ALISON RICE - OFFLINE
ON FINDING A BUSINESS PARTNER TO HELP GROW OFFLINE
We first interviewed Alison Rice back in 2018 inside the Sydney offices at Allure Media. And if you haven’t had a listen, we definitely recommend you go back in time and soak up the first conversation.
At that time, the lady-brains podcast was just a baby and Alison was at the peak of her media career as group publisher – responsible for overseeing Who What Wear, PopSugar, Byrdie and MyDomaine.
When we spoke to Alison, she was in a moment of transition from her high-flying role as group publisher into the launch of her own podcast – Offline – a show that explores the intersection between your true self and professional self.
Off the back of the podcast, she’s continued to grow and evolve Offline with other product and service offerings for her deeply engaged community.
We spoke to Alison about the different points of tension that show up in business, why content creators need to have on and off seasons, the reason she’s taking on a business partner, and how she’s built a business around the often overlooked art of listening.
You’ll learn:
Why Alison is bringing a business partner on board to help her take Offline to the next level
Why Alison’s business strategy is built around listening, then responding
The tensions that exist as a business owner between letting things unfold vs. pushing forward
Why Alison carves out time for her to retreat, reflect and think, as well as time to create and launch her ideas
How she deals when she gets caught in the comparison trap
Why she believes that she’s currently earning trust from her audience rather than earning money
We hope you enjoyed this conversation – for more podcast action follow us on Instagram @lady.brains, or sign up to our monthly newsletter at www.ladybrains.com
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“I saw pretty early on that the community was going to grow it for me, it wasn’t going to be this lightning bolt strategy that I wrote, it was more going to be led by them. That moved me into this position of deep listening, which I do maintain till this day. Of course I have ideas, but there is lots of stuff that never makes it out there that maybe my ego has [thought about creating]. But I haven’t actually heard the audience or the community ask for it.”
“When I left my role at Allure Media] I think my ego was gripping on. But my essence was way more powerful in the direction of this brand. It was definitely a head and heart battle for the first year [of Offline], especially when you get to a certain level in media, there’s an expectation of what will happen on the outside. In the first year, because it took off so organically, I didn’t really think much about audience.”
“I’m going to protect [the listener], like I would my child. And that means a lot to me now, because I have one. That’s really been my North Star when it comes to commercialisation. It’s protecting this person who is consuming my work in a very vulnerable place, moving through extreme life transitions, and intimately knowing they do not want to hear me reading a host read ad about something that I don’t actually use.”
“So the evolution of the one on one coaching was really in response to the audience asking for it. And I think when you move that way, and you move your business that way, it takes a lot of the risk out of it, but also a lot of the vulnerability out of it. Because I’m not coming out with something that nobody asked for, and hoping someone buys it. ”
“I’ve got such a deep, unwavering belief in this business. It wouldn’t matter if I did something this year, or next year or the year after. People need what I have to give, and they’re not going to go anywhere. They might go to other people first. But no one’s me. And we all have to remember this. No one is you. No one knows what you know, in the way you know it. ”
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