There’s a fundamental concept that transcends industries, a concept that can transform your approach to marketing and business. This concept is the cornerstone of success, whether you’re launching a new offer, running a podcast, or just growing your business. Complexity might seem impressive, but it often obscures what truly matters.
Whether you’re a business owner, a content creator, or simply someone with dreams and aspirations, this episode is packed with insights that will help you simplify your path to success, focus on what truly matters, and break free from the illusion that complexity equals progress. Listen in as I chat through the world of simplicity, authenticity, and achieving your goals in today’s ever-changing landscape.
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh
Hello, my friends, welcome back to the podcast and Happy September. Here we are in September. I’m back in Texas. We got back last week and I really wanted to have, we had like, five days between when we got back and when my kids started school and I wanted them to be bored. I told my husband I’m like, they need to experience some summer days where they’re bored because that’s such a part of summer as a kid is that you’re at home and you’re like, I don’t know what to do and you have to figure out with your imagination, something to do. So they actually weren’t that bored because we got home and they’ve been gone for a month. So all their toys and everything they have is like new to them, but anyway, so I wanted them to have time to just, like, chill out. We didn’t, we had like one social plan, but otherwise we didn’t do much. I’m, I love, like, it’s therapeutic for me to organize. So I always love, like, any time it’s like a new season, like going back to school or January. I like to just like organize all their clothes and all their toys and, I don’t know, it’s therapeutic for me. So I did that and my kids hung out and we worked outside a little bit. It is still very hot here, but I’m not gonna complain because honestly being able to be gone, all of August is like such a difference and hopefully we’ll have some fall weather soon because I think this week there’s one day that it’s gonna be 100 and four degrees so if it’s fall where you are and you get to start wearing sweaters, just know I’m very jealous of that and I’m gonna pretend it’s fall soon because it’s not yet here, another update if you have been following her, I’m, I’m sure I shared on the podcast my garden. And so I left my garden for a month and I had a neighbor taking care of it. She’s younger. She’s 13. But, it got infested by aphid bugs when I was gone, like, so bad, like, millions of them all over the leaves. And I, as soon as I got home, actually, before I got home, the neighbor was like, it’s not really looking very good. And I was like, oh, no. And so I had a friend come and look at it and he was like, yeah, it’s, it’s bugs. Like, even if she wasn’t watering, not enough, like, it’s the bugs. And so I bought 3000 ladybugs on Amazon, by the way, you can buy ladybugs and worms on Amazon and I tried to help it, but it was just too far gone. I mean, it like the leaves were covered in them. So really sad. And it’s such a lesson because that is partly like how nature is, right? You can’t always control, you can do your best and you can put a lot of time and energy and like, yeah energy into something and then it can die. And so I put so much into my garden, but in this case, I really enjoyed the process. So I don’t feel less sad about it. I mean, I’m bummed but I’m like, it’s ok. We’ll, we’ll restart like I’m gonna do a whole fall planting season because especially here it’s like for sure, warm enough to plant. And so I’ll do that probably in a couple of weeks. And, yeah, so I went out Saturday and once I made the decision, like, I don’t think this is gonna turn around, I think this is past its, its point of return to healthy, a healthy garden. I cleared everything out and cleared all the beds and we harvested what we could, we got some squash and pumpkins and watermelon. But anyways, my husband came out and he’s like, I’m actually really impressed because you’re not just doing the fun parts of gardening for the sake of like it looking good. Like you’re getting dirty and you’re doing it. And I’m like, yeah, because this is my thing and I committed to this garden, like I planted it. I’m gonna be the one to clear it and, and replant and I’m not really one to do a lot of like, physical labor. Like, it’s not really me and I’m not good at, like, being handy or anything like that. And so I think it surprised him, so anyways I spent the whole morning doing that, it was kind of fun, like it was fun to get dirty in the dirt and like work in the garden. So we are almost done this week building a 20 ft by 30 ft greenhouse on our property. And then I’m gonna redo the whole garden area. So I will have lots of room for gardening because y’all know me, I do everything 100 and 10% right? I mean, they’re all in to the extreme or I’m not gonna do it. So once I was into the gardening, I’m like, well, it has to be like this.So here we are. OK.
Today’s podcast episode. My goal with it is to serve as inspiration and a reminder we’re going into a new month, which is always a great opportunity for a reflection, thinking about, you know, what is going well, what’s not going well, what you can shift, what you want to shift and change into this coming month. And we’re also in a new season. It’s just a good time for that. And I had the inspiration for this podcast actually a while back and then I got re inspired to do it because of an artist that I love, who released a new album. So I’m gonna tie all these together and that is really the mindset and the way that you should be looking at your marketing and, and just a really important reminder. So that reminder that I wanna have for you guys today that’s like should be running in the back of your head. And what I’m gonna challenge you to do is look at your marketing and look at your business and ask yourself if you are doing this or not. And that’s the importance of keeping things very simple and remembering that majority of success, if not all of success, at least the foundations of it come from simple execution. So whether that’s a marketing strategy, whether that is how you’re releasing and launching a podcast or a youtube channel or a new form of content, a new offer, a business success actually lies in things being simple because complexity never works. And I do think people confuse simple to mean easy, simple does not mean easy, simple can actually be very challenging. But keeping things simple is going to set you up for success and also consistency. And so let me give you the back story of where I got the inspiration to do this. It was two things. One, it was a conversation that I had with someone about my own podcast. And then two, I’m a huge Zach Bryan fan. He’s a country singer. He’s amazing. I love his story. I’ve been to his concert twice and it’s one of my favorite things to attend a concert with an artist who is just so talented, like raw talent and witnessing them in their flow in their element in something that like you can’t put words to, but you can see it and feel it. And so I felt that the first time I saw him in concert and I felt that with other people, like I saw Chris Stapleton last year and, and felt the same thing. But I just adore Zach Bryan. I adore his music. I think his writing is so powerful and incredible. I think his story is really cool and I also love how simple he keeps things. So Zach Brian became famous. He’s only been touring, I think two years and he became famous through a viral tiktok video when he was in the Navy of him singing one of his songs, which is really cool and shows the times of how artists are able to get recognized and you know, seen and, and grow a following through social media. Whereas before you had to get, you know, like an agent and a label and all the things. So that’s really cool. And then he’s only been touring for two years, but he sells out these stadiums, like 20 25,000 people in these stadiums and they’re sold out within, I don’t know, hours but definitely days of him releasing, it’s probably hours of him releasing his tickets. He also does something really cool where he limits the price of the ticket. He doesn’t go through like Ticketmaster, he sells it on his own site and he limits the price. So the maximum that you’ll pay is like, I think it’s 11 50 maybe for like a good seat. We we got upfront seats for that cost and then people can’t resell them, you can only resell for what you paid on his website. So super cool, super genuine guy like he could make a lot more money and he’s not and he just released a new album and one of the things I loved about the way that he released it, which showed that what truly matters is what got him his fame and his success and what truly matters with music is what the quality of the music, the lyrics, the writing, the actual talent, the raw talent that goes behind the music, not the bells and whistles. And I think that’s even more so true today than it used to be because I think the bells and whistles could hide and cover for somebody with not as much talent, but he released this album and he definitely teased it a little bit over the last few months like that, he was working on it and he released like a clip, but it wasn’t this huge, like launch plan that a lot of in most artists do. So you look at Luke Combs who released his album in March and there was giveaways and there was, you know, releasing the songs spread out, you know, each week and like a big hype leading up to the album and that’s how most of them do it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but it proves that you can release an album in the casual simple way that Zach Brian did and still make all the top charts and get record breaking downloads, listens, whatever. So Zach Bryan was basically like teasing his album very casually on social media and then he’s like, it’s releasing Friday and he just released the whole thing, like no teasing of the songs just here you go. The album cover is like so simple. It’s funny. And he’s in the top, all of his songs are in the top 20 all. Like, I think there’s 14 songs are in the top 20. And what that proves is the success of his goal of, of being in the top charts, of getting his music out there to as many people as possible comes from the foundational core principles of good music of him being talented, his writing and also his following and his relationships and so he can add in and get an agent and add in, you know, the bells and whistles of doing a launch plan and having things leading up to it and teasing songs and, you know, having other people who have a big following, share it and all those things, but that’s not gonna make or break his success. That will probably add, if he wanted to do that, it would add to his success, maybe probably would. But is it necessary to be successful? No. So that transitions into my conversation about my podcast that I had that inspired me to do this in the first place. This episode is I had a conversation with someone who was like, how have you recorded, you know, 500 episodes and like, what’s your process? And I could tell that their assumption was that I had this like complex, set up this like complex process with all of this editing and like, we put a lot into it and what’s gonna make or break a podcast. Two things, the quality of the content, right? The quality of the content at the root of it is what’s gonna bring back listeners and increase downloads and then you’ve got to have a good mic like, like that’s not a, that’s not an extra bell and whistle. Like if you’re going to record a podcast, the audio has to sound good or people aren’t gonna listen to it. My podcasting process is so simple. I have a microphone that I can bring anywhere I bring it when I travel, I just plug it in with the USB and I’ve had the same one, almost all five years. I think I got a new, one of the same brand in five years. So I’ve had two. I don’t record it on video most of the time because I don’t want to have to be video ready and, and I just go and I hit, I hit record and I upload it to Google Drive. My team does a very light editing. Like we never, I mean, the other day, I left my kid coming in and saying mom into the episode, like we, we add, you know, intro out, we do a little bit of editing, we pull the clip but it’s, it doesn’t take that long. It’s very, very simple and it’s very successful. My podcast, it’s one of our number one drivers for new clients. Our downloads are constantly increasing and going up. We’ve been in the top charts on podcasting and it’s because those foundational things are the priority and we keep everything else simple so that we can stay consistent. And I think in marketing, a lot of people think complexity is going to equal success. The more emails and steps and pieces that I have with my marketing will just bring me success because it distracts you from what truly matters and you can’t fake the core things. You cannot fake quality content. You can’t, if I got on here and I didn’t know what I was talking about and I wasn’t gonna deliver you guys quality. It would be just a short, short amount of time until nobody continued to listen to this podcast. You wouldn’t come back to it. Right? And I can’t fake that I have to genuinely show up and deliver valuable content. And that’s what I put the most into in my podcast is the topics, the content thinking about that, putting energy into that thought into that and intention into that, not into the process and the studio and the fancy equipment. I don’t need those things, right? And you can’t fake relationships, you can’t fake true connection with your audience. One of the reasons Zach Bryan is so successful is his insane following because he shows up authentically as him and genuinely as him. And it’s very obvious that he cares about his audience and the people that follow him and he’s not just in it for the money, he genuinely cares which in return has created an amazing impact and money for him and success and fame. But the root of it, he cares about his people and you can’t fake that people will see through that. You can’t fake connection, you can’t fake authenticity, you can’t fake relationships and you can’t fake that quality. So what matters and where the effort should go should be the quality of your content, the quality of your delivery and your offer, the quality of how you show up and what you deliver to your audience, to your leads to your customers. Those things are the root in the foundation of it and if those things are not in place, you won’t be successful. Ok. Adding the bells and whistles of the fancy equipment or the extra edited video or the, the bigger, you know, launch or whatever it is, those things are gonna maybe add to your success once you already have a foundation of success, I’m not saying that they don’t help. I’m saying that they’re not gonna make or break your success. So adding complexity to your strategy or your execution doesn’t matter if you haven’t even done the thing, if you haven’t even created the initial foundational success. And so I think one of the things that I do really well is once I have something in my mind that we’re gonna do, it’s decided and we do it and we somewhat build the plane as we’re flying, which that can be a strength and a weakness, but it is a strength if you’re able to do that and not get in your head and overthink things. And I’ve learned over time in building my business to surround myself with team members who are really good at operations and keeping things organized and keeping us from making sure the plane doesn’t explode as we’re going, but I’m really good at like, let’s go on the fly. And so I lean into that. So when I decided to do a podcast five years ago, it was like, ok, we’re doing it. I’m not overthinking it. I’ve changed my cover art over the years. If you go back 500 plus episodes, I’m sure I sucked. I’m sure they were not good compared to today. My equipment has stayed the same. My process has barely changed. We’ve improved things. We’ve tried different things. We’ve tried different forms of commercials. We’ve tried this series, we’ve tried things and we’ve continued to do things that work and we have not done things that didn’t work and we’ve improved along the way. You can always improve, but you just have to go, you just have to take that first step and so many of you stop yourselves from taking the next step because you’ve convinced yourself that in order to do X, I have to finish XYZ. And you have believed that as truth in order to launch my podcast, I’ve gotta have a studio, I’ve got to have 50 topics planned. I’ve gotta have my audience surveyed or whatever it is and you and you create this complexity that’s not real. In order to launch the podcast, you need a microphone and valuable content, that’s it. And if you show up authentically as you and leveraging your skill sets, that’s not gonna be that hard to create so just launch it, launch it imperfectly, fix it as you go. And one of my other core values is strive to be better than yesterday as well as speed. So I execute and then I’m constantly improving and we’re trying and we’re testing and some things work and some things don’t, but I never let it hold me back, making something too complicated. And we have done that before where things are complicated and I recognize it and I’m like, this is too complicated. We gotta to scale it back. It doesn’t need to be this complicated. Let’s make it simple. Focus on the foundations. So this is a podcast for you to reflect and look at in your business with your marketing, with a new offer with a new form of content, with a social media strategy, with a marketing strategy with hiring somebody, whatever it is. What are you not doing? Because you’ve convinced yourself that something else has to be in place or has to be perfect before you can do it and whatever that thing is that has to be in place or has to be perfect that you’ve convinced yourself. Is it part of the foundational components that are gonna make or break the success? Because if it’s not just come up with something and do it and execute it and again, simple doesn’t mean easy, always getting a podcast into the chop charts. I’m not saying that’s easy. It takes consistency, it takes valuable content. But I can bet you that getting into the top charts is not coming from any of those extra bells and whistles that you can do with a podcast or a fancy studio. I guarantee it. It’s coming from the foundation, it’s coming from the quality content. It’s coming from the relationship with the audience, the connection with the audience, the foundation is there that creates a success. The bells and whistles can amplify it and elevate it a little bit more. But you don’t even need to worry about those until you have the foundation there. If Zach Brian would have spent a long time perfecting his music and not posting a video of him sitting by the fire with like red eyes that didn’t look great of him singing a song. He never would have gone viral and he maybe never would have gotten as famous as he is right now and he never would have had songs in the top charts and the offers that he has, you just do it, you just take that step forward and you keep it simple. And when something starts to get over complicated, you’ve got to re look at it and I can tell you in, in scaling and growing a business, it’s actually very easy to miss this. And all of a sudden you look at your business and you’re like, why is it so complicated? Like things used to be so simple and easy because as we scale. What we end up doing is we add, we add this and we add this team member, we add this process and we add this and then you look at it and you’re like, why are we doing all this? We’re just doing it because that’s what we do, right? And that’s happened to me many times where I’ve had to pause and be like, wait, we’re going back, we’re going back to the roots, we’re gonna reset this because it’s gotten off whether it’s been from bad advice or, you know, a team member or a contractor changing something that sounded like a good idea. But now it’s not a good idea. So this is an opportunity to take inventory of your marketing, your strategy, your business, your offer, your delivery and ask yourself what has gotten too complex. What can I simplify to stay consistent and what am I not doing right now? Because I’ve convinced myself that something else has to be in place. We’re in September. Is there a goal that you’ve had all year that hasn’t happened because you’re waiting for something else to happen. And is that thing you’re waiting for really pivotal to that success of what you’re trying to launch or release or a goal you’re trying to accomplish. And if it’s not, why aren’t you moving forward? So that’s your opportunity to analyze and look at that, simplify things, create consistency and just remember like the foundation you can’t fake. The foundation is what creates your success. The other components are the bells and whistles and are going to elevate and amplify the success you’ve already created, but they’re not necessary for that success. All right, everybody. I appreciate you guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. I will talk to you on Thursday.