The Sparkline — a blog for independent creatives and entrepreneurs building matterful things.

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Podcasting

Jess Lively is the host of The Lively Show and founder of Life with Intention Online. But long before she ever interviewed a well-known guest for her top-rated podcast, she started and grew a jewelry business... beginning in high school. This is her story.

Jordan Harbinger is an American lawyer turned Social Dynamics expert. He is the owner and co-founder of The Art of Charm, a dating and relationships coaching company and top rated podcast. In this Founder Story, Corbett sits down with Jordan to discuss how he started this business on the side while working as a layer, how he built up his team of coaches and employees, and the impact podcasting had on growing his audience and client base.

So you already have a podcast (or have at least been through our Getting Started With Podcasting course) and you want to know how to take your podcasting to the next level. That's what this course is for. In it you'll learn from John Lee Dumas, founder of the Entrepreneur On Fire podcast, a consistent #1 Business podcast, about podcast sponsorships, growing your audience, and tips for landing and conducting interviews with high quality guests.

Launches are important and shouldn’t be taken lightly. In this course we'll cover why planning a launch is so much better than just "putting it out there", we'll develop a launch plan that builds pre-launch buzz, we'll discuss what types of content to create before during and after your launch, how you should invest the majority of your time, and set the date for your launch. In the later lessons we'll get into specific tips if you are launching something people will pay for, like a product or service, and we will even walk through a couple case studies of blogs we've launched or helped re-launched.

Natalie Sisson left an 8-year career in corporate marketing, communications and brand management for the vast uncertainty of starting a business. It wasn't easy, as you'll learn in this founders story session with Natalie. She shares how dark things got (at one point being hours from not being able to pay the rent) and what finally clicked to make her current life and business possible.

Choosing a topic for your business (or blog, podcast, platform, etc.) is an incredibly important decision. A great topic can make your life fantastically easy. People will naturally identify with your mission and help share your message. The right topic will make you come alive and fall in love with your business and customers.

In this step-by-step course, you’ll learn exactly how to set up your email list, how to grow your list the fastest, what to email your list, and lots of advanced techniques. The formula for building a big email list is actually fairly simple and consistent, whether you have 10 subscribers or 10,000 or more.

Learning to create effective and engaging content is one of the greatest skills you can bring to your business. Anyone can create content, but very few people can actually create effective content that creates true fans and customers.