Thanks for joining us for episode 138 of The Ancestral RDs podcast. Check out the rest of our past episodes in iTunes!

Today’s podcast comes with a big announcement. This will be our last episode of The Ancestral RDs Podcast after over four years of recording.

Although we’ve decided to take an indefinite break from the podcast, we have much more planned for 2018!

We invite you to join our conversation today as we explain why we decided to take a break from the podcast and share the exciting projects we have in store as we move into new chapters of our businesses.

We’re very grateful for having the experience of bringing you the podcast. We’re especially grateful to our listeners and guests who have helped shape it into what it has become.

We’re hard at work bringing you fresh content in new ways and we hope you’ll continue to join us!

Here’s what Laura and Kelsey will be discussing in this episode:

• [00:02:18] The reasons behind our decision to take a break from the podcast
• [00:23:17] Things we’ve enjoyed most about the podcast and what the experience has taught us
• [00:35:16] What we’re working on for 2018

[Download]

TRANSCRIPT:

Laura: Hi everyone! Welcome to Episode 138 of The Ancestral RDs podcast. I’m Laura Schoenfeld and with me as always is my co-host Kelsey Kinney.

Kelsey: Hey everyone!

Laura: We’re Registered Dietitians with a passion for ancestral health, real food nutrition, and sharing evidence based guidance that combines science with common sense. You can find me at LauraSchoenfeldRD.com, and Kelsey over at KelseyKinney.com.

Today is going to be a much different episode than usual because we have an announcement to make. We’ve decided that after over four years of podcasting, we’re going to be taking an indefinite break from recording The Ancestral RDs Podcast. But we didn’t want to just end the show abruptly without taking the time to give you all a proper closing. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. So Kelsey, we need to explain to our loyal listeners why this is going to be our last show for either a while or possibly forever.

Kelsey: I know. It feels so crazy. We’ve been doing this for so long at this point, it just feels like second nature. But I think that’s honestly a good reason why we’ve kind of decided that at least for now we want to take a break. Because for me I think it’s feeling a little too comfortable and I feel like it’s not everything it could be and I wanted to take a step back from it and think about if it’s the right thing to move both your and my businesses forward and if it’s really serving our listeners. So I think taking a step back and sort of thinking about how I want it to look if we’re going to come back to it is a really good idea.

Laura: I think maybe what we can do is explain what even triggered this thought process. It’s not just that it was the end of the year because right now we’re recording in December. I know this episode comes out in somewhere in mid-January. So we’re already into 2018 in podcast publishing world, but we’re still in 2017 in the past right now.

I think the thing that triggered even the thought process for me was if you’re listening and you know anything about podcasting, or if you run a podcast, or if you have followed other podcasters, you might have heard a little bit about I guess it’s an iTunes update that happened in the Fall and a bunch of people that do podcasts lost a lot of their regular listeners and downloads. I didn’t necessarily realize that until we had looked at our stats from starting in like September through the end of the year and we had lost like 80 percent of our downloads for some of our more popular episodes. At least more than 50 percent of a drop from our typical audience and then close to 80 from our peak audience.

When I saw that I was like, oh my gosh! What are we going to do? Because we just spent the last couple of years really trying to make this a good way to grow our audience, and to get more people hearing our message, and that kind of thing. When we saw that hit, it was kind of like well, we’re either going to have to make some really big changes to how we do the podcast and really shake it up to get that listenership back, or basically we’re just going to have to stop. Because if we were just going to continue doing what we’ve been doing for the last year or so, which I feel like the last year we’ve taken it a little bit more…I wouldn’t say more seriously, but we’ve done a lot more prep, we’ve done planning for the episodes. I think we’ve done a little bit more work preparing.

Kelsey: We’ve stepped up our game.

Laura: Yeah, just to make it a better show, make it more concise. Although concise is I guess not best word for our podcasting style. But we had already just put in all this work and we were seeing what seemed to be good results because we were growing our audience. When this update thing happened and we lost all these people, it just felt very discouraging.

Kelsey: Like were having to start over, basically.

Laura: Yeah. I feel like when you’re running a business, a lot of times the work that you do, you have to be really selective about what you’re going to do. You can’t just like do everything and you can’t do things just because you think you have to. You really have to pick and choose what you’re going to spend your time doing.

I think something that both of us were experiencing that kind of got even worse after that listenership hit that we had is that we’re pretty busy, and we have a lot of stuff going on, and we both have hopes and dreams and everything for what we want to see our businesses do in the next couple of years, and the podcast takes up a really big chunk of our time. We have made it so that it was taking up less time than it used to, but it was still a decent amount of time. I think also just the mental energy that went in to creating the show…..

Kelsey: And the tech energy I’d say, just doing interviews with people. If you’re listening to this and were an interviewee on our show, you know that there can be a lot of tech issues that come up that you really just can’t do anything about and it’s so time consuming to get through that. Sometimes you have to reschedule with people or it takes an hour or longer than you thought it would. It’s very, very time consuming from the tech aspect, never mind the actual production and content aspect too.

Laura: Right. And then with the production and content, trying to pick which questions we’re going to answer, and then preparing the answer to the question. It just is a lot of work.

I think I’m definitely not upset or I don’t regret doing it for the last four years and I think it was really great to be able to do it. I think you and I both learned a lot about how to speak and how to explain things in a way that is more concise, maybe than the most concise ever.

Kelsey: We’re getting there.

Laura: Right. But just being able to speak a little bit more eloquently. I remember when we first started our podcast on Chris’s website, I was like so terrified.

Kelsey: Yeah, it was scary.

Laura: There were episodes I was like sweating, and nervous, and stuff. So I think it’s cool that we’ve gotten to a place where with podcasting I feel like we both feel pretty comfortable. I only occasionally get nervous and usually it’s like if we have a big guest on the show or something. But it was just a really good experience to be able to learn how to do it.

It’s just we got to the point where this last couple of months we were like are we still doing this for the right reason? And now that we saw that big hit to our audience, we’re like do we really want to do what it’s going to take to get that audience back?

Kelsey: Right.

Laura: Because I hate to say it, like I know the people listening are probably those of you who have listened to us for a long time. This might be one of the few shows that you download on a regular basis. We’ve really appreciated your support and your listenership. But part of running a successful business is doing things that grow the business. And so if our podcast is really just kind of like hovering with the same people over and over, it’s not the best way to spend our time. It’s tough because you want to do what people want.

It was funny because after we had made the decision to cut the show, and I know I’m rambling, but we made the decision to end the show, I think the week after I had like three different people, clients actually be like I love your podcast, and I’m so glad you do it, and I sent it to my friend!

Kelsey: You’re just like, this is heartbreaking. I know. I had the same experience too. It’s like as soon as you make that decision, it’s like all of these things come out from the universe….

Laura: Like are you sure you want to do that?

Kelsey: What are you thinking? But I think at the same time that that did happen, I felt like it was the right decision. Even though I was getting all these nice messages and things, and just hearing about our podcast from other people, and it kind of makes me question whether this is the right decision, at the same time in my heart I really did feel like it was the right call.

Laura: Right.

Kelsey: I think those words of praise about the podcast that I was hearing from people just served to say like hey, we did a really great thing for four years and we helped a lot of people. And it’s not like this content is going away either. You’ll always be able to access these episodes because as far as I know we’re going to keep The Ancestral RDs website up and it’ll still be on iTunes and everything. So this stuff is not going away and I still feel like it’s going to help people as they discover it. But to continue making new episodes every week for us just felt like a lot of effort and like we said starting over which didn’t necessarily feel like it was going to move our businesses in the right direction.

Laura: Another thing to think about is that if we’re not doing the podcast, that doesn’t mean we’re not creating content. I think that was one of the things that both of us were struggling with is that we were working so hard on creating content for the podcasts that it was like by the time it came to creating like maybe a blog post or any other sort of content that we would like to put out to the world, it’s like you only have a limited amount of time and energy to do this kind of stuff every week. You and I think have not been the best at getting help for this kind of stuff.

Kelsey: True.

Laura: We had help for like the tech side of things for the content creation. But I think a lot of the businesses that have content that comes out like clockwork, a lot of those people have other people helping them, doing the research, like setting up what they’re going to be talking about, and then they just like show up and talk about it.

Kelsey: Right.

Laura: We were doing everything.  I just feel like we got to a point where we wanted to do other things and the podcast was the thing that was preventing us from having the mental energy and the time to be able to do these other things.

I know that the people who listen to the podcast regularly are probably not happy to hear this announcement, but I’m hoping that you will keep your eye out on our personal websites for the kind of stuff that we’re going to be putting out.

This isn’t necessarily forever goodbye, donezo. It might be that we decide to come back to it at some point. I don’t want to have people expecting that just because we don’t know what we’re going to do.

Kelsey: We might not.

Laura: And there’s always the possibility that maybe there will be a different podcast that we’ll do or something like that. It’s not necessarily that we’re just like disappearing off the face of the earth and we’re not going to be putting content out anymore. It’s just we need to figure out a different way to put that content out that aligns better with our personal businesses and also allows for growth in a better way than what we’ve been doing so.

It’s interesting because I worked with a couple of business coaches this year and I just had one of my last two I guess coaching sessions with them. It was almost like a recap session where we were going over what this year was for me, like what kind of things I accomplished, what things need to change. I thought it was really interesting one of the things that he had said to me right in the beginning of the call was that the thing I need to think about while I’m planning for 2018 is that what I did to get me here in my business at the end of 2017 is not going to get me where I want to go next year.

I thought that was really good advice because it’s like it’s really easy to just get stuck in this autopilot like we do our podcast, and I do my clients twice a week, and I do all these e-mails, and then it’s Friday. It’s like I didn’t create anything new. I didn’t do anything that was growing my business.

I think both of us have just realized that we need to do work that gets our message out to a broader audience. And for whatever reason, the podcast has not gotten us there. And again, I think it was moving in that direction. But just with that that iTunes thing, it just kind of like felt like a blow to all of the work we were doing.

Kelsey: Very discouraging, like you said before. It just sucks. It plain sucks. But I think maybe it was just a catalyst to move us in the right direction. At least for me, I am hoping to do more blogging and I’ve been trying to do a little bit more than I have in the past in the recent months. Maybe that means like one article a month, but it’s better than no articles a month.

I hope to continue with that and ramp up my content production schedule too because I really like the blog format. It takes me a long time to write, which I think is one of the reasons I initially was more excited about podcasting. But at the same time, I feel like the amount of research and explanation that you can do in a blog post is a lot better for at least for me the type of content that I’d like to put out into the world for the time being.

That might change over time, but I really think that a lot of my ideal type clients like those pretty heavy research posts. Specifically when it comes to gut health, there’s just so much research out there and it’s a really cool topic to explore. So it’s been pretty fun to do that as well and I feel like I’m almost like coming back to it after a long hiatus of maybe not digging into the research quite as much. I’m excited to do a little bit more of that and just have more written content on my site. It’s probably not going to be every week like the podcast was at least in the beginning, but ideally I think eventually I might get there.

Laura: Yeah. I feel like blogs are interesting. I don’t know if they take more work than podcasts, but I think you can get a little bit more perfectionist with a blog post and then not hit publish, basically. Whereas with podcasting, I mean basically once we’re recording it’s like, here we go!

Kelsey: This is it!

Laura: It’s one of those things where I think that was one of the things I liked about podcasting is that it was just you do some prep, we put some bullet points about what we want to talk about, maybe find some articles that we want to talk about. But then once you’re going, it’s just you do it, it takes an hour, and then you’re done. Versus blog posts can be one of those things where you just like rewrite it, and analyze it, and want it better, and all this stuff. That was one reason why I’ve enjoyed having the podcast as being one of our primary content options.

I don’t know what that means for me as far as what my 2018 content is going to look like because I do agree that blog posts are really nice. One thing that you always have to remember as a business owner that I always forget is that the kind of content you like to create is not necessarily the content that your ideal clients like to listen to, or read, or whatever.

Kelsey: Totally.

Laura: It’s funny because when I think about it, I don’t listen to podcasts really. I mean occasionally I do like if I’m on a longer drive and I want to listen to something, or if there’s maybe like a walk I’m taking and I just want to have something to listen to that’s not music, I will listen to that. But I don’t subscribe to any podcasts. I don’t listen to anything regularly. I think some people make content that if they offer a transcript, I’m going to read the transcript instead of listening to the podcast.

Kelsey: Right, exactly.

Laura: It’s just funny because when you think about it that way, there’s probably a big chunk of people that we’re not reaching because they don’t listen to podcasts. That’s another reason why I think we wanted to explore other alternative content avenues because it’s like maybe we’re missing… there’s like 80 percent of the people out there that would be interested in hearing what we have to say, but they don’t listen to podcasts. Maybe we have the 20 percent that do, which is awesome, but at some point we’ve got to kind of branch out and do other things.

Kelsey: It’s good to just see what people respond to too. We have some really great, dedicated listeners who are probably listening to this episode. But maybe we had some people that started listening and they kind of dropped off, and they wish we did more blogging, or did more videos, or Instagram, or whatever.

I feel like it’s important to just experiment with what works. That’s something just as a business owner I feel like is really important to remember. You just have to try stuff. And some of it is not going to work, or some of it’s going to work for a while, but then times change and you have to adapt.

I feel like at least for me right now, I’m so grateful for everything that the podcast says has done for us and I’m so happy we could help other people learn about this stuff, but I’m really ready to change at this point and just kind of like try other things and see what sticks. I feel pretty open to what that might look like. My initial plan is certainly to start with blogging, but who knows? It could go anywhere from there. I feel like that’s sort of how you feel as well.

Laura: Yeah. Well part of the challenge is that technology is changing so much and it changes really fast. That’s another reason why shaking things up is really important because it’s like if you just get used to doing something over and over, and technology is changing, and then the way that you used to reach people isn’t really effective anymore, then you’re going to just kind of like get stagnant. Maybe the people who know you and have been following you for a long time will still come back to you, but a lot of times you will start to kind of fade into the background because you’re not competing with other people’s messaging.

When I say competing, I don’t mean like we’re trying to compete. You and I don’t try to compete with each other for example. But I think you and I do want to compete with some of the messaging out there that we don’t agree with, some of the things that are being talked about in the field of health and nutrition that we think is wrong. I think we want to make sure that our message is getting out there and not being drowned out by the people who are keeping up with the way tech changes and being more proactive about following those changes so that their message is what’s being seen.

I know for Facebook for example, this is something that I feel like I really need to figure out because Facebook just kind of like confuses me as far as how to actually get people to see your stuff other than just paying for it.

Kelsey: Yeah.

Laura: This is something that I’ve thought about and my coaches this year have encouraged me to start doing next year to do videos as content. I think that from what I’ve seen just being a user of Facebook, I definitely noticed that most of the content that comes up on my page when I’m just scrolling through my news feed is video.

And it’s one of these things where it’s like obviously Facebook is preferring to show video, and I will admit the thought of doing video is really freaky to me just because If feel like we’re going back to square one where we felt podcasts were scary. Now I’m like oh great, now I have to reteach myself how to do a style of content that is… video is like the next level and video makes me uncomfortable. There’s things about video that make it more challenging because like right now I’ll admit I’m sitting in my pajamas.

Kelsey: Same.

Laura: That doesn’t matter because nobody can see us. Whereas if I do a video, I have to get…I don’t want to say dressed up, but I’m not going to sit there and a pair of sweats with like a messy bun on the top of my head, and no makeup on, and that kind of thing.

I think with video there’s a little bit of a barrier there that I’m like I really don’t want to get dressed and do my hair or anything like that. But it’s one of those things where you don’t want to just look like a slob on video, so doing a little bit of self-care is going to be part of that.

But it’s one of those things where a combination of the effort that goes into creating a video and then just the comfort level. I’ve done videos in the past and they kind of make me feel just nervous and I trip over my words, that kind of thing. Obviously we had the same issue and we started the podcast, so I’m sure I can get over it.

Kelsey: Right. It’s just something you’ve got to get over. But yeah, it’s tough to start something new.

Laura: Yeah. I think just knowing that podcasts may not be the best way to get content out to people and then also that there’s people that don’t listen to podcasts that are missing the opportunity to learn content, I think those two things were another big reason why I thought taking a break from podcasting would make sense.

Kelsey: Yeah. We’ve got to just try stuff out. I know, I’m like inherently afraid of video as well. So I totally feel you on that. I keep reading things that’s like yeah, video is the way to go for social media. But I’m like, ugh, I don’t want to do video.

Laura: I know, it’s terrible. It’s funny, whenever I talk to my male colleagues or people that are just doing online business in some way, I’m like I’m so jealous. You guys just get to like shower, and maybe put some stuff in your hair, and you’re like ready to go.

Kelsey: Right. I wish.

Laura: And I’m like I have to plan my workout schedule around if I’m going to be on a video because my hair takes so long to dry and I’m not going to show up to a video being like sweat covered and just gross and stuff. It’s like it would be so nice.

To be fair, arguably I could just show up post shower, no makeup if I wanted to if that was something I was comfortable doing. But for whatever reason, I just don’t feel like that’s something I’m ready to do just being like, this is me. I just showered and I’m in my sweats, and hair is a mess, and no makeup, and now I’m going to talk to you about nutrition.

Kelsey: Right. Hey, maybe people would love it. But yeah, it’s about your comfort too, and I feel the same way. I’m not ready to do that quite yet.

Laura: I thought what we could talk about is just kind of thinking about the last four years and what we’ve enjoyed about podcasting because I don’t want to talk about it like it’s terrible, and we’re so done with it, and we’re glad that it’s over. I think we did have a bit of a bittersweet feeling today being like it’s our last episode! With podcasting, what was something that you enjoyed about doing it for the last four years?

Kelsey: Gosh, it’s such a big question. Honestly I think the most fulfilling thing for me has been hearing from listeners because I’ve gotten a lot of clients that have been listeners, and I’m sure you have as well. And those typically I have to say are like my favorite people ever because I feel like they get me. It’s always funny to hear from them too because they’re like I feel like I know you already. I’ve listened to you for so long and this is really great to actually speak with you one on one. So that to me has been like a huge, huge draw of podcasting and one reason why I’ve really loved doing it over the last four years.

And just to be able to, for people who don’t become clients, to be able to help them work through a problem that they’re not getting coaching on otherwise I think is really awesome. Because when you’re reading a blog, it’s a little harder to do that coaching piece when you are just like talking somebody through something, and I think there’s a lot to be said for that. So I’m really happy that our content will live on forever and be able to help people as they discover it now because to me that’s something that I really enjoy knowing is that there are people out there that maybe I never hear from, but that our content has really helped them work through something amazing.

Laura: Yeah. I’ve heard feedback from people on things like Instagram or Facebook where they said that they solved a health problem because of our podcast. I feel like we know that there’s people out there that maybe haven’t reached out to tell us that too, so I definitely agree that our podcast has had a positive impact on at least several people, I’m hoping a decent number of people.

But like you said, it’s nice to be able to have almost that relationship established before we work with someone that’s been listening to our podcast. So that’s been cool whenever a client has that background of knowing us, and knowing how we talk, and knowing what our philosophy is, that kind of thing and so they are not surprised when they start talking to us and they’re like wait, what? You don’t believe in doing like a ketogenic diet? Or whatever. I definitely agree that just being able to help people in that way has been really cool.

I would say one of the things I’ve enjoyed about podcasting beyond what you mentioned is… I have two things I would say. One, being able to do some interviews with people that were really cool and actually learning some stuff from those interviews that I didn’t know before. I think that’s one downside about ending our podcast is that we’re basically not going to have that platform to share other people’s information through anymore. That’s something I want to think about, like how can I still offer that because there are so many awesome practitioners and health experts out there that maybe they don’t have time to run a podcast, but they can be on other people’s podcasts or on other people’s websites so that they can get their message to more people.

That was something that’s been really cool. I know we’ve had a lot of interviews that have been really popular. I think some of our more popular ones were like Dr. Laura Briden and Jolene Brighten. Those two women I think we had some really significantly high downloads for those episodes.

Kelsey: Yeah.

Laura: I’ve had clients tell me that they were so appreciative of those episodes because they learned really important things. I think having that platform to share other people’s work has been really cool.

And then I would say the other thing that I’ve appreciated about podcasting is the fact that it’s push us outside of our initial comfort zone. Back in 2013 when we started podcasting just having so much…I don’t want to say fear necessarily, but there was a lot of nerves. There was a lot of like how are people going to respond to this and is this going to be good? Just a lot of what ifs.

Doing this for four years I think really has taught us how to speak better, how to share a message more effectively, what people are looking for when it comes to content, making sure that we’re not necessarily only looking to make people happy, but also taking into consideration what their preferences are and what makes it easier for them to learn. I think it’s been a really good learning process and a great way to just develop our ability to share information with people in a more effective way.

When we were talking about the video thing a minute ago, on one hand I’m like I definitely feel a little angsty about the idea of doing it. But then on the other hand, that’s how we felt with the podcast. It might just be the next logical step to move to video and then get used to it and then maybe now that I’m comfortable talking on video, maybe I can do more public speaking or something like that.

It’s definitely from a professional development perspective been really helpful and really positive and. I’m glad we did it because honestly I think we’ve learned how to talk to audiences better, we’ve learned how to talk to individual clients better, we’ve gotten to learn about topics that we did research for and then be able to describe that to people. I feel like it’s been a great learning experience for us.

Like we said, we’re not sure if it’s going to be done forever. But it is something that we may have at least for the time being maxed out how much benefit we’re getting professionally from the podcast and so I think it’s time to see what other kind of new adventures that our business can go on, and what kind of things we can learn, and how we can stretch ourselves a little bit more.

Kelsey: Yeah. I would add to that too, I might get a little sappy here, but you it’s been really great to talk to you for the last four years too. This was kind of how our whole other business started. Paleo Rehab would not exist basically if we weren’t doing this podcast together I think. It’s been really great to get to know you and your business and create a business together over these last four years. It’s just been super fun.

Laura: Awe, Kelsey, your making me sad. Well the good news is Kelsey and I still collaborate on things.

Kelsey: Yeah. We’ve got Paleo Rehab going.

Laura: Yeah, and we have some other projects in the works hopefully for the next couple of months of this year. So I know that you and I are still going to be chatting, and still going to be complaining about our pets doing weird things, and our excitement over our new husbands and everything.

It’s funny because I feel like one thing that was tough for us was figuring out how to incorporate some of that chit chat into our podcast. We were like that’s part of what we actually enjoy about podcasting and we would get such mixed reviews about it. Some people would say I love it and it’s so nice to get to know you. And then other people would be like can you guys just shut up about yourselves and just give us the information? I think that was a big reason why we moved the updates the end of the show because we wanted to still offer them, but then not annoy people that didn’t want to hear it.

But it’s just hard because some of the more popular podcasts that I’m aware of, like I know…what’s the name of the new one? It used to be The Paleo Women. What is it now? The Well-Fed Women Podcast?

Kelsey: Yes.

Laura: I’ve listened to them a few times and I’m like, wow, they do a lot of chit chat. I hate to say this, but some people I think are a little bit more naturally entertaining.

Kelsey: Right. Maybe we don’t have those personalities. It’s fine.

Laura: That’s fine because it doesn’t mean that that makes us bad people or bad podcasters or something. But it’s like there are some people out there that I think they get a big podcast audience because of the entertainment value. I don’t know if you and I are the most entertaining people. That’s not to be like mean or rude or anything. It’s the just the facts right.

Kelsey: It’s the truth.

Laura: Everyone needs something different. I think our skills tend to be more translating evidence into practical recommendations. Whether or not that needs to be entertaining is TBD, but that might be a reason why the podcast hasn’t been necessarily as successful as other podcasts are because maybe the people listening to podcasts want someone who’s partially entertaining them.

Kelsey: Right, which would make sense.

Laura: Yeah. I think I’d feel the same way if I’m listening to a podcast that’s not super entertaining, I may not keep listening to it. Whereas something like a blog post because they’re reading it and they can kind of do a scan and they can look for the information that they need, they don’t necessarily need to be entertained. They just want to be educated. I think if we can figure out how we can best play on our educational skills and not necessarily rely on needing to entertain people, I feel like that will be a great way to share our content and get a bigger audience because we’re doing things that more closely align with our skills as opposed to trying to fit a round peg into a square hole or something like that.

Kelsey: And you get a play to your strengths. Again, that’s something that I feel like I’ve learned kind of over and over through owning a business is you don’t need to be like other people who are successful. You have to make your success yourself by playing to the things that you are really good at.

Laura: I feel like podcasting, we’ve gotten better at it for sure. I think we’re a lot better than we were when we first started. But I don’t know if we’re ever going to be the kind of people that people listen to to just enjoy hearing people joke about things.

I was trying to remember who else I was thinking of. I always think of Liz Wolfe as being someone who I would listen to just because she’s funny whether or not I learned anything.

Kelsey: Just a lot of fun to listen to.

Laura: Right. And so it’s tough because it’s like I don’t want to compare myself to Liz. I don’t want to be like I need to be like Liz and like figure out how to quote old movies or “A Christmas Story” and that kind of thing.

Just recognizing that certain mediums are more I guess more friendly to certain types of personalities and not being mad about it, but just being like what is the best way for me to share content? Is maybe writing my skill that I should get into more? So it’s tough.

I mean I feel like with running a business, you’re always kind of tweaking things, and playing around with stuff, and experimenting, and trying to figure out what is the best way to reach people. It may be that podcasting is a good thing for us to do, but it might just be a different context or maybe we need to re-evaluate how we run the show. I know our shows tend to go a little long, so if we ever got back into it, maybe we would do short ones. There’s still a lot of what ifs that I don’t think we have answers to and the only way we’re going to discover those answers is if we get a chance to do something different for a bit.

Kelsey: Yeah. Maybe this is a good segue into just talking a little bit about what our plans are for 2018 even though it technically when you guys are listening to this is already 2018. We’re still sort of in those planning stages at the moment. It’s basically mid December when we’re recording this.

I know I talked a little bit about before that blogging at least for me to start off with is going to be where my focus turns. I’m going to use the time that I was using to podcast to focus more on that. But another thing that I’m really planning to do next year, or this year, is to focus on getting my Build Your Biome program out to more people because I just haven’t had the time or the resources to devote to it in 2017. I feel really excited about the possibility of sharing that with more people because I feel about that kind of how I felt about our podcast, which is just that it’s so helpful and I want to get it into as many hands as possible.

To do that you have to put in the effort to market it effectively and make sure it’s reaching the right people. That’s a hard thing to do and it’s a learning process too. It’s not something that’s just like inherently in your brain that you know how to market this kind stuff. For me that’s like a big thing that I want to focus on in 2018 is figuring out how to market that program to reach the people that I feel like it should reach.

Laura: It’s funny because I’ve had a couple of clients of mine do your program, not necessarily that I was like telling them to do the program. I think because of our podcast, a lot of times we’ll have people that do both of our things. I had a client recently tell me that she did the Build Your Biome course, and that it was awesome, and that it like basically finally helped her get rid of her SIBO. That was really cool.

Kelsey: Oh good!

Laura: Yeah, because she had come back to me after a couple of years that we hadn’t been working together and she has some other things we’re working on now, but she had done the course specifically because…I don’t even remember if we diagnosed her with SIBO when we were working together because it was probably 2015 the last time I was working with her. I was joking with her because she listens to the podcast, and maybe she’s listening now, but she was saying congratulations on your wedding! I was like I think last time I talked to you, I didn’t even know my husband at that point.

Kelsey: That’s funny.

Laura: But yeah, she has said she had done your online program and that it really helped her. I think that’s what’s really cool about having online programs is that you can reach people with content that you might not have otherwise. There’s people that maybe can’t afford to do the one on one. Or maybe they’re working with another practitioner one on one, but they want another person’s feedback or information on something. It’s just nice to able to have those products available because it allows for your information to get to people that maybe wouldn’t get it otherwise.

Kelsey: Yeah, I agree. You’ve got your Get Your Period Back program and I think you’re thinking about creating some other ones too, right?

Laura: Yeah. I feel like the Get Your Period Back program was kind of a… I don’t even know how to describe it. I feel like it just kind of came to me as a topic I could do a program on and it was a pretty big push to get it out pretty quickly. Whereas I feel like the other programs that we’ve worked on either together, or on other people’s programs, or for our own program, like we did so much more planning, and crafting, and redoing things, and we did a beta program, and then we redid it.

It’s just like this one I think during the course itself when people were taking it, I was like a week ahead finishing content or the next week. To be fair, I don’t think I’m going to do that quite so narrowly next time.

Kelsey: Yeah. You’re like maybe I learned something with this.

Laura: Or if I do that, I need to do it and not be also doing 12 clients or 15 clients a week or something. Because that was I think the most stressful part of the year for me was trying to keep all the other aspects of my business going and then I also have to get all this content done on a weekly basis. I was working on Saturdays, I was working on Sundays. There was this one time that Josh and I were going on a trip and I got up at like 7:00 in the morning to work on it and then we were driving and I was working on it while we were driving in the car using my phone as like an Internet source.

Kelsey: Oh gosh!

Laura: I was like this is a little crazy. For argument’s sake, I probably wouldn’t do it that way again. But I will say that it was really cool to be able to get the content out so fast because I think something that both of us struggle with is just that perfectionism, which can be good in some ways, but also it just slows you down so much and it makes you want to have everything perfect before you put it out to the world. This was like, okay, it’s just got to get done. And I’m not saying I didn’t do a good job because obviously I was working like seven days a week on it. But I also feel like sometimes you just have to have that push to put it out there.

Kelsey: For sure.

Laura: So that was one cool thing about doing it that way. But I am excited to see what happens with the people who went through the program because it’s always interesting when you do an online program for the first time and it’s like well I know this stuff works when I’ve worked with one on one people. Let’s see how it works when it’s a group program.

The other challenge is that the amenorrhea thing, it can take a while before that the changes actually lead to results. It’s a six week program, but I’m not saying people are going to get their period back in six weeks after going through the program. So I’m going to have to check in with my class that finished. I guess it was around Thanksgiving that we finished, not even that long ago. I’m probably going to check in in the next couple of weeks or so just to find out how they’re doing, if anyone did get their period back from the recommendations in the course yet. Once I get some feedback there, I might also find out if there’s anything that they felt like they needed additionally and I might end up making some changes to the course.

But ultimately just want to have a really solid course that is effective. Efficacy is tough with the group online courses because it’s like you know that the recommendations work, but whether or not the person is able to implement based on the structure of the program is always the challenge. Just trying to figure out if that way of working with people is as effective and if it is actually helpful because sometimes people really do need that handholding from a one on one relationship and you can’t do that in an online course. It’s just a matter of figuring out how do I maximize the way that that course works for people while also understanding that there are limitations to any sort of virtual coaching course.

Kelsey: Yeah, absolutely. Same thing with my program where it’s like it’s an eight week program, but most people are on antimicrobials for at least six weeks or two months, sometimes even three months. It’s like yeah, you might feel better, but maybe not fully better. Especially for yours where it’s like a very definitive yes or no to an answer, I think it’s a good idea to check back. It’s always fun to see I think for online programs, like wow, this really helps a lot of people. I knew it would, but it’s always great to just hear back from people. I love hearing that your client had a good experience with it too. Always great to hear those stories.

Laura: Do you have any other programs that you’re going to create or are you going to mostly focus on spreading the Build Your Biome course to more people?

Kelsey: I have this idea in the back of my brain, we’ll see when or if it ever comes to fruition. But basically something along the lines of like a pregnancy prep course that incorporates gut health because it’s such a huge piece of preparing for a healthy pregnancy. That’s something I’ve been working on a little bit more with my one on one clients and I really like that area. It wouldn’t be a fertility course necessarily. It could be for somebody who’s having fertility problems, but the main audience I think would be for people who want to get pregnant and they think that they will be able to get pregnant, but they want to do everything in their power to ensure a healthy child and give them the best start possible is kind of where I’m thinking of going with it.

That’s really been like just a little a little spark of an idea in my brain that I’ve been thinking more about, but I have no solid plans for putting that into practice anytime super soon. But it’s something eventually I’d like to get on the market.

Laura: Nice.

Kelsey: Yeah. What about you?

Laura: I would say I have a couple of different things that I’m toying around with. I would like to have another program. I’m not sure what that would look like if it would be another thing like Get Your Period Back where it’s kind of a standalone course that people can just download and use at any time or if there would be something more of like an upper level program that’s more of  a group coaching type of thing.

I have a concept in mind that I’m still playing around with, but it would almost be more of like a total life coaching program that maybe could be done online. I think the best example of something similar that I can think of is Steph Gaudreau from Stupid Easy Paleo has her six week online Harder To Kill course that she offers. Mine would be something similar to that where it’s like just basic health and mindset and that kind of thing.

There would probably be some fundamental differences. I think something that makes me a little different than not only Steph, but then a lot of other people in our field is just my religious beliefs. I’m still trying to decide if that’s something I want to start incorporating more into my business than what I’ve been doing which is basically just like occasionally I’ll do an Instagram post or something that’s like relevant.

I’m still trying to flesh that out because on one hand I don’t want to alienate people that aren’t Christian because obviously I work with tons of people who aren’t Christian and I don’t discriminate against people who aren’t Christian. But the other the other side of the question is that one of the things with doing anything in a business is you’re supposed to figure out what makes you different than other people.

I think that’s something that makes me a lot different than what already exists out there. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s going to be a component of it or not and if that’s something that I want to create a program that has that as like part of the program itself as involving that, or I just want to create something that’s more general and still do the Christian stuff with my social media, and blogging, and that kind of thing, but not make it like a component of the program. I’m still trying to figure that out.

Kelsey: It’s a tough question.

Laura: I know and it’s hard because like I feel like religion is such a hot button issue. It’s not as simple as like I really like weight training and that’s what makes me different because most other people like to do running, or something like that. It’s something that it can be a little bit alienating for people that aren’t religious and that’s why I’m a little hesitant about making it a huge component of my business.

But the other side of that is that I do work with a lot of Christian clients and I think that perspective because it’s such a deep… I’m trying to think…

Kelsey: It’s like a value. I don’t know I know what you’re trying to say.

Laura: Yeah. It’s like a level of belief that it really does affect all the decisions that they make. It affects their mindset. It affects what they prioritize. It’s so foundational that I’m like I know that the people who are Christian need that as part of their health equation.  I’m just trying to figure out how I want to offer that, if that’s something I want to create as part of my next program, or if it’s just kind of like sprinkled in here and there. Still trying to figure that out.

If somebody is listening and they have a feedback about that. If they are thinking I would love that! That’s awesome! Please do that. Let me know because I think part of the problem is a lot of times you and I are trying to figure out what we should do based on what we’re hearing from clients or like what we’re seeing out there, but we don’t necessarily know for sure if people are going to like it. If you’re listening and you’re like yes, I would love a Christian health based program to go through, then please tell me because I’m definitely thinking about it.

Kelsey: I’ll say just hearing you talk about it, I’m like I could totally see that being really popular. It niches you. You have like this subset of people that is a perfect fit for that program, which I think is really great. When you’re trying to sell something and when you’re trying to reach the right people, if you can just speak to those people and know that they’re going to resonate with what you’re saying, it makes such a big difference. And like you said, because that’s such a foundational piece of someone’s life, I feel like you’re right, it goes into all other aspects of how they live their life. I like the idea. I’m not even Christian, but I think it’s a cool idea.

Laura: Yeah. It’s one of those things that I have this problem where I try to make everybody happy. I’m working on it. I’m a recovering people pleaser. But the thought of doing something that would totally alienate like half the people that follow my work or something, it does make me a little nervous.

But on the other hand, like you said, if you’re not speaking to somebody specific, then you’re not really speaking to anybody. That’s another challenge is like how specific do I need to be? And would my non-Christian clients get annoyed if I was doing more of that? Maybe not.

That might be a little bit of like self-limiting thoughts or anxieties that I have about like I said the topic of religion being so…. it’s like one of those things you’re not supposed to talk about basically. Although I will say from a Christian perspective, it’s like the main thing you’re supposed to talk about. There is that level of conflict in my brain. But just trying to figure out what am I going to create? What gets me excited? What is my message? That’s all the kind of stuff that I still am figuring out.

I feel like you and I being somewhat younger, you’re younger than me, but I even think when I look at other people that I admire their business, they’re all like mid 30s, upper 30s.

Kelsey: I know. I think we have to check ourselves sometimes. You’ve got time.

Laura: I know. It’s not that I want to be slow, and not do things, and be too cautious or anything. But I also feel like I need to give myself a break. If these people I’m watching are just kind of getting their message really solidified, they’re eight years older than me. It’s like well maybe I don’t have to have all my life figured out right now.

Kelsey: Very true. I agree.

Laura: That’s some of the stuff I’m thinking about. This is another kind of like project that I can’t really give a ton of details about, but I’m still trying to figure out if I can do some kind of content on carbs because I think even though you and I talk about it so much on the show, for whatever reason, it’s still not out there.

Kelsey: Yeah, as a main stream topic.

Laura: Yeah. I’m thinking is there some way I can make that into a product because there’s so much to this low carb keto stuff coming out right now. I’m not bashing that, and there’s I think a role for that, and I’ve worked with clients and I’ve put them on keto diets. So I’m not a hundred percent anti keto. But I also think that because that’s the main message getting put out right now as far as I can see, there’s no balance.

Kelsey: Right.

Laura: I feel like there is a space for the other side of the carbs question to be explored and to be talked about. That might be something I do also and still trying to figure out details of that or what that looks like. My potential ideas are a lot less solidified than yours.

Kelsey: Oh please. Mine are not solidified really either.

Laura: I know you and I are both going to be continuing working with clients. The other thing that I had mentioned earlier in the episode was my business coaches that I worked with this year were encouraging me to start doing videos more often. With the time that we’re going to have not recording the podcast, I’m hoping to basically just do what we used to do with like setting up a topic, and making our bullet points, and that kind of thing and actually doing just a short video on that instead.

Kelsey: Sweet.

Laura: I’m putting it out there to make me do it because if I admit it to the people who are listening right now, that’s going to put some level of pressure on me to actually follow through. But like I said, I just feel like I’ve seen that being really the way that social media and content is going and I don’t want to not do it just because I’m scared. That might be something I end up putting out more frequently.

I don’t know when that will happen because I do have to kind of figure out what my schedule is going to look like and how that’s going to work. But I will hopefully be doing that next year.

Kelsey: You will be doing it next year.

Laura: I will be doing it next year. I’m going to be doing it. I’m going to be doing it when this podcast episode comes out.

Kelsey: There you go.

Laura: on’t want to commit to that actually.

Kelsey: You’ve got a deadline now.

Laura: Oh no! I hate deadlines.

Kelsey: I think we’ve both got some really cool stuff on the horizon that we’re very excited about and we hope you guys listening are really excited about it too even though it’s different for sure. We’ve been joking that it’s kind of an end of an era with ending this podcast. It feels a little weird, a bit bittersweet. But in many ways we feel like it’s the right decision and we hope that you’ll stick with us.

Laura: Yeah. Well, is that the end?

Kelsey: I know. How do we end this? It feels so dramatic.

Laura: I know. It’s so funny because it’s like such a random episode number. Number 138. But we have really enjoyed having you guys follow us along. And those of you who are regular listeners, we hope that you understand our decision and that you don’t feel like we’re abandoning you because we definitely don’t want you to feel that way.

If you have been listening to the show for a while and you have any ideas about any content or any things that you would like to see from us since you have been such loyal listeners, we would love to hear from you. You can use our contact tab. We might have to change it a little bit instead of having people submit questions. But for now, if you want to use it the way it is and just write in there what you like to see or what you need help with, it will help us figure out what kind of content we should continue working on.

We might even use some of the questions that have gotten submitted to guide some of our blogging. Pease feel free to keep submitting topics that you’re interested in or questions that you have because we do want to keep answering those questions for you. It’s just going to be a different format.

But otherwise, it’s been great talking to you, Kelsey.

Kelsey: Yeah, you too, Laura. This is so sad.

Laura: I know. Well we’re going to go cry and release emotions about the ending of the era of podcasting for us, or at least just for now.

Kelsey: For now.

Laura: But we hope you all have a wonderful 2018 and we hope that we will still be a part of it in some way.

Kelsey: Alright. Take care, Laura.

Laura: You too, Kelsey.