[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Ticket Pros, the podcast for agencies, coaches and high end service providers who know what it takes to thrive in competitive markets. I'm your host Ana Gonzalez and you can find me on social media at Annabelle Prime. Our guests share insider tips, strategies and sometimes cautionary tales to help you close bigger deals and scale your business faster.
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[email protected] that's conversationalfunnels.com Today's guest is Kathy Yoder. Kathy is a digital digital marketing expert widely regarded as the queen of air fryers. I am interested in that. This is a mother of eight wanted to prove this is a mother of eight who wanted to prove that air fryers could not actually no, sorry about that. This is a mother of eight who wanted to prove that air fryers could do more then reheat frozen foods and leftovers. Now, with nearly 730,000 subscribers, over 6 million video views, and 35,000 cookbooks sold, her YouTube channel and thought leadership platform draws over a million monthly visitors, fuels speaking engagements, attracts marquee sponsors, and drives significant affiliate revenue. As a YouTube expert and influencer in the digital marketing world, she has also utilized her experience and knowledge to guide other aspiring bloggers and marketers. She frequently shares valuable insights and strategies that have proven to be instrumental in her own success. With remarkable ingenuity, tenacity, and uncanny knack for anticipating Trends, her viral YouTube videos and influential status within the digital marketing marketing community continue to make her a force to be reckoned with in the world of online content creation.
So Kathy, welcome to Big Ticket Pros.
In your experience, what is the best piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in your industry?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Oh well, thanks for the intro. I don't know who wrote that, but that makes me sound pretty fancy pants.
But best piece of advice is, you know, if you're, if you're planning on Marketing on YouTube, it's a fantastic platform because it creates just a really nice connection with your audience and your avatar, whoever you're trying to reach.
But it is a, it's a long game for sure. So it takes that dedication, commitment and just plugging away. You won't see results Right at the beginning, but plugging away and creating content to find your people. Because YouTube does a fantastic job helping you find your people.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Amazing. So I get that you said that you need dedication, you need commitment and you need basically patience because it takes time so that you can connect with your audience. What would be a tactical advice that you would give to whoever is listening so that they can connect with their audience? How can they know how to connect with them?
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Well, it's first of all knowing who, who is it you're speaking to and really dialing in, like who is that person you need to serve with whatever your message is and then just talking to them and then it's, it's an interesting thing, right, because we have to create content for the algorithm.
But you're going to be most successful when you create content for your person and then be strategic. So it's, you know, it can be kind of tricky there. But what I have for my particular audience, what I found is that I've just been real and authentic and I show my mistakes when I make them. I don't really, I mean, of course I edit, but the videos are full of mistakes. And so I, I make food right on, on YouTube and I have, my kids will come in and rate, review the, the recipes and they're ruthless, right? I've got, my 10 year old will have a bite of something and like we have a few videos where she's like, and runs to the trash can to spit it out because she thinks it's so gross.
So I'll include that and just, you know, and what I've done is built this relationship very intentionally where they know they can trust what I say.
And so when I have something that I'm ready to sell to them, I've given them a ton of things for free. I've given a ton of value.
But then when I have something to sell, they know they can trust me. They know I'm gonna feature something that's worthwhile and so I can, whatever I sell really converts well.
So I can't remember the original question, but that's, that's where I went with.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Was about an advice to people on how to connect with their audience. But I think that you nailed it because you mentioned the word or what I took away was authenticity.
So if you're authentic, that will make your people feel like they're connected with you. They will make your people like and trust you.
So now that they already know you and because you're authentic, they already like you and they already trust you.
They will know that if you are selling something to them, it's something that is probably approved by your standards or your family's standards, you know?
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Right, yes.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Authenticity sells, right?
Do you have any, for instance, for you, Your industry is YouTube.
Do you have any other advice for people who are starting to build their YouTube channel or they're planning or they want to start, but they don't know how to.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the, the best thing, what helped me was so I hired someone to coach me. I had a friend that was doing YouTube and she's like, hey, a little background is I've been. I've had a blog for like 16 years. And on that blog we said SA. We had some money saving tips, frugal living, Amazon deals, things like that. But we also had recipes.
So I had kind of this broad range of content.
And a friend of mine back in 2019, she's like, you know what? You've got to get on YouTube. She was doing recipes on YouTube and very successful.
So I was like, scary, but also smart to have another revenue stream.
So I hired her to just coach me through it and shortcut, you know, fast track that starting point. So I wasn't wasting time trying to figure things out. The biggest thing she taught me was, so recipes was my topic, but within that category, I started out with five or six different topics. So I started with air fryer content, slow cooker, instant pot freezer mills, copycat recipes. I think that was generally it. And so I just alternated and took turns with each of those pieces of content. So they were like subcategories. And from there I realized, you know, after, I don't know, 5, 5 ish months, it was my air fryer content that was getting more views. And so at that point I was like, okay, I'm going to dial it in to just air fryer content.
And when I really did, when I did that and I, I had like all the videos on my channel from, you know, completely irrelevant. I unlisted all of those because there was a couple of them that would get weird views. Anyway, I unlisted those. I dialed in on air fryer. And then YouTube was like, oh, now we get what she's talking about.
And in December 2020, I went from, I think it was like 2500.
Sorry, 2500 subscribers to 10,000 subscribers in that month.
And then, so then from December 2020 to March 2021, I went from 10K to 100K.
Like, I just had to teach the algorithm who I was serving.
And I did that by dialing it in, kind of, you know, niching down and staying, you know, teaching it. So if you can't be like all over the place with your content, just alternate topics and then if you see, oh, this one or these two are doing well, kind of dial in on those and let the other ones go.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: That is super interesting because I think that maybe you just described some of the principles of marketing. If you're marketing to everybody, you're marketing to nobody.
And then what helped you do your market research to call it a name was to have your different topics. And then when you say, oh, the air fryer topic is getting a lot of views, that's when you niched down.
So I think it's, it's pretty fascinating to see how you applied that to your YouTube channel and then you became the queen of the air fryer.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Right?
And I don't even like to cook, really. I mean, so that's one. Right? One reason the air fryer was fun for me because and I was honest from the get go, I was like, I don't like to cook, but this is making kitchen time a little more fun because it's a gadget, it's techy. Right? So yeah, that's what happened.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: What's.
What has been your favorite recipe in the air fryer?
[00:10:28] Speaker B: It's well, you know, healthy and non healthy Air fryer donuts from scratch are just so delicious, so good. They cook up so fast, but healthy. I love. There's a hibachi style chicken. So it's just chicken and some veggies and you make a little yum yum sauce and it cooks up so fast and it's so yummy. So easy.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Thank you so, so much for this.
So Kathy, tell us about who you serve and how people can reach out to you.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: So on YouTube, I'm Empowered Cooks. If you actually go to Empowered Cooks.com it'll take you to all of that content.
My air fryer content. My. I have a store. We've started selling products to serve my customer and that's at Pineappepper co. And then Kathyoder.com is kind of my personal brand website.
That's Kathy with a C.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Amazing. So we're going to wrap it up here. Thank you, Kathy for joining us and sharing some wisdom about thriving in a competitive industry.
You can learn more about what Kathy does by visiting empower cooks.com or going to her website kathyoder.com did I get it right?
Yay.
You can learn more about her about by visiting those websites. If you are an agency coach, professional services provider or otherwise sell expensive stuff, we'd love to have you in a future episode. Episode. You can
[email protected] and once again, if you want to learn about the new way, we're booking dozens of qualified calls per week with no Aspen, download our free blueprint@conversational funnels.com.
that's all for now. Gotta get that big ticket punched. See you later.
