you, then you're going to send them the link, and they're going to click on the link, and then all of a sudden, a podcast pops up on their phone. And they start listening to this podcast, which is your lead magnet, which is on audio, which they can consume easily. And they get through the whole thing and binge listen to the whole thing. And then they're ready for more and what more of you and you know, for our clients that have like, public podcasts, now maybe they go and listen to the public podcast more, or maybe that's where they came from. Or maybe now they're ready for more things with you. But it just allows that amplification and deeper deepening of the relationship really quickly, for a listener from a podcast to then this like this, like accelerated platform. So I absolutely love what you've created. Because I think it's so magical, and can be used in so many different ways. We're revamping everything we're doing it amplify you right now. And one of the things that we're really focused on is great, we're recording all these videos and this content and stuff. And this is okay. But I get so annoyed when I have all these membership sites, I gotta go into to listen to the content and like, why just want something while I'm driving or at the gym or going for a walk that I can listen to you feel like I'm getting the education that I paid for, instead of having to sit in front of the computer for another hour to listen to it. So this is where we're going to put the app in there. And so we're going to be able to get the audio right for the from the program there. So I'm sorry, I'm taking over your time here because I'm just excited about it.

Carla White: 00:09:52

That's a great way to use it and you bring up some really good points that I think need to be He emphasized because since I've gotten into hero course, I'm like, well, who's listening to audio? Who's, you know, what's the demographics. And what I discovered is really crazy. So we all heard that attention is the newest currency, like whoever has the most attention is going to crush it. But what they aren't saying is things like short form video, for example, you're getting what, maybe a few seconds, if you get them to stop to scroll, and like things that they're doing in short form video to get you to stop the scroll is pretty significant. Like you got to post a lot, a lot of energy. And time that goes into that. Not saying that it doesn't work, is I'm talking about return on time. And when it comes to audio, with the people who listen to audio, they listen. Okay, there's a couple of cool effects. One, there's more people that listen to audio on a daily basis than have Netflix accounts. That's a lot of people. Yeah, so there's a huge market and they're listening to audio daily, they're looking for stuff to listen to. And they're listening to an hour and a half a day. Compare that to like, the few seconds you're getting with shorts, or reels or anything like that, you get an hour and a half. And it's just you and in their head talking to them. And that's why it's so good. And then you brought up another thing that I like, which I really focused on a lot is the simplicity and the usability making things effortless. So you look at how Amazon got successful. It's because of that one, click, boom, it's on your doorstep. So simple. And so when I designed hero, it was all about that, how can we make it super simple for somebody who's like, on a podcast as a guest, or on a show like this, to take that audience and get them on a list without pop ups and all the things that they have to jump through. And so that's that just text a word to a phone number, and boom, now you got your listeners in there your leads.

Michelle Abraham: 00:12:09

Yeah, and when we share your free gift, we're going to show everyone exactly how easy it is because that's exactly how obviously your free gift is like set up that way today. So you'll get a chance to experience that in a few minutes. Guys, and you know, we're talking about influence, authority and profit today. So Carl, in your experience and your journey so far as their what has really led to your success, you think and in that authority, because you are an authority in this audio space. So and obviously in the app space from the beginning. So like what is the what is really contributed to the success of that?

Carla White: 00:12:41

Um, I would, I would most definitely say publishing, not publishing long or short form, but long form publishing courses that help people publishing books and audiobooks that are easy for people to consume. That right there has really pushed me into the forefront of you gotta go talk to Carla, like DMS filling up, I want to partner with you, because you publish this book, or you have this course that covers this thing. And I cheat. I totally cheat when I do it. They are no cheats.

Michelle Abraham: 00:13:17

No way You don't cheat. How do you cheat?

Carla White: 00:13:22

Okay, so I use AI a lot. So when I'm publishing and creating content, creating audios, sometimes I don't even record it with my own voice.

Michelle Abraham: 00:13:33

What? No way. Yeah, that sounds like like robotic if you're not recording with your voice. I know.

Carla White: 00:13:41

Right? You don't have to, though. So there's tools that you can use where you can clone your voice. And it sounds really good. In fact, the audio quality is so better because part of that is having high quality products like you don't want to create this audio product. That's an audio book or a course or anything that sounds echoey or your dogs barking in the background right? Which happens to be all the time, even if you've heard it. I bet he does it on this call. But so you can use AI to write everything. In fact, we have aI integrated into hero now to help you with the titles, the subtitles, everything, transcribe all your audios. But then you can use it to brainstorm ideas, figure out what your clients need you can I here's what I like to do. I'll create a whole course have aI tell me what needs to be set course. Right all the modules create the workbook. Everything that goes with the quizzes, discussions, everything that goes with it, and and I put it out there with my name on it. That's a game I mean I'm leading it a lot of the ways to,

Michelle Abraham: 00:15:02

of course, like you're training it to say what you need it to say. But that's like so much work to come up with all that content and Alissa days worth of effort going into it that now you've cut that down in like, and like what I love about like the, the AI integrated into it is that it's the AI is going to help you get ranked better and SEO is going to help you with like better conversion, it's going to help you attract and say the right things to your listeners that they're going to resonate with. So they've taken the thinking out of it for.

Carla White: 00:15:33

Yeah, and what I do like as well is, so by I do apply a lot of frameworks like I make sure that we're tickling all the happiness chemicals, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, in the audience, and that's specifically designed so I do train AI to make sure that we're creating status out of that individual. And we're future pacing them, and we're just making them laugh a little bit and all of that we want to embroil that into the episodes so that they binge listen all the way through, that's really the key is we want them to binge listen to the whole thing we want. Well, my goal is if they are listening to it, as they're walking the dog, they walk an extra couple of blocks so they can finish the whole thing.

Michelle Abraham: 00:16:24

I love it, that's great. Plus, you're helping them with their health and fitness while you're at it. So well done. And so Carly might have known each other for a while now. And I think it's been a couple of years actually. And we both been obviously love podcasting. And so I heard that Carla was growing up something really cool to help people just get going quicker in the podcasting space. And it's something that, you know, we love helping people launch podcasts, but sometimes it takes a long time to get that, you know, interviews and things like that going and in the meantime, then you need a lead magnet somewhere to send them, someone, someone somewhere to send people from your podcast. And then that takes some people months to create. And it just prolongs the getting out there and getting your voice out there. And so Carla has come up with this 30 Day podcaster program, and I'm gonna help jump in and join in and teach with her coming up in May here, and I'm super excited about it, because it's gonna get you this quick way. And then you're gonna get a podcast up and running in like 10 minutes a day, you want to share more about

Carla White: 00:17:25

it? Yeah, so the idea came from peloton, you know, those little bikes that you have a little coach on the screen telling you what to do for 10 minutes a day or for your workout, it's gonna be like that, like, you're gonna get a little video, it's 10 minutes, we're gonna have a little clock right here. And we're gonna make sure we don't go over 10 minutes, and it's just going to be click here, do this. And after the 10 minutes, you're done for the day, there's no homework, there's no theory. And we do one day than the next than the next and the next. And at the end, you're going to have the whole system set up with traffic coming in there. And it's gonna be really super fun, because this is something I've always wanted to do. And I feel like when we push it all into, I don't know, 2030 minute trainings, it's a little bit much right, get lost. And you want to talk about the q&a days.

Michelle Abraham: 00:18:21

Oh, yeah. And then we're going to go live and have some live q&a days, every week, so that you have a chance to ask us questions, too. And you've got two brilliant ladies here that are going to answer all your questions, and know how to help you get this set up and in such a cool way and really quickly, right, but the end of 30 days, you have something live. So awesome. Yeah,

Carla White: 00:18:41

yeah, and we got some cool prizes for people. So we're gonna make it super fun. And we want it really our goal is to help you get your first customer. So one, get your first listener, then get a flood of listeners, and then hit financial goal maybe that you have with that shelf. So that's that's the plan with it. And I can't wait. It's gonna be fun. That really

Michelle Abraham: 00:19:09

satisfies one of the questions that podcasters always have is like, how do I monetize this thing? How do I make money on it? How do we do that? And so Carla, I know you have a free gift. And I was just because we're talking about it right now how this all works. I want you guys to go and download the free gift and tell her and tell her that you went and got it so that she can see that you've got it and you can experience what we're talking about here. And it's really cool. And in fact one of the one of our one of our attendees right now, his name is sealer he's one of our clients that we've just helped him implement hero into his business to help him have a lead magnet from his podcast over hope without site over to his over into this private podcast that we've created for him as a lead magnets so it's gonna be so cool to see how this works for him in his business. So guys, make sure you come and check it out with us in me, and again, it's 30 day podcaster.com Check it out and Go over and grab this free gift that Carla has, I'm going to put it in and see if we can put it in the chat right now, Tim, that would be awesome. So it's a text number. So you have to text the word AI to a phone number. And then you're, then you're going to be able to follow the directions from there and just see how magical and see how this works. So can you imagine if you were in on your podcast, and you're listening to your podcast, and you just say this word out loud, remember, everyone's on their phone already. So they're just gonna text that. And it's so good. So good. I love it. And just the fact that you can actually do something like this without it recorded in your own voice. So Carla, is what they're going to is that in your own voice? Or is that an AI? No, that's

Carla White: 00:20:43

AI. So I'd love to hear people's feedback. Yeah. So what you're going to experience is my completely created with AI and I created it in I think it was about an hour like the whole thing with getting people in there listening to it, sharing it out to the interwebs so I did redo it because some of the audios were a little bit janky. So I was like, okay, that doesn't sound very good. And yeah. Okay, so you don't need to

Michelle Abraham: 00:21:13

ask asking you because so I this is we hadn't talked for a little while and then I saw you post this I download it. I grabbed it. And I text the did the text number and everything comes in it's Carla talking and I was the whole time I'm like, really talking to your assistant? Yeah, I couldn't tell. I definitely couldn't tell.

Carla White: 00:21:31

Tell and tell. It said things like lead magnet, it would say things. Yeah, it mispronounced a few things. So I had to correct it. And but it was so easy. Because basically a I wrote it, I edited it. And then I slapped it into another software and it created the audios. And I uploaded that to Hiro. And the cool thing is like you don't have to create a funnel. You don't have to create any, like emails or anything like that. It's just sort of sets it all up. Super easy.

Michelle Abraham: 00:22:02

And I feel like this is something another piece a lot of people struggle with is like once they get people on to their email lists, how do they then nurture them it this is super easy. Wait, it's already integrated into this system. And like you can they can take you wherever they go on the phone. It's on the phone. So there isn't a podcast app, it's already looks, it looks like a podcast. They already there. We have one. In fact, we need one from my mom. Her brothers are, you know, end of life. And we wanted her to remember them beyond their life. And so my brother and I interviewed a bunch of our uncles and our cousins was stories of you know, and we gave it to my mom for Mother's Day last year, and it's a private podcast, and no one has access to it, except for her and a few other family members that we've allowed to listen to it. But it sits on her iPhone app in iTunes. And nobody else can listen to it except for her, which is super cool.

Carla White: 00:22:53

That is such a good idea. We actually did that for one of my siblings. As he was going through chemo. We all recorded like long stories about like when he was a kid and important for him to listen to while he was going through chemo. So I know there's so many great ways to use this.

Michelle Abraham: 00:23:11

Yeah, I think there's a big market for that actually. Because like it's such a cool thing. Like think about that the veterans or like the the people in nursing homes. So many cool ways to using that. But anyways, we want to thank you, Carla, for for joining us today because this has been awesome. I love so many things before we let you go. Um, tell us a little bit just last words of wisdom words of advice that you want to leave with us today. Yeah,

Carla White: 00:23:35

yeah. So really what I want to emphasize is there is somebody out there right now praying for the solution that you have. You have a unique way of connecting the dots seeing a solution, and there's somebody out there that needs it. And so I emphasized but there's Bodi pee I don't know if you guys can see my son I emphasize that you get your voice out there get heard like don't go for perfect version Done is better than version none. So we'll just go for getting it done. There's somebody who needs what you have right now.

Michelle Abraham: 00:24:13

Amazing and we all need what Carla has. She guys go download her her often getting so cool. So looking forward to working with you and may Kyla super excited for the project we have coming up guys come and check it out with us 30 Day podcasts or.com Thanks so much Karolina have an amazing day. Thanks. Bye, Carla.