We recently connected with Gillian Tietz and have shared our conversation below.

Gillian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I got sober in November 2019. On day 2, I immediately started learning everything I could about addiction science. I wanted to understand why this happened to me and not other people, and if it was really my choice to not be able to control my drinking. Quarantine happened about 4 months later and this gave me more time to learn. I had been working in a lab, and when we were all send home I obviously couldn’t bring my lab work home with me!

I woke up on June 25, 2020 and though, “everyone needs to know this information”. Learning about why addiction happens to some people and not others and how alcohol was affecting my brain helped relieve some of the shame I had about needing to quit drinking. I felt compelled to share and help others stop blaming and shaming themselves. I launched my podcast that same day with no knowledge of what I was doing. I even zoom called myself because I didn’t know any other way to record audio.

The first year was a grind. I started with 0 followers and I worked hard all day every day to get people to learn that my podcast existed. By the end of that first year I grew my podcast to the top 1% of all podcasts, globally. In year 2, I quadrupled my audience size. All of this was done with organic marketing.

I still worked full time in a lab, but after that first year I began to realize that doing this work full time was a possibility for me. Year 2 was all about making connections, working on my mindset, and learning what people wanted from me. I began coaching other podcasters and speaking at podcasting conferences.

I officially quit my full time job and launched my business, Sober Powered Media, on June 9, 2022. This was 2 years after I started my podcast. I think I started my business at just the right time. Many business influencers try to inspire us that we can just launch a course with no following and make 6 figures. Easy, right? It doesn’t work that way for the majority of people. In my opinion, you need to do a lot of free work and grinding for years to build up your audience, learn what your expertise is, and learn what people want from you. Most people try to start a paid offering too soon, no one buys it, then they get discouraged and quit. I think a main reason I am successful today is because I was willing to be patient.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I started my career teaching math & science to most levels K through adult. After about 5 years, I got my master’s in biology and transitioned to biotech where I worked in a lab for another 5 years. Although I was doing well, I was secretly struggling with alcohol. I got sober in 2019 and that inspired me to eventually start my podcast, Sober Powered, where I use my science background to explain what’s going on in the brain to cause addiction and make it hard to get sober. I never expected this to become a business, but I had learned a lot about marketing after spending all of my free time working on my podcast for the first year.

I began to get invited to speak at podcasting conferences and realized that my expertise was very valuable. I made strong connections in the podcasting industry and they encouraged me to start my network. I had spent years building up friendships with other podcasters, and I invited them to join the network and most said yes! Then, I had this big business idea and a full time job. I decided to leave my job in biotech to start my network and my career in podcasting. I had already been working 40 hours at my job and another 40 hours with my podcast, so I didn’t have any additional time to add anything else.

When I launched the network my podcast coaching really took off because a lot of people wanted to know what I know. I began to create courses too because I couldn’t take too many 1:1 clients.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building a following is slow and you have to work at it consistently. I used to get jealous of pages that grew much faster than mine and people who were blessed by the algorithm and had tons of reach. What I learned over the years though, is that most of the people who are quick to grow are also quick to disappear. It’s hard to be on social media, get criticized and trolled, and create content consistently. Not everyone has the desire and drive required to grow on social media. If you want to build a following, then instead of focusing on doing silly trends, focus on positioning yourself as an expert. No one wants to buy something from someone who hops on a bunch of trends. That’s not going to get people to listen to your podcast or care about your offer.

The way I did it was by focusing my page on addiction science and nothing else. Often, aspiring influencers will get distracted by trends and will begin to post lifestyle type content. This confuses the algorithm and your audience. Only make posts about your niche and remember, each post you make is an opportunity for a follower to see it and think, “who is this? Why do I even follow this person?” and unfollow you.

It’s also important to be friends with the other creators in your niche. Collaborate with them. Friends want to share each other’s stuff.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have recently changed my promotional strategy for my podcast. I was making carousel posts promoting my podcast and they were performing very well. Each post would bring in thousands of new followers, despite it being a promotional post. However, since my content strategy was so strong, other creators in my niche began stealing my content. My work was reposted with the branding cropped out, I had people rewriting it with their own branding, and I even had someone edit an entire carousel to cover up my branding with their own. The content theft was becoming too much for me and I didn’t want to post carousels anymore. It was the best way that I was getting people to my podcast, so I had to find a new strategy. At the same time, reach was dropping like crazy on Instagram and most creators’ accounts stopped growing. I realized I was relying on Instagram and that was a dangerous marketing strategy. I have no control over the algorithm or what happens over there.

I spent some time coming up with an entirely new marketing plan, which includes things that are more in my control like SEO for my website, my email list, and PR. We hear all the time that social media is rented land, and I didn’t appreciate this until I saw a friend get her account shut down for no reason (thankfully she got it back) and I observed many of us have drops in reach in new followers. It impacted my podcast numbers and I finally understood that while social media is a great marketing tool, it can’t be my only tool. It’s too risky.

Lesson: don’t rely on social media. Have a content strategy in safer areas like your website and an email list.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.soberpoweredmedia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sober.powered