Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. This is the one year episode. In the last year, many of you have joined me for solo episodes, guest episodes, highlighted series, and I thank each and every one of you for joining me inside of your favorite podcast player. Now I could not do this without the two ladies that helped me get this podcast out to you every single week, and that is Haylee Gaffin of Gaffin Creative and Sarah Potts of Joyfully Organized.

They helped me make sure that at least the guest episodes every week go out. I am completely on my own for the solo episodes and it's okay. I mean, these are things that I wake up, inspired to record something short and actionable for you. I do a very light edit and I usually throw it up within 10 minutes of recording it.

But in the last year, I have put out 71 episodes of this podcast. Now don't go looking at the episode numbers and being like, mm, no, Colie we're still in the sixties. No, we're in the seventies. Because if you guys recall back in March when I started recording all of these solo episodes, I put several of them up with no episode number.

So technically, when this episode airs, it will be episode 71. I don't know what I expected when I put the podcast out, but it has become one of my favorite things to do in my business. It's definitely not the revenue-generating part, but it is my favorite part. And speaking of revenue-generating, I want you guys to know that finally after a year of having a podcast, I recorded podcast ads. And so going forward, you are going to hear some ads for my freebies and for my paid offers, um, and that brings me to this week's topic. 

Like I know it's the one year anniversary, but I did wanna give you like an actionable takeaway for today. You guys know I love it when you listen to the podcast, you turn it off, and you go do something. So are you ready for today's takeaway? Today I want you to ask for the sale, and I'm gonna give you a week because I'm generous.

At some point in the next week, I want to make sure that you actually ask for the sale. I'm really not concerned with which one of your offers you pitch. I'm not concerned whether or not you make that pitch to an individual person, or that you cast a wider net to your newsletter or you post it on social media.

But I feel like a lot of us are getting really good about putting out consistent content, but we are not consistently asking for the sale. Someone reached out to me recently and said that they had no idea that I had a course about Dubsado. Now, I'm really glad that this was in an email and not where I could see someone face-to-face because I personally think that I talk about my offers a lot.

I mean, I have the CRM blueprint, Dubsado implementation course for photographers. I have my Dubado VIP setups, which I will do for any creative entrepreneur. I have strategy hours. I mean, I think I've talked about them a lot, but clearly, if there are people in my own audience that still don't know what I offer, I haven't talked about my offers enough.

So the next time that you're like, okay, no Colie, everyone in my audience knows what I do. Guys, I send out emails. I host this podcast. I have consistent content on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and if I still have people in my audience that don't know my offers, I guarantee you do as well. And so now that I've given you your actionable takeaway, guys, again, I want you to ask for the sale.

I do want to talk about how this podcast has changed within the last year, cuz in the beginning it was me. I was creating the podcast, editing the podcast, scheduling the podcast, doing all of it on my own. And now with Haylee and Sarah, I do get the opportunity to just sit back and focus more on just the recording and finding my guests.

I have had a lot of really amazing conversations over the last year, specifically in the last few months, and I am currently recording for December. You guys, in the next month, I am going to be done recording the guest podcast episodes for the remainder of 2023. And while that sounds great, The problem is I feel guilty about having all of this amazing content just sitting on my computer and not being shared with you.

 It is really hard for me not to record a great guest podcast episode and immediately run to Instagram and share it or publish it for the podcast like it's really hard. I've been doing a lot of like behind the scenes things like you guys wouldn't know it, but I have stopped sending questions to my guests. I have found that when we hop into the green room, that's what you call it when we're chatting before I hit record, um, inside the green room, I have just started asking my guests.

Is there anything in particular that you would like for me to ask you today? And sometimes they have something and sometimes they don't. But these conversations as we progress into the second half of 2023 are going to be a lot more natural because I have not given my guest any questions. I mean, of course we've picked a topic well, I would say for about 70% of the people we've picked a topic.

There have been a couple of people that I've had on and I'm like, Hmm, I think we're gonna get to this, but let's just start recording and see what happens. Uh, and I find that those are some of the best conversations that I've had.

But in particular, I have a lot of episodes coming out about SEO and marketing and avoiding being overwhelmed. I mean, I have talked with a, a lot of really amazing people and so don't be surprised if I throw out a few bonus episodes here and there because I don't know that I can wait all the way until December to share some of this content with you.

If I could ask a favor, it would be if you've never shared about the podcast with your friends on your social media, I would love it, if for a one year anniversary gift, you simply shared with your audience what your favorite episode has been and what your biggest takeaway was. 

But once again, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for tuning in every week and listening to my solo episode where I just rant about what's on my mind and my heart, and then the amazing guest content that I am bringing to you. All right, that's it for this episode, see you next time.