#7 Interview with Jenna Rutschman of The Get it Girl Show

William Smith:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Studio. Today, I have the great pleasure of interviewing Jenna Rutschman. The host of the Get It Girl Show. Jenna shows all about female empowerment with specific emphasis on entrepreneurship. I came to know Jenna through a mutual friend, who introduced us, because Jenna was looking to launch her own show and I was looking to find some opportunities to edit and produce new shows. To date, we have produced 11 podcasts, together. The show has quickly built an audience. I asked Jenna about her show, some of the challenges that she faced early on, as well as challenges she still faces to this day, producing a weekly podcast. We also talked about her process for finding guests, coaching them and promoting her show. Without any further delay, I bring you my conversation with Jenna Rutschman of the Get It Girl Show.

Why don’t we start by just telling me a little bit about your show.

Jenna Rutschman: As I was listening to podcasts, it kind of dawned on me that I felt that there was a voice missing in the world of startup podcasts that was talking to female entrepreneurs and startup what we call on the Get It Girl Show, we kind of call it Startup Mavens, who are actually out there doing it as a full-time basis, not just a side hustle. Side hustle is definitely something that a lot of entrepreneurs do, and we talk to women who do that, but I really wanted to kind of talk to leaders, and inventors, and entrepreneurs that were trying to take a stab at it, full-time.

That’s kind of where the idea came from, was I had no idea how to do a podcast. I had absolutely no clue. I didn’t know how to launch it. I didn’t know how to record it. I took some editing classes in the late ’90s and the early 2000’s, so I was like, I’ll figure out how to edit it. I was really just kind of the mindset of like I thought I had something to say. I liked chatting with other people. I like sharing other individual stories for inspiration. I just kind of thought, okay, well let’s do that.

William Smith: How did you decide that a podcast was the right vehicle to talk to a very specific audience, which was the female entrepreneur or the startup maven, as you call it?

Jenna Rutschman: I really tackled the podcast in a very kind of systematic researcher type way, where I really went out and said, okay, this is my target audience, I feel that there’s a gap and how can I fill that gap? Something that I wanted to bring to the table was actually following the journey of a brand new startup. That’s where WineBlock, Lauren and Brenda are the co-founder’s of a brand new product called, WineBlock, and that’s where that came to fruition, because I really wanted them to share their unique story of setting up an operating agreement and all the steps it actually takes to be an entrepreneur, just to help someone who might be interested in taking that leap. Then, bringing in different, interviews from different women that have their own startups, or our leaders within different organizations.

William Smith: Very cool. How did you come up with the name, Get It Girl Show? It’s a pretty unique name. Is that like a, is Get It Girl like a phrase that you used, often? How did you come up with that title?

Jenna Rutschman: I probably don’t really say, get it. I don’t know. I shouldn’t say that, I do say, get it girl, it’s usually after a couple of glasses of wine, and I’m being sassy and it’s like, get it girl, but I’m a huge, No Doubt and Gwen Stefani fan, and she has a song with Eve and in it, it’s like, get it girl, get it, get it girl. I cannot believe I just kind of sang. I just kind of ran with it. I’ve had good response. It’s funny, though, because in one episode of a conversation we had with WineBlock we kind of talk about when people that you’re working with vendors, and partners, and things like that, when they look down to women and kind of call you honey, or girl, or something like that, so I was kind of, it made me laugh, because I have the word girl in my show, and it’s really, not probably a word that I would want someone to call me in the business sense, but I think it’s fun and sassy, and at the end of the day that’s kind of my personality.

William Smith: You mentioned some of the response you got to the name, but what’s been kind of the response to the show, in general? I know you’ve done, I think by the time this airs, probably 11 episodes of the show, so it’s a decent amount, you’re past the kind of the starting phase, I mean, I think if you look at a lot of podcasts on iTunes from smaller, you know, independent people, like yourself, not backed by a big company-

Jenna Rutschman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

William Smith: They tend to bow out after probably three or four podcasts.

Jenna Rutschman: Right.

William Smith: Because you know you set it up and maybe you don’t have this massive influx of listeners right away. How long have you been working at it? What’s been the response, so far?

Jenna Rutschman: The response has been really positive, which is awesome. I mean, I think for me I’ve learned because I am, you know, kind of like the person that sits down at happy hour, and it’s like, I have this idea for this company, and I know I’m like that, and I know that’s not everyone. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to got out there and put yourself out there in such a risky way for not only for startup businesses, but also for doing something like a podcast. For me, I think, because I’m sitting kind of in the host seat I didn’t feel as self conscious about it, like the WineBlock gals, like Lauren and Brenda we’re like, it’s so horrible hearing our voices, and I said, no, you guys sound great, you’re smart, and you know what you’re doing, you’ve had extremely successful careers and you’re dedicated to this, so I think it’s awesome.

We’ve had a really good response where I’ve just had nothing but really warm messages on social media, we’re definitely growing that way. We have tons of followers on Facebook, which was crazy to me. I mean, I think we have like over 600 followers on Facebook, and we even had several hundred followers before we even launched the podcast, which was cool to me, because it made me feel, I guess, you know, happy and inspired that people also kind of liked the brand that I had put together, that I just kind of talked about that kind of like grungy and edgier feel for a female driven lifestyle brand, so I thought that was really cool.

Recently, I even, because I live in Tucson and Tucson is a very entrepreneurial city, so there’s not a ton of huge big businesses here, you know, we’ve got University of Arizona, we’ve got Raytheon, we’ve got Caterpillar is actually moving their headquarters here, which is great, but we have a lot of people that own small businesses, whether it’s an electrician, or a plumber, or an agency, or someone who’s creative. I mean, it’s just a lot of people are small business owners, so I think as a community, I reached out via several different like podcast groups, or not even podcast groups, like creative female driven groups, and said, is anyone interested in being on the show? I could not believe how many emails I got of women saying, I would love to be on the show, what’s the credentials to be on the show? I was kind of like, oh, jeez, like, I don’t know if I have credentials, do I need to have credentials? You know? It’s like, do I need to have credentials? I really don’t think, I’m fairly open to if it’s someone that is an entrepreneur and female, like to me I want to hear your story.

So, I’ve had really great response that way. I’ve also had really great response in the Seattle area, because that is where Brenda and Lauren from WineBlock are, so I’ve had other women kind of reach out to me, who are in that part of the country, say that they really liked it. Recently, I did my first interview that was about the Get It Girl Show, which was so nerveracking, I got really nervous, I totally rambled a few times, which I do ramble, and it was from, it’s called, This Is Tucson, and it’s a really cool app, it’s geared at women, kind of in my same target audience, women who are in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s who are, and this is Tucson’s case, you know, live in Tucson and interested in understanding kind of what’s going on in the community. They do a series of what’s called, Badass Women of Tucson, and so they got wind of my podcast and sat me down and named me one of those badass women, which was very cool, because the other women they have, in that category, pretty cool. I was excited about that.

William Smith: I was going to ask you about this, but you kind of led into it, and that was, where do you find your guests? You would recommend doing some Google searches or looking locally for clubs or groups that are in your, I guess in your target market, so in your case it may be female business owners, I think you mentioned, did you look at a podcast club, is that what you had said?

Jenna Rutschman: First and foremost I outreached just to, I sent a personalized message to every female entrepreneur I know, whether it was a personal connection or someone that I’ve worked with, and that’s really how I started first off with my first few interested people. What I also did was I have interviews scheduled through, right now, through fall. So, I mean, some people are like, it’s my busy season, I really cannot sit down with you, and I’m like, that’s fine, let’s get on the books for September, but even if we get closer to that date and we need to change it, that’s fine, because my biggest fear has been running out of content, and running out of recordings, and I also want to make sure that I have a few in the can.

I wanted to reach out to the Tucson community, so I found Tucson’s Together, which is a Facebook group and it is focused on, it’s not Tucson’s Together, it’s Tuesday’s Together, and it’s in Tucson, Arizona and it’s very interesting. I believe Theresa Delaney started it and she runs this really cool thing that is called, let me make sure I say it correctly, because I always, it’s called, Creative Tribe. It’s a really interesting creative company where they do seminars, and events, and it’s co-working space, and event space. It’s a really neat thing. So, I had met her a few times, and thought, you know what, I bet you the people that are part of that group would be a good fit for me, so I threw it out there on just a post and I connected it to my website, my podcast website, and said, is anyone interested, and I got dozens of emails.

I was just so excited by that, and by that really warm welcome, and then since then it’s kind of turned into a little bit of a ground swell, where people will listen. I recently had a company, which is a creative agency out of Minneapolis, I believe, reach out to me and it was someone that works there and said, you have to talk to the owner of our company, she’s rad. I think she does roller derby, which I’m like, that’s so cool. She does roller derby, but she started this agency that has just flourished and done really well, and has won all sorts of accreditations, and things like that. That was really exciting, too, and that lady just reached out to me through Twitter.

William Smith: How do you coach people that you sense have apprehension or they, like you mentioned Lauren and Brenda, they’re like, oh, my voice sounds terrible, how do you coach them, or encourage them to participate?

Jenna Rutschman: With Lauren and Brenda, because we had a very clear vision of what we wanted WineBlock to be, and what we wanted WineBlock to cover, because they’re a brand new company, their first to market product, but they’re also a brand new collaboration between Lauren and Brenda, but we wanted to kind of go though how they actually made it to an operating agreement, and creating the company, and doing all that. We sat down and did some pretty serious episode planning. We did at first in a shared Google sheet, which is like an Excel document, where we kind of had different categories of like, okay, this is the theme of the episode between Lauren and Brenda, who would be the lead voice, so that they’re not stepping on each others toes from a recording standpoint.

Then, also what were the key takeaways, because we didn’t want to script it, we wanted it to feel natural, we wanted to have, you know, giggles, and real stories, and the actual voices of Lauren and Brenda, and myself, but we also wanted to make sure that we were focused and that at the end of each episode, like for the trademark episode, for example. That’s kind of a gnarly process you go through, it’s not really super hard, but it’s just really stressful, especially if you’re trying to get a patent, and a trademark on a brand new product, and it really means a lot, and it’s your company. I thought Brenda and Lauren did a great job just really getting down into the details about what that means, and giving examples of where to go.

I think, as someone listening if they are an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur those are amazing lessons that they might not know about if they’re not kind of entrenched in a entrepreneurial community. We definitely continued to that episode planning, I found it to be really successful, because then when we actually scheduled to record, we usually do two episodes in one sitting, when we’re recording, and when we get on the phone we know the two episodes that we’re going to do, we’re all on the same page, but it’s also not that kind of scripted voice. When reaching out to people who are entrepreneurs to come on the show, it’s definitely different, because we want them to be, we want it to be natural, but we also, a lot of times, you know, people do have hesitancies.

It’s hard to talk about yourself. It’s hard to talk about your business. I think, obviously you want to portray yourself in the right way. What I do is I actually do 15, I always call them 15 minute phone calls, they’re usually longe than that, but I also think that just kind of makes people feel at ease that it’s not like a one hour pre-episode planning phone call or something like that, because it normally does take about 15 to 30 minutes. What I do is I just, I tell them about the Get It Girl Show and try to make them feel comfortable with me, and then I ask them, what’s something special or unique that you would like to share about your company, and your journey? People usually have something that sticks out to them.

William Smith: I’d like to ask you a little bit about your setup. How you actually go about podcasting and interviewing guests, can you give me a little bit of an idea about the investment that you’ve made into podcasting, maybe talk a little bit about the equipment, the software, how you set things up? What does recording day look like for you?

Jenna Rutschman: I knew nothing about recording a podcast, so I went to, you know, where everybody goes, I went to Google and I was like, how do you set up a podcast? I read a bunch of reviews about microphones, and what you need, because I wanted to sound good. I get distracted on podcasts if the quality is not there, so I wanted definitely to have my voice be heard, and for my guests to sound quality. I bought a Yeti, I bought that, I want to say it was like a 100 bucks, maybe a little more.

William Smith: Yeah. They retail about a 129 bucks.

Jenna Rutschman: Yeah. Okay. That’s what I was going to say, I want to say it was maybe 125 and then I bought this fun little screen, so that you sound better, that goes in front of it and that was like $5.00. I already had my laptop. I have GarageBand, so I was like, okay, I’m going to do GarageBand.

William Smith: So, you’re on a Mac.

Jenna Rutschman: I’m on a Mac. I’m a Mac, girl. I’m on a Mac, so that seemed kind of easy and then I just go, I just jump into things, which probably isn’t always the best way to do it, so I think I did my first interview and I literally, I did it via Skype, and I thought that was going to be totally fine, and then I listened to it, and I was like, whoa, that sounds so bad. I actually got connected with you and you were so nice, we had a phone call. You were like, what are you going to use? What software are you going to use to host your podcast? I was like, I have no software to host my podcast? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just thought you put it on iTunes. I thought it was like an app where you just get the app upload it to iTunes and there you go, because I’ve launched apps in my career. But, if you think about it you host the app somewhere, so I definitely didn’t think that one through. We started with Libsyn, is that how you say it? Libsyn?

William Smith: Libsyn. Yeah. It stands for liberated syndication, so however you want to pronounce that.

Jenna Rutschman: That was fine. I thought it was a little clunky from a user experience standpoint, we’ve actually switched over to Omni Studio, which I love. It’s just very intuitive. I love kind of the different features for having the snippets of your podcast. I think it really makes marketing the podcast a lot easier. That’s the actual software that you go in, I think it’s $9.00 a month, so it’s actually cheaper than Libsyn, which is just a plus. They have different ranges, also. I think, that’s the base one. I already had a photo taken. It was like a headshot someone had done for a different business, so I just used that for the cover art. I actually did a lot of research on the cover art, I shouldn’t act like I didn’t. I totally did a lot of research on the cover art, and a lot of experts out there say if you are a newer podcast that they recommend having your mug, you know, your face on the cover, which I didn’t really want to do at first, but people have been really positive about the cover art, so I’m like, okay, cool.

William Smith: What did the experts say, what was the reason for that?

Jenna Rutschman: It’s just like how Facebook ads, like if you have a human in the Facebook ad, like people are more likely to click on it. I think it’s just one of those things where, I think people probably automatically make some sort of assumption about maybe who you are and that they would want to listen to you. I looked at a lot of different podcasts covers from people that I listen to that don’t necessarily do what I do, like everything from the Jay Today one to Kaye Putnam, had a cool one for a while. I don’t know if she still has hers, but it was like a branding one. Most of these individual have their head shots of some way, like right there. I thought about that, and then I also do unique graphics for each of my podcasts, and I ask the individuals who are interviewed on the podcast to also share, I specifically ask them to share the cover artwork, as well as whatever unique artwork I do for their episode, so that we’re reaching new individuals.

William Smith: What’s been your experience about having guests help you promote the episode? Have you had success with that? One of the things I’ve found in just doing my own, you know, in my day job is sometimes it’s hard to get people to actually promote themselves after the fact, maybe they feel nervous, or you know, unsure about what they’ve just done.

Jenna Rutschman: You know, some people are totally fine with self promotion and other people are really aren’t. Lauren and Brenda, on the WineBlock side have been amazing. They also are promoting their product, though, through this promotion. I think they also kind of feel like the more listeners we get the more people who are going to have awareness, because it’s a brand new product, it’s going to be first to market, type product. They’ve been great about it and they’ve been very consistent, also, which is awesome.

William Smith: You do the recording out of your house, how is it inviting people over to your house?

Jenna Rutschman: You know, it’s slightly awkward, most of these people I haven’t met before. I think, they feel safe because it is like you know, it’s female to female, so I don’t think they feel awkward about going to someone’s house. I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood. I did kind of have one situation where I felt really bad, because someone was allergic to dogs, and I totally have, you know, this barky not even a year old Australian blue heeler, and so I was like, I felt bad about it. Now, I always ask people, hey, I have a dog, should the dog be inside or outside when you get here? I just try to make sure my house is really clean. I have a home office, and it is a home office, when you sit down in my office it feels like an office.

I’m thankful that it’s not like, you know, guest room and office type situation that I actually had at my old house. That feels nice. I have two microphones, so I have my mic, which is the YETI, and then I have a little USB plugin mic that works really nice, and I definitely talk to them about how to record, which you gave me a lot of these tips. You have to be awkwardly close to the microphone, you know, just trying to give them tips about how to make sure that they’re going to sound good. Then, I normally record just chatter with them, and listen, and play it back to make sure everything sounds good. So far, we haven’t had any major disasters at my house. I have had to rerecord a few, which is like, ewe, I felt bad about that.

William Smith: What’s been the biggest challenge that you’ve found, so far? Is it just, is it the coaching aspect of getting people comfortable? Is it finding people? Is it promotion? Is it technical things? Then, I also want to talk about what’s been the most enjoyable part.

Jenna Rutschman: I think, the most challenging part is probably twofold, it’s definitely been technical issues. I’m a novice when it comes to, you know, using GarageBand, and having two microphones recording on two tracks was bonkers to figure out. You were so nice to help me. I definitely watched a lot of YouTube tutorials, which were so helpful. I love people who do YouTube tutorials, it’s just amazing. I think that, that has been a challenge, but I feel like I’m overcoming it. I think it was just a little bit of a learning curve. I think the other challenge is I just really want to be consistent, so I want tot be consistently having great content that I’m not only promoting, but I’m also putting out there, every week.

I think things that I’ve found most rewarding is really meeting, I love meeting new people. I also love the fact that I’ve been able to kind of connect with like minded women, and I feel that the Get It Girl show is building a community, which I think is really neat and inspiring to hear, you know, every week when a new episode comes out that people love it and that someone else is turned on by it, and shares it. That’s been really rewarding for me, is just the actual connectivity of it. You know, connecting to other women, being able to hear their story and share their journey for inspiration for others. That’s been way more rewarding than I expected it to be.

William Smith: Have you been able to get any new business as a result of podcasting? Is that even a focus of why you do the podcast? Is there like a new biz type of aspect to it?

Jenna Rutschman: I actually recently was asked to speak at Ignite 520, which is put on by the Tucson Young Professionals Group. It was because of the podcast, so I went and I moderated a panel. We Facebook lived it, which was funny, it was the first time I had ever done that. It was really interesting and it was all about female empowerment. It was called, Female Is The Future. After that, I have definitely had several individuals reach out to me interested in using my marketing firm for some digital strategy work. Talking to them. I also was asked to speak at a marketing class for the Eller School of Communication, here at U of A, which is the very highly ranked business school, so that was cool. I definitely feel like it’s extremely helpful promoting myself and my day job, and the consulting that I do.

William Smith: I read a lot about, you know, people that are trying to make their podcast viable as an income source, you know, and they’re usually using advertisement for that. I know on the Get It Girl Show, there’s no ads, at this point, you know, it’s all kind of just conversations and just good information. Do you see a point where you’ll need to add ads to your show? Has anyone approached you about adding ads?

Jenna Rutschman: I haven’t been approached. I just don’t know. It would have to make sense. You know? I mean, for me, I really would love to build, just build a community and from the get go I’ve always, you know, my friend Brooke and I have always wanted to do some sort of cool downloadables that are like her designs, they’re all my visions, and my ideas, and her designs. That something, that’s just kind of how I wanted to launch it. I’m going to kind of stick to that, now. By no means do I think I will turn away the right advertiser. It’s always nice to have some extra cash, but that’s definitely not the end goal.

I remember I was at social media marketer world a few years ago, actually with the crew at Convince and Convert, Kelly Santina a good friend of mine, we went to some of the podcast track and wow some of them are so intense about how much money they make per month, and their very open with their books, and they do these, you know, you have to buy in to these different communities to do this and that. I was just like, wow, these people are like really making a lot of money, but it also just didn’t feel like as authentic to me, and I really want the conversations that I have on the Get It Girl Show to be candid, and to be very thoughtful about what it is like to be a female entrepreneur, because it is a different path. I think that is how these conversations can be useful to other people.

William Smith: Do they talk about what constitutes a lot of money?

Jenna Rutschman: Yeah. I mean, it’s like that John Lee Dumas, he runs, what’s it called? Paradise Entrepreneur on Fire, I think, and he puts out his monthly revenue stats, and I mean I think it’s like six figures. He has this thing where he does, yeah, so it’s called Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast, but then, I believe, and he’s the one who I specifically heard speak, and he seems like a really nice guy. He looks super driven, obviously. Yes. March income, I just googled it, $490,000.00.

William Smith: Wow. He must be selling something. It cannot just be from ads.

Jenna Rutschman: He sells a community. I think it’s called, Podcasters Paradise. I might be combining those two, but he does sell a community where you buy into it and you have to pay a certain amount of money. It’s essentially like coaching you on how to also make money on your podcast, which is very, I mean good for him, like, wow, that’s amazing money, but his goal is to kind of teach people productivity and how to be really aligned in that. Yeah.

William Smith: That’s pretty cool.

Jenna Rutschman: It’s crazy.

William Smith: Cool. Jenna, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing. This is my first interview, well my first interview on this show, I’ve don’t it before.

Jenna Rutschman: Right.

William Smith: It’s kind of nerveracking. I have to be honest. It’s not as easy as being the producer or the editor person behind the scenes. Coming up with the questions, and all the active listening involved.

Jenna Rutschman: Yes. Lots of active listening. See now, you feel my pain. It was lovely. It was my first podcast I was on the other side of it. I’m usually the host, so it was exciting. Thanks for having me.

William Smith: I’d like to sincerely thank Jenna, once again for spending her time with me today on Studio. I’d like to invite any listeners who either have their own show, or know someone who does that might be interested in being interviewed to reach out to me. The best way is to use the contact form below. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.

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