THIS MAMA MEANS BUSINESS EPISODE 140
Where the heck has the podcast been for five months?!
In today’s episode, titled “The Missing Episodes,” I’m diving into a big question that many of you have been asking: Where has the podcast been for the past 5 months? But don’t worry, I have an exciting answer that you’re going to love.
In this episode I’ll take a closer look at how (and why) the podcast was able to take a hiatus for 5 months, yet still experience business growth at the same time.
It’s all about consistency and taking action, even when you feel inconsistent.
Whether you’re in a season of busyness, exhaustion, or simply feeling stressed to produce content, this episode will give you a permission slip to take pause while guiding you to still see business growth.
If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate challenging seasons while maintaining momentum in your business, this episode is a must-listen.
So, get ready to gain insights and inspiration as we explore “The Missing Episodes”
Links mentioned: The Email Growth Club: Grow your email list fast without paid ads or social media for just $27 a month in my low ticket, high value membership.
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Full Transcript:
Kylie Kelly [00:00:00]:
Hello, my loves, and welcome to episode 140 of This Mama Means Business. And in this episode, I want to talk about where the podcast has been for like, 5 fucking months. I know. It’s a really big question. Hopefully, it’s an exciting answer for you. And if you’re a loyal listener, you’re gonna love it. And if you’re not, that’s okay too because I wanna share with you how I was able to essentially be away from the podcast for that long and still grow my business. I wanna wanna talk a little bit about real life, completely transparent with everything that goes on in my life. I think that this will be your permission slip to stop something, to press pause on something to actually take a step back if you need to. So this episode is gonna give you that permission, and I’m calling it a peek into the missing episodes. But, really, it’s about being kind to yourself, and it’s about consistency in action and how you can still see results even when you have to take a step back, even when life might throw you a fucking curve ball like it likes to. So let’s get into it.
Now this is crazy because I am dropping this podcast at the start of February 15, and the last time I did a podcast was September 22nd. That is almost 5 months. Now I am all about consistency. I was so proud to be dropping 2 episodes a week really consistently seeing, obviously, the downloads increase and the audience growth for the podcast. And then what happened? I just stopped. It just took a back seat. And to be completely transparent, the simple reality is: there is just me. I am one person, and I can’t do everything. Right? As much as I would love to try, I can’t.
Kylie Kelly [00:02:13]:
I just had a lot going on personally, professionally, client wise, non client wise, business wise, launch wise, and I just had to stop something. And so the podcast, was that something that took a backseat. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. I want you to know that that’s okay. I want you to know that if you need to press pause on something, perhaps it’s social, perhaps it is a launch, perhaps it is content creation or offer creation, perhaps you have a podcast. Whatever you need to press pause on today, it’s okay. You’re allowed. You’re actually allowed. Now I personally hate it when people take a break from social media, and then they come back and be like, oh, I’m back. And and I’m always thinking, like, I didn’t fucking know you were gone. And, look, I don’t want this to be that episode, but I did wanna start with this because I do believe that it what is so important that we acknowledge that we don’t have to be on all the time. We don’t have to be creating content all the time. If your life gets in the way, we need to put you first. You are your business. So I wanted to record an actual episode on this because I came to realize that while I did have to press pause on the podcast & I wasn’t able to bang out content like I would have liked, I was still able to grow my business, and I was still able to enjoy my life, and I was still able to make some big dynamic business decisions and moves and make money and all of that without being on the podcast, without actually releasing the two episodes a week, or any episodes a week.
Kylie Kelly [00:03:34]:
I was able to actually still move in my business. And I think sometimes we we fall into this black and white thinking of, all or nothing. Right? If I’m not doing it all, if I’m not creating the content. If I’m not being consistent like that coach tells me to, then it’s not gonna work. It’s gonna fail, and I’m gonna be an absolute mess. Right? I can’t make any money. It’s not gonna work. And that is just not true. So what did it actually look like? So while I wasn’t podcasting, what was I doing? For anyone that is interested, I wanted to be fully transparent and share a little bit of the business stuff, a little bit of the life stuff. What did my life look like in the past 5 months? I’m gonna share the numbers first because I am a fucking nerd when it comes to numbers, and I wanna share these with you. So for 1, my email list, which as you guys all know, if you listen to the podcast for any amount of time, my email list is a needle mover in my business. If there are 2 things that I have to focus on in a limited amount of time that I have, one is growing my email list, and the other is making money. If a task, if an action, if something doesn’t actually fit in those these two needle movers that it gets it pushed to the side, delegated, I’ll do it later, or it gets canned. Right? So they are my two needle movers, and when working school hours, they’re the two things that I focus on.
Kylie Kelly [00:04:38]:
So even though I wasn’t actually releasing podcast content, I was still focused on my email list. So in the past 5 months, what my email list has gone from 2,516 subscribers back on the 1st September to, currently today, almost 6,000. I’m at 5,915. That is bonkers. That more than doubled in 5 months, and I am really proud of that. My email list is a business asset. It’s actually something that I own, and it generates me income. I can send an email, and I can make sales. My email list is full of my beautiful dream clients that are engaged. My open rate average in the last 90 days is sitting at 51%, and I’ve got a 3.2% click rate. Like, they are engaged people. They are my people, and I absolutely love having them as a part of my world. So to see that number double, more than double in the last 5 months was so exciting. I also wanted to make a point that my podcast doesn’t actually grow my email list. That’s that something that I wanna get really intentional with in 2024 to see if I can make that work, that it can be a lead generator. But, really, I see my podcast more as nurture content.
Kylie Kelly [00:05:44]:
More like something that I can create to look after my existing audience, to actually provide them value, to actually share the real life, to actually give them a look behind the curtain, actually help them succeed faster. So my podcast is more my nurture content. Taking a step back from the podcast, I had to make sure I was still nurturing my email list and my what stats tell me that I am. Definitely not as beautifully as I was when I was releasing podcast content, but, you know, they haven’t all left, so snaps for that. But it’s really important to know if you do have a podcast, what is it doing for you? Is it actually one of your lead generators? And if it’s not, that’s okay. It can be this nurture piece, but you need to make sure that you have things in place that are growing your email list. So how did I grow my email list to the way that I did in the last 5 months. I did a lot of collaborations. Now that is not a big surprise, is it? I love collaborations. As you you know, I teach collaborations, and I know how powerful they can be. So I actually hosted 3 different bundles. I host a bundle every quarter for my Spotlight Club members to help them grow their email list. But, of course, in return, it also grows mine, which is great. So that was in quarter four of 2023 and in quarter one of 2024. We had hundreds of people each time sign up for it.
Kylie Kelly [00:06:54]:
They then go on to sign up for my clubbers resources that are part of a digital bundle, growing their email list, but it also grew mine as well. I did host a public facing bundle in October of last year called the Visible AF bundle, and that bundle got a lot of traction and had a lot of sign ups. So that helped grow my list as well. I was also in a lot of bundles. I was in a private podcast series. I spoke in a summit. I did some podcast guesting. Again, all on my terms, not doing everything. But when something comes across my desk that I get excited about and I can feel in my gut that it’s a full body yes, then I try to make it work. And so I was able to do things like that that then helped to grow my list even faster. So that’s what the email list looked like. I was still sending out my consistent emails. It wasn’t so much a podcast weekly email. It was more of about a bundle or a tip or a piece value something I was doing. So it made it harder, if I’m completely honest, to send out the weekly content emails that I send, because suddenly, I didn’t have regular content to send. So, normally, the podcast is an excuse to email my list every week, and that also then helps my downloads.
Kylie Kelly [00:07:54]:
So I didn’t have that that content asset to share, but I was still able to email my list regularly, which is really, really important. The other thing that happened from a business perspective is that my membership, The Spotlight Club, doubled. So I had a look back, and on the 1st September, I had 96 members. I was teetering just under a 100. And now I’ve got a 193. Again, teetering under the 200, which is kinda killing me in a minute. So the fact that that doubled as well means that my capacity had to grow. As I mentioned, it is really just me. I have now just bought on 1 of the clubbers as a team member to help me with the cancellations because that affects my energy. So that’s been a beautiful addition to what now is The Spotlight Club team. Right? Just me and her. Up until that point, it’s just been me. So that means that that I’m doing all the calls. I’m obviously providing all the support in Slack. I’m in there all the time. I’m helping them grow their email listening experience wins.
Kylie Kelly [00:08:48]:
And as I add more people to that. My capacity did have to grow, which when anything stretches, it kinda hurts. Like, if you think about when you’re at the gym and you’re wanting to build muscle. If you’re stretching to a new level, to a new capacity, to a goal that you have, you’re stretching to reach it. When you stretch muscle. It hurts. Put me in downward dog and it fucking hurts my hamstrings. Right? So it’s the same thing when our business grows quickly. And so I had to be really cognisant that as I added more members, it stretched me, which is fine, which is great, which is a good problem to have. But you need to be aware of that so that you can make sure that you’re looking after you. And for me, that looks like making sure that I unplug. I love working. I could work and sit at my computer for 15 hours a day and I’ll be living my best life. My kids and my husband might have something to say about it, but I would be pretty happy.
Kylie Kelly [00:09:36]:
So I had to make sure I had some really strong boundaries around where my work hours were. I had to make sure that I was still exercising and getting to the gym. I had to make sure that I was getting enough sleep, that I was staying hydrated, that I was eating well. You know, being aware of all of this stuff means that as we need our capacity to grow, we know how to look after ourselves. So that was a really cool thing to have happened in five months. I’m really excited, and I’m just starting to play in paid ads. So up until now, this has all been organic growth through collaborations. I haven’t really touched paid ads, but I’m looking now to learn from my mentor and friend Evelyn, who’s actually coming up on the podcast soon, but I’m looking to learn from her as to how I can then promote The Spotlight Club through some paid ads just to get the word out there even faster.
Kylie Kelly [00:10:19]:
So that’s really exciting. So from a business perspective, a lot was going on. I also launched a new 12 month program called Email Empire. So it is based like a membership, you can join monthly with a 3 month minimum. But, normally, people are signing up for a year, and it is helping them monetize their list. So it’s for the woman that has been in the spotlight club that has grown her email list. And she’s like, now how do I make money from it?
Kylie Kelly [00:10:41]:
I launched Email Empire to help her do that. So it’s $997. I’ve got the doors closed at the moment. There’s 6 beautiful ladies that are inside, and we’re gonna be opening the doors again soon, but it’s been really fun to try to figure this piece out alongside them and then invite experts in that they’re gonna help them with funnels some more advanced sales strategies so that we can get those email lists actually converting, actually making money, which has been really great to support them this. I also hosted a live training around Black Friday, which is really fun to put on. I love live events. And for me, I’m naturally an introvert, so that is hilarious in of itself, but I had so much fun. And then I took that Black Friday bootcamp, and I made it a bonus for Email Empire.
Kylie Kelly [00:11:20]:
So now when you join Email Empire, that’s a bonus training with all the resources and the templates you could ever need for a Black Friday campaign inside the portal. So, again, thinking about working smarter and not harder learning how can you create things, content, offers that you can then help nurture and support your your existing clients, your existing members. And then from a personal point of view. I mean, I’ve got 2 little kids. Right? Life is fucking hectic at the best of times. Back in September, when I decided to step back from the podcast, Sam broke his toe. I I took him to a birthday party, and he ran up into this, big hole and and banged on this piece of wood that fell on his toe and broke his big toe. If you’ve ever how to toddler break a toe, my heart goes out to you because it doesn’t stop them. They don’t take a break. They don’t rest. They don’t stay off it, and nothing can be done for it. So we literally just had to strap it to his other toe and hope for the best. And it’s been fine. It’s healed perfectly fine, but what was a very long healing process. That happened in September.
Kylie Kelly [00:12:17]:
I also celebrated my anniversary with Nick. It was our 4 year wedding anniversary in October, together 13 years, married for 4. We obviously had Christmas. We’ve had school holidays. So life has been full. I’m sharing all of that because I want you to understand that even though I wasn’t doing podcast episodes, my business was still growing. My email list was still growing. I had my highest revenue month in November of last year. And all of that to say, if you are feeling pushed, if you are feeling pulled thin, if you are feeling stressed over some kind of content that you’re creating or something that you’ve said you’d be consistent with, and now you’re like, oh my god. How do I actually fucking do this? If you are feeling that resistance and that pressure, it’s okay to press pause. It’s okay to take a step back. And so I want you to just give yourself permission to release any expectations that you might have over one thing that you’ve committed to in the past, but life has changed. Committed to in the past, and now you’re like, I don’t know how to fulfil this. By putting these unrealistic expectations and pressure on ourselves.
Kylie Kelly [00:13:22]:
It doesn’t do us any justice. It doesn’t do us any good. We end up speaking really poorly to ourselves. And if you’re anything like me, thinking all of these negative thoughts and and negative self talk about how you failed when, actually, we are the captains of our ship. We are the CEO. We are the person at the forefront of this business. And if we wanna take a break, if we need we to take a break. We get to take a break. So let’s just talk a little bit about what’s next. Right? So, great, Kylie. You’ve been off. You’ve obviously had a lot going on. I now feel permission to step away and stop doing what I’m doing if I need to. Who, but what’s next? So how am I actually going to be consistent again or pick up the podcast in a way that feels good to me, while still nurturing my email list, that’s been a big driver to come back. I missed it.
Kylie Kelly [00:14:11]:
I absolutely love talking, as you can guess. I absolutely love this format, and I really missed seeing those downloads skyrocket not from a place of, like, oh my god. My podcast is amazing, but from a place of reaching people, that every download represents a female business owner listening to me, which I think is really cool and really powerful. So what does that look like from here on in? So what I want to do is dial it back to once a week so you can expect an episode once a week from me. I want to increase the value of what I’m sharing. So I actually want you to be able to tune in to an episode of the podcast and you’re like, for fuck’s sake, I need to implement this straight away.
Kylie Kelly [00:14:46]:
This was super valuable. I can see how this could change my business. This is gonna make me money. I can see how this could change my business. This is gonna make me money. Like, I wanna be able to have that kind of impact for you, not just listening to a podcast and you’re like, oh, that’s a great story. So I’m planning out those episodes now, and then I’m also going to have, once a month, a guest come on. And these guests are going to be next level guests. I don’t want to have just anyone that has a great story come on. I used to be really open to having people on the podcast. And, look, all of my guests have been amazing, amazing women with great stories and great knowledge and so much value to share. But I also recognize that that it’s a really big deal to allow someone into this space. I value this space so much. I value your loyalty.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:30]:
I value you listening so much and I want to make sure the guests that come on actually leave you with something that you can implement straight away that could change your business, that could change life. So I have a couple guests lined up already. In March, you can expect the gorgeous Evelyn Weiss of The Coach Growth Hub & Mini Membership Method is coming on to share all about Low ticket memberships and how she has really started her business from 0 and now has over $3,000,000 in revenue in 4 years. And if you’re in the spotlight club, you know I’m obsessed with her. She’s also in the club herself and, I mean, all of her programs. She is a force to be reckoned with, but she’s the most beautiful, heart led person that has so much to give. I have so much love for her, and what I just know that she’s gonna bring some really incredible content to your earbuds through this podcast interview. So that’s coming out for you in March as well as a few others that I have lined up that I’m gonna keep in the bag. But once a month, there’ll be a guest episode that you’ll be able to tune into so that you can hear some next level strategy, some strategies that even I haven’t attempted yet, right, that even I haven’t I haven’t made $1,000,000 yet. My god. Okay. So this is pretty personal episode. I hope you got some value from it.
Kylie Kelly [00:16:43]:
If there’s one little thing in here that you can take something from, then it’s a win. Then it’s worth it. I would love you to consider joining the spotlight club. And, of course, I’m gonna be plugging it because I’m so close to 200 members, and I just love that space so much. Also if 2024 is the year you’re gonna focus on your email list and you wanna grow the list and the audience that you have fast, right, life without social, without paid ads. I would love you to come and join us so you can find more info over on my website, which is just kyliekelly.com. The link is in the shownotes. And, yeah, that is all I have for you today.
Kylie Kelly [00:17:13]:
So get out there. If I can leave you with one encouraging note, it would be this, that consistency is about consistent action, not about showing up at 11 AM every Tuesday. So if you miss a podcast, if you take a step back from social, if you miss a blog post, if you miss a strategy, if you miss something, just keep going. The people who win are the people who are consistent over 10 years, not 10 weeks. And so I want this to be your permission slip to look after you, to still focus on your needle movers, but to take a step back from things that might not be serving you. And don’t be afraid to then come back and keep going. I’m not defining my business by the last 5 months. I’m not defining my life by the last 5 months. I’m choosing what I’ve loved from the last 5 months. I’m looking at the wins that I’ve had and picking what I wanna continue and what I wanna let go of. So ask yourself that. What do you need to let go of? What do you need to take on? Where do you wanna be in the next 5 months? 5 years? Big questions and a lot to think about. So get out there. Please, if you have any questions, if you’ve loved this episode, I would love to hear it. I can’t wait to be back in your earbuds again next week. I love you loads, and I’m cheering you on always. I’ll catch you soon.
