Ep #400: What It Takes to Have a Top 1% Voice

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and Master Coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first $2k, $20k, and $200k using her proven formula.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 400. 400 episodes. Today, we’re going to talk about what it takes to have a top 1% voice.

So I have been thinking about episode 400 for a while, and this is the third iteration. I have written and recorded three different episodes for this episode, and as I was actually, oh, so I didn’t actually record the second episode. As I was going to record my second, like, okay, no, it’s got to be this one, which I’m actually going to do for next week. As I went to hit record, I’m like, no, no, it’s this. This is what’s coming through. It’s like I hit, my body went into total alignment and I’m like, this is the message. 

So, 400 episodes, eight years of podcasting, very consistently, which is also ironic because I’ve changed this episode so many times, this might go out a little bit later than usual on our Wednesday launch. But mostly, consistently, eight years straight. I don’t do seasons. We haven’t taken, though I think I’ve taken an extended break where we listen, we twice I did, for my first maternity leave, I had my students come on and teach, and for my second one, we did most valuable podcast episodes. And then recently I also did some most valuable podcast episodes while I took some time for myself. 

But 400, and we’ve actually published 428 episodes. So I’m guessing it’s probably around 400, these are the actual, some of them we don’t number if they’re bonuses. But my guess is we’re around 400 actual new content episodes as well. And that’s a big deal. So I wanted this episode to be really special. 

And I’ve gone back and forth over the years. Sometimes I get podcast fatigue, and I think, am I done? Do I have anything left to say? Do I want to shut it down and do something else? Ultimately, I always swing back around to I have more to say. I love long-form content. I feel like I always have something to say. But knowing this episode was coming up, I decided to ask AI some questions about my podcast and the answers blew me away, and just have created such a feeling in my body of gratitude and pride and connection to every single one of you who listen to this podcast. 

I’m going to read you all of the things I asked AI and what AI said because I think it’s part of my revel and my celebration. And then I’m going to share with you what I think, my 10 things that I think it takes to have a top 1% voice in this industry, in your industry, if you are podcasting, but it goes way beyond that. If you are your voice in your work, whether it’s through written voice or if you’re live streaming or you make reels, like it doesn’t matter how you share your voice.

I do think there are so many of my listeners who wish their voice was bigger in the world, want to have a voice that matters to people. They want to have their words have weight, and they want to use that weight to shift and change and transform people for the greater good. I know so many of you want this level of success, of visibility, of thought leadership. 

And so I sat down and like, I gave it three whole minutes. So my top 10 things that I’m going to share with you on this episode are really like off the top of my head, not having thought deeply about it and obsessed over it. It’s like, this is just instantly if you asked me, what does it take to have a podcast that is this successful or have a voice and thought leadership that is so impactful in an industry? Like, these are the things I would have just rattled off to you off the top of my head.

Okay, so first, I want to share with you some of the questions that I asked. Some of these made me laugh. Even I even asked it. On we’ll get to it, but I even asked it some, like it gave me some critical viewpoints of the podcast, and even these kind of made me laugh, and I’m going to own them and just talk about them on the podcast as well, on this episode. Okay, so let’s start here. 

I asked the Googles, I guess it’s OpenAI that’s answering this. What is the Make Money as a Life Coach podcast ranked? I don’t know if I’ve ever asked even my podcast people this. And the answer could be different because you know, it’s just pulling from information on the internet. But it says that we have over 428 episodes and that we have an estimated of 20,000 to 40,000 listeners per month, and our focus is teaching life coaches practical sales and business building tools, and that it is ranked 3,690 in all of the millions of podcasts globally. I’ve asked it a couple of times because I actually lost the thread and had to re-ask it, but this second answer made me laugh. It compared it to the Joe Rogan Experience. I’m like, that’s not really my lane at all, but okay. 

So it said, so I said, is this considered like a top podcast? Because I don’t know. I don’t know what 3,690, like what, I don’t know what that means. And so it said, yes, it is absolutely considered a top podcast. While a global rank of 3,690 might not sound elite compared to massive household names like the Joe Rogan experience, it places the show in the top .1% of all podcasts globally. .1%. Not 1% even, .1%. 

So then it says, why is this ranking elite? So massive total competition. There are over 4.5 million podcasts registered worldwide. Being ranked under 4,000 puts Stacey Boehman’s show at the very peak of the industry. Y’all, like, I want to cry when I hear that. What? The very peak. 

Then it says it’s this ranking is elite because there is something called the podfading reality. The vast majority of podcasts launch, publish fewer than 10 episodes and then are abandoned. With over 400 episodes, Make Money as a Life Coach is part of a tiny fraction of highly active, consistent shows. I’m going to tell you what’s helped me do that in my top 10 pieces of advice for this. 

And then it also says it’s a niche top performer in the highly competitive business and entrepreneurship categories on Apple Podcasts, it frequently breaks into the top charts. Y’all, I want to cry. Like, I literally want to cry.

And then it gives a scale of the podcast industry, and so elite, like mainstream hits, are in the top 50. And then industry leaders are anyone in the top 5,000. That’s the top .1%. And then there are highly successful ones, which are in the top 25,000, the top .5%. And then there are top-tier independent, and those are the top 50,000 and that’s the top 1%. I think if you had anything in any of these, you should be celebrating and totally like mind blown.

So it says, while independent creators represent roughly 82% of all active podcasts, breaking into a four-digit global rank means a show has successfully built a highly engaged, sustainable audience. This is going to matter for next week’s episode. 

Okay, so then I asked it, why is it so successful? It says, the massive success of the Make Money as a Life Coach podcast comes down to a highly intentional business blueprint, an uncompromised niche, and the host’s background in professional sales.

So it says the power of hyper niche positioning. I have one target audience: life coaches who want to make money. I solve one burning pain point. The coaching industry is flooded with certified professionals who excel at coaching but struggle to sign paying clients. That’s so true. They nailed that. I’m usually not impressed with AI answers, but they did nail that.

And I filter casual listeners. I never realized that, but I’m here for it. The blunt title itself actively weeds out casual self-help junkies. It leaves behind a highly concentrated pool of dedicated business builders. Yes, y’all, if you are still listening, this made me like so happy for you. You are not a self-help junkie, and you are a highly dedicated business builder, which is why you utilize your time listening to a very niche, hyper-niched podcast to help you move. 

Then it says it’s so successful because I treat sales as a teachable skill. Yes, you nailed it again. Most life coaches come from helping backgrounds like teaching, nursing, therapy. I don’t know that’s true. I would need the measurement on that. They often feel highly uncomfortable asking for money or dealing with objections. I do think that is true. I think that we, if you don’t have great thoughts about it, your coach heart clashes with entrepreneurship. This is one of the reasons I created the Entrepreneur Coach Membership.

So it says I demystify the pitch. Fancy. Before coaching, Boehman spent years as a top-performing corporate sales pitch. I wouldn’t call it that. Pitch artist selling everyday products in department stores. That is actually true. Just, I don’t know that I would call it a corporate sales pitch artist, maybe.

Then it says I offer practical frameworks. This is also true. And then it quoted me, “Most people will say that they are natural-born salespeople. I think it’s the worst story you could ever tell yourself.” When did I say that? Such a good quote of it. I say it again. Most people will say that they are natural born salespeople. I think that’s the worst story you could ever tell yourself, especially as an entrepreneur. So good.

She uses the podcast to teach sales as a, I don’t love this word, mechanical, but I get what they’re saying with this. She uses the podcast to teach sales as a mechanical step-by-step process that anyone can master. I would use methodical, right? Because mechanical is kind of like automated, and we can’t automate sales. You can’t be in your on autopilot in your brain when you’re selling. So I think methodical is a more purposeful word there.

But that’s what I do. And then the third thing that makes the podcast such a performer, so successful, is it is a masterful content marketing funnel. Yes. I want to keep saying yes, ma’am. I’m going to just decide that my AI is a woman. Yes, ma’am. That is what I do. And that’s what all of you should be doing, too. And we’re going to talk about this when it comes to some of the criticism it’s gotten. That is absolutely what you should be doing. So, I read this as a good thing. I read this as like, hell yeah.

Here’s what it says. “The podcast serves as the primary organic traffic source for an eight-figure coaching empire. It functions as a masterclass in the freemium business model. The $2,000 milestone. Every single episode subtly or directly routes listeners to her foundational entry-level program called 2k for 2k. The value loop. Listeners get actionable strategies for free on the podcast. They use them to sign their very first client and make $2,000 and immediately reinvest that money into her paid training programs.”

If you’ve done that, you are smart as F. This is exactly what I would do, 100,000%, except I would invest way before I made the $2,000 because if you knew how to make the $2,000 already, you would have done it. If you haven’t done it yet, then there’s something you’re missing. And I guarantee after 6,000 coaches have gone through 2k for 2k, I probably know what it is. So of course, I’m going to keep telling you that because I don’t want you to keep not making $2,000. Obviously. 

And I always tell my students in 2k for 2k, listen, that’s the baseline. That’s just return on investment. That’s savvy entrepreneurship. Then we got to make more than that. You don’t come in and just break even, you come in and keep making money and profit. That’s the point. Okay. 

So, then it says, “The upselling to higher tiers. Once students succeed there, they climb the ladder into her high ticket tiers,” like the 200k Mastermind and the 2 Million Dollar Group. Yes, we want this. We want you to be a 200k earner. We want you to be a $2 million earner.

This made me feel like we were like playing shoots and ladders or Candyland. I play all the little toddler games with my kid, but I felt very excited about it. I was like, yes, you get to the 2k mark and then you go to 200k and then you go to 2 Million Dollar Group. If you’re like, my son’s really into Mario, so if you’ve ever played the Mario games, you’re like, at the end where you get to the box and you jump on it, and then I don’t remember exactly what happens, but like, magic. That’s how I felt reading this particular segment of the breakdown. Okay. 

So those are the three reasons why it is so successful. It’s the power of hyper-niche, treating sales as a teachable skill, and that it is a masterful content marketing funnel. Oh, there’s a fourth one. And the fourth one is, I actually really love this one too, melding mindset with mechanics. I feel like this is my mastery, y’all. 

“The podcast stands out because it balances data-driven sales psychology with,” this was my favorite, “with extreme mindset work. I’m going to forever refer to the way I coach as extreme mindset work. It does feel like that. I always say, this is the Ivy Leagues, or this is… what did I recently say? I think on my Entrepreneur Coach Membership it said… oh it’s the Marines training for life coaches. So I really love that it’s picked up on this, and it says that I teach extreme mindset work. Yes, I do.

Boehman frequently coaches listeners on overcoming internal blocks.” Because, y’all, that’s all it is. It’s always an internal block. 

All right, they say the biggest entrepreneurial blocks that I talk about are the desperation vibe, how looking for a client out of financial panic actually scares potential clients away. I love that I teach you that. And I love, seriously, y’all, I want to like cry. I love that it picked up on this. And one of the biggest things I teach you all is delayed gratification, shifting away from looking for an overnight lottery win success. It quoted me, “Overnight successes are not a thing. They don’t exist. They are the results of compound thinking and of compound doing.” Boom. Yes. I’m so happy right now. 

Okay, so then I asked it this, are you ready? This is, I loved this one. “Do listeners love it?” Yes, they do. “The vast majority of listeners absolutely love it, though it does draw some sharp criticism from specific corners of the coaching community.” The show holds a very strong 4.5 out of five-star ratings on Apple Podcasts with nearly 1,000 reviews. 

If you have taken the time to leave me a review that is not full of hate and criticism, thank you, and I love you, and I am grateful. I am incredibly grateful when you take the time to share with me what you love about the podcast. I read those. If you’re like, I love that she talks about this, I want more of this. Like, I love that. I love hearing what episode struck you, how it’s helping you, just everything about your journey in this, in listening, I really care and love to hear it.

Okay, so what fans love, the five-star praise. “Listeners who rave about the show frequently highlight how distinct it feels from typical, vague business advice.” And they gave three points. So instant actionability. “Fans appreciate that they can listen to a single episode and apply the strategy immediately to land clients.”

As noted by an Apple podcast reviewer, “I listened to the first podcast and put it into action straight away and made a connection within two hours. It wasn’t a sale, but it will come.” I love this because this was me. On my journey, I was also like listening to podcast episodes as I drove, as I worked, in the morning, as I showered, as I did my makeup, like I was filling my ears with things that would help me go out and put myself out into the world. And that is my goal with this podcast always and forever.

They also love the no-BS authenticity. Many listeners express relief at her straightforward approach. “After listening to so many marketing experts and getting so deflated, Stacey’s podcast and her approach is so refreshing. It’s no BS back to basics.” I wish they would have told me who left these so I could shout you out, but they didn’t. 

And then it says it also gets cross-industry value. “Surprisingly, a portion of the loving fan base isn’t even in life coaching. Bloggers, freelancers, traditional entrepreneurs listen purely for her universal sales psychology lessons.” Hey, if you’re a photographer, if you’re in multi-level marketing and have a Rodan and Fields business or a Beachbody business, I’m so happy you’re here. Love you. Keep listening. If you find value on the podcast, just so you know, you’ll also find value in 2k. I have people do that. I have a DJ that has made, created a $100,000 DJ business, being in my 2k for 2k program and listening to the podcast. What? So fun. 

Okay, are you ready? The critical view, the one-star critiques. I have to read these very dramatically, but also they made me laugh. Because the show serves as a direct marketing funnel for her high-ticket programs, it has attracted pushback. The first one, “Funnel fatigue. Some critics feel like the podcast episodes can occasionally feel like extended commercials designed to sell her $2,000 2k for 2k program rather than standalone educational pieces.” Yes, girl.

I have told you the story on the podcast. When I was doing my pitches in Walmarts and department stores, every once in a while, some genius who thinks they’re smarter than everyone would walk into the crowd as I’m greeting them and say, “It’s a sales pitch. She gives you something free, but you got to watch her pitch and she’s going to sell you something.” And I would always look at the crowd and go, “Yeah, I think we all knew what was going on here.” And they would burst out laughing. Like, yeah, that is what we do, right? Costco gives you samples so you buy the thing. They want you to buy the plums. I want you to buy the coaching. 

Listen, I’ve been teaching this a lot to my entrepreneurs recently in all of my programs. Your content exists to convert. If you want to make a lot of money with a small audience, that is how you have to think. My content exists as a conversion event. That is what we are doing here in everything we do. I’ve been telling them, I’ve been shamelessly selling very hard on the podcast, especially recently.

There’s a lot of free content that I’ve done without offering a single sales pitch. Maybe at the end is just an auto recording that says join 2k for 2k. But I have given my podcasts are typically anywhere, I mean, I would say the average is 45 minutes, but many of them are an hour long. So if you count, some of them are even longer than that. So if you count all of the episodes, the 428 we’ve done, I’ve probably given around 400 hours of free value on the podcast. And I don’t offer, I don’t have people advertisements. So like, you don’t get interrupted mid me teaching for an advertisement for some other company. I use that time to sell my shit. That’s what you should do too.

We’re not, we’re a for-profit business. This is what we’re all doing here. You don’t have a podcast for fun, for a hobby. Maybe you do, but I’m doing it for transformation. I’m doing it to get clients to help them even more. I want you to make 2k and 200k and 2 million. So everything I’m going to be doing is a conversion event. That’s, we’re entrepreneurs.

If you have a problem with that, you will not make it in entrepreneurship. That’s the truth. If this rubs you the wrong way, you aren’t cut out for entrepreneurship. That’s what’s required of the job. Or in order to be cut out, you’re going to have to change your thoughts about it. Heavy pitching should not rub you the wrong way. It just shouldn’t. If you’re in it to make a lot of money, if you’re in it to help a lot of people, I think they go hand in hand.

Selling is coaching is selling. I know people are going to disagree, and I’m okay with that. We’re going to talk about what it takes to have a top 10 one or a top 1% voice. But I actually thought this was really great. I’m like, yeah, the people who have funnel fatigue were never going to buy from me in the first place. They were only ever going to leave a negative review and bounce. And that’s okay. I’m not speaking to them. I’m speaking to you. The, what did they call you? The, I got to go back and find it. It was so good. The dedicated business builders. Yes. When I imagine who’s listening, that’s who I’m imagining. Not the person who’s uncomfortable with me pitching. 

Okay. The second form of critique is the MLM vibe. It, first of all, I know a lot of people who have made a lot of money with multi-level marketing, and I buy a lot of multi-level marketing programs, so like the vibe doesn’t bother me. Just so you know. I’ve got to go in right now and update my Rodan and Fields membership because I like go through the face cream like crazy and I’m obsessed with it. And anytime I run out early, it makes like, I my face knows the difference. I use Redefine. So just letting you all know, I use the Redefine product line of Rodan and Fields. So I’m not mad at the MLM vibe. 

But here’s the critique, is that the advice heavily promotes a culture where coaches primarily make money by coaching other coaches on how to make money leading to sustainability skepticism. I think this one’s interesting and just untrue.

First of all, I was the only business coach in my million-dollar mentoring who was a business coach making a million dollars. We had weight loss coaches. We had a weight loss coach. We had a, we know, we had two weight loss coaches. We had a faith-based coach that was like a general life coach. We had a feminist confidence coach. We had, who else? I’m like, I know I’m missing people. A style coach. Who else? I think there was another weight loss coach, but they were all very specific niches. Weight loss for doctors, losing 100 pounds, and losing the last 10 pounds

I’m probably forgetting somebody, but I was the only business coach. I have had so many coaches on this episode to interview, and I’m about to go through like another ton of interviews. We just did a celebration call on my 200k Mastermind. I’m like, oh, I got to interview you. Ooh, I got to interview you. Oh my God, I’ve got to interview you. 

So we have a lot of interviews coming up, but over the years, I’ve had a farm, a coach who coaches farmers on here that made hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve had a faith-based coach who’s a general life coach who’s made millions of dollars. I’ve had an Etsy shop coach who’s made millions of dollars. I’ve had, I’m trying to think of all the people I’ve had on, but I’ve had so many people who are not business coaches come on and have extraordinary niches and do extraordinary work in the industry.

I’ve talked about my client, who helps parents whose children have autism and who are not potty trained, who are non-verbal, and who lack social skills, and she helps them get potty trained, become verbal, and gain social skills. That’s the kind of work that gets me out of bed is helping you all go out and help those people. 

And my podcast is called Make Money as a Life Coach, not Make Money as a Business Coach. I could make so much money if I did that, too. But I got into this industry as a life coach. I get life coached very often. I am obsessed with life coaching books, like life coaching is the reason I do this. The coaching component is the reason I do it, and I just happen to really also love business. So, of course, I’m going to attract business coaches.

This is my theory of by the way, of why business coaches are more successful. I don’t think it’s because they’re selling business coaching. I might blow your mind here. I think it’s because they have less drama about marketing and sales and making money. People who love business have lots of powerful thoughts about marketing and selling and entrepreneurship and business building.

Coaches sometimes struggle because they have conflicting thoughts about making money and marketing and sales and it takes them out of their coach heart and they can’t reconcile the two together and they collide instead of contribute to each other. They don’t have the selling is coaching is selling vibe. They don’t have really compelling thoughts that give them so much energy to do these things.

I actually think that’s what it is because I actually think it’s harder to be a business coach because the field is so competitive. It’s so competitive. If you’re making 100,000, 200,000, 500,000, a million, 5 million as a business coach, like you are the top of the top, best of the best. It’s so competitive. But I think you see them stand out and they tend to be, you know, the people making the most in the container, not because it’s easier, because they have better thoughts about what they’re doing.

So my goal has always been help life coaches have better thoughts about what they’re doing. So I don’t actually agree with this, but I’m okay that people think this and feel this way. They will always do that. 

And then the third one is customer service complaints. And this is the one where I have to just say, and I do think this is really important. So it says, “Recent critical reviews on platforms focus less on the podcast itself and more on frustrations with her organization’s back-end policies and customer support response times.” Yeah. And some of them with refund policies.

So I’m not going to be mad about that. Like we’re in business to be in business, and my refund policies help me stay in business and help me keep offering value to the world. And I’ve been really educating my clients because of this feedback. I’ve actually been really educating my clients on reading my contracts before they sign up. I’ve created a membership now where you can pay me monthly, and so you’ll only ever be out $297 if you don’t love what’s beyond the podcast, if that’s where you want to start.

And then beyond that, read the contracts and know what you’re signing up for. I do that for all of my rooms. And there are times where I sign contracts that there are things that I’m like, eh, I don’t love this, but I want the value, so I’m willing to uphold the coach’s or the company’s boundaries and their contracts because I want to do work with them. Right?

Like one of my biggest pet peeves is paying credit card fees. It like makes me irate. It’s the number one way that everybody pays, and it’s a business expense. Why would you pass that on to clients? It’s, to me, it’s like the smallest business move you could make. But there are people who I love to work with, and so I do it. I just make it happen, right?

But I’ve been really pushing my clients, my recent 200k Mastermind launch, we had every single client individually sign an actual agreement and initial by anything that I felt like I didn’t want them to be like, “Oh, I didn’t know that ahead of time.” This is big girl, grown-up entrepreneurship. This isn’t like, we’re not playing business here. Like this is real-world business, right?

Like, if you buy a ticket to, this is what I’ve also been telling my clients, it’s like when they have questions about whether they should do refunds, it’s like when you buy a ticket to see Taylor Swift, Taylor and her company, and the venue or whoever you bought it from doesn’t care if you got sick. Doesn’t care if you had a family emergency. Doesn’t care if you had something better to do. Doesn’t care if you decided to no longer be a fan. You don’t get a refund. That’s the real-world business.

You can’t go stay at the Four Seasons for three weeks and then five years later say, hey, by the way, I didn’t like that stay, give me a refund. They would laugh at you. They won’t even give you one if you complain during the stay. The Ritz will. So again, you got to read the contracts. You got to know like if you want compensation, if you don’t like a part of your stay, stay at the Ritz. They might do it. They’ve done it for me before. But I know Four Seasons isn’t going to do that. I still love the stay, so I go. Okay? 

So I’m okay with this, with this criticism. I think it’s with that particular piece of it, the refund one, but I wasn’t okay with the customer service complaints. Now, some of them, you can’t please everybody. Not everyone’s going to be happy. I have people who get irate because they emailed in over the weekend and we didn’t respond right away. Our people, right now, we have a small team. They don’t work on the weekends. Like, I don’t have anyone to work the weekends. We are thinking if we do expand customer service and we have the ability to do that to maybe have people on the weekends, but we have to find people willing to do that, and we don’t use AI for our customer service. It’s like real humans. 

So some of that is like, you can’t please everyone. But I will say, a lot of the criticism with customer service that I got years ago, I don’t think we’ve gotten a lot recently, but years ago, that hurt my heart. And I spent the last two years, I hired someone new that is an expert in customer service. She’s been killing it and teaching our team how to respond in the inbox and just the way, like a really great way to be in customer service, and I feel like we’ve got people that care so deeply in the inbox and that are just like, they love what we do, they love our customers.

We get constant feedback now that our customer service people are amazing. We have really worked very hard on that. And so I do think if you get criticism, like some of it you’re going to be like, eh, but some of it you’re going to be like, okay, like let’s go to work on this. And I’m really proud about that. And I do think people will come in and use a public platform to make their criticisms when they don’t feel like they got their way privately, and they get to do that. That’s what they get to do. And I think that doesn’t also negate the thousands of happy customers that continue to work with us every single, every single week.

So listen, this is it. The good, the bad, and the ugly of eight years of podcasting and creating a .1% voice in this industry. Okay, are you guys ready? Here are my top 10 things of what it takes to have a top 1% voice. Okay?

Number one, you have to see yourself and know your gifts and stay in your lane and hammer down with belief in yourself and your people. I think after I read that AI like very full window view, like you know, overview, that to me was what stood out the most.

I have spent eight years acknowledging and seeing my gifts, my authority, my talent, what I know, my thoughts, my methodology that works, and believing in that and really seeing my thought leadership, believing in my thought leadership, and hammering down with my belief in what I teach, and really seeing you that, what was it, dedicated business builder, seeing you and knowing that I’m with you when you run in the morning and when you drive on road trips and when you’re putting your makeup on in the morning or doing the dishes. I know that my voice is with you. I know that you feel like we’re besties, and I feel like we’re besties too, even if we haven’t gotten to meet yet. I hold that relationship in connection. I will tell you, it has been the only thing that has kept me, like that’s been the thing that’s kept me consistent. 

And that’s number two. You have to fuel yourself with a purpose and a mission and create consistency from desire rather than have to. Anytime I have gotten drained from the podcast, lost connection, wondered if I should quit it, it’s always been because I believe I have to release something every week. And I do have thoughts like that. Like, I have to get a podcast in. And I switch it to, I want to share this message today. I want to share this.

Like, I have had thoughts, should I should I stop doing the podcast? Like there’s 400 episodes. It takes so much time, so much energy, time that I could be spending with my young children. And I believe it would still be a marketing engine because people will find it and listen to 400 episodes. Like it will live beyond me. I could still run Facebook ads to it. I could still build an audience with it.

But the reason I keep going is because I’m actively engaged in helping you all grow your businesses and I do a lot of these episodes to support my clients who are in my programs that are, I’m seeing little like nuanced things that I think they need to know in addition to the work they’re doing in the programs. And so I’m like, okay, I’m going to put this episode out there to support you in your work. And so often I’m like, hey, listen, I have an episode coming up about this. Hey, I have this episode I’ve already done. This is really going to help you deep dive. 

So I think about this desire to want to share these messages, and I don’t know if I will run out of desire or new messages because I’m so active in the coaching. And maybe I will. Maybe I’ll just feel complete one day. I remember being on stage with 200k and just having the most incredible event and feeling complete and being done and being so at peace with that. And so the day may come where I feel that way with this podcast, but right now, I’m like, I never run out of things to say, so I keep going. But that’s what’s created the consistency, I want to share this message today. 

And also, I do allow myself to not always be consistent, but that’s what we do with the MVP episodes. If I don’t have something that I want to genuinely share or sometimes I’m in like the depths of creating new things and for my programs or I’m on vacation and I don’t feel like double batching. And so what has also helped me create consistency is to create an avenue that doesn’t require new consistency every time.

And I will tell you, the MVP episodes get a lot of listens because there are so many of you that come and you start listening at episode 400. Episode 400 might be your very first episode you ever listen to. And then I throw one up that you’ve not, or sometimes what happens is, you know, you are like, I started somewhere mid, and I’m not listening to all of them, or I try to be consistent, but I’m not listening to all of them.

And so I’ll throw up an MVP and someone will always, like reliably, always post in my group and be like, “Oh my God, did you listen to her episode? It was so good.” And it was an old one. We actually take the amount of listens and that’s how we decide what we’re going to re-release is like what got listened to the most, that topic was the most relevant for coaches

And so I do give myself breaks if I want them, or I don’t require of myself to always do new content, but we do post something new every single week. We or we post an episode every single week, whether it’s an MVP or a new one. That consistency is what created it being a top podcast. 

Okay. The third thing is you have to be willing to be imperfect. You have to be willing to cringe at yourself and sometimes still release and/or do it again and again until it feels right. So there have been episodes that I’ve released and I’m like, oh my God. Oh, that episode. Like I have to really sit with like a vulnerability shame, or cringe, feeling cringy, or like I don’t know.

Like, there will be times where I’ll just be like, why did I say that? Why did I do that? Like I do that in real life too. I’m very socially awkward. Or why was it that so long or oh, I went on so many tangents. Like I have those thoughts and sometimes I release. And sometimes, I sit with it and I’m like, you know what, I’m doing it again. This episode is the third idea, and this is the one that’s going to be released on a Monday when it goes out on a Wednesday. 

So sometimes you’re going to be like, I care enough to do it again and again and again. Like the very first podcast I recorded took me seven hours. I kept recording and it wasn’t recording my voice, and I had to do it again and again. Oh my, it was horrible. The first episodes took so many hours, so many hours. So there are times where I’ll do it again and again until it feels right. There have been episodes I’ve recorded and we’ve never released. They just didn’t make the cut, or I changed my mind. There’s even been a few. I’m going to, there’s another lesson here, but there’s even been a few where my podcast producer will be like, I don’t think we release this episode. So you have to be willing to do it again and again or to sit with yourself and still release it. 

Okay. The fourth one of what it takes to have a top 1% .1% voice off the top of my head is your voice and what you believe in has to be an investment that you give time and energy into. You become a thought leader in this process.

So yes, my podcast hours go into every episode. There are times where I’ve been thinking about an episode for days and sometimes weeks and sometimes months. There are times where an entire day will go into recording this episode. But that to me is an investment of time and energy and resources to become a thought leader and take my voice seriously and take what I’m teaching seriously and take the impact of my voice seriously. So don’t shame yourself if it takes a long time to do your podcast.

All right, lesson five. You have to sell. That’s the point of using your voice. The more people get of your voice, the higher chance of their success and yours. What you put out on the podcast is not going to come even remotely close to the value of being in your proximity, being in your energy, having access to speaking to you, having access to your community of people who have learned from you and studied at the highest level with you. Right?

If you are in 2k for 2k and Maggie Reyes happens to pop in and leave a comment, or one of my hundreds of other coaches who has been in the program since practically the beginning and has lived the program and created so much money from the program, like that value will is extraordinary. It’s so much greater than the value of the podcast.

So you have to sell because like, I think when people tell me they made so much money with the podcast, I’m like, imagine how much money you could be making if you were actually in my container and you learned my process in order and all of my thoughts, you were in the experience of it, you got to be coached live by me, you got to hear other people being coached live by me, you got to hear all of the nuances, all of the strategy, all of the deeper mindset, the vulnerable stuff. Like, if you were able to have all of it, it would be like exponential growth.

So you have to sell. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s the point of entrepreneurship. You can’t just endlessly give value for free. You won’t be an entrepreneur. And people don’t often guide themselves through funnels. I have thought about working with, like there’s been so many coaches over the years that I’ve found on social media, and I would hire them, but I can’t ever figure out how to get in their damn funnel. I can’t ever figure out where am I supposed to start? What will I learn there?

So the more often you can tell people where they should start and what they will learn, the higher chances you will have of them working with you and getting the results they need. Consumers should not have to work very hard to figure out what they should do with you. That’s your job. And you do it, of course, on the podcast as well.

All right, the sixth thing, the best ideas are going to ruffle someone’s feathers. For every amazing idea, for everything you tell someone they should do, for every belief you have, someone is going to have an opposing belief. That is how the world works. It works in opposites. It works in polarization. It works in this and that, this or that. You’re never going to put a thought or idea out into the world that everyone is going to agree on. It’s impossible.

I was saying this in a program the other day, even laws that we think are measurable and factual, we have an entire Supreme Court in the United States that argues the validity of laws and what the law means and how to uphold it. And they can’t even agree. So if the Supreme Court cannot agree on things, right? If there’s always a prosecutor and always a defense arguing about one law and saying, I see it this way and I see it that way, there’s always going to be someone who does not like what you have to say. And you have to say it anyways. 

And number seven is you have to be able to handle criticism and calibrate a nervous system to handle it along the way. Right? So it’s not like sometimes, you know, you’re going to get criticism and you’ll be able to move through it, and sometimes you’ll get a lot of it and your nervous system will be like, ah, and you’ll want to hide, and that’s not a call to stop offering your voice. It’s a call to grow your capacity to hear it and to move forward and to not change your voice to stop getting it.

And I’ve been through a lot of that. Okay, I have had, you know, groups of people who have spammed my podcast reviews with negative podcasts where they’ll all go in as a unit and leave like a ton of them back to back to back to back. And I keep speaking to you, the dedicated business builder. I keep speaking to the clients who are in my programs who are not reading negative podcast reviews because they’re actually going out and doing what matters, building their business. They don’t have time for that nonsense. Those are the people I’m thinking about.

I’m not going to let someone who, you know, imagine if Taylor Swift was like, oh, Kanye West hates me, Kim Kardashian hates me, so I better not create the Eras Tour. Imagine if she didn’t make her music because of all the people who hated her. And what’s so crazy is like, there will be people who find you way after that mess and know nothing about it, or who were listening to you in the mess and didn’t know anything about it. I am the late Taylor Swift fan, and now I’m like obsessed with her. But I found her after the Eras Tour. I’m like, gosh, dang it. That would have been awesome to go to. But imagine if she’d stopped along the way.

So you got to keep going, but you’ve got to be willing to expand your capacity to hear really mean things about yourself. Like when people are in a nervous system response to you, when they think you’ve said something that is dangerous or harmful to them or other people, when they feel harmed by you, when they don’t like you, when you activate something inside of them that creates like rage or anger, they’re going to go into a level of emotional immaturity and not act their best and they’re going to say a lot of terrible things about you anonymously.

My husband always says, if you’re so proud of your comment, put your name on it. And some people have, that’s ballsy, but you’re going to have that. You’re going to have people do that and you’ve got to be, you got to expand your capacity for that, to hear really negative things about yourself that feel very far from who you are and your agenda and your true heart intentions. I was watching this reel the other day, like you can’t ask for the success and not be willing to hold the hard. And if you’re asking for bigger success, you’re also asking for bigger hard. 

So if you want a top 1% voice, a top .1% voice, then you’ve got to also be able to hold a lot of nasty things being said about you, false things being said about you, completely untrue things being said about you, true things being said about you, like all the things.

I tell this one all the time, like there’s, I don’t know if this is on my podcast reviews, but I think it was where someone said that I would bag up my own dog’s shit and sell it for $5,000 and convince myself it was valuable. And now I’m like kind of hurt, but my first thought was like, they just don’t know me well enough. Neil bags the dog shit. Can you imagine? That is definitely not what I’m doing. I have only taken the trash out in my house a handful of times. That’s Neil’s job. He would verify that if you ever got him and asked him.

But you have to, like that’s like such a mean-hearted thing to say, right? Like that’s just like the someone in an emotional immaturity spiral that’s trying to hurt. And you have to hold that. You have to hold that with all of the other people who are like, this episode changed my life. This podcast made me money. Like you can’t have the praise and only get that. You’re going to keep yourself small if you’re trying to only get the positive stuff. And you’re not going to say, risk the relationship, say the hard thing, say the thing that someone needs to hear.

One of my, one of the most powerful podcasts that people tell me that they’ve heard is the one on entitlement. And I was like, I went ham on that episode. That was like me really risking the relationship. And there have been many like that have changed people’s lives. And then that episode probably also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

So if you want your voice to be like top of the top, know that also comes with a lot of pushback. And if that feels scary now, that’s okay. You’ll calibrate your nervous system along the way. The first wave of bad reviews will hurt the next most. And then there will be a point where you see that’s part of what you’ve signed up for in order to have big impact is you’re going to have big resistance. That’s part of it. Okay?

And so my eighth piece of advice, my eighth lesson, if you want to have a top 1% voice, is it’s okay if that takes time to calibrate to and it’s messy along the way. It’s okay if you want to hide. It’s okay if you need to go dark. There was a time where we released MVP episodes because I was like, I needed to go dark. I was not in a place where my nervous system could put my voice out there and handle any more negativity.

And then after that, what happened is like I calibrated, like I grew my capacity. I processed the emotions and I grew bigger because of it. But it was messy for me. It does take time. So if it takes time for you and it’s messy for you, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for it. It means you just need to keep growing. 

And my ninth piece of advice that, take it or leave it, because for me, this is like a personal thing, but I do find a lot of value in it, which is don’t air your mess. And my producer has also several times kept me from airing my mess. There have been more than a few episodes that have come out from resistance and were born in defensiveness, and me popping off. And bless Pavel’s heart and his entire team, there have been some times where they’ve caught those and said like, listen, I don’t think this is like the greatest first episode if someone finds you, or I don’t know this is going to land the way you think.

And I also think if it feels like, and I’m doing it anyways, go do it. If you if airing your mess helps you heal and grow capacity and stand up for yourself, do it. Because it’s very interesting. I’m very happy over the years that I haven’t aired my mess and my resistance and my defensiveness. And now I’m not in a place of feeling so defensive and messy about it.

So coming on the other side of the bridge, I’ve told my students, like without a shadow of a doubt, if I ever had something crazy said about me again that made a big splash or made any splash, I would probably air it, but not from the same place, not from defensiveness and not from resistance. I would do it because I have a stronger internal guidance system now. I feel calmer and more grounded in who I am and I also see that along the way, there have been misunderstandings about my work that could have been amazing teaching moments once I was through the mess, right? And or if I wasn’t in the mess in the first place.

So I think this one is like take it with until you’re in it and until you have mass criticism, you never know how you’re going to react. I think do what feels like what your gut tells you, but just check in if you’re doing it from resistance and I’m not okay and I want this to go away or I’m lashing out about it, or if like this is the most healing thing that I could do is get out and talk about it.

But my biggest thing is I’m really glad I’ve kept this podcast, like the idea of when they go low, we go high. I’m very proud of that. 

And then the 10th thing, the 10th thing is remember who in the room counts. My dedicated business builders. When I imagine who I’m speaking to, I’m not imagining the haters. I’m not imagining the negative reviews. I’m not imagining the people that were never going to buy from me and hate that I’ve used this as a funnel, or that think it’s a multi-level marketing scheme. Like, I’m not speaking to those people. I’m never going to speak to those people.

If I ever give a caveat of like how the haters might take something, the only reason I would do that is so that they can’t bastardize something that is pure from my heart, and I’m just getting in front of it. Like, I see what they’re going to say about it, and I get in front of it for the people who might be impacted by it because there has been a time where, and people have swung back around. They’ve like come back into my rooms and been like, dang, like I hate that I got caught up in that. I hate that I believed this thing. I hate that I saw you from that lens for a hot second before remembering how good it felt to be in your space and how much transformation I had and how healthy it was for me. And I’ve since kind of paid that price and now I’m back.

And so now I occasionally will have caveats of like, hey, I could see someone taking this the wrong way and here’s how they’re going to take it and here’s my response to that. But that’s for those people, the middle of the ground people who might get caught up in something and regret later that they did.

But for the most part, I remember who in the room counts. I’m thinking of you running on your on your treadmill or running on the trails listening to my episode. I’m thinking of you having a bad day and needing a little bit of a bump. I’m thinking of you listening while getting ready for your day and pumping yourself up. I’m thinking of the dedicated business builders. And no matter how loud the detractors, their voices sound, you’ve got to imagine the room full of people who count, and that is the only people to ever speak to. 

All right. That is my top 10 lessons off the top of my head for what it takes to have a very impactful voice in this industry. I am so grateful if you are a listener of mine and if you’re new, if you’ve been listening for the eight years that we’ve had this podcast, if you’ve joined along the way, if you’re a current student, if you’re a future student, if you’re a past student, I am so grateful to have you and I love you. Cheers to 400 episodes and all of the episodes to come. Have a great week. I’ll talk to you all next week. Bye.

Hey, if you’re ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2k for 2k program; where you’re going to make your first $2,000 the hardest part using my simple five-step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to StaceyBoehman.com/2Kfor2K. We’ll see you inside.