The Long-Term Value of Podcasting: How Nicole Spencer Built Trust That Scaled
What role does podcasting really play in building trust at scale and long-term business value?
In this episode, Nicole Spencer shares how podcasting became a foundational trust-building asset in her coaching business, Authentic Conversion, which grew to $1.6M in annual revenue before a successful exit in 2023.
Nicole walks through how her weekly podcast supported audience nurturing, credibility, and sales not by chasing downloads, but by creating a library of content that answered the exact questions her future clients were already asking.
She explains how podcasting fit into her broader marketing ecosystem, why testimonial episodes were especially powerful, and how the experience prepared her for launching a brand-new show in a completely different niche years later.
Listen To The Full Episode Here:
What You’ll Learn:
How Nicole used podcasting primarily as a trust and credibility tool.
Why a content library mattered more than constant new discovery.
How podcast episodes supported sales conversations and client conversions.
The role podcasting played during rapid growth and business expansion.
Why consistency mattered more than complexity over four years of publishing.
How podcasting prepared her for a successful exit and a fresh creative chapter.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“The most helpful was having this huge database of content that talks about all these different things that our clients wanted to know about.”
“I used the content in so many different places for so many different purposes, not primarily for people finding me necessarily.”
“A big part of what made me successful that I always focused on, whether it was in my fitness studio business or in my business coaching, was nurturing our audience.”
Resources:
If you’re curious about what podcasting could look like for your business, schedule a free strategy call below and let’s map it out.
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Welcome to Cashflow Podcasting, where business owners reveal how their podcasts have supercharged their success. My podcast completely transformed my training business, so I've seen firsthand the magic that podcasts can work. And here's the best part. You don't need millions of downloads to boost your business's revenue and impact. Let our guests show you how.
Pete Mockaitis: Nicole, welcome.
Nicole Spencer: Hello. Thank you for having me.
Pete Mockaitis: Well, I’m so excited to hear about your podcast journey on two fronts: a stroll down memory lane for the past and now what you're up to in the current day. Could you orient us a little bit, if we go back in time, set the scene for us, what are you up to?
What's your business and what got you thinking, “Huh, maybe a podcast makes sense here”?
Nicole Spencer: Yeah, so from the beginning of 2018 until specifically September 1st, 2023, I launched and built a company called Authentic Conversion. I sold it September 1st, 2023, which is why there's that marker. And the company started as business coaching for health and fitness professionals.
That was my background. So helping personal trainers, fitness studio owners, and things like that. And then slightly before the pandemic hit, but certainly during the pandemic, we made our big adjustment to helping those coaches build businesses online. And then after a couple of years, we opened up to working with all different types of coaches, so other business coaches, spiritual coaches, life coaches all different types of finance coaches, all the things.
That business built quite quickly. I was definitely in at the right time. I had a great program. I had a lot of credibility and experience. And as we were really expanding, 2020 was just a very easy time to expand when you're teaching people to build online businesses. We've tripled that year, I think. And then I was just looking for other ways to be out there all the time in front of as many people as possible.
And a big part of what made me successful that I always focused on, whether it was in my fitness studio business or in my business coaching, was nurturing our audience. And so adding a podcast to the mix where I worked with your company, Cashflow Podcasting, and I was releasing a weekly episode. It was somewhat helpful for new discovery, but where, for me, it was the most helpful was in having this huge database of content that talks about all these different things that our clients wanted to know about, and having that out there for people to listen to, which helped build my credibility and helped build trust, and ultimately helped them become clients.
So really that's where I saw it fitting in the most for that particular company.
Pete Mockaitis: Absolutely. And that is a theme we've heard over and over again. Especially in a crowded world where there's lots of advice from lots of places. Who do you trust? What do you choose to tune into versus tune out of, and in a podcast helps you do just that?
Could you share a little bit about how you knew that it was achieving that goal?
Nicole Spencer: Yeah. I mean, people would reference it all the time.
Pete Mockaitis: All right, there you go.
Nicole Spencer: And some of them were, I was doing a lot with it. It was going on the podcast, but when I would record these episodes, I would live-stream them into the Facebook group that I had.
It had over 20,000 people in it, so we were getting a lot of visibility. Then you guys would do the audiograms and all that, and the episodes would come out, and I'd share in my stories. Sometimes I would send emails that referenced and drove people to listen to episodes of the podcast, and we were actively pushing people that way, particularly with our testimonial-based ones where I'd have clients on and interview them.
And those were a huge selling point for a lot of people as well, where they could hear all these different stories of people with all these different backgrounds and experiences who have had success working with us and a big selling point for many people.
Pete Mockaitis: Did we cross paths initially?
Nicole Spencer: Honestly, I don't remember.
Pete Mockaitis: Okay, no problem.
Nicole Spencer: I wanna say maybe it was through a Mastermind that I was part of and someone suggested, but I honestly can't remember. But I don't typically Google search stuff like that. I want to have an introduction or a recommendation. So if I had to guess, that would be it.
Pete Mockaitis: Oh, sure thing.
No, that makes sense. There's trust again, and I'm thinking no matter. There's a lot of domains. It's interesting to just reflect on that. If you're buying a pair of socks, that's probably, “Okay, I don't need a human's recommendation on that,” most likely, although they still help. Darn tough.
Yeah. I love 'em. Yeah. For what it's worth. So a recommendation most likely is what kicked it off and then what happened?
Nicole Spencer: Then it was just really easy. One of the things that I liked about working with your team was that it was all done for me. All I had to do is record the episodes each week, put 'em in Dropbox, and then the team took care of the rest because I have no interest in editing video and doing all the things that you guys really took care of.
Pete Mockaitis: I hear that. Absolutely. Especially when you're running a business, you have a lot of other things on your plate. And I will go so far as to sometimes quantify what is the approximate cost and value of different activities. And as a business owner, the value of an hour spent on any number of things that need doing tends to be rather high and freeing up those hours is powerful.
Nicole Spencer: Yeah, absolutely. It was definitely helpful. And I had the show for just under four years as I worked within the company for about 15 months, once bringing my business partners in, before ultimately transitioning out, and I continued to do the show every week for that entire time.
Pete Mockaitis: And so you said you quickly tripled around 2020. That's amazing. To the extent that you're comfortable, can you share some numbers associated with whatever it is? If it's revenue or clients or how you thought about business growth?
Nicole Spencer: Yeah. This was at a time where I was mostly doing things solo.
I had one part-time team member to help me with some different client support-type stuff. I also had a few contractors, someone who helped me run ads and someone who did some marketing consulting and build-outs and stuff with me. But I was doing the majority of it. So 2019, I don't remember the exact numbers.
I know we did maybe a little over half a million in 2019. So that was the second full year in business. So I was definitely hitting my stride, and we were averaging about $25,000 to $30,000 a month for a while, and then I brought in someone to do my ads, and then it quickly went to 40, 50, 60.
That kind of all happened in 2019, and then so we'd already hit our stride with what was working in terms of the marketing, and then 2020 hit, everyone suddenly needed to take their business online, and we did about 1.6 million that year.
Pete Mockaitis: Beautiful.
Nicole Spencer: Yeah, so I was, at the time, I was running these coaching cohorts, like every month, starting different groups of students in April, 2020.
I'll never forget, I had to open two cohorts because there was just so much demand. So yeah, 2020 was a really good time for me in business.
Pete Mockaitis: Absolutely. Congratulations. Yeah. And then a successful exit, not too long thereafter. That's really cool. And I guess it could be hard to know when the podcast is serving a lead-nurturing trust trust-building, relationship-deepening function over time.
But could you hazard a guess as to, boy, what might have happened in a non-podcast world?
Nicole Spencer: Honestly, I have no idea because I used the content in so many different places for so many different purposes. Not primarily for people finding me necessarily, but I think where I really appreciate it the most right now is that since exiting, I took close to a year off and recently just launched a brand new show.
Totally different topic, totally different niche. And so I feel like doing this previously in a lot of ways prepared me for this creative project that I wanted to pursue now.
Pete Mockaitis: Alright, Nicole. Thank you.
Nicole Spencer: All right. Thank you for having me.
Thanks for joining me today. If you're ready to start your podcasting journey to grow your thought leadership and boost your revenue, schedule a call with us at cashflowpodcasting.com/chat. Don't wait to take your business to the next level. I'm Pete Mockaitis. Until next time.