Listen Now:

We are celebrating in a B-I-G way today – because today marks our 100th official episode!

Listen in as Jennie & Alyson talk about their biggest takeaways, favorite guests, and what they would say to anyone thinking about starting a podcast.

This episode is reflective, fun, and surprisingly poignant. We didn’t know we had it in us. 🙂

Episode 1 – The Intro To System to THRIVE
Episode 3 – That One Time We Let People Choose How Much They Paid

How a Smaller Audience Means Bigger Results with Niche Expert Jason Wiehler (Business Building Blocks)

Hacking the YouTube Algorithm for Bigger Audiences with Rob Balasabas (Business Building Block)

Episode 19 – Nail Your Ads with FB and IG Advertising Specialist Michelle Bridger

Episode 34 – Sales Strategies for Normal People – how to own your value and sell at a price that doesn’t make you want to puke with Kathryn Calhoun

Episode 49 – How to Lean Into Who You Are To Scale The Right Way with Rachel Pereryra

Monetize Your Mastery with Caterina Rando (Business Building Block)

Alyson Lex 0:03
Way back in the day, not in the before times, but in the during times of the pandemic. Jenny and I launched a webinar. And we've told this story a couple of times. So if you listen back to some of our previous episodes, most notably episode number one, and episode number three, way back in the day, you'll hear the whole story. But we landed a bunch of clients. And we were having just one of those zoom hangout chats that became so popular in 2020. With It was me and Jenny and her partner, and he said, this concept would make a great podcast, you guys should do it together. And he didn't know the ramifications of his words, because we took the idea. And we ran with it. And here we are 100 episodes later. And oh, my goodness, it's been an incredible ride. We launched in July of 2020, with three episodes, a couple in the can a fledgling website, zero expectations, and I decided, we are going to do something that I dubbed the race to 100. Jenny, being the amazing coves that she is was along with me for this, she's so good at supporting my lofty expectations, goals, and sometimes overwhelming whims. We decided that for season 220 21, we would do three episodes a week, one with just us one with the guest and one as a quick tip that we would alternate. And we have kept this schedule up at the time of this recording for like 415 days. And we're gonna keep it up until the end of 2021. In which case in which time, we're going to scale it back to two because I'm tired.

Jennie Wright 2:02
I'm tired, too. I'm loving it. But I'm also tired. And I did feel it sometimes through the whole process. Like Allison was kind of like yanking me behind her. Like, come on, Jenny, let's go. It was it was a very interesting process. There was a lot that comes from this story. There's, there's so many intricacies that went into building this out. But there's so many life lessons that I've had a lot of the life lessons associated with my business and associate with the work that I do with 1000. Because we still have our own businesses, we will always have our own businesses. But we come together and we help and support people. biggest lessons that I've had are not what I thought they'd be, but one of them is this podcast has changed my life. And a podcast will change your life and it changes your business. It changes the trajectory, it changes how you run it, it changes how you manage it, all the things, and it's way more work than I thought. But it adds an extreme amount of value for you.

Alyson Lex 3:02
Like it's so much more work.

Jennie Wright 3:04
So much more work. But it's, it's comparable to the amount of value that you can put out, which is really cool. It helped me actually get over hearing my own voice all the time. And I'm one of those people that would rather listen to others than to hear my own voice, which is a complete opposite from what my mother used to tell me, which was You talk too much. But you know, maybe I liked the sound of my own voice when I was five, I don't know. But it did help me get over hearing my own voice all the time. And it did help me understand that I have a voice and a presence to share, if that makes sense. It strengthened my resolve to be a better entrepreneur and a better business owner. You can't hide when you're a podcast host, people find you you're you're ranked on Google, if you do it, right. You're on different podcast platforms, people hear it either through organic search or otherwise, you cannot hide. So it really strengthened my resolve on making sure that the things that I stand for are the things that I can get up on a soapbox and talk about every day, and that everything is in alignment. So there was a lot that goes into that that was branding that went into that there was you know, making sure everything was cohesive my messaging and everything like that. Incredibly analysis, I think is gonna agree with this one who made me incredibly aware of my time management. I did not think if you asked me in Elson, I did this comparison. I think we did it in a live or something else and where we compared our schedules. Do you remember I remember that

Alyson Lex 4:38
I think we were just recording it but then we decided not to release it. Because we you could see our client names and we didn't feel that that was on keeping in line with the privacy that some of our clients expect. But we did we compared our calendars from I think a specific week in August to that same week in August, the previous year or that month or whatever Yeah, it's like a side by side comparison. It was insane.

Jennie Wright 5:04
It was not, it was not. So it was like, before. We thought we were busy. And I had like, yeah, we thought we were busy. We thought wrong. So wrong. But actually, what's better is I'm better with my time management, I actually have found more time in my day, to do more important things, like I now prioritize things. And I think you do, too. You know, where you look at, like, what's more of a priority, like, this summer, you know, if you told yourself a year ago that you'd be taking certain days to do certain things and spending time with your, you know, with your family, or your child or something like that, you probably wouldn't have time manage that, before that importance level on it,

Alyson Lex 5:47
I definitely wouldn't have prioritized that, as well, I wouldn't have stepped back as much. And I wouldn't have prepared the rest of my week to work. I think that that's, that's a big time management lesson. I'm not trying to, to Bogart your takeaway segment here. But I really and you've done this, too. It's like, Okay, one, let's just put it out there that we're still total works in progress. And I think that, that's going to always be the case, there's always going to be room for improvement. But it's going to, if, you know, if you really look at where we where we are now with a it was just, we're less lackadaisical about making sure that things get done, I have things that I want to do that, frankly, I don't have time for that's not something that I can allocate any resources in my business toward right now. So it's just not that important. It does, I don't see it moving the needle as much. So that's a big a big change. For me too.

Jennie Wright 6:47
Huge. I think this podcast has helped both of us solidify our messaging, how we want to come out, like how we want to be represented how we want to continue to have people see or understand us. I really think that was important for me, because at the time that we were still starting this podcast, I was still struggling mentally on my own side, with people still seeing me even though I haven't done it in years still seeing me as a virtual assistant. Guys, I haven't been a virtual assistant in like four or five years. But it's still the moniker that people attached to me, because of what I was, you know what I was doing back then. And the other thing is, it also made me realize that I'm not just the summit queen. Yeah, I've over I've done over 300 subjects, etc, etc. But it is not just what I do, I've really elevated the business building strategy side of things, and the funnel building side and things like that, and really, like done that. And I think Allison, it really solidified more about who you are as well, like, externally.

Alyson Lex 7:49
Yeah, I want to kind of go back to the summit thing, because I think that you have always focused on more than just the summit. You've always looked at the long term picture. And now, you're just your messaging has caught up with that.

Unknown Speaker 8:15
Yes, very much.

Alyson Lex 8:16
So what what you put out there has now caught up with what you've always done behind the scenes. And the same holds true for me. I've always been about more than copy.

Unknown Speaker 8:28
But

Alyson Lex 8:29
people just you know. And I think that when you really hyper focus in on one of those things write summit's or writing copy, you're put in that implementation world. And, you know, that's hired gun stuff. And what we've been able to do with this is not only realize our own ability, but voice that ability and put that together and develop processes and systems and ways of doing things because we're publishing so much freakin content. Right? It's like, oh, what do we got to talk about this week? Well, let's build another system. build another process. But it really caused us to take a look at what we do on a regular basis. In order to teach it, we had to understand it. You're so right, instead of just doing it right.

Jennie Wright 9:32
You're absolutely so right. It made us do it. I think it's solidified the processes a lot more to really made us like dial in and go okay. Yeah, I'm really good at this thing. But I can be better at it and let's systematize and let's figure it out and understand it. You're 100% right. I am. So I have a bit of a learning thing where I skim and I don't 100% absorb and I think Allison knows this. She comes out skim something and she'll be like, did you do you understand it and like, sort of, and I don't learn 100% that way, I learned more by somebody saying, okay, step one, we're going to do this and step one, we're going to step two, we're going to do that. So that really helped me push myself into understanding and identifying where I need to have better comprehension, which is great. And then I have a really silly thing that's come out of this. And this is incredibly annoying, but also incredibly telling guys have ultra sensitive ears.

Alyson Lex 10:35
Oh, my freaking goodness, guys, if you knew the lengths that I go through, to keep from triggering Jenny, and these call these podcast recordings, or our phone calls, her ears are so sensitive. And the problem is, she has now trained me to pick up all of the same problems. So I can't listen to anything either.

Jennie Wright 11:04
I didn't know I was like this. But I am. And I think the result of it is a better audio experience as we went through because our first couple episodes, if you go back and listen to rough Oh, oh my god. So rough. Like you can hear me audibly breathing in. And it occludes every other sound on the podcast. It's brutal. And Did we leave them? Yes.

Alyson Lex 11:29
Will we replace them? or change it or edit it out? Probably probably by the time this one is published?

Unknown Speaker 11:37
Yeah. Don't go back.

Alyson Lex 11:38
Because I've heard those I forgot. Don't they're not going to be this actually. Go back and check. See? Yeah, looks like those download numbers. Yeah,

Jennie Wright 11:45
sure. Why not? Let us know anything. But yeah, so I this this incredible sensitivity to breathing and noises and mouth noises and clicking in different things I think has pushed me to be a lot more understanding of what we need to do in terms of the audio at the same time. I've also. And I also might notice, one thing that I did really learn was I've relaxed on the outlines. When when we first started this, Allison, I was scripting these things. Every word was scripted, because

Alyson Lex 12:23
you don't have to tell me I was there. Oh, I don't

Jennie Wright 12:28
know why, though, is because I had no confidence because I didn't trust myself to say the important things. And I didn't trust myself to be able to say them in a way that made sense. I'm very cognizant and very aware of the fact that I have numbness in my face from a surgery from when I was 19. And I thought that I would sound ridiculous, and I'm very what I'm very aware of it, I get very nervous, and I have anxiety about it. But it didn't really play in and I didn't need to have all of the outlines written out. I eventually overcame some of that anxiety about feeling these issues with a lot of Allison encouragement.

Alyson Lex 13:11
By the way, that means Allison just forces her to do stuff. Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the Let's wait, I do that. And I've gotten better about winging it. I am a better planner, which has led to me being more consistent. Sometimes, I'm no better planner, by the way, you're much better planner than I used to be. And it you know,

Unknown Speaker 13:40
this

Alyson Lex 13:42
experience this year has brought up on my personal development side, just a lot of things that I need to work on that I'm actively working on. Things that I can get help with. Um, you know, I'm not shy about talking about my own personal mental development, health, totally just mush those two phrases together, but my own journey. And you know, I have ADHD, and I have depression, and I have anxiety and I'm medicated and working on it. And, you know, I love therapy, and all of these things. But this podcast, this initiative, this thing that we're doing because it's it's grown into more than just a podcast at this point. But this thing that we're doing, it highlighted all of the opportunities for growth for me, because it acted as a stressor on my business and my life. I could have continued to just coast along the way that I was, but I wouldn't have grown as a person or as an entrepreneur, or as someone who can help others. You know, I'm not a coach. I don't call myself a coach. I'm a strategist and a copywriter. But there is a Coaching element, there's an encouragement element to all of the work that I do with my clients, because many of them are doing a lot of this stuff for the first or second, or they're new to it. And they just struggle with some of the mental aspects. So it helps me understand myself. So I can understand other people. And it's really forced me into the like, on stage instead of behind the curtain. And, you know, I used to be, Jenny, I don't know if you remember, maybe, maybe I dreamed this. But I think I remember a couple of years ago, I thought I was going to brand myself as the best dang copywriter you'd never heard of.

Unknown Speaker 15:41
I remember that.

Alyson Lex 15:44
And I think you've talked me out of it. I did. Um, because who wants somebody they've never heard of? Exactly. And I actually just remembered about that just now as I'm speaking. So Oh, and you know, there's truth to that. You don't get where you might ultimately want to go in your business being behind the scenes. I created.

Jennie Wright 16:11
I was the best darn implementer out there. You got a job. Got an event? Yeah, I'll get that done. And then somebody goes, Oh, this is the most well planned event I've ever attended. Oh, yeah, that was so and so that was me. That was Jennie Wright. You wouldn't have heard it from Yeah, exactly. He wouldn't have heard about me otherwise.

Alyson Lex 16:30
Right? Exactly. And, you know, that's not the way to create consistency. That's not the way to create security or scalability, or any of the other buzzwords that we want for our business. But and really, at the end of the day, we want a business that a makes us feel good about ourselves. B makes us feel good about helping other people. And c makes some money guys. Like, you know, yes, you want to put good in the world that is a cornerstone of my life is putting good into the world. I also like to make money, which is kind of like exactly how this podcast started. We had that manifesto that was like, you know, you don't need to be broke to be a good person.

Unknown Speaker 17:18
Exactly.

Alyson Lex 17:20
And I think that over the last 100 episodes, a little over a year, we've really lived that. You don't have to be broke, to be a good person. I think that that's that's probably my biggest thing. No, we've taught it to others, too. We have we have absolutely. And I think that's that's going to be another thing that gets added to the Alyson isms is you don't have to be perfect to be a good person.

Jennie Wright 17:50
I like Alyson isms, I would love to do any of them. Right. So let's talk about our favorite takeaways from episodes that we've done in the past 100 episodes. Talk about these, tell me what your favorite takeaways are.

Alyson Lex 18:04
All right.

Unknown Speaker 18:05
Well,

Alyson Lex 18:06
what I did, and what we did in our little outline is we wrote some questions that we're going to ask each other because I could list a bajillion takeaways. And so you know, if you don't want to listen to me list of adjoining takeaways just go listen to all of our episodes. I want to ask Jennie, what piece of information Did you get that surprised you?

Jennie Wright 18:34
God, darn it. There's so many of them. I think were the pieces that surprised me was really, really validating that offer. Okay. That's one of them. validating your offer before you run anything to it. The Facebook ads or throwing traffic at it. Yeah, that validate that. Yep. Yep. That was a really big deal for me. The other one was sales strategies. For normal people. I live this but I this was a Katherine Calhoun episode. I live this in my life with how I do sales. But I think she came at it from a different angle in terms of, she had a coach that she paid a lot of money for who was saying, do it this way, you know, go for the high ticket, go for this, go for that. And she was like, it ain't my stuff. I don't like it. It's not my style. And she changed it. So I like that very much where she was like, I'm only doing what's comfy for me.

Alyson Lex 19:36
I really I agree with the Catherine Calhoun thing because it wasn't just about the sales process. It was about the overall funnel strategy as well. So she didn't just say hey, I don't like the way these sales calls feel. Um, because we had Alicia on to talk about that as well. Right, building up your own specific sales process that feels good, but Catherine, she really talked about the the whole idea of it and really just making it your own. And that's something that we embody as well.

Unknown Speaker 20:12
With.

Alyson Lex 20:15
For me, I really there were a couple that I had to which one of which was, I still, I'm not 100% sure how to say her last name. I think it's Rachel pirela. Did I do it? Right? I struggle with the are rolling. We have that on that episode. But she talked about hiring. And I think one of the things that she talked about was to hire for the job, not the person. So like, will think, Oh, I need a graphic designer. Not, here are the things that I need done, or here are the goals that I need met and hired to fill that. So fill the job, don't find the person and it's just that tiny little shift, but really helped me when it was time to hire my VA. I didn't get boxed into what a VA does. And now, I'm training her up and we're having a grand old time. And another piece of information. I actually really liked this enough that I asked her to be on my summit was Catarina, Rondo. She talks about having something monthly. I think she just calls it the zoom thing, which I like that too. But she talks about having something monthly that you can invite people to not necessarily promote, which you should always promote. But when you're in those conversations with people, you meet people on in Facebook groups or on LinkedIn or whatever, something that you can invite them to. So you always have that next step for them to take. that's available for them. And I really liked that too.

Jennie Wright 21:45
Yeah, that was a good one that reminded me about consistency, because I talked about it, but I wasn't really doing it as much as I should have. Alright, I'll ask you a question. So okay, which guests that we've had on? Would you want to have back again to share additional information?

Alyson Lex 22:02
Oh, man, there's so many of them. You know, and this might be a little on the selfish side, because I know that this is something that we're looking forward to doing more of. But I'd love to have Rob belousov us back to talk more about YouTube. And I think it's been it's been a hot minute since since he was there. And I'm not just saying it because he sent us some cool swag, or anything like that. But it was a really great example of how to show up for an interview to he. I mean, he really he treated us awesome. As hosts, we were excited to promote it, like more than usual, just because we had built that relationship with Him. And the the information that he gave, he didn't hold back. It was awesome. Who got Who do you want back?

Jennie Wright 22:54
Ah, you know, I want Catherine Calhoun back. So I vibe really well with her and her and I have sort of a similar sort of story in some ways. And I just when we talk, there's a lot of stuff that comes out and it's just almost like, it's almost like therapy, podcasting. Right. And I love that. It's just like, Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. Oh, my god, that was awesome. Oh, my God, that sucked. Or, like, what do we do to get rid of that? Or what do we do to overcome that? Yeah, let's do that. And it's just really inspiring it really kind of like, I just love it. So yeah, I'd have her back. And there's another person I have back for sure. That would be Alex Brockman. That would be somebody to have back. He's an attentional strategist. He's really cool. It's been eye opening to have him on the podcast and talk about what he does, which is really, really cool. I'm not sure his episode comes out a little bit later than this one. Yeah. Or no, it's in the past. Okay, so it's already out. So go check that one out.

Alyson Lex 23:58
is number 99.

Jennie Wright 23:59
Oh, my God. So, like, number.

Alyson Lex 24:03
There are too many. We can't keep track of them. Right.

Jennie Wright 24:05
Technically, we have 158 published episodes. Just

Alyson Lex 24:08
FYI. If you consider all the bonuses. I know.

Jennie Wright 24:11
I know. I know. So his was really, really good, too. I liked how he said that you had to have not just a plan because everybody says have a plan. But he was like, here's the breakdown of what that plan needs to look like for you to achieve the success that you want. That spoke to me as well. We're about

Alyson Lex 24:30
you like, um, yeah, no, I like how yours are like, Yeah, no, this is really good information and mines like, Oh, I'm doing this. So I want to learn more about it. Who can I interview? So that's why I wanted Rob back. And you know, with Rachel, I feel like you know, some of our biggest takeaways are people that we want to have back, which is fitting but with Rachel, you know, because I am looking to continue to expand my team. I'd love to Have her back as well. So, all right, I know that our production calendar is of work booked. Right? We know who's coming up. And a lot of these interviews have already been done. We're very excited about that. Who is on deck that you're excited about?

Jennie Wright 25:21
For sure, having Jason Wheeler back 100%. So I love the conversation about niche. I love the conversation about making sure you're attracting your ideal client by talking about the right thing that you're doing. So 100% I'm looking forward to having him back. He was in episode sorry, season one as well, one of our early years, one of our early guests. And then of course, we had him back. So yeah, we're excited about that. And we'll link to all these in the show notes. By the way.

Alyson Lex 25:53
One person that I'm excited about coming up is Sarah Madras. And we really talk about coaching versus therapy. So this was really interesting for me to understand more about the difference. And in the process, we kind of realized that my therapist is a little bit of a unicorn. So you'll have to listen to the episode to discover why, but that was a really great conversation with her. And I'm really excited for that episode to drop. Yeah, yeah, she

Unknown Speaker 26:29
got Jenny.

Jennie Wright 26:30
Um, you know, I like the Sarah mattress one as well. I'm going to talk about Michelle Cova. So I really I was having all sorts of fun on that episode, because she, she ripped apart our website at the perfect time, because we were redoing it when we were recording that. And I freaking love it. It was so enlightening. And I, I just loved how she approached it. She, she approached it from a very respectable way, like, not like your website sucks, fix this, it was more like, Hey, if you're trying to achieve or attain x, here's the method, I would do it. And here's a couple suggestions on how to get you there. And I was like, Yeah, I love this. And as a result, even though we were in the middle of a redesign, at the time that we were doing this, we're like, Yeah, we got to redesign the redesign of the homepage, the contact page, and another page or whatever. And we ended up having we ended up doing it, guys, we ended up really pulling it from that. And it was great.

Alyson Lex 27:26
Loved it. Yeah. How about you guys have any more you got know her episode? I'm there with you on that her episode is gonna be great. It's a, we've got some good stuff coming up. Don't wait. We've got a lot we've got.

Jennie Wright 27:40
We've been working hard at getting these in the cam before the end of the year. And I think we've done an incredible job of pulling in some amazing guests and having a few people come back. That really makes sense. And I think one of the things that we've done is we've been incredibly intentional about who we're bringing back, which is awesome. And I, it makes me think of something that is related to this, which is what did you think that was going to be important when we were building this out? versus, you know, what isn't actually important, or the other way around?

Alyson Lex 28:11
Okay, I thought this is this is in the mind of a podcaster, who really has not enough idea about what she's doing. I did not think that social media promotion was going to be as important as it was, in order to gain traction. I did not think I guess I I knew that the content creation was going to take work. Like as far as recording the podcast, and publishing the podcast, I did not think that the whole post production aspect was going to be as important as it is for the success of it. That that you really are going to have to promote your butt off. Yep,

Jennie Wright 29:02
it was not a build it they will come kind of scenario for sure. We've talked about that a million times. For sure, was a lot more there was a lot more to it. And it kind of forced us out of our comfort zone in terms of promo when we make some mistakes. With the whole promo bit. We made some we made some Yeah, sizable mistakes. And then we also discovered along the way, some really good methods, quite honestly, it actually made us develop a system that we now employ with our clients.

Alyson Lex 29:32
Shocking.

Jennie Wright 29:36
Look, this is working. Let's try it. Yeah, it worked. It was great. Something that I thought was going to be incredibly important. That wasn't for me was the way things look and feel a little bit I can get a little what's the right word here starboard might be the right word. difficult. Thank you. So sweet. Difficult would be another word pigheaded? What other words could we think of lots, but I kind of dig my heels in about certain things, or I used to. And one of the things that really isn't important is getting it perfect. Just get it done. Just get it done. So website, just get it done posts. Get it done. Like our show notes. I was so concerned about how those would look. You know what, I don't care. Put the information out, make sure it's good. We can always go back and we have we've gone back and finessed.

Alyson Lex 30:35
Exactly. And updated. And Yep, I do like the so an Allison ism is it's a website, not a stone tablet. Right, you can edit it. That is a thing that I'm that I say a lot. And it's true here. Because we were getting it done, getting it out. And now we're refining and improving and making it better. So that's really cool. Where do you spend your time? that surprises you?

Unknown Speaker 31:17
Oh, my

Jennie Wright 31:19
I spend so much time making sure that there's ID three tags. And that numbers match for episodes. That editing gets done, like editing takes over, you know, how many hours and stuff like that? Those. That's where I spend the majority of my time? I didn't think I would be. But that's where that's where I am spending a lot of time on that. And I also try and spend a lot of time making sure that the content is feels right for what we're trying to do.

Alyson Lex 31:58
But yeah, I spend more time than I'd thought organizing stuff.

Unknown Speaker 32:05
Yes.

Alyson Lex 32:07
Yes. Hold my word. Yeah, I mean, like, I love spreadsheets. Okay, so I don't ever mind making a spreadsheet. But there are so many spreadsheets. And we've we've actually refined all that. So we now have just a couple that we use. But there are links to be organized and episodes and guests and headshots and information and details and notes. And I have to send things off to my VA for her to post and this and that and promo and but there is so much effort just spent organizing things. Not to mention, where are we storing the files?

Unknown Speaker 32:45
Yeah. Like,

Alyson Lex 32:47
we just did that whole Dropbox clean up. So P process thing. Yep. To make sure that we have room we wanted to set ourselves up to be able to grow. Yes, in a way that made sense. And just the the amount of time that I spend renaming files.

Jennie Wright 33:07
Yes, there was a lot and I had to go back to because I wasn't doing proper naming convention. Right. And we didn't have this, we don't have the same view. And I don't have the same style of naming convention. And I don't, I can't remember acronyms. I just can't i can't remember acronyms. From like, 30 seconds ago, if you created it, I won't remember it. Just don't have that recall.

Alyson Lex 33:32
And I shorthand everything

Jennie Wright 33:34
right, you shorthand everything. So we had to find that that was a whole thing. We literally I'm just looking we literally have 12 folders in our System to THRIVE podcast folder. And then each sub folder has like between 12 and 15 different documents or sub folders. It's a lot a lot in these things. And that was a lot of that's a lot of time. But okay, so we've we've talked about all these different points about the podcast and what we've learned and how it's grown and the hard things and the good things. But what would you say about somebody who's considering using a podcast to grow their business?

Alyson Lex 34:10
Oh, that's a good one. Okay. I have to, can I share too? Okay, she's giving me the nod. Guys, I got I got the nod. Number one. If you're going to do it, do it. Don't mess around. Don't hesitate. Don't talk yourself in and out of it 35 times. And don't start it. Talk a big game and then decide it's too much.

Unknown Speaker 34:45
Okay.

Alyson Lex 34:46
If you're gonna do it, commit, commit to an I'm sorry. This is gonna sound part permanent, commit to a year. Commit to one year yeah. And that can look however you want. You don't have to do three episodes a week like we do. Trust, nobody should be doing. Nobody should should do three episodes a week for for over a year. Don't do it. Right. But one a week, can you do 52 episodes? And they don't have to be an hour? They can be 20 minutes. Can you do 52 pieces of content for 20 minutes at a time? Yes, you can. If you can commit to that, start a podcast. So that's number one. Number two, make sure that your expectations are in line. This is not going to catapult you to start them in the first week. It's not going to do it likely in the first year. All right there, you hear a lot. Oh, there are so many podcasts. Yes, there are so many podcasts, and some will take off. Some do absolutely take off. What makes you different? Okay, the ones that take off usually have a couple of things going for them. One, they have a community already. So if you already have a community, let's talk, just call me. We'll talk about whether or not you should do a podcast and build that business plan around that. If you already have the community, yes, if you have a widely appreciated topic, true crime is a huge niche in podcasting. Massive, because people love it. Right. So if you have something like that, yeah, let's talk. Let's see if that's something that we can do. Because people are hungry for it. I like True Crime podcasts. And I'm struggling to find a new Good one. So if you have any, let me know. Um, so those are my two things. One, if you're going to do it, do it all the way. And number two, don't expect it to get you to the moon. It is going to elevate you though.

Jennie Wright 37:14
Oh, yeah, that's a it's a natural side effect. If we were to list this like a drug. This is a natural side effect. Absolutely.

Alyson Lex 37:25
Okay. I have one more question for you. Well, you didn't tell me what you would say to somebody that was going to start a podcast. And then I have another question for you. Do it.

Jennie Wright 37:38
Be realistic, understand what it's going to take by talking to somebody who's doing one. Don't give up after the normal, which is like seven episodes, which is where most people give up? And that commitment part of like, at least an hour? Yeah. Do that. I'm sorry? A year? Not an hour. A year do that. Am I talking about an hour? Oh, yeah, I did it for an hour. I'm done. I'm a podcaster

Alyson Lex 38:02
lasted for an hour.

Jennie Wright 38:06
I don't even want to think about how many hours we put into this.

Alyson Lex 38:09
I mean, well, and you know, it's funny. We've joked lately, but we spend more time together virtually here on zoom than we do with our significant others. Yep, it's the truth. Because we podcast together, we work together. And we're friends. So we have different, like one of the one of the funniest things is when we get on conversations. And it's like, we can't talk about the podcast, we're supposed to be talking about the client. Or, Oh, we got to stop chatting. We're supposed to be talking about the podcast. So really figuring out those hats has been a lot of fun for me. Yep. Um, but my question is, what is your favorite thing about doing this? Just not anything specific, just in general, what's been your favorite part?

Unknown Speaker 38:58
Doing it with you?

Jennie Wright 39:02
The truth I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be, you know, mushy, but doing it with you. I couldn't do this by myself. I couldn't do all this by myself. So in a practical sense, just from practical side, doing this with you, but also on the friendship side. But I've also grown as a I've also grown so much as a person and understanding how to work with somebody else at this level. There is a lot of give and take. There's so much there's a lot of understanding and understanding of the person's personality and their life and all those intricacies that come with it. That

Alyson Lex 39:43
Yeah. One of the things that I noticed, and it actually happened for in the prep for this episode, we were kind of figuring out how this would go until I sprung those questions on you so sorry that we wasted half the outline but And you looked at me and you said, I'm not married to any of this. And if I do that a lot with you, I'm like, I don't care about that, or whatever. And that is an essential part of working at this level with someone is to be able to communicate. I don't have an ego about this thing. If you like it, let's roll with it. If you don't, please change it.

Jennie Wright 40:28
Because it's not about not caring. It's about not having an ego if it changes. Exactly. That's the thing. I care about all of it. Right. But I don't have an ego enough of it to stake put a stake in the ground and say, This is what I want to stand on. And if you don't like it tough, like, um, yeah. When I think I will or like that in the beginning.

Alyson Lex 40:49
Oh, my God, you you were willing to die on every hill. Every Hill, and now your you pick your hills. And I terrible. You're not. But that's normal. Because Jenny, we have each done a solo thing? For how long? So yeah, you're used to being in control. And used to making those decisions. And I still struggle with it. Just what was it? Like, two days ago? Yesterday, yesterday, okay. Yesterday, I looked at something for a client, you're like, what do you think? And I was like, I don't love it, but I'm trying to let go. And you were like, Okay, that's good. But that was me. Like, I really wanted to get in there and be like, I'm gonna need you to fix these 45,000 things, because this is not I don't know what's in my head. But this is not it. That was where I was. And I was just like, stop watch. Like, there's that CEO mindset. And I think that's probably my favorite thing that's happened for this is lately, especially I've been building that CEO mindset. Um, I mean, aside from the whole, I get to spend all all my days with you, like, that's, that's a given. Um, I send you presence all the time. That's my favorite. I send her coffee mug, coffee shirts, painting set, plan. Looks great. I like Amazon. Amazon FBA is the best. But no, it's it's I really am very deeply appreciative of the journey that we've both taken. And the growth that we've both experienced and how far we've come.

Jennie Wright 42:46
Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. It really is a massive undertaking. And it is a massive accomplishment to get this far and be able to look back. I would not, there are a lot of things I would have changed about the year 2020. a lot.

Alyson Lex 43:07
Yeah, well, would a lot. This is not one of them. Is that your way of saying you'll do another 100 with me.

Jennie Wright 43:16
I'm already committed. I'm committed for the next 100 I'm in it. We're doing this for at least till the end of 2022. That's, that's at least my personal thing, which will take us past the next 100. So yeah, I'm in Are you in?

Alyson Lex 43:31
I'm in.

Unknown Speaker 43:32
Alright, let's do it. Let's

Alyson Lex 43:33
do it.

Jennie Wright 43:35
Okay, this has been a bit of a longer episode. But I hope you guys have really enjoyed us talking about what the last 100 episodes has been. It's this is of discovery for us. And thanks for coming along for the ride and listening in. If you've gotten to the end here on why this was so important for us and how it really sculpted and changed us. We really appreciate it. So we want to say thank you. If you're listening to this, thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being on this journey. However you've been on it for however long you've been on it. And I'm so excited to say thank you for listening and we'll be back with another 100 big questions very soon. Stay tuned.