Writing with Purpose: How to Understand Your Audience and Create Compelling Content

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:00]
Well, hello, Krystal. I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. Welcome, welcome, welcome. 

Krystal Proffitt [0:03]

Thank you so much for having me. Lisa. I’m excited to chat with you about all things writing and just the whole journey. It’s going to be so much fun. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:07]
Well, for listeners, you and I work together. You have this amazing program. You coach people who have podcasts, and I have benefited so much from your wisdom, and I know that my audience is also going to benefit from you too, but I always like to give my guests the first chance to tell us about them. So, what would you like us to know?

Krystal Proffitt [0:35]
Oh, my gosh. Well, you have an awesome podcast that has elements of my story that I don’t often share in other spaces. So, for your audience in particular, I would just love to say, like, I’m a content creator at my core, that’s really what I like to call myself, because I am a writer. I’m a podcaster. I like to speak on stages, you know, Lisa and I have that in common, like, you know, just creating a story that can really connect with people is my bread and butter, and where I just really love to help other people make that as impactful as possible with their podcast content, their YouTube content, whatever type of content they’re creating. 

And I’ve been helping people do this since 2019. I actually started my first podcast in 2018, and then from there, it just kind of dominoed into this, like, “Oh, I really love connecting the dots between someone’s business and then the message that they’re trying to share,” and how those work together, and how we could do this with confidence. Because I think that everyone has a story to tell, but at the end of the day, we may feel like, “I’m being braggy” or “I’m being salesy,” just talking about my thing all the time. So, I really like taking people from that place of knowing that they have an important message to share and finding that right market to help them share their story and make some money doing it. I mean, it’s always the old adage of turning lemons into lemonade, but I mean that’s really where I thrive and have so much fun, is working with people through those just different parts of their journey.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [2:11]
And you bring so much enthusiasm to it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you on a day where you’re like, OMG. 

Krystal Proffitt [2:19]
I have them, Lisa, let me tell you. And we were actually chatting earlier about this, like, just, it’s been crazy busy. The last few weeks have just been, I don’t know what it is about 2025, it’s like, just ramping up, and I’m just like, oh my gosh, it’s just a really busy season of life for me. So, I definitely have those days. But speaking of writing and journaling and doing all that, I love my gratitude journal that helps ground me whenever I think about busy seasons of life or when things just feel chaotic, it’s like, yeah, but just imagine if you didn’t have this, like, imagine if you weren’t sitting here talking to Lisa and getting to share about the journey that you’ve been on or the opportunities that have been put in front of you. So, I just always go back to gratitude. It’s like there was a time in your life when you really wished that you were so busy with podcast stuff. It’s like we’ve created these opportunities. And I am just so grateful to be here. So, I do have those days, but I always like default back to gratitude, and I’m just so happy to be here even sharing that story today. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [3:23]
And I love that you have a gratitude journal. I have one as well. I write in it every night. And I think there’s this slogan in 12-step programs, “Let gratitude change your attitude,” and it really does. And I love how you talk about, yeah, today was busy, or this week was busy, and I’m overwhelmed, and there’s all these things, and this is a problem I wanted to have, and having that perspective is so important when you’re trying to do all these things. 

Earlier this week, you sent an email, and it may have even been yesterday, about all the things that you could possibly do. And I want to have a conversation with you today about how you find your audience and how you authentically engage with your audience. Because I think that’s something you’ve really talked with me about, that has been both an aha, and not in the sense that you didn’t know these things, but like, “Oh yeah, let’s go back to this really important piece.” And, how do you continue to do this in an authentic way across the long haul when there are so many things that you could do?

Krystal Proffitt [4:24]
Yeah, I’ll give you a little bit of perspective about who I am, like as a personality and how my brain works. I went to college to study business and marketing. So, from a theoretical, like, textbook version, I’ve always understood that you have a thing you want to sell it, or you want someone to buy it, however you want to look at it. You know, it’s like you need a buyer-seller relationship with business. That’s how I’ve always just understood business in general. And then I started consuming content in 2015-2016, like really started listening to podcasts, watching stuff on YouTube. And early on in my journey, I adopted the rule, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” And I’ve always had that in the back of my mind is like, “Oh, I want to create content the way I enjoy consuming content.” And that’s really stuck with me, and I think that that’s been kind of the breadcrumbs that I have just continued to follow in my journey. 

So, I’ll give you a great example. I will get on someone’s email list, and immediately, if I feel spammed or bombarded by all those things, I am just like, unsubscribe, out, deleting all these things, if I feel like someone’s just so aggressive and invading my privacy or whatever. But then I stop and reflect, and I say, “Oh, that’s how I feel. I don’t want my audience to feel that way.” And so, throughout my entire marketing journey of building my business, creating Instagram posts, writing newsletters, creating podcasts, I always go back to, “What would annoy me as someone listening to this?” Or “What would someone not appreciate?” Or someone would just say, “Oh my gosh, get to the point already. What are we even talking about?” Because I do find myself doing that when I consume other people’s content. So that’s the first tip:  just always have that hat on and be aware of who you are as a consumer and those red flags, or, you know, those things that you love too. 

Humor is something I always default to. I listen to other people’s content. I want to laugh. I want to be entertained. Content is a great escape for me. Whether I do have a very busy, proactive brain all the time, it’s planning, it’s creating ideas, it’s doing all this. So, whenever I listen and focus on content, that’s humor. I’m not planning. I’m just laughing. I’m just like, “Oh, this is putting me in such a great mood.” So I really encourage everyone that’s listening and hearing this conversation today is think about what are some of those things that annoy you or make you really happy about other people’s content, and have that in mind with your writing, with how you show up online, and what you continue to do just kind of as your North Star. And I promise you, so many things will become a lot more apparent when you are just aware of them.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [7:25]
Yeah, and I think that’s really important, because it serves both the content you create to support what in our field is the author platform, right? You have to have all these ways of reaching your readers, right? And I talk to people a lot about the writing process, and early on, you are the audience for your book, right? You’re bearing witness to your own experience. You’re trying to make sense of things. Eventually, it’s about other people. And so, the more you know about these other people and what they’re looking for, what are the questions they hope you will answer? How can you be of service to others? That’s what helps you create something that is powerful and connects.

Krystal Proffitt [8:05]
When you talk about audience, like, I do think it’s great to always be the first audience, right? Obviously, if you’re writing, if you’re creating something, but then from there, the way that I look at stuff, because for me, the audience, I don’t want to say it changes. It morphs from platform to platform, or what I’m creating depending on the message that I’m trying to get out there. So, I’ll give you a great example. I create content for YouTube, create newsletters, I create Instagram posts, I create show notes on my website. It’s like, so there’s all these different mediums. I mean, it’s audio, it’s video, it’s text. There are many different ways that people can actually consume the content, and so when I think about them, I don’t think, well, you know, Lisa’s listening here, and then Carrie’s over here, and then John’s over here doing this. I really like to think of it as like, “Oh, Lisa’s out on a walk today, and she is going to listen to my podcast and consume the message this way, but then she’s going to go read a book at night, whenever she is, you know, curled up in bed on the couch, or, you know, doing whatever she’s doing in her real life.” So, it’s like really thinking about your audience as a rounded person, again, putting yourself in those shoes.

 Because I think people, they default to thinking that someone’s going to see their content one time and just become obsessed with who they are and fall in love with everything they’ve ever done. But in reality, it’s just not what happens. People have to see your content multiple times. Maybe they have to test drive you. Do I really want to listen to her podcast or, you know, read all these newsletters? So, coming at it from a few different angles and showing maybe a sparkling of your personality over here, and then maybe go deeper in storytelling over here, or keep it high level and entertaining at this level, there’s multi-faceted levels for all of our journeys, and it’s just figuring out how do you want to apply it to which pieces. But I think a really important piece is just think about your audience as a multi-faceted person all the time, and then you can decide how you want to approach content creation in those different ways. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [10:16]
I’m thinking about it in two different ways. So one, there’s thinking about the person and how are they consuming content? Think about what is the day in the life of your audience? Right? Think of one audience member, what are they doing across the day? How can you reach them based on what they’re doing? And then I think about these different platforms, which often feel mysterious to people. I would say, especially to writers, how do you reach them based on what people are generally doing on that specific platform? And I’m wondering if you could give us some insights, because you do create content for many different platforms, like when you’re going to YouTube, what hat are you putting on in terms of thinking like, “This is how people consume information here,” versus Instagram versus your newsletter?

Krystal Proffitt [11:01]
Yeah. I mean, it’s a really good question, and I would say it has changed over the last probably two years. So, for a long time, I, myself, was consuming content on, “How do I grow these channels? What does that look like? How do I get a million subscribers?” Because that’s what you need to have, and that’s how it needs to go. And actually, I’ll tell you a really funny story real fast. Lisa, my nine-year-old was asking me this morning, I was doing something on my YouTube channel before he was going to school, and he was just like, “Oh, how many subscribers do you have?” And I was like, Excuse me. And he was like, “Well, how many do you have now?” Because he watches YouTube with his brothers, and that’s their form of entertainment. And I was like, “Oh, I think I’m almost to 9000.” You know? And he was like, “Oh, I guess that’s okay for a podcast channel.” So first, I’m getting shamed by my nine-year-old. He immediately goes into, “Oh, well, so and so started last year and he has 3 million.” I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So not only is it just rampant in the online space of people saying you got to get to a million as quickly as possible, even my nine-year-old feels that way about content. 

So, if anyone’s listening to this and they’re feeling that pressure of like, “I need to do whatever I have to do to get to that million,” no, you don’t. I want to give you permission to not have that pressure on yourself. Because back to your question, Lisa, I create on YouTube, and I create videos that are anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes, depending on if it’s an interview or a solo episode. And I’m not creating that to go viral and somebody’s listening, they’re like, “Wait, are you supposed to create everything to go viral?” No, I’m not. Because what I’m doing is, I’m creating that content really for my podcast first. It is for my podcast. And what I’m doing is I’m using the video version of that. I will clip it down to put on Instagram, to put on Facebook, to put on all these other places. 

So, I always think about, you know, the “Eat the Frog” phrase of, you know, they always say it’s attributed to Mark Twain. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s like the hardest thing that you have to do in your content journey. Do that part first. And for me, it’s recording the longest piece of content, that’s my YouTube video. And then from there, I kind of dismantle it and pull it into pieces, so that this will go on my podcast. This will go on my website as show notes. This will go on Instagram, and then I will talk about it in my weekly newsletter. And I know that probably sounds overwhelming for someone that’s not used to doing a lot of content. I’ve been doing this since 2018, right? I have lots and lots of practice, lots of habits, lots of systems in place, but for your audience, specifically Lisa, I think about, how can you showcase what you’re doing, even if it’s just behind the scenes of you writing, or it’s you working on your next project, or you get invited to be an expert in this one community, or whatever that looks like for you. I just really encourage everyone to figure out a way that you can share pieces of your journey, so that your audience can relate to you now, so that when you have that thing that you want to sell to them, they’re actually interested in just listening, not even buying, but just listening to what you have to say, because they’ve already connected with you.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [14:23]
Yeah, I love two things that you said. Number one, think about what is the broadest piece of content that you could create, and then think about how you can parse it out, cut it up, repurpose it for multiple places, because that is how you work smart rather than hard. Think about the big thing and then target it to whatever is going to be most appropriate to that format. The other thing is really listening to your audience. And I tell people this all the time. People say, “Well, how am I supposed to know who my audience is, or what do I do?” And you know what I see you do over and over and over again is ask. You go up to people and you’re like, “What do you like? What are you interested in? What are you doing?” You have these effective ways of doing that that I think generate answers. And I’d love to know more about how you don’t just ask your audience for feedback, but how do you get answers? Because that is its own issue.

Krystal Proffitt [15:19]
I think that every business owner, writer, author, creator, whoever you are, like whatever title you’re in, I think that you need to have at least one formal survey a year, and especially for those of you that are just starting a writing project, this is non-negotiable. You need to have this, because what this does is, for me, it gives me the language. Lisa fills out our survey. Now I understand what Lisa is saying, but also, I could really take Lisa’s words, digest them, marinate them a little bit, and say, “Oh, I need to use this language when I’m marketing this book.” Even coming on here and being able to say, “Well, I’ve talked to Carrie, and she said this, or Kathy, or Dan, or John,” like bringing actual people into the conversation and using names of people that you’ve worked with. And again, this is going to depend on the type of business, the type of writing that you’re doing, but having those connections makes other people want to go do it. They’re like, “Oh, well, it’s safe. I’ve heard Lisa’s name a few times. I know Lisa. I’ll go take that quiz too,” or “I’ll go give the feedback.” 

But the other piece is, I like to think of like the micro feedbacks that you can do throughout the year. And you can do this in your email. If you have an email newsletter, just saying, “Hey, we’re looking for some feedback on X, Y, and Z, tell us which one is most important to you.” And you could do actual polls or options, like there’s fancy ways you could do this, or just, very simply, just send an email and say hit reply if you’re interested or hit reply and let me know whatever that big question is that you’re wondering. And the other piece is, it cannot be stressed enough. Having real conversations with people in your audience. Nothing beats it. Nothing beats it. And I did an annual survey this year, probably the biggest one we’ve ever had—the biggest results. So, we’ll talk about how to actually get results with stuff. But I had the most responses. I had the most people curious about having a follow-up conversation after it. So, the way that I set it up was, I said, “You know, hey, we’re doing this annual survey. I gave away a free copy of my book.” So, I gave away a digital version, and this was not set up really fancy. I just saved it on my Google Drive and gave them a link. I was like, “Here’s the link to go download it so they could download my book just for filling out the survey.” But the ask was, if you want to go further, you know, let’s hop on a call. And I gave everyone $25 who hopped on a call with me. I think I ended up spending like $250 to have all these conversations. It was priceless to me. Like, I mean, that was like thousands of dollars’ worth of research feedback, like getting those actual words of what my audience is saying. It’s priceless to me. So, all of that to be said, there are different ways to get feedback, but how to get people to respond? Yes, I want to throw out a statistic that may shock you, speaking of going to school for marketing. I took a marketing research class once, and I remember being shocked when they talked about these big corporations that do surveys—how much percentage do you think the average audience responds? Like, let’s say you pulled this many people. Let’s say 3000 people to respond to something. How many people? What percentage do you think would actually respond? Lisa, I’m curious.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [18:56]
Well, I have done some surveys in the past, so I may have a pretty good answer. I know it’s less than 10%. If you get three to 5%, that’s doing pretty well.

Krystal Proffitt [19:07]
I would say 10% max would be like you are standing ovation. That is incredible, amazing. And I think that that shocks people, because they’re like, “I have 10,000 people on my YouTube channel, or I have this many people on Instagram, really, I’m only going to get this?” And I’m like, yeah. So, I think that part of it is level setting expectations, because people will come to me and say, “I did a survey, I have 100 people on my list, and only three people responded.” And I’m like, three people? That’s incredible! And they’re looking at me like, I have eight heads, like, “What do you mean? That’s terrible!” And I’m like, response is a response, right? Getting feedback. It is so impactful and important. Because, again, you can use that in your writing process. You can use that on your website, because everyone knows you got to have, like, a book website or whatever listing you’re going to do on Amazon. Like any of these things are super important. So, I think that feedback, in and of itself, is very important. And having that incentive. Maybe you don’t have a big budget to offer a $25 gift card to everyone, but maybe you have some sort of perk. Maybe you have a digital download. You have the luxury of giving your time to someone, if it’s just 15 minutes. It doesn’t have to be two hours, but 15 minutes of hopping on a call and having those conversations is, I think that that’s where the magic really is.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [20:32]
Yeah, and some things that I noticed that you do is, I was on this other podcast, I was talking about holding space for your guests, and how do you hold space for emotions and things like that? And I have this background in mental health counseling, and so I am the master of the open-ended question, right? And so, if people want to know what that means, I’m talking about a question where someone could say anything, and that can be really valuable for conversations like this. However, if you’re trying to get feedback, yes, no, ABCD, pick one. Making it as easy as possible, I think, incentivizes people to respond. And that’s what I noticed, that you do a lot. You ask a lot of questions. You have this beautiful podcast community that you have created in Podcasters Connect, which I love because it’s not on social media, it’s so intimate. And what you do is you ask all the time, like, here’s a question, here’s four answers. Just click a button. And I find that the more I ask those kinds of questions as a starting point, the more likely I’m to get a response, which can then lead to these longer conversations where you can ask something a little more open-ended.

Krystal Proffitt [21:44]
Thank you so much for saying that, Lisa, too. Like, just hearing that feedback is like, “Oh my gosh, this makes me so happy to hear that,” because that’s what it’s meant to do. It’s meant to be this quick. I don’t have to think longer than 30 seconds about my answer. I don’t have to type this long dissertation on how I’m feeling or what I’m doing, or because that’s overwhelming and no one has time for that. I think that that’s what it boils down to. Early in my journey, I thought, “Well, when I do a survey, I need to make it open-ended.” To your point of like, I need to have, like, a short answer option, or I need to have these write-in options. But what I found is most people see that and they’re like, “I just don’t have time for this.” But whenever I can guarantee that whatever I send in a survey format is going to take you less than five minutes, less than two minutes to respond is even better, because immediately someone is even willing to open it. 

You know, I’m a marketing nerd. I love marketing so much, and the thing that I’ve learned is you can’t just create the thing. I’m speaking directly to you writers today, right? Because you could write your book in a vacuum and think it’s the best thing that you’ve ever created, but if you’ve never shared it with someone or talked about the journey, like you’re really going to have an uphill climb just to get someone to consider reading it. I’m not even talking about purchasing it and actually buying it. So when I think about how the marketing journey, or the customer journey works for book writers, having that feedback, understanding you have to make it as easy as possible for someone to take like little bite-sized pieces of who you are as a writer. What is your style? What is someone going to get? Because it’s really going to round out someone’s decision when they do finally hit that purchase button and say, “I think I want to buy this book,” or “I think I want to listen to this book,” it’s going to just be so much more impactful and powerful for them to consume it, and this is the other piece, they’re actually going to consume it and finish it. 

Because, as writers, your uphill battle isn’t just to get someone to buy the book. Because, I mean, I’m going to call myself out on this. I have dozens of books that I have purchased in here, but I may not have finished all of them, and I sure as heck haven’t written Amazon reviews for all of them. This is another thing that we could get into, but reviews are like the bread and butter, like that’s the magic sauce for anybody that is creating anything. So, I think making it easy to consume, making it easy for people to give you feedback, it’s a skill, but it’s something that I think will be so valuable to your journey.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [24:23]
You want to make it as easy as possible. And I’m so glad you said something about that, those Amazon reviews, because people have lots of feelings about Amazon, especially right now. We could do five episodes on what that is, but we’re not going to go there. However, right now, Amazon reviews are huge, especially for authors, and when you’re thinking about an author platform, especially whether it’s a newsletter or you’re on social media platforms, your conversion rate is so important, right? Because number one, you want to convert people to followers, and that’s one level, but then to get them to buy your book. Which you’re basically saying, like, “Hello person out there in the world that I have never met personally. Will you spend 10 to 15 hours with me, either listening or, you know, in front of my book, and then once you’re done, will you take a little bit of time to go put five stars up and write a few sentences?” And that’s a lot. So, you have to convert people at each level to get them to a place where they’re going to be not just willing to do it, but excited to do it. 

And I think one thing that you do really well, and it’s how I feel, so I’m going to be sharing my feedback with you right now, if that’s okay, you make me feel known and seen, because you ask all of these questions, and when you ask all of these questions, I know that my opinion matters to you, and I know it matters, because not only do you ask these questions, but not too long later, I’ll see something that you’ve done that is a response to my answer. And you do this for all of us.

Krystal Proffitt [25:57]
I mean, I’m just like, I’m the Grinch, and my heart just grew like four sizes with you saying that, I love hearing that, because that’s really what the intention is behind it. Because something I learned a long time ago in my journey is it’s not fun to do any of this alone. It’s really not. And I think that there’s a lot of people going back to the virality and, like, being obsessed with the metrics, and, you know, all the things is like, I want to grow so fast, and I want to do all this, and I want to do all this, and then they get to the top, and then they’re looking around, and they’re like, “Oh, this is cool. I’m by myself.” Like, this isn’t that much fun by myself, or, you know, doing all these fun things. 

And I love having people in the community that have been around for years, because they are actually helping me shape my business and the journey that we’re going on together. Because, and this is a great example, for a long time, I created content for podcasters that were just getting started. I’m going to call out Kathy again. So, Kathy, like, friend of the pod, like she’s in our community. She has this podcast, and she was starting, and then she got to a point where she was like, “This is great, Krystal. I so love your content, all you’re doing, but I’m not a beginner anymore. Like, I’ve been around here, like I need the next steps, like you’re my coach, like I’ve already decided, like you’re who I want to learn from, but I need the next steps. I’m no longer a beginner.” And so, it was really transformative for me as a coach and someone who helps other people to say, “Oh, yeah. Like, it goes back to that multi-faceted, like, approach of how your audience is going to continue to evolve.” 

And specifically for writers, I think about people that have written multiple books, yes, and they’re like, how do I keep going? Like, I put my heart and soul into that very first book, and now I’m like, “What’s next? How do I keep going?” It’s getting in conversation with your people. Your people can drive it and going back to you don’t want to be the person at the top all by yourself. It is so much more fun to launch a book when you have what I call your launch squad, or your pod squad, you know, if you’re launching a podcast, that’s what we like to call it. But book launch, folks, I don’t have to be the one to tell you, Lisa, like, you know, pre-orders are everything, getting people in your corner before the thing is even sold, because writing the book is just the first step, right? Then you have to market it, then you have to sell it, then you have to promote it, and then you don’t stop. You keep promoting it, you keep talking about it, and it’s a marathon that you don’t want to do alone. And I think that maybe the writing process for a lot of people is a solo endeavor. You have to go, and you do it. Maybe you work with an editor. Maybe you’re working with a publisher, whatever that journey looks like for you. But at the end of the day, having your hype squad that is just saying, “Yes, this book is incredible,” or even if they haven’t read the book, just a testimony to who you are as a person. Maybe you’re in an industry where you know, like, “Oh, I’ve learned from that person,” or “I’ve listened to their podcast,” or “I’ve been following their newsletter forever. I cannot wait to read this book,” but having those core people around you, even if it’s just five or 10 people, it doesn’t have to be thousands. It could just be a few people. Man, that accountability along your journey, helping you move forward, inch forward into the next step can just be so helpful.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [29:23]
Absolutely. And we talk a lot in the writing field about how it takes a village to raise a writer. It really does and having that accountability along the way is really important. And I’m going to give a quick shout-out to my client, Casey Mulligan Walsh. Her book recently launched. She was on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, and Casey has 200 people that she knew across various parts of her life who came together for her book launch team. Because she did all this work, making it really simple, easy asks, reminding people, and giving people shout-outs on social media when they did what she asked. Her book launched at number two in the grief category on Amazon, and she is a small press author. That is a Herculean feat. And listeners, you all know what I mean by that, because we’ve talked about small press versus big press. 

Krystal Proffitt [30:18]
Oh my gosh, I’m celebrating Casey. I’m smiling so big for you, because that is a huge feat. And I think that’s what it comes back to—rallying your people. But the other part is making the ask. And I don’t know about you, Lisa, but I am not the person. I’m an Enneagram three. I’m going to do this on my own. I got this. I’m also a Capricorn. I don’t know if that’s like double trouble, but I’m just like, I’m the one. I’m going to put everything on my back, everything’s on me, everything’s on my shoulders. I don’t need any help from anyone. But it’s so funny because whenever I think about the journey of writing or the journey of creating something, and I make that simple ask to my people, they show up time and time again. Because I’ve been putting work out for a long time and not asking for anything in return, whether it was free podcast episodes or newsletters or whatever it is. So, if anybody’s listening and you’re scared, you’re nervous to make that ask, I promise you there are people in your life who will be so ecstatic to give you that gift, to give you that back. Like, absolutely, I’d love to tell people about your book. I would love to tell people about your book launch. I would love to rally for people to go leave reviews or go to Goodreads and like, do all these things. But you have to be super clear on exactly what you want people to do. Back to that short list of very clear instructions—be very explicit. Have assets ready. When I’m making the ask, I’m going to give you specific instructions: Go to this link, do this thing. And people will say, “Well, isn’t that kind of treating people like children?” Or “I don’t want to do that.” And I’m like, “No, it’s being very intentional about what you want people to do, so there’s no confusion.” I love it when people send me instructions like that: “Click here, do this, do that. Here’s a prompt that can even get you started.” It goes back to making it easy for busy people, because we’re all so busy doing things.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [32:14]
And I think the more you attend—and that’s what I think of it as—attending to your audience, recognizing the preciousness of their time and honoring it through those clear instructions, you’re going to get more yeses. But you’re also going to have their gratitude because they’re like, “Oh, thank goodness you recognize all of the things happening in my life, and this is just one.” So yes, I am going to happily do what you’ve asked of me. 

And I think that is how you bring joy to the process. And this is one way that you have helped me over the past little bit. Because, you know, my life sometimes gets really busy. I have a dad that I’m a caregiver for, so I have a lot of things that I’m navigating. And it can be easy to fall into exhaustion and burnout if I allow that to happen. Having that gratitude for each and every person who comes to me—like, every time I get a new subscriber, I actually pause for a second and say a little prayer of thanks. You know, if somebody decides to be a paid subscriber on my Substack, I’m like, “Thank you so much.” Even if I don’t have access right there to say thank you. And I am saying thank you. I’m sending that email like, “Thank you for being here.” And when people are giving me feedback in a variety of different ways, I’m saying thank you inside myself for that energy, and I’m thanking them. And I’ve even started thanking people at the end of my podcast for listeners that are saying something kind or asking a question. I’m saying, like, “Thank you for giving me that feedback,” and it’s on that recording. One person, who has just been a part of my journey for a long time, I don’t know how many years she’s followed my newsletter. She said all kinds of things, and she’s been a very loyal, I’ll say, fan—I’m going to use that term. She heard her name at the end of a podcast episode, and she said it made her day to hear that.

Krystal Proffitt [33:59]
It’s so powerful. I used to read reviews on my podcast. Because, I was to your point, I was so touched by someone. Because I know it is an intentional thing that they had to do. They had to get their phone out, they had to go to a specific part on Apple, they had to click the button, give the star rating. They had to type in a title. They had to type in… This was before ChatGPT could just spit out a generic anything. And I was just so floored every time I got one of those. And I wanted to be very intentional about it. So, for anyone that’s getting those book reviews, I mean, and Lisa knows this, we talk about content audits and like social proof all the time in our community, but I’m like, plaster those all over your website, all over your social. If you are getting reviews, share those with other people, because it is one of the easiest ways for you to market. Let other people be the cheerleaders in your world, because they want to. They want to do that. And I think it’s a lot easier for me to say, “Lisa loves our Podcasters Connect,” like you heard it here first. She loves it. It’s easier for me to put that on, you know, word of mouth is super, super powerful. But having other people brag on your books, brag on your content, and what you’re doing—it’s just an easier sell to get other people to come into the conversation instead of just saying, “You know, guys, I’m amazing. Have I told you how awesome I am lately?” Because no one—no one cares about that. No, I don’t want to listen to people that talk about that either.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [35:33]
Those personal, human connections are so much more meaningful than numbers, right? I mean, yes, numbers can be meaningful to certain people or especially in publishing, sometimes they talk a lot about that. But those human connections are the most important. Well, this has been an awesome conversation. I think we could talk for the next 10 hours, and it would be so much fun. And I know that you have some place to be. But if people want to learn more about you—if they are, I’m going to say podcast curious, which, you know, some of y’all should be—and they want to learn about Podcasters Connect, or your amazing courses, they want to buy your book, what are the best ways for people to find you online and connect with you?

Krystal Proffitt [36:15]
Yes, so you can go to KrystalProffitt.com, and that’s the best place to get started. That’s Krystal with a K, and Proffitt has two F’s and two T’s. I always have to spell it out for everybody, so they make sure it lands in the right place. But we’ll have everything there for you to learn more about what we do. And I do have a book. It’s called Start a Binge-Worthy Podcast. You can find that on Amazon. It’s also an audiobook, and I keep getting these signals from the universe that I’m going to be writing another book, which I don’t know, we’ll see. We didn’t even get into that today, but maybe, maybe we’ll have to come back on and have another conversation about what that looks like in the future too. But yeah, I’d love for anyone that’s curious about podcasting or content creation to come hang out with us.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [36:57]
Well, I would love to have another conversation with you about this potential book. And what I will say for listeners is that if you check out Krystal’s things for any other reason—whatever pieces of her content, her book, her newsletters, all her things—Krystal has an amazing voice, right? You have this captivating voice. I love reading all your pieces. I love listening to you because of how you connect with us. And so, for no other reason, if you want to see just a joyous voice, go check out what she does, and you will be able to find all those links in the show notes.

Krystal Proffitt [37:33]
Thank you so much for saying that, Lisa. That’s really special, and I appreciate it.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [37:36]
Well, I truly mean it and thank you for being here today.

Krystal Proffitt [37:39]
Thank you for having me.