Fei Wu is the host of Fei’s World Podcast, where its mission is to help independent creatives find career and financial freedom. During a 10-year career in consulting and marketing, she built a flourishing career as a corporate project manager, but longed for a different lifestyle, a lifestyle free from corporate politics. “It wasn’t the life I wanted at all,” she says.
She started her podcast in 2014 in a quest to connect with interesting people in creative fields, teaching herself audio technique by watching YouTube videos. “I thought if I don’t know something, I’ll figure it out,” Wu says. “I had no training in audio engineering. The big influencers showed me the way. I watched YouTube videos and downloaded Audacity,” referring to a free and open source video editing platform. While interviewing guests on the show, she not only learned audio engineering but also discovered what it took to become self-employed. “They showed me how to start on my own path,” she says.
Fei Wu learned how to escape the corporate life from her podcast guess, then followed their advice to … [+]
In 2016, she made the leap and went full-time with her business, Feisworld Media, offering her skills as a brand builder, project manager and digital producer and bringing in contractors to expand her capacity. She found that local agency clients needed her services and soon had a thriving business. To keep the revenue flowing while increasing her visibility, she spent 50% of her time on that business and 50% on the podcast. She also walks Feisworld Academywhere she offers courses on podcasting, YouTube and Zoom.
Between her businesses, she now achieves six-figure sales and now has nearly 20,000 followers on YouTube. Her guests have included author and podcaster Joanna Penn, course development guru Jason van Orden, and copywriter and author Helena Escalante.
Recently, I had the chance to talk to her about how she made the break from business and built her successful podcast — and how other professionals can try podcasting. Here are three strategies she recommends.
Don’t be afraid to start small. When Wu started podcasting, she started with zero followers, like all new podcasters. What she found was that even with a small platform it was possible to attract guests with a quality program. “It doesn’t matter how small your platform is,” she says. “People want to be on top of it with you.”
Embracing technology. Tools to help podcasters are on the rise. Taking a few minutes to learn how to use them can make creating a podcast much easier. Wu’s favorites include: Podcastle.aiwhich considers itself a one-stop shop for broadcast storytelling; Description, a podcast creation and editing tool; and Final Cut Pro, a video editing software. (You can see some of her other favorites here). Having tools that make production easier helps avoid a widespread problem: podcast abandonment.
Consider podcasting as part of your marketing. If you want to attract sponsors, the number of downloads of your podcast matters. “About between 50 and 100,000 downloads per month will generally start attracting sponsors,” Wu says. “That number of downloads has to be consistent. It can’t just be a month.”
However, such numbers are very difficult to achieve. Wu prefers to focus on the knock-on effect of podcasting — people’s business that the podcast puts into the podcaster’s orbit. For example, Wu found that her podcast was a powerful catalyst in attracting work for her business services. Often, members of the public will contact her and ask her to do work, such as moderating a Zoom event. “If people don’t know about you, they can’t buy anything from you,” she says.
For many of her clients, she has found that a podcast can be a way to exceed sales milestones. Many of the clients she works with have annual sales of about $500,000 and feel that a podcast can be a way to increase their visibility, provided they produce it consistently.
As her podcast grows, it continues to bring rewards to Wu. Sometimes she marvels at the experience of driving down the freeway and being able to listen to her own podcast, something she could never have imagined during the days of trying to escape the corporate world. “I think everyone should start a podcast,” she says.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.