100: Reflections to 100 Podcast Episodes

See the show notes for this Episode here.

This transcript has been automatically generated.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to this very landmark episode of our journey together so far. This is episode number 100. I'm so excited to just do something a little bit special for this episode. We're going to look back on the road that I've traveled to get here, the lessons I've learned along the way, and the dream really behind this podcast when we started it in the 1st place. Find a cozy spot, maybe grab a cup of tea, and let's dive in. Now hitting 100 episodes feels Both surreal and really, like, a natural step. You know? When I first started this podcast, I didn't really have a road map or a detailed plan.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:44]:

I Just knew that I had stories to share, lessons I had learned, and a community that I really wanted to connect with on a deeper level. In our 1st episode, I talked about starting from 0. And so it's one of our most popular episodes. Probably, that's true with every podcast. But it's a goodie if you wanna go back and listen to it. I really start from 0 on the time that I started my business when I had Zero audience, 0 skills, 0 money, and just went year by year on how I've grown this business ever or since I started it in 2009. And now 100 episodes later, we've covered everything from art prompts and designing a fabric collection to building your email list and growing memberships and all sorts of business topics as well. But more than topics, we've built a community and a real conversation that stretches far beyond our time together that we Been just listening in each episode.

Bonnie Christine [00:01:49]:

So let's talk numbers for just a minute, and I'll expand on these stats a little bit later. But I think it's important to reflect that we have now had more than 700,000 downloads. We've reached a 124 countries, and we've had over 300 listeners who cared enough to share a review of what this podcast has meant to them. I can't tell you how much this means to me. These numbers are more than just metrics. They represent so much of the love and time that we've poured into this podcast. And together as creative professionals as a commitment to growing together. Making this happen consistently every week has required quite the blend of passion and strategy and consistency.

Bonnie Christine [00:02:40]:

It's been like growing a garden. But it takes patience and all the right tools and a lot of willingness to learn along the way. So if I think about the very beginning, I sat with this idea for nearly 2 years. I was reflecting on the idea of having a podcast and just really incubating on the entire idea. I wanted to give it some space. And, honestly, I was procrastinating. But I was procrastinating for a good reason. I I promised myself that I wouldn't start this podcast until I knew that I could be consistent with it, mainly because I knew at the time that there was just no bandwidth to give it the time that it really deserved.

Bonnie Christine [00:03:28]:

And I wanted to be able to show up consistently for you. Meaning, I wanted you to be able to trust that you could come every Tuesday and every Thursday and listen into the podcast. That was really, really important to me. And so I really decided that I wouldn't Even think about the podcast until I had a day in my business where I was like, I wonder what I'll do today. And that time finally came, and I thought, okay. It's time to go. Educating creatives is a Huge part of my mission, and I wanted to be able to do that for you in a way that was consistent and predictable. So, finally, I started on November 15, 2022.

Bonnie Christine [00:04:13]:

And today, I'm gonna tell you what it looks like 100 episodes 1 year later. I had wanted a weekly touchpoint that was free for my audience, that's you, in part because from the outside looking in a lot of times throughout the year, I felt like it doesn't actually look like we're doing that much. And that's often because our content is typically behind closed doors. It's in our courses and in our membership. And so from the public facing aspect, sometimes I felt like it looked like we weren't really doing a lot when and the reality is that we're doing so much. And so I wanted just a way to break through that and show up consistently and free for you. I also wanted to overcome what I call the swan effect. You know, if you think about a swan, it's beautiful and elegant on the surface, But, really, just beneath the surface, its legs are kicking wildly to swim and keep it afloat.

Bonnie Christine [00:05:17]:

And sometimes I think that that's the way our business looks. I hope I hope it looks that way, that on the outside, it looks all very well thought out and and consistent and beautiful. But, really, what's happening just underneath the surface is really a lot of effort and strategy and team systems and processes. And so I wanted a way to to really just Pull back the curtain and show you what was happening just underneath the surface. And I think that that's not only interesting, but hopefully helpful for you and your business as well. So the very first steps I took were to begin with really determining the goal and who I wanted to talk to. You know, my industry is surface pattern design. It is what I love.

Bonnie Christine [00:06:06]:

It's what I'm known for. It's what I do. But I also wanted to start speaking a little bit more to the creative entrepreneur at large. Meaning, The vast majority of content here on the podcast isn't only applicable to those of you who are surface pattern designers. It's applicable to those of you who are growing your creative business no matter what that is. And I call you professional creatives. And I knew that I wanted to get to a 100 episodes as quickly as I could. Now this is a strategy that I read a long time ago.

Bonnie Christine [00:06:44]:

I'm not even sure where I read it, but it stuck with me. Basically, if you're starting something new. Right? So if you're building a portfolio, you wanna make a a 100 patterns as quickly as you can. Or if you're starting a YouTube channel, you wanna get to a 100 Videos as quickly as you can. And if you're starting a podcast, you wanna get to a 100 episodes as quickly as you can. And this is to build a substantial body of work. It's to really improve your skills and figure the thing out, and it's also to establish a presence in that space. And so when I really thought about it, yes, 2 episodes a week is a lot, but it's either gonna take me a year.

Bonnie Christine [00:07:29]:

If I do 2 a week, it'll take me a year to get to a 100. Or if I do 1 a week, it's gonna double that, and it's gonna take me 2 years. And I thought, okay. The juice is worth the squeeze. And so we decided not to do seasons and to commit to doing 2 episodes a week, which will get us to 100 episodes in a year. That's today, and I can't believe it. So the very next thing I did was I wrote the trailer. I decided on the name, and I recorded the intro in my closet with my kids just right outside the door.

Bonnie Christine [00:08:04]:

I tried to pick out some music that was happy, but hopefully wouldn't drive me nuts in a year, which I do still like it. And I began to research and really choose categories that I wanted to speak about. I also wanted to choose categories to list the podcast, and that I thought that I could hopefully rank in. And so I chose art and design and entrepreneurship. Now the very next step was to register the podcast with Spotify, Apple, and Google. And I'm very pleased to share that after a year of worrying about what this would look like, it took me 10 minutes. So Lesson learned. Just start.

Bonnie Christine [00:08:48]:

Then I trademarked the name. I do recommend trademarking The name of anything that you really wanna use as yours. Right? And then I sent an email. Now this email is something that I learned from Jeff Walker, and Jeff teaches a launch strategy. And this particular email is something that he calls a shot across the bow. So, basically, it's an announcement and a favor. So it is emailing your audience and sharing with them something that you're super excited about. It's an announcement.

Bonnie Christine [00:09:22]:

In my case, it was the podcast and asking them for a favor. In my case, it was to become a cocreator of this podcast and share with me something that you would be interested in learning about. So I like to say, anytime you are really trying to Ideate and think about something. Anytime you're wondering what your audience would like to know or learn from you or listen to, All you have to do is ask. Because this simple email gave me around 800 responses in a form from many of you who are listening today on things that you would love to learn about. And it was so beneficial for me to just sit down with this list and a big spreadsheet and just start making ideas. Like, oh, I could talk about that, or I've got something that would really help this person. And it was really just validating.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:18]:

Like, you know what? I do have I do have something to say. I do have value to give, and I do have enough ideas. Because I don't know about you, but anytime we start something, it's, well, am I gonna run out of ideas? And so it was just validating to know that there is enough there to talk about I do have value to add, and I am excited about all these different topics. After I really validated the idea and reviewed the survey, I went out and bought the equipment that I needed. Now I've already gone over this in in in a previous podcast, so we'll link to it in the show notes for today's episode. And I just started outlining episodes. I recorded a couple of ads. Now the ads were for me, things that I had going on in my business.

Bonnie Christine [00:11:08]:

And I recorded the 1st few episodes in my closet right inside my house, and then I pretty quickly hired a podcast editor. And so I love to outsource things that we may be capable of doing, but, really, we don't need to be the one doing them. And so I did Edit a few of my own, but I outsourced that as quickly as I could. And then I just developed a little bit of a workflow, Flo, which is what we'll start to talk about now. As we built momentum, the process became more fluid. We have a set of tools and people working on the podcast. I've got a podcast manager, Nikita, who helps me with ideating for the podcast and coming up with show notes and outlines for me to work through, which has been really helpful as well. But our system has changed a bit.

Bonnie Christine [00:12:00]:

So at the very beginning, I went straight from those survey results and a big list of episode ideas that I had already, you know, come up with, to a spreadsheet, and I just began recording when I could on the ones that I was excited about. Now we take regular submissions from you, the audience. If you haven't seen this, you can head over to Instagram. It's in my links there. You can just submit an idea for the podcast right there, and we review those every time we work on a new batch. And then I also have my whole team coming up with ideas as well because sometimes I may be missing something that we're hearing over and over again and or a topic that maybe I'm just too close to to really realize would make a great podcast. So the team has a Slack channel where they put any ideas that they have for the podcast as well. And then we really consider our calendar as we plan what's coming up for us as a company and what holidays are coming up, what kind of energy do people have.

Bonnie Christine [00:13:05]:

The energy in December is very different than the energy in January. December is very cozy. We're kind of selecting and reviewing, and we're not really doing big, deep strategic work most of the time. But then in January, we have this renewed Energy for decluttering and creating new habits and strategizing and looking ahead. So we try to think about those things even though we may be Planning those episodes in October or November. We have to think about, well, how do we really feel in those times of the year? Right? So from an outlining perspective, I went from just using a Google Doc and outlining them myself to really coming into a team setting. So now we just had our 3rd one today, actually. We do batch planning sessions every 6 or 7 weeks.

Bonnie Christine [00:13:58]:

So we come together and plan the next batch of 14 episodes. So we come up with the ideas for about 14 episodes at a time, and then we kind of work from there to create the outlines for each of the episodes. And then I record trying to record more and more and more in advance, and then we edit and prepare for publishing. So batch recording actually didn't go like I thought it would. I'm a huge believer in batch work, meaning do like tasks at the same time. And so I was sitting down to do 8 episodes at a time. That is, an entire month's worth of podcasts. And it's a day.

Bonnie Christine [00:14:42]:

It's a full day of recording. And so, my hope was to sit down and do 8. And I just wildly underestimated the, like, creative output that that would take. So then I moved to 6, and then I went to 4, and now I'm doing 2. I just realized that it is so hard for me to Close my brain on 1 idea and open it right back, like, the next moment to another idea that I've got to wrap my entire Head and heart around. And so we I just decided that that was okay. Okay? So maybe I'm not batch recording 6 There are 8 episodes in a single day, but I will try to batch them back to back. So 2 at a time, and then do them multiple days in a row.

Bonnie Christine [00:15:34]:

So I can do 2 every morning when I get to work, and the cognitive load of that compared to 8 in a day is much more manageable. So that's where I'm at. I would love to get to where I could do 6 to 8 in a day and and not think about it, but once a month. But I just Have not been able to do it yet. Now for every episode, we also have show notes. So from the start, we've pretty intentionally kept these show notes at a minimal design. They include key takeaways. They include an embedded version of the episode, so you can listen to it right in the show notes.

Bonnie Christine [00:16:11]:

So there are a couple of gaps that we are working to address, and I'm happy to share them with you. The first one is really about me and how I show up to the podcast and moving really more from The ideator of it to more of a visionary role. If you can imagine, I say so many things in q and a's and in course lessons and in a membership lesson and in the mastermind and in my coaching program. Like, there's no shortage of content or body quotes or ideas that I've really gone down a rabbit hole with. And we're moving to more of a place where the team is really keeping an ear to the ground and listening for those types of things. Where have I taught something before? Even if it was 3 or 4 years ago and in the membership or something like that. That would be a great topic to resurface and share on the podcast. Or was there just One quote that I said during a coaching session that would be a great mini episode where I talk a little bit more about that in-depth.

Bonnie Christine [00:17:16]:

And so that's been a really fun way for the team to just be listening to all the things I share and say outside of the podcast and bring those ideas for us to think about going with and expanding on here. Now I don't know if you follow me on social media, but you might have noticed that I haven't done the best job at sharing Podcast episodes regularly, like, on Instagram. And that's just a bandwidth issue. I'm just not showing up as much as I Really believe that I can and should and will. So, we're very much working on just Having a process where we can easily and consistently show every Tuesday Thursday what podcast episode came out so that you don't have to rely on coming here to check, but that you get those notifications on Instagram as well. And then we're also working on YouTube. So we're working on launching a YouTube channel, and I'm excited about it, but very much trying to get my footing with video. If you have a podcast, you might realize that it's a really big lost opportunity to sit and do audio but not capture the video at the same time.

Bonnie Christine [00:18:32]:

And I always thought that I would do that until I tried it. And then I realized that It's a whole different ballgame if you have to get camera ready as well. And then you're Thinking on the fly or pausing awkwardly or you have to remember to smile and make eye contact with the camera, it's a whole different beast. And so I'm very much trying to figure out what that looks like for me. What does it look like for me to be able to record the audio for the podcast and also show up on video at the same time so that we can share it both ways. And I'm still just working through it. I get really awkward when the camera's on, and I'm trying to look at notes or think about the podcast. It's just it's a little bit weird.

Bonnie Christine [00:19:19]:

So working through that one. And then very much still trying to find a good pace with batch recording. If you looked at how I work sometimes on paper, you might think that I procrastinate, but I don't, actually. It's this other thing that happens, and I suspect that it happens to you as well. Focus and clarity comes with a deadline. And that is a character trait. It's like a personality trait. And it doesn't work well when you're trying to bring people from a team in to support you.

Bonnie Christine [00:19:54]:

Right? Because what I won't do is make my team work last minute or at least try not to ever make them work last minute. But it is a genuine problem in my world. I don't know what I would say in 3 weeks from now because it's now and not 3 weeks from now. And so it's a genuine thing that I'm always trying to figure out. Almost can I Put in fake deadlines for myself so that I feel that last bit of creativity come in, the focus and clarity and creative aspect of it? Or do I need to just set up a system where I can record? Like, I'm I'm pretty good at recording a week or two out. But 8 weeks out feels, I don't know, feels way too far out, but that would really be what would give everybody who touches the podcast the most bandwidth to do their thing. So Working on that as well. So those are some gaps that we're addressing.

Bonnie Christine [00:20:47]:

So let's move into some milestones. So from the very 1st listener to the 5 100,500,000 listener, Each one of you have just been a little part of this in incredible journey so far. We've had episodes that You tell me make you laugh, ones that make you think, ones that really brought us together, and your kind of testimonials, and the times that you reach out to me on Instagram DM to tell me about something that was meaningful to you means so much to me. At 8 months in, we hit a half a 1000000 downloads of this podcast and began averaging 50,000 downloads a month. We also hit 20,000 opt ins, So email addresses during that time as well, which means so many new people to our world. And that's exactly where I wanted to be pretty much as quickly as I could be. So I wanted to hit those milestones within a year, and we hit them at 8 months, which is just really incredible. I think publishing twice a week really helped us hit that stride, and it it seems to be, the right amount to keep You all coming back and having fresh content regularly, but not too much.

Bonnie Christine [00:22:06]:

And then our opt ins are always really relevant to the very specific episode that we were on. And it's helped us really build a new segment of our audience that's interested in business as opposed to only surface design or art, which is, You know, what I've been known for and what I still want to be known for as well. But I do think this podcast reaches a broader audience as well. So now at 100 episodes in and exactly 1 year later, we've had 724,000 downloads. That means we're averaging around 53,000 downloads a month. We've had 23,000 opt ins. And though rankings change, like, all the time for reasons that are unknown to me, we have ranked at number 9 for arts in the US and number 2 for design in the US, which feels really substantial. Our top Five episodes of all time, which we'll link in today's show notes, are starting from 0, 2 weeks notice with Amy Porterfield, Your path to success, creative or educator, and strategic planning for the professional creative.

Bonnie Christine [00:23:20]:

And so those are all very much worth a listen to. We'll link those up on the show notes for today's episode. But beyond these numbers, my goodness, I'm just so grateful to those of you who have taken the time to share what this podcast has meant to you. We have 375 reviews in a year with a 4.9 star ranking, and that is just Incredible to me. Thank you so much for each of you who have taken the time to do that. I love reading them, and it really just fuels me for the next episode. In over 3,000,000 podcasts globally, we're also ranked in the top 0.5%, which is just it's hard for me to even wrap my mind around. It means that what we're sharing here is impactful, and that's really all I could ever hope for.

Bonnie Christine [00:24:15]:

This podcast has become way more than a platform. It's, I think, the catalyst for growth, Not only for me, but for our community at large. When I look at stats like this, it's just validating to me that there was a hole that I filled. And it's so special to just be in your ear 2 times a week. This has meant so much to me personally. It means that I can overcome imposter syndrome, and it means that, You know, I do have something to share, and it means that I can do hard things, and I can be consistent and show up. Right? And I think that it's just really validating to set your sights on something difficult and show up. That is how we build confidence.

Bonnie Christine [00:25:03]:

Right? We promise ourselves we're gonna do something, and then we do it, and then our confidence grows. And I wasn't sure. I came into it not knowing if I could do it, and here we are. Here we are. So looking ahead, I'm excited to continue really with the same thing we've been doing. So we're continuing with 2 times a week. I'm so excited to incorporate our new marketing team and helping us share more consistently about it and really ideate on the types of topics that you wanna listen to. I'm excited to hear more about what you want to learn and listen from you as well.

Bonnie Christine [00:25:44]:

We're going to do a listener q and a soon to celebrate 100 episodes. And then, of course, that link to submit ideas for the podcast is something that we really value. And you can find that, again, over in the links in my Instagram Bio, but we'll put it with the replay notes for this episode as well. So before I sign off, that was a lot of feelings and a lot of stats, but mainly, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for walking this path with me for every download, for every time you've shared it, for every moment you've spent with me. I just wanna say thank you. It means so much to me.

Bonnie Christine [00:26:26]:

So my friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world just like this podcast was for me. And remember, there's room for you.