Soulful MBA Podcast
278 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 42 ratingsOur binge-worthy podcast is a sanctuary for those curious about what it's really like to build a company from scratch, work remotely with your best friend, and consciously engage with other humans on the Internet.
Our mission is to help other ambitious women build and grow businesses online.
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Episodes
Office Hours: SEO (Part 2)
March 08, 2018 03:36 - 13 minutes - 18.7 MBAs you learned in last week’s Office Hours episode, incorporating targeted keyword phrases into your blog content is essential. Those SEO-driving phrases need to be sprinkled throughout all of your content, but you can also benefit from placing them strategically in a few more places. This episode shares our specific recommendations on where else to load up your keywords within a blog/podcast/vlog post: The post URL: WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace, and many other blogging platfo...
64 Girl
March 05, 2018 20:57 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MB“The words you speak become the house you live in.” - Hafiz We’re discussing all things related to #girlboss culture in today’s episode. We would never consider using the term #girllawyer or #girldoctor, so it’s fascinating that this child archetype been so widely adopted by women in business. How does this self-imposed characterization impact us, both individually and culturally? According to a recent New York Times article, “female entrepreneurship is on the rise because gender...
Office Hours: SEO (Part 1)
March 01, 2018 01:11 - 9 minutes - 13.5 MBThe advice most brick-and-mortar businesses owners are given when they first start out is “location, location, location.” For online business owners, the equivalent advice is “SEO, SEO, SEO.” SEO, or search engine optimization, is a series of practices that makes your web content easy for search engines to find, understand, and recommend to their users. A search engine’s job is deliver relevant and authoritative content to the people using their platforms. Your job as an online entr...
63 Bravery
February 26, 2018 22:23 - 37 minutes - 51.3 MBWe had the honor of interviewing the co-founders of Bravery Magazine, Elyse Beard and Ashley Aikele. Ashley and Elyse met seven years ago and have dreamed of doing something big ever since their friendship started. At first they dreamed of opening up a shaved ice shack, but years later they finally had an idea that stuck...Bravery! The idea for Bravery Mag was born from their shared frustration at the lack of kid-friendly resources to help teach their children about bravery and st...
Office Hours: Discounting
February 23, 2018 03:29 - 14 minutes - 20.4 MBIf you’ve been listening to the podcast for any length of time, then you know that we’re not fans of discounting. Here are some of the reasons why discounting is bad news for your business: Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) are increasing across the board. Discounting creates a race to the bottom in your industry. Pricing too low attracts the wrong customers. Selling cheap products tarnishes your brand. What should you do instead? Differentiate yourself with these strategie...
62 Just
February 20, 2018 05:33 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MB“Just is a word that minimizes whatever follows. And somehow I got it in my head that adding that little ‘just’ in there made whatever request I had smaller, easier to handle, and less of an inconvenience to whoever I was emailing. Basically, it’s another word for sorry.” - Chelsea Stone The podcast gets personal this week. After releasing more than 60 episodes, we want to check in about the observation that we use a lot of qualifiers like “just” and “actually” in our speech and d...
Office Hours: Repurposing Blog Posts
February 14, 2018 23:13 - 12 minutes - 17.6 MBBlogging is a powerful way to build your brand online, but it’s also pretty time-intensive. Since you’re putting in all of that effort to draft, edit, post, and promote, how else can you repurpose your blog content give it some additional legs in your business? Here are 9 strategies that we’ve used to repurpose content within our own company: Sharing on Facebook (both within Groups and on Business Pages) Discussing the post on Facebook Live Discussing the post on YouTube Mi...
61 Danielle
February 13, 2018 04:27 - 38 minutes - 52.8 MBIn this episode, we chat with Danielle Joseph of Function Creative Co. Danielle is responsible for the branding of our podcast (and the design of the podcast’s website), but she is a talented entrepreneur in her own right. Danielle discusses her journey from employee to becoming the founder of her own design agency and shares some tips for working with designers (such as the one skill she wishes that all of her clients could learn). Other Mentions: Function Creative Co., The B...
Office Hours: Promoted Pins
February 08, 2018 01:33 - 16 minutes - 23 MBPinterest is a powerful tool for anyone who runs an online business. A whopping 92% of our social traffic comes from the platform, so it's time we share with you our secret sauce: Promoted Pins. With Facebook Ads, you generally target people by demographic or psychographic information. With Pinterest, you can target by search terms (i.e., you only pay to expose your advertisement to people who are already looking for what you’re selling). In this episode, we share seven tips for ...
60 Insourcing
February 06, 2018 04:16 - 35 minutes - 49.6 MBStarting an online business? You need to run (not walk) to go hire a virtual assistant (VA). At least that’s the conventional wisdom we were told when we first started this entrepreneurial journey... We’ve streamlined our team in recent months and taken over tasks that were once delegated to virtual assistants and agencies and it has been THE VERY BEST decision we could have made for our business. We call this process “insourcing,” and although we naively thought we coined the t...
Office Hours: Instagram for Business
February 01, 2018 05:58 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MBGiven that your business and personal life are likely to overlap, should you create a separate Instagram account for your business? Many online entrepreneurs consider their personalities to be part of their brands. A single account shows you walk the talk without getting overly sales-focused. If you mix business and personal, that balance makes your online presence feel more authentic and grounded. If you have a partnership like we do (or a larger team), on the other hand, you’l...
59 Ephemeral
January 30, 2018 04:00 - 34 minutes - 47 MBIn this episode, we discuss our theory of why tools like Snapchat and Instagram Stories have become so popular (and why they worry us at times). We’ve been wrestling for months with our opinions about ephemeral content on social media. Why, as entrepreneurs, would it make sense to put time into creating content that’s fleeting? At the same time, ephemeral content is often refreshingly honest and unscripted. Joy: Baron Fig Lock + Key Hustle: Plann
Office Hours: Hashtags
January 25, 2018 03:36 - 13 minutes - 18.4 MBToday’s episode dives into strategies for using hashtags (on both Instagram and Pinterest) to grow your online following. Hashtags allow your posts to become searchable on social media, so it’s a powerful way to get new eyes on your content. For Instagram, we recommend that you: Research the hashtags that influencers in your niche are using and exploe the hashtags that your quintessential clients are including in their posts as well Mix up your hashtag blocks so that you don’t ...
58 Resolutions
January 23, 2018 04:27 - 27 minutes - 37.9 MB“We are being sold on the need to upgrade all parts of ourselves, all at once, including parts that we did not previously know needed upgrading.” - Alexandra Schwartz It’s a brand new year, so that means our culture is abuzz with the aspirational narcissism of self development. In this episode, we discuss our opinions on New Year’s resolutions, the self help movement, and our society’s increasing focus on productivity. Other Mentions: Improving Ourselves to Death, Kids These D...
Office Hours : Online Challenges (Part 2)
January 18, 2018 01:14 - 12 minutes - 16.6 MBToday’s episode is Part 2 of our quick overview of online challenges. (You can listen to Part 1 here.) Offering a challenge can work wonders for your email list, but only if that challenge truly appeals to your audience. You’ll want to be strategic at every step in the process. Here are our tips for creating a successful email-based online challenge: Find out what your audience wants. If you offer a 10-day core strength challenge but your readers are more interested in meditati...
57 Visibility
January 16, 2018 04:47 - 29 minutes - 40 MBIn this episode, we summarize our big picture approach to online marketing. We see so much excitement among our clients about their teaching content, but all too often, marketing is an afterthought. We have four basic suggestions for getting your brand in front of new people: Master the Hashtag. Incorporate SEO. Invest in Paid Marketing. Be an Inspired Guest. Once you’ve got someone’s attention, how do you keep them interested in your brand? Get them on your email list vi...
Office Hours: Online Challenges (Part 1)
January 11, 2018 05:35 - 10 minutes - 15.1 MBToday’s episode is Part 1 of our quick overview of online challenges. An online challenge is a multi-step, user-driven series of activities guided by pre-written content. Challenge creators are usually trying to build their followings, and the challenge itself offers subscribers a tangible, fun, motivating reward for signing up. Online challenges can be run through blogs, Facebook Groups, Instagram, virtually any online medium, but if you’re aiming to build your email list, your ch...
56 Essence
January 09, 2018 03:19 - 24 minutes - 33.7 MB“Singularity is the source of innovation.” — Carol Sanford Although new entrepreneurs can benefit from initial coaching and mentorship, your value proposition ultimately comes from your unique essence. In this episode, we discuss the work of Carol Sanford and the reason why it is so important to identify your business’s essence. In some ways, essence is related to branding, but your business’s essence is bigger than its brand. As Sanford notes, “Essence is unique to each company...
Office Hours: Favorite Software
January 04, 2018 00:43 - 17 minutes - 24.2 MBBeing the founders of a software company, we kind of geek out on software tools. In today’s Office Hours episode, we dive into our favorite apps for new online business owners. Project Management: We love Trello best, but Asana is great too. Personal Email, Word Processing, Spreadsheets: G Suite Graphic Design: Canva Online Teaching Platform: Namastream Payment Processor: Stripe Video Editing: iMovie Email Marketing: Convertkit Website/Blog: Squarespace Team Commun...
55 Emulation
January 02, 2018 05:10 - 26 minutes - 36.4 MBAll of us, to some extent, borrow from others, from the culture around us. Ideas are in the air, and we may appropriate, often without realizing, the phrases and language of the times. We borrow language itself; we did not invent it. We found it, we grew up into it, though we may use it, interpret it, in very individual ways. What is at issue is not the fact of “borrowing” or “imitating,” of being “derivative,” being “influenced,” but what one does with what is borrowed or imitated ...
54 Gamification
December 26, 2017 18:01 - 29 minutes - 40.3 MBGamification involves taking an application or an online community and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, increase engagement, and foster loyalty. In other words, gamification is the process of applying psychological triggers to tech products in order to manipulate the way we behave. We, as humans, are animals who are hardwired to respond to incentives (and disincentives) in certain ways. We should all understand some of these basic triggers so that we c...
Office Hours: Lighting
December 21, 2017 03:47 - 9 minutes - 13 MBIf you want to create professional looking videos for your online business, good lighting is mission critical. Lighting is an art form that can seem intimidating when you’re first starting out as an online teacher, but this episode shares some basics to get you started without the stress. When setting up your lighting, you’ll want to keep these three simple goals in mind: Make the featured speaker (you!) look fabulous (i.e., prioritize lighting yourself over your background). ...
53 2017
December 19, 2017 02:43 - 39 minutes - 54.6 MBThis week’s episode dives into our favorite finds of 2017, along with a hearty dose of reflection. Listen in to learn why we love the following books, tools, thinkers, and ideas: Best Books: Deep Work, Drop the BallBest Netflix Shows: The Crown, Brojects, Reno My RenoBest Purchases: Madewell High Rise Jeans, Bellicon, Denim Jogger, Jamie Joseph RingsMost Influential People: Austin Kleon, Kelly DielsFavorite Instagram Accounts: @hellofunction, @code_likeagirlBest Decisions: res...
Office Hours: Live-streaming
December 14, 2017 02:01 - 10 minutes - 15.2 MBMany online teachers and coaches don’t realize that live-streaming can be a fantastic way to build the foundation for a new online business. If you leverage live-streaming wisely, you don’t have to have a single piece of pre-made content ready prior to taking your business online. So long as you have a basic website or Namastream site up and running, you can start offering live-stream sessions immediately. There are multiple way to leverage live-streaming, but these three are th...
52 Flyways
December 12, 2017 01:14 - 51 minutes - 71.4 MB“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” — Audre Lorde A flyway is an ecological term that describes a migratory bird route. It’s also the name of an incredibly forward-thinking investment firm founded by Hillary Strobel. We met Hillary at DazzleCon ‘17 and were immediately taken aback by her humility and unique attitude about investing. As a single mother with a background in literature and nonprofit management...
Office Hours: Pricing (Part 2)
December 07, 2017 03:34 - 11 minutes - 16.2 MBIn this episode, we discuss some of the differences in pricing online memberships vs. online courses. For memberships, you’ll want to anchor your prices to your local economy. A monthly online yoga membership, for example, should cost roughly the same amount as a single drop-in class in your area. If your students are used to spending more for in-person classes, they’ll be comfortable spending a bit more for online programs, too. Pricing for online courses vary widely in cost, m...
51 Write
December 05, 2017 01:54 - 28 minutes - 38.6 MB“I’m not at the top of my field, but I’m also a long ways from the bottom.” — Nathan Barry Establishing yourself as an authority figure in your niche is paramount to sustaining a business and growing a following online. Consistent content creation, be it in the form of a blog, a podcast, or a Facebook Live or YouTube show, is the best way we can think of to become known as an authority within your community. If you’re interested in becoming a blogger or beginning a writing proj...
Office Hours: Pricing (Part 1)
November 29, 2017 19:49 - 10 minutes - 15.1 MBIn our very first installment of Soulful MBA’s Office Hours, we’re going to share our 7-factor framework for pricing your online programs: Location: If you’re aiming to build a global brand online, location won’t be nearly as essential. But if you run a yoga studio in your hometown, or operate a hybrid of in-person and online services, your initial client base will come from your local community. Which means you need to make sure that your prices are appropriate for the people who...
50 Reflection
November 28, 2017 05:58 - 29 minutes - 40.8 MBWe’re fifty episodes into this project, so we thought it would be fun to share a bit of personal reflection on this whole podcasting adventure so far. Listen in to hear about our most important (and surprising) lessons as new podcasters, discover the one episode that we almost didn’t release, and check out what’s next for the show. Other Mentions: Good Life Project, Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy. Joy: Aston HALOHustle: SuperHi: Learn to Code Now
49 Embodiment
November 20, 2017 20:04 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MBAfter spending many months feeling uneasy about the public face of our brand, we’ve made the decision to consciously “embody” the company. We’ve chosen to do this in three ways: by being very open and honest about our Story by being intentional about our use of Imagery by making decisions from our Values In an era when products and services are increasingly commodified, we believe that embodiment can serve as an antidote. By showcasing our businesses as natural extensions of...
48 Bond
November 13, 2017 18:35 - 38 minutes - 52.7 MBKnown for her expertise as a renowned Facebook ads strategist, Amanda Bond gets real with us in this episode about the mindset hurdles she’s had to overcome in order to find success in her business. Amanda has learned to come to terms with her fear of not being “enough” by surrounding herself with people who support her, whether it’s through mindset coaching or within mastermind communities. She’s also learned how to lean into her fears over time and through her daily experience a...
47 Eighteen
November 06, 2017 20:39 - 32 minutes - 30.5 MBAfter sifting through our own clients’ stories (as well as the experiences of our friends and colleagues in online business), we’ve observed that it takes about eighteen months of consistent daily action in order to create a significant recurring revenue base — what some folks refer to as passive income. After taking hundreds of our community members through a free 5-Day Challenge last month, where we helped them go from idea to first paying customer, the same question came up ov...
46 Substance
October 30, 2017 19:45 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBThe Internet is chock full of people who are famous for being famous (or famous for teaching other people how to become famous). It’s exhausting. But we worry that this is more than a mere annoyance. The danger, we fear, is that SO many people with real gifts (and a true calling to teach and serve) are holding themselves back because their lives don’t look like what they see online. And although we’re in the online business space ourselves, we are constantly impressed with the...
45 Redundancy
October 23, 2017 04:27 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBSo many people in our community share the dream of building an online business, but feel overwhelmed by the process. We’ve taken the entire journey from idea to first customer and distilled it into a free 5-Day Challenge (soulful.mba/5days). While the challenge itself covers the nuts and bolts of creating a digital product, this episode focuses on the reasons why taking your business online is worth considering. Here are some of the major benefits that can come from taking your te...
44 Imperfection
October 16, 2017 19:07 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MB“When perfectionism is driving us, shame is always riding shotgun and fear is the backseat driver.” - Brené Brown In this episode, we discuss the ways that perfectionism holds us back in our businesses. We often see perfectionism used as an excuse for procrastination or as a reason to hold ourselves back once we’ve reached a certain level of success. Here are the 7 perfectionistic tendencies we’ve identified in our own business and with our clients. Listen in to hear how we add...
43 Kimra
October 09, 2017 22:45 - 47 minutes - 43.2 MBIn our first time featuring a guest on the podcast, we’re bringing you a raw, unfiltered conversation with Kimra Luna. Know widely in the online business and branding community for her unique and rebellious style, Kimra has built her Freedom Hackers® Mastermind Facebook Group to over 60,000 people and leveraged her personal brand into a 7-figure business. In this episode, we discuss Kimra’s unwavering confidence, her fears, her spirituality, her new identity as a single mom to thr...
42 Accountability
October 03, 2017 00:15 - 28 minutes - 26.6 MBOnce you’ve set goals for yourself in your business, how do stay committed and on track? Are you able to follow through when you’re accountable to others? To yourself? How you manage both external and internal expectations, according to Gretchen Rubin, holds the key to whether (and how) you’ll be able to take consistent action. How do we structure our accountability to one another as accountability partners? What do we think about mastermind groups? Listen in to learn our tips for...
41 Liberation
September 26, 2017 00:56 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MB“There becomes an innate knowing…” When you first start something new, it helps to follow the existing path, seek mentorship, and embrace best practices. At some point, however, you’ll need to start listening to your own intuition. As we’ve matured in our business, we’ve begun to withdraw from the cacophony of advice around us and, instead, turn inward for guidance. It’s been an incredibly liberating, exciting process—and one that is far from complete. In this episode, we disc...
40 Ruckus
September 19, 2017 02:25 - 28 minutes - 26.9 MB“Go make a ruckus.” - Seth Godin Regardless of your particular brand of business, money is not enough to drive most of you — there’s something deeper. There’s a problem that you’re trying to solve or an improvement to an existing way of doing things. If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s something special that you’re bringing to the table that no other person or business is doing in the exact same way. In our minds, you’re all making a ruckus. Ruckus-making, in the context of busin...
39 Integrity
September 11, 2017 19:37 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MB“We form each other. We are bound up in each other’s choices.” - Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer Integrity is about doing the right thing, being honest and consistent, and being in harmony with what you believe and how you act. It is also a critical element of being able to build anything that’s going to exist in the long run (a business, a government, a community). Do you make regular decisions in your business from a place of integrity or do you get sucked into the allure of Groupon...
38 Analog
September 04, 2017 21:01 - 32 minutes - 30.7 MB“Our accelerating disappearance into the digital ether now defines us—we are the mediated people, whose contact with one another and the world around us is now mostly veiled by a screen. We threaten to rebel, just as we threaten to move to Canada after an election. But we don’t; the current is too fierce to swim to shore.” - Bill McKibben After returning from summer holidays, we feel compelled to incorporate more analog habits into our lives and into our business. We’ve both felt ...
37 Waiting
August 28, 2017 23:23 - 32 minutes - 30.3 MB“Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another...
36 Disruption
August 21, 2017 12:49 - 30 minutes - 28.8 MB“It’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it. The level of power wielded over women in the tech industry rivals that in the film industry… It is so normalized, we brush it off and many of us casually participate because it’s easier. From what I’ve learned from friends, it permeates the finance and legal industries too… all these professions where the white male slightly sociopathic genius is put on a pedestal. The power at the top of that pedestal can be absolute. The struggle ...
35 Sanity
August 15, 2017 00:07 - 34 minutes - 32.2 MB“At the end of our lives, all we have is our attention and our time.” - Tristan Harris We’ve led about two thousand people through social media training programs in our business, but we want to come clean in this episode and share some of our fears about the role that social media is playing in our (collective) lives. While we love social for its ability to help us leverage our brands online, we believe that there is a time and place for our digital activities. Tune in to discov...
34 Feminist
August 07, 2017 21:48 - 26 minutes - 25.1 MB“Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression…. I liked this definition because it did not imply that men were the enemy. By naming sexism as the problem it went directly to the heart of the matter. Practically, it is a definition which implies that all sexist thinking and action is the problem, whether those who perpetuate it are female or male, child or adult.” - bell hooks It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that this podcast is ...
33 Humanity
July 31, 2017 22:00 - 33 minutes - 31.6 MB“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” - Albert Einstein The relationship between humans and technology goes back thousands of years, but who decides what gets built — and how? As science and engineering surges within academia and within our broader culture, the humanities have been in steady decline. But what gets lost when art, literature, and philosophy constantly take a backseat to STEM? Other Mentions: Learning to Be Hum...
32 Zeitgeist
July 25, 2017 01:42 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBIn the new economy, where the societal gatekeepers have largely been removed, everyone has the capacity to be a teacher (and also, of course, a student). Given the explosion of online education over the past five years, we’ve taken the position that online learning represents a cultural zeitgeist. In this episode, you’ll discover the reasons why we think it would be a shame to miss out on this historical business opportunity. Joy: MOOCs, edX.orgHustle: Namastream Software
31 Curiosity
July 17, 2017 23:50 - 32 minutes - 30.7 MBWhen you’re able to channel your inner curiosity, your entire relationship to your business changes. What’s the difference between passion and curiosity? What role does curiosity play in your life and business? It’s one thing to build products, programs, and services based on the surface-level needs of your audience, but it is a whole other endeavor to genuinely inquire about their deepest hopes and fears — but that’s where the magic happens. You have to learn new things all the tim...
30 Deep
July 10, 2017 23:12 - 25 minutes - 24.4 MBAccording to Cal Newport, “If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.” In an age of hyper-connectivity, it is so easy to move through our days without ever accomplishing anything meaningful. Because of the cacophony of social media notifications, text messages, and an overflowing inbox, the process of deepening our skills and creating original work has become a rare occurrence (and borderline subversive) in our culture. Today’s episode expl...
29 Cheap
July 04, 2017 03:59 - 31 minutes - 29.5 MBIn this episode, we discuss why you should NOT undervalue yourself, your business, and your entire industry by offering inexpensive products, programs, or services. We talk about the difference between "free" and "cheap" and why we recommend and often create valuable "free"content but constantly urge our clients to stay away from "cheap." We also discuss the dangers that come along with underpricing, particularly the negative energetic relationship that develops between you and your...