You Can Do Hard Things: Podcasting, Business, and Burnout with Alesia Galati

In this episode of Here’s What I Learned, I sit down with podcast strategist and founder of Galati Media, Alesia Galati, to talk about building a values-first business, scaling intentionally, and why it's okay to burn it down and start again. We dive into doing business your way, creating sustainable systems, and overcoming imposter syndrome—especially when launching a podcast or trying to grow one without selling your soul.

Alesia shares her insights on leading a mission-driven team, offering generous (and free!) podcast education, and how she’s shifted her business to serve impact-focused creators who want to grow their podcasts on a budget.

Topics:

• Doing Business Your Way (3:35)
• Building and Managing a Values-aligned Team (7:00)
• Challenges of Imposter Syndrome and Sharing Your Story (13:52)
• Lessons Learned and Advice for Podcasters (21:48)

You can find Alesia at:

Website: galatimedia.com

LinkedIn: in/alesia-galati/

Mentioned in the episode:

Podcasting Unlocked

15 Ways to Improve Your Podcast

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Credits:

Intro and Outro Music: Atomic by Alex-Productions |https://onsound.eu/

Music promoted byhttps://www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Transcript

Jacki Hayes  00:04

Hey there. Welcome to Here's What I Learned. I'm Jacki Hayes, a system strategist, unapologetic, smutty romantasy, lover, Dungeons and Dragons geek and your no-BS guide to building a business that works for you. This is the place where we swap stories, share lessons, and get real about the highs and lows of creating a life and business that actually feels good. No cookie cutter advice here, just honest conversations about what's working what's not, and how to rewrite the rules to fit your version of success. So grab your favorite beverage, get comfy, and let's dive in.

Jacki Hayes  00:40

Today on Here's What I Learned. I have Alesia Galati, a podcast strategist and the founder of Galati media, a full service podcast management agency. She believes everyone has a story to tell and is dedicated to empowering others to share their voices with the world. Alesia, welcome to Here's What I Learned. 

Alesia Galati  01:00

Yes, yes. Thank you so much for having me. Jacki, I'm so excited to be here. 

Jacki Hayes  01:04

I am too. I get to spend time with Alesia in the feminist podcast collective, and I always love to hear her insights. And so I cannot wait to have you on the show so you can my audience can hear from you. But like every episode, I ask guest, what is something that you have been learning about lately?

Alesia Galati  01:25

Oh, man, okay, so this is a personal thing that I have been learning, and I am on a get healthier journey, right? I don't want to call it a fitness journey or a weight loss journey, because really it's about losing fat, gaining muscle, is really my goal is like, I want to see the muscle increase. I want to be stronger. I want to be able to have, like, do regular activities without being like, whoa. I'm winded, right? And so been focusing on that. And I'm on week 10 right now, of like, Monday through Friday, working out. Um, barely lost any weight, but my muscle is like ink because my muscles increased, and I can see that I'm like my trackers. But one thing I'm learning is that I can do hard things, and this has been something that's been really hard for me. Like, I'll get to the end of a workout, or, like, sometimes I'll rope my kids in. They're 10 and seven, I'll rope them in. And I'm like, because they do MMA, three, three days a week. And so I'm like, All right, Mondays and Thursdays, I do cardio. You guys have to do at least 10 of these exercises with me. And they're like, Oh, Mom, I don't wanna. And I'm like, Come on, we could do hard things. But it's then I hear it reflected back to me when I'm like, at the end of the workout, and my kids can see that I'm struggling. They're like, Come on, Mom, you could do hard things. And I just, I love that. And I'm just, I'm learning so much about what I'm capable of. 

Jacki Hayes  02:55

So yes, I love that. As somebody who has a past as a personal trainer, I know how hard it can be to get back into that or even start, and I'm in this slump of, like, needing to get back into fitness, and my partner wants me to run a mud run with him in the spring. And I'm like, I haven't run like I always say I'm allergic to cardio. I'm like, give me the weights. I'm allergic to COVID, but I think during our runs right now, he's gonna have to remind me that you can do hard things. You can do hard things. I may get irritated with him. We'll see. So Alicia, what does it mean to you to do business your way?

Alesia Galati  03:38

Yeah, so when I thought about this question, it really brought me back to when I started this part of my business, because I've been in the online space for about 10 years now, but I didn't start doing podcast production for other people until 2020, so we're going on five years. And one thing that I knew I wanted to do when I started this, because I had five years of quote, unquote failures. I knew that I didn't want to do business like all of the webinars, or all of the online gurus, or any of those people were telling me that I had to do it, and I knew I wanted to build a team. I knew that I wanted to be able to have space, to be able to offer really high quality services and do business my own way, rather than relying on, oh well, so and so says I have to create a course. Now I have to create a course. So and So says I have to do a group program. Now I gotta do a group program, but instead just saying quiet to all of those voices and saying, Look, I know what I want to do with this business. It is successful and it's working. So stop getting distracted with all the other things. Now we're at a time where I'm shifting that, because we're seeing it be a little different in business where, you know, in 2020 it would make sense. For me to do, like, just have the what done for you services, whereas now that I have a lot of those under my belt, I want to serve the people who maybe can't afford the done for you services, the ones who are really more impact driven, but are like, look, I don't have 1000s of dollars to give you every month, but I want to be able to grow my show. What can I do? And so having those free resources like the podcast or workshops or freebies, then I had a friend interview me for my 200th episode, which is coming out soon, and she was like, Alicia, you give so much free content away. It's kind of a bit ridiculous. Some of the things that you give away for free, and I'm like, I know, but I just want everybody to have everything they need to, like, be successful. Let's do this together. And so, yeah, that's just how I am showing up, but also just following, right? So, like, how to do business different, following that intuitiveness at the beginning, but then also following it now, which has been a little hard too, but I am happy that I'm doing it because I know that the business is mine and I'm not just copying and pasting what somebody else is doing. 

Jacki Hayes  06:11

Yeah. I mean, we all have been bombarded with all of those suggestions or ways of doing things, and I'm sure all of us have done those things at the start of our business, because we just don't know any better, especially if we like I don't have a background of family members who were business owners. Everybody worked for somebody, so I didn't have a model to follow. So it was easy to fall into the what everybody was telling me to do that had been around for a while, and you do, you quickly start to go, Wait a minute. Their life is not my life. They have different energy levels. They have different connections that they started their business with than me, all of these different things. And then having to kind of make that shift can be it can be challenging to do that. One thing, when you were talking, you said you knew you wanted to have a team? I'm curious, because there's people I talk to her like, no 100% I want to be a solopreneur. And then there's folks that are like, yes, I want to build a team, and some who are like, I want to build a team. And then I want to build my business so much that I can sell it and live off the proceeds of that. So how did you know that you wanted to have a team? And why did you want to have a team? 

Alesia Galati  07:19

I knew that I wanted to scale the business in some way, and because one of my driving forces and selling points is that we listen to every word of the podcasts that we edit. I know I do not have 40 hours of editing only time in the week, and so knowing that, hey, we could scale up to 1015, 20, and we have gotten to the point of 15 weekly shows that we were editing between me and my two teammates. And so knowing that, like, I don't have hours for just me to spend editing this, and having a background in manufacturing, I had created so many SOPs, like life saving SOPs. If you don't do this, right, you will die, and everybody else will die, kind of things because we were working with compressed gasses, which is very dangerous, and can be very dangerous. And so taking that of like, okay, it's a podcast. It's not life or death, but I can at least create a standard operating procedure for people who are like, wait, what's an SOP? Here's a checklist of things that need to be done, and here's how we do these for every single client. And then knew that I wanted to build the team in some way, and so I actually have that baked into my values, and I know we're going to talk values too. Is that, number one, I want to pay myself a living wage. That is my first value. Number two, I want to pay my team a living wage. That is my second value, right? And so, and then it goes into like, the kinds of people we want to work with, etc. But that driving force allowed me to say, Okay, here's what I need to charge and here's how I want to grow my team in a way that I'm not just giving one person, hey, you're doing all the editing, or hey you're doing all the graphics. But how can I train them to be multifaceted so that if they leave, right? Obviously, I don't want them to leave, but if they did leave, or if I had to let them go, or whatever, if the business shifts and life happens, that they would be able to take all of the skills that they've learned, not just, oh, I only do graphics and so I've got to go do that. No, they know everything from the editing all the way through to the marketing, to be able to kind of go forward with those assets, right? So, yeah, that's kind of how I feel about the team. I love my team. They are incredible. I could not do this without them, especially because we listened to every word, but could not be there doing that.

Jacki Hayes  09:49

Well, there's, as you said, we'll talk about values, and I think we're just going to kind of transition there now because of the couple of things you mentioned there. One was, I mean, obviously I think all of us want to pay ourselves a living wage. Yeah, but you know, some of the things that I've seen in the online space when it comes to bringing on contractors, or specifically contractors, is to find them cheap, go out, source them from out of the country, so that you don't have to pay very much. And now, granted paying them that in their country, you know, living, cost of living, etc, but it's like, get the cheapest help you can get. And then most other people, like in the corporate world, or even in still, in that mindset, wouldn't be like, I want to give them all the skills so they can go be successful somewhere else. Where does that come from? For you those two things? 

Alesia Galati  10:35

Yeah, so the first, paying them a living wage, and my team's all in the US. That's also another thing that's like a driving force for me, is like, I want to one. I want to be able to have meetings with them regularly, and I don't want to have to worry about crazy time zones, like we've gotten the central and eastern is where my team is located. So it works really well for our weekly calls. And so that's something that's really important for me, and so I liked keeping them in that space. And I don't know that I would ever go out of it, but yeah, it always felt really icky for me, just from a values perspective, to source outside of the country for the cheapest labor. It just it doesn't feel right to me. And so that was something that I just knew I didn't really want to do. And then where does that kind of instill the managerial stuff of kind of unknown managerial stuff? So I think it has to do with I had a boss when I was in corporate, and he was a fantastic boss. And I base a lot of I model a lot of the ways that he acted with my team, but one of the things that he always instilled was pulling people up right to, like, gear them up for whatever that next step is for them, whether it was with him or with somebody else, because he knows that it can benefit the business as a whole, right? He'd be especially this was a big manufacturing plant, so even if I were to leave his department, I would still see success somewhere else, in another department, and be able to help the business in general. But he was just such a fantastic manager, and I actually reached out to him a couple years ago. I would say it was maybe 2022, and I was like, Hey, I wanted to one check in, see how you're doing, see what's up. But also I wanted to thank you for being such an incredible boss, because I model a lot of the stuff that I do after you, and I love your approach. And one thing he would always say is, like, I'm not going to ask someone to do something that I'm not willing to do, and I'm willing to do all of those things right, but I also have to know, like, my team's not, wasn't ready to do all of those things right out the gate, and so I had to train them up to be able to handle it. And so what I think, too, is that it gives our clients a more concrete feeling every week, because they know that person has my back on all of these assets, rather than 15 hands are touching this, which can feel a little like, Is my voice going to be right in this? Or are they going to get to know me, whereas, like my team, so they've been with me since 2021 and we have clients that are still with us from then. And like my team, knows their voice. They know exactly how to state things, how to write things, how to do things for like show notes and and what kind of things they're looking for. And yes, we have some of those in the SOPs, but a lot of it can be just, oh, well, I know the client, and I know how they like things. And so though the client has that kind of assurance that the team member is going to handle them in a very caring kind of way, because they've been working with some them so long, and they're not just getting passed off to everybody.

Jacki Hayes  14:03

So one of the things that I said during your intro was that you believe everybody has a story to tell, which I'm going to guess is another one of your values, and then obviously they can do that through podcasts with your support. What do you think, or what have you seen? Has been the biggest hurdle people are overcoming when it comes to putting their story out there and starting a podcast?

Alesia Galati  14:28

Yeah, I would say that one of the biggest hurdles is probably imposter syndrome, in that they're not really sure. Well, who am I to have a voice? And this is something that I had to work on myself when I first, when I launched my first podcast in 2018 and I already had some like quirks around how I talk and my voice and the more baritoneness of it, because I'd gone through like a really bad sickness without when I was 18. I completely changed my voice. So I went from singing like soprano all the way to singing with the guys in the choir, in the Alto and the bass. And so I already had some insecurities around my voice. And, oh man, like my story is not unique. It's quite unique actually, but it's in my head, I'm thinking, my story is not unique. Nobody wants to hear about me. No one wants to learn from me. And I had to get over that and just say, Who cares? Let's see, there might be five people that want to hear what I have to say. And it was really interesting, because when I launched my second podcast with my sister in 2019 called two sisters in a cult. We shared our experience growing up in a cult and how the cults we were talking about every week related back to the one that we grew up in. And one thing that we learned very quickly is that when you share your voice, other people will come forward and say, I thought I was alone. I have that experience too, and that just really showed me the power of sharing your story, of using your voice as a way to communicate this stuff. And as someone who's part of a few of the marginalized communities, I think that it's so important, right, that people who have historically been shut up or shut down, that they have space to use their voice to share stories. And so obviously, I'm not talking about the dude bros who have terrible opinions about things that they don't know anything about, right? We're not talking about those guys, talking about people who are impact driven, who are like, I have something incredible to share, and I'm kind of scared to share it. Right? Like, do it scared. And then, when you're looking at your numbers, like, realizing that these are people, right? I think a lot of the time on as podcasters or content creators, we're like, I got 120 likes. Cool. That's 120 people who said they liked your content or hearted it, right? That's pretty incredible. But instead, we just oh, well, it's not the 200 I had last time, right? Like, come on, let's release that and just see these numbers as people, because these downloads that we get on our podcast, these views that we get on our content, these are individuals who are absorbing our content and are actually growing in the background from the things that we're creating. So yeah, I just think it's so incredible.

Jacki Hayes  17:43

Yeah, I had heard somebody say, if you stop to think about, like, the number of downloads of a podcast episode, if that was you on a stage in front of people, would you have the same reaction of, oh, it was only 30 people or only 30 downloads? Well, it was 30 people who came and sat down and gave you 1015, 2030, or more minutes of their time and wanted to listen to you. And a lot of them keep coming back week after week. So would you have a very different perspective on it if you thought about it that way? So yeah, I completely agree. It shifted how I thought about my podcast too, is like, Oh, wow. And I, you know, assuming that several of them are coming back. So that's

Speaker 1  18:26

awesome. Yes, it's such a powerful thing to view it that way, and that's something that I do with my clients, especially when I mentioned followers. So like, how many people are following your podcast? Alright, it's only 350 people, but it's 350 people. Do you understand that?

Alesia Galati  18:49

Exactly? It's 350 people who don't like to be on the telephone but will listen to you for an hour. So powerful.

Jacki Hayes  18:59

What do you think is your favorite thing when working with clients, when they're starting a podcast? 

Alesia Galati  19:09

Okay, so I would have to say my favorite thing is just their excitement, but also like nervousness, but like excitement about what is gonna happen about their show, just that new podcast energy is just really exciting. I mean, at this point, we've launched almost 50 podcasts, so I've, I've gotten that a lot, which is a lot of fun. And then even, like, launching my own recently, of like, it's different every time, because the shows are different, the hosts are different, or the audience is different, right? But the launching is just, oh man, it's such a fun and exciting phase. And one thing that I love that we do differently than other production companies is that we actually do market research, and this goes back to my degree in marketing, because I'm like, Look, we need. To do market research, and one of the things is that it sets our clients up for success with their launch. So if we had a client that they were a podcast, they wanted to create a podcast about GMOs. And from looking at the market research, we realized, I don't know that there's enough information here for an ongoing show that's for GMOs. I think it would actually make more sense to do a limited series. And so being able to present that information, rather than just being like, just tell me what to do, and we're gonna do it, no, we're gonna be really strategic with this, and then being able to see that have success right in its own right as a limited series, I think was just really fun to see. But, yeah, those those clients that have that kind of new podcast energy, those are really fun. But then I also have to say that another part I love, kind of love about my job, is that I get to kind of talk my clients off the ledge. Sometimes they're like, I'm gonna throw it away. I'm done. I've been doing this for years, and nothing's working right? Which I get, we all have those days, but usually they either text or call me up and I hop on a call with them. I'm like, All right, let's look at the data. What is the data tell us, right? Like, let's take the emotions out of it, because we're probably feeling a little manic today, and that's okay, but what are where are we going with this? What are we doing with the show? If you want to stop it, that's okay, but you need to be sure, like, let's look at the numbers. And so I like to be able to do that too, to just be able to be a sounding board and support for someone who is like, ah, kind of freaking out. So yeah,

Jacki Hayes  21:44

I think anybody who has started a podcast and or business has had multiple burn it down days, but they just need somebody in their corner to be like, yeah, I get it. Let's breathe and maybe wait until tomorrow and see how you feel. 

Alesia Galati  22:01

Sleep on it, it's okay.

Jacki Hayes  22:06

What are some of the lessons that you have learned? Some of the biggest lessons you've learned as somebody who has been in this space for 10 years, as far as online, but then also for the last five years, doing what you do now?

Alesia Galati  22:22

rust yourself is honestly the number one thing I've learned. And every decision that led to quote, unquote, success, right? Whatever success looked like for me at that moment, was because I trusted myself to take the leap. And I think that that's such an underutilized part of being a business owner, is that we, like we just said, we're second guessing ourselves every other day we want to burn it down to the ground. And so just knowing that, like, Hey, I know what I'm doing, I can trust that where I'm headed is in the right direction, I think has been really, really helpful. So I would say that's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned. Another one is that I get to change my mind, that I do not have to if I don't want to do this business in five years, then that's okay. I can do something else, and it's gonna be okay, right? That I don't have to keep the same mindset the whole time that I'm gonna change. My business is gonna change. My clients are gonna change. Things are gonna change, and that's okay, so giving myself grace when I want things to be rigid and they're not being rigid and just saying, like, Nope, it's okay. Things can change, but also trusting that I know when things need to be changed for myself, and trusting that kind of guidance as well.

Jacki Hayes  23:51

I find it interesting that you said that second one there, because conversation I had just a couple of days ago was that as business owners, sometimes we feel locked in, like we started as this, so we've got to stay that, or it'll confuse our people. And yet, if we were in corporate world, we'd probably be changing jobs every couple of years, and nobody would blink an eye about it. It's like, No, I'm moving up, or I'm moving across, or I just don't like doing this job. I'm going to do something else, and it's no big deal. But as business owners, like, don't you're going to confuse your people if you keep changing things. And I'm like, I get bored, I have to change

Alesia Galati  24:28

So true.

Jacki Hayes  24:31

If somebody has a podcast and like, they've gotten through that, hooray, I've launched it. I've got a few episodes under my belt. I'm sure that there's more than just myself who've done this. Yay. I got it started now. What? What do you say to people like that?

Alesia Galati  24:49

yeah, so I would say the first thing that you need to do at that point, and maybe you should have done at the beginning, but most people don't, and that's okay, is set a goal for your show and. And there are four goals. I'm looking over at my board here because I keep them here to remind myself constantly there are four. The first thing is conversion. So do you want your podcast to lead to business in invitations or leads for your business or potential clients? What does that look like? So the first is conversions. The next one is impact. So you're trying to increase your brand awareness or education for your audience. We see a lot of nonprofits in the impact space, and that's also some of our clients are nonprofits, so they like that impact part. So we're looking at the social awareness increase in downloads, that kind of thing. The third one is growth, where you want to grow your podcast audience specifically. So it's just more so about that podcast audience. And then the fourth one is engagement, that you want to see more engagement and interactions, people, replying, responding, interacting with your content in some way. And so if you look at those four and you say, well, obviously I want them all. I get it, but pick one. So if you pick one goal that is going to be your focus for the next six months, because hopefully you're still podcasting six months from now, give yourself six months to really drive hard with that one goal and do the actions that need you need to do to achieve those goals. So if you are, for example, if your goal is, hey, I want to grow my podcast audience specifically, and then I want to drive new people there. What do I need to do to do that? That's going to look like some collaborations with other people, maybe some pretty decent guests, right? And I'm not saying high level celebrity guests, because those don't always translate to more downloads, sadly, but those micro influencers, right? The people who have really established and dedicated audiences, those ones are gonna do really well for your show. And then the third thing I would focus on with that is podcast guest thing, because if you're constantly promoting on social media where people are going for their dopamine hits, they're not going to move over to their podcast app to learn educational content. Sadly, I know it sucks, but where can we focus the attention? So okay, yes, I want to post on social media. That's cool. You can do that, but know that that's not really going to help you achieve your your goal quickly or you efficiently. So being a guest on other people's show, they're already listening on their app, and then your call to action at the end is, hey, go check out my podcast that is going to drive more traffic to your show. We've seen clients double and then triple their downloads with really strategic podcast guesting. So that's what I mean when I say, like, find a goal, establish what that is, and then say, All right, I'm gonna double down on these activities, these goal achieving activities for the next six months, and I'm going to see success. And I say six months, because three is not enough to see those results kind of cycle through. So give yourself six months, and then after that, if you want to change your goal, go ahead. You can It's okay.

Jacki Hayes  28:14

What is something you would like to leave the audience with? 

Alesia Galati  28:18

You can do hard things, whether that's a podcast or a business or lifting heavier weights, whatever that is for you, that you can do hard things, and I believe in you.

Jacki Hayes  28:35

Thank you for being here. Where can everybody find you?

Alesia Galati  28:38

Yes, thank you so much. Jacki, this has been so much fun. People can go because how do you spell Alicia? Anyway? There's like 50 different spellings for this. So you can go to help my pod.com, help my pod.com. Made it super easy for you, and there's a freebie. There 15 ways to improve your podcast, as well as a link for a free consultation. If you're like, I kind of need more Alicia in my life. I need to know how to do that. Then you can go there, and there's links right over there. 

Jacki Hayes  29:09

All of those links will that link will be in the show notes. So everybody check that out again. Thanks for being here today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Alesia Galati  29:17

Thank you.

Jacki Hayes  29:21

Thanks for hanging out with me on Here's What I Learned. If today's episode gave you an aha moment, a laugh or something to think about, make sure you're subscribed to my email list. That's where I share even more tips, stories and behind the scenes insights to help you simplify and thrive and remember you get to do business and life your way until next time, keep experimenting, keep simplifying and keep learning.