Jessica Rhodes: Be My Guest

Tara Sands  0:02  
The sound of podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:14  
Jessica Rhodes is the founder of interview connections, the first podcast guest Agency launched back in 2013 Jessica was one of the first 10 guests I had on my show back in 2016 and I invited her back in 2021 to talk about the growth of her company over the first seven years, and now she's back again to discuss the podcast guest industry in 2025 if you're a podcaster, you likely get spam daily from PR agencies asking for so and so to be a guest on your podcast, even if you don't have guests on your podcast, it's pretty annoying. I think it's important for me to tell you the story of how I met Jessica. It was at Podcast Movement in 2016 and she had a booth, and I asked her what goes on at interview connections. In short, she says she's a podcast matchmaker for guests. Now I'm fresh out of radio and I'm new and I'm like, wait a second, who can't get a guest for their podcast? Well, it turns out, a lot of people. And in the years beyond 2016 sprouted a lot of imitators and duplicators from the success at interview connections. She has a podcast of her own, and you should listen and follow it for the same reason I do, and that's because you will learn lots. And now Jessica Rhodes joins me from North Smith, head, Rhode Island. Why should someone be a podcast guest? Oh, you want me to answer that?

Jessica Rhodes  1:41  
Sorry, no, start over and edit that out. You're not gonna edit that out. You're probably gonna kick the hell. Oh yeah, isn't it obvious, Matt, because you get to have moments

Matt Cundill  1:54  
like that. I mean, I know it's an obvious question, but I think, I think it bears reminding about why people should become a podcast guest and take it seriously.

Jessica Rhodes  2:02  
I will say not everyone should be a podcast guest. I think it really depends on what your goals are and what you need to get out of it in order to reach your goals. So for business owners, you should be a podcast guest if you need to reach new audiences, and if you need more than a quick sound bite to explain what you do and the value behind what you do, that's why you should be a podcast guest.

Matt Cundill  2:31  
There's a contingent of people out there who want to start a podcast, but maybe they're better suited to being a podcast guest than trying to do a bunch of episodes about

Jessica Rhodes  2:39  
themselves. Yeah, totally. I mean, for the vast majority of people I talk to, and business owners, I say you should be a guest first. Don't try to start your own show. It's a huge amount of work. You need to have a clear message and a clear brand, and you know, have the commitment to do a show. But if you just be a guest on other people's podcasts, you'll you'll see if you like it. You'll see if you like being interviewed. You like talking into a microphone. You like creating long form content, but yeah, being a guest first is my recommendation for most business owners before starting their own podcast.

Matt Cundill  3:13  
This is a one round edition of would you rather and would you rather be on a few podcasts with big downloads, or would you rather be on smaller podcasts with fewer downloads and more niche content,

Jessica Rhodes  3:25  
definitely more niche content, like the smaller podcasts more consistently. This is such a big misconception. People think that, Oh, if I just get on a couple of really big shows, I'll hit my goal. But the thing about these really big shows, and I'm talking kind of in black and white here, but there's obviously nuance to it. They have podcast episodes coming out every week, probably maybe twice a week, and so let's say they have 50,000 listeners, or 100,000 plus listeners, that big group of people, they listen to an episode, maybe some of them reach out and they're interested, but then they're on to the next episode. Whereas, if you're in front of a really targeted, engaged, niche audience, there's a closer connection between that audience and the host of the show, and so there's probably going to be a lot higher trust with the guests that that host is bringing

Matt Cundill  4:16  
on. What would you say to someone who says, Oh, I've guessed it on podcasts before, and they don't really work.

Jessica Rhodes  4:24  
Oh my gosh. So I did a post about this because I was inspired by this metaphor. You might have seen it where, you know it's that is like saying all cookies are bad, because the one time you made cookies, you forgot to add baking soda or baking powder or salt or some, like, minor ingredient. You're like, Oh, that was horrible. I don't like cookies as a whole. And it's the same thing with podcast guesting. You could do a few podcast interviews and not get any clients or leads from them. But there is a recipe to success with this strategy, just like there is a formula for having success with paid ads or with any other type of marketing. Are you on the right shows? Are you building a great relationship with the host of the show? You know? Are you telling compelling stories? Are you speaking in a way that listeners really like listening to you speak? Are you giving a call to action? Are you promoting the episodes? There's so many things that podcast guests can do to see more results, but if you just do a few interviews, you don't do anything to leverage the interviews, then you probably won't get that many leads and sales from them. It's not the strategy's fault, it's the fact that you didn't fully leverage the opportunity.

Matt Cundill  5:33  
What do you advise your guests do when it comes to promoting an episode?

Jessica Rhodes  5:39  
Oh, we have kind of a laundry list of things that they can do. And my caveat is always like, Don't get overwhelmed if you feel like you can't implement this all, because most people don't implement it all, but the things that I see my clients do, who get the best ROI number one, super simple, but have a playlist of all of your guest expert appearances. Like a Spotify playlist is a really easy way to do that, and then have the Spotify playlist of your guest appearances be in your Instagram bio if you're active on Instagram or on your website, for example, somewhere where your audience can find interviews that they could listen to with you as the guest. So that's one way sending your podcast interview appearances out to your email list or to your text list. So if you've been growing your business for quite some time, you have people that are following you. They're on your email list. They're your clients or your former clients. Every so often, send them an interview that they can listen to with you as the guest. Send episodes of you as the guest to your prospective clients before a sales consultation call as a way for them to get nurtured and see you as an authority before going into that conversation, repurpose the interviews into social media content. So you can take clips, you know, this video, you know, this interview, will go up on YouTube, and then we'll be able to put a link to it in Opus Pro, which is an AI software, and get a bunch of clips that we'll put up on our Instagram and our YouTube channel. So it's great for short form content. And then you can also take the experience of the interview and turn that into a post, like I will, for sure after this, probably do an Instagram story about how the first question I just said, you want me to answer that, to just using the actual experience to create content and kind of give a behind the scenes look at the

Matt Cundill  7:21  
experience. What do clients know that this is working like? What are the things that come back when people say, Oh, this is actually working and happening and I'm seeing results? Yeah.

Jessica Rhodes  7:33  
I mean, there's tangible results, like website traffic, people joining your email list, people actually reaching out on LinkedIn saying, Hey, I heard you on this podcast. I'd love to connect leads, clients, things like that. So the actual KPIs of your marketing funnel start moving, and that's great. I also have clients that will tell me, even before their interviews go live, before they start seeing the website traffic and the email list growth and the leads and the sales they're like, I'm feeling so much more confident. I'm able to explain what I do so much more succinctly. I can feel myself growing. So there's also it's a personal growth opportunity as well, because if you've been feeling like this best kept secret, you're behind the scenes, nobody knows who you are, and suddenly, now you have people who are featuring you and spotlighting you and telling you how amazing you are you do start to grow personally and feel more confident, and that confidence seeps out into other areas of your business, in life as well.

Matt Cundill  8:28  
Why is your online presence so important when it comes to getting booked and will you say no to somebody with a very messy online image or presentation?

Jessica Rhodes  8:40  
Matt, I get yelled at quite frequently by people who have a very bad online presence because they'll book a consultation call with me because they want to get on podcasts. And before we confirm somebody's consultation call, I look at their website if they have one. I'll look at their social media if they have one. And sometimes it's non existent, which I'm like, I can't find. Like, how am I going to get you on podcast? There's nothing about you on the internet, or they have it, and it's a train wreck. And I very kindly, I'm like, I don't think it's a good fit. I'm going to cancel the call. And they're like, but why? And I'm like, Are you going to make me spell it out for you? I have no idea what you do. You're posting random stuff on your Instagram, your website is a mess. When I click the Instagram icon, it takes me to the Wix Instagram page, not yours. Your headshots are selfies that you cropped out of Facebook. Like it's just a mess, and you might have a great story. And all of the people that I'm probably referencing right now, I am sure are lovely people, but if you want to be a guest on somebody's podcast that they are investing time and resources into creating a show, you also have to have an online presence that they would want to align with.

Matt Cundill  9:55  
I remember I sent somebody to you as a potential client. I. And you turn them away because you didn't think that you could get them enough ROI to make it worth their time. And I can't tell you how admirable that is, but it also saves you time as a business person, right? And it prevents a bad story. So what are some of the things that you look at to determine whether or not someone's going to get enough.

Jessica Rhodes  10:23  
Roi, yeah, I would love to take on everyone as a client who would pay me, because that would be great. But because our service number one, we guarantee the booking. So if I take someone on, I have to know that we can get them bookings guaranteed, or else I'm out of integrity. So that's number one, and the shows that we book our clients on have to be a good fit for them. So if the types of podcasts that somebody would need to be a guest on in order to grow their business are not shows that we have connections with, or they're just not that many shows out there for them that are a good fit in existence, it just doesn't make sense. There's also people I've spoken to that have a target audience that we could get them in front of. But let's say they're selling an app where it's a free app in the, you know, App Store on the iPhone, but they need to get a really high volume so that they can sell ad space within their app. So they're needing volume, where the podcast that we're booking people on, you know, downloads aren't public, so we don't know, but I'm going to guess any, you know, maybe 500 listeners an episode, type of thing like these are small shows, but they're very targeted and engaged. But somebody that needs to be getting 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s of people downloading their app on a monthly basis, they would need, like, 100% of every single person who hears them as a guest to then download the app like you're not going to get 100% conversion rate from any show. So there's volume, there's price point, there's who the target audience is. Those are all things we take into consideration to know, like, would we be able to help this person

Matt Cundill  11:57  
now that we're all doing video, you've had to get your clients up to speed on presenting themselves on video. So what are those tips that you could give someone like me who just sort of showed up un showered, unshaven and doing a podcast?

Jessica Rhodes  12:08  
I know I'm like, Matt, are we on video tonight? I know it's tough, because now you and I have both been podcasting a long time, and I remember the days of this being an audio only platform, and that's the thing I loved about it, because I was a new mom and I had a baby at home, and that's I didn't want to have to look camera ready all the time, but that's where we are. It's all video now, and so looking straight at the camera, it's tough, but that is a tip that I give. That's why I asked you at the beginning. I'm like, is this going up? Because it would be much easier to just look at your face. But, you know, I make an effort to look at the webcam so that the people watching this feel like I'm making some eye contact with them. Having good lighting is really key. For the most part. When our clients sign up, we're going to send them a ring light, something that they have some good lighting and then just having a nice, solid background. I mean, I'm lucky. I've got this beautiful background in my home office here, which is great. People always ask me, like, is that virtual? I'm like, Nope, it's it's totally real. But you could also have a virtual background if you don't have an office space with a clean professional background. I've got clients that will use a nice green screen with, like their logo, and it looks really good. You don't want to have like, a weird fake office background. I think those don't look that good, but, yeah, just something clean, simple, because the majority of the listeners are going to be audio only. But for the people that do see the clips and the video, you do want to

Matt Cundill  13:28  
look professional. Do you supply microphones to all your clients, not all

Jessica Rhodes  13:33  
of our clients, but we'll often have microphones and ring lights as like a bonus gift if they sign up during a promotional period.

Matt Cundill  13:39  
So how do you train your client to speak on mic and as well be centered? Because I find that whenever you give somebody new to this space a microphone, but they are aware of the camera, they will move Off mic.

Jessica Rhodes  13:54  
Oh my gosh. Well, Matt, now you're pointing out a little hole in my business, which I probably should do more mic training. I mean, we send people dynamic microphones, because the condenser microphones just pick up way too much background noise, and people don't have soundproof offices. And we also make sure that they have a microphone stand that raises the microphone up closer to their face. Because I used to always send people the ATR 2100 but that's discontinued. It's not on Amazon anymore, so we switched to a comparable model of a different brand that has a stand. But the ATR 2100 the stand that comes with it, was so low, like you couldn't speak into it properly, it sounded horrible. So yeah, we probably should do more mic training. But you know, that's it. I don't have an end to that sentence.

Matt Cundill  14:44  
Let's talk about spam. Oh, my god, yeah. And so spam is not new. It's been around for a long time, and I think every podcaster who has their email address in their RSS feed just gets blasted. With all sorts of get I'm just deleting these things so fast every day. Now, how problematic is that?

Jessica Rhodes  15:07  
It's a huge problem. I mean, every single day, just as a business owner getting solicited with lead gen, and I can get you this many consults booked, and you know, I'm hitting that little trash can icon before I even open the email because there's also so much there's scams out there and malware links, and I'm just like, I'm not even going to open it if I can tell that it's spam. But it's in podcast booking as well, where I know it's spam and it's aI generated, because I'll get pitched as the founder of the leading podcast booking agency. I'll get emails that are like, Hey, have you thought about podcast guesting? I'm not even joking with you. I do get emails where people are like, Have you considered building your brand with podcasts? And I'm like, Yeah, I've thought about it. Just a little bit.

Tara Sands  15:51  
Sound design of the sound off podcast is inspired by mega tracks, the sound of entertainment, providing music and sound effects for radio, podcasts and media professionals. Mega tracks is your one stop shop for library and custom tracks. Start your music search now at Mega tracks.com the sound off podcast with Matt Cundill,

Matt Cundill  16:16  
how would you use AI in a positive way?

Jessica Rhodes  16:19  
I think we use chat GPT as much as any other normal person would use it. There's probably so many more ways to use AI that we're not adept to. But you know, the normal things like, hey, what types of shows do you think this type of person would listen to? So we'll use it as a sounding board if we're a little stuck. But, I mean, we have our own database, our own software. We use listen notes and refonic. There's some of the big, you know, podcast directories to search, but our team, like our employees, are doing all the research. We're not using AI to, like, I haven't found a way to actually properly scrape lists of podcasts. I know they're out there, but we still kind of do it the old fashioned ways, which is, like, we're researching and, like, looking over shows as a human to see if it's a good fit for our clients. But we use AI for like, you know, editing the video clips and things like that as a way to repurpose the interviews.

Matt Cundill  17:07  
You know, one of the things that I've noticed is I've never, ever received an email from your company that requests a guest beyond a podcast that has actually no guests on the podcast. So I'll get companies who said, hey, we'd like to get this person on this podcast. Go, yeah, this podcast doesn't have any guests.

Jessica Rhodes  17:24  
That's like, podcast booking 101. Do they take guests? Do they take guests and and sometimes people will, like, friends in the business space will reach out to me, and they'll like, I got a DM from somebody the other day who I've known for a long time, and she was like, telling me this horror story of a guest she had and what to do about it. And I was like, That's not our client. She goes, oh my gosh, I thought it was your client. Like, no, thank God, that's not our client. So yeah, there's, there's crazy story, there's, there's a lot of people out there doing crazy stuff, but I have yet to hear a valid complaint from somebody about our team or our clients.

Matt Cundill  18:01  
You were the first to do this. You're likely the best. Why are you not phased by all the other companies that come screaming into this space and imitating you?

Jessica Rhodes  18:13  
I got over the imitation wound a long time ago that bothered me for a while, but I've been unbothered by it for for many, many years now, because I can see that there's an abundance of leads out there. The demand for podcast booking is so high that, I mean, I couldn't possibly serve everyone. There are plenty of clients that, you know, for example, just like, business model wise, like, are a fine fit for us, but are just like, their messaging or their values are not aligned with ours. And so I'm like, Yeah, I'm not going to book you on podcast. You can go to XYZ company. So there's plenty of people that just we won't serve for whatever reason. So I'm fine that there's other people out there and there's people priced differently. There's certainly other companies that I don't align with, but I just don't really pay attention to them. It's always tough. Just like any I feel like any business owner can relate to the challenge of, like, having a really great lead that you crush the sales call with, and then they're like, Oh, I went with the other guy. And you're just like, why we had such a good thing going? You know, like, that's just always gonna happen, but I just remind myself that, like, you know, I've closed sales with clients that heard about podcast guessing through a competitor, but then they did choose us. Oh, all right, thank you, Mr.

Matt Cundill  19:32  
Competitor. I mean, you've done so well for yourself at interview connections and being the founder, people actively call you for sales training. Jessica, come train my staff. I

Jessica Rhodes  19:45  
like to talk about sales with my clients. That's a topic that comes up a lot. I host mastermind calls for our clients. I haven't been called in to train anyone's employees, but I definitely train my own. And I just like it. It comes really. Naturally to me. So it's a topic I do touch on on my Instagram a lot, just because if somebody is getting leads from podcast guesting, but they don't know how to close a sale, they're going to struggle to see an ROI. I like to loop it into my content, because it is something that you have to have down within a company if you're going to grow like marketing can't solve a sales problem

Matt Cundill  20:21  
in that first call with a potential client, they have sticker shock. What do you tell them?

Jessica Rhodes  20:26  
Did you see the prices I sent you over email before the call? I mean, it happens all the time. People are like, Oh my God. It's like, they're like, this is so expensive. And I just say, Do you want to cancel the call? Like, I don't know. I mean, there's I had somebody over Instagram. She commented on our ad, and she was like, let's cut to the chase. What's the price? And I was like, I'll send you a DM. I sent her the prices, and she goes, Is this a joke? And I said, No, it's I sent her a voice text. I said, No, it's not a joke. You asked me for the prices, and these are the prices. She's like, Oh, okay. Like, it's tough because people have not really purchased this before, so something's only expensive based off of what you compare it to. So if you're comparing it to nothing, zero, I've never spent money on this before, yeah, it's expensive. But if you're comparing this to 10 to $15,000 a month on PR, it's a bargain,

Matt Cundill  21:15  
yeah. So I work in this space too, a little bit when it comes to I do freelance, you're doing, obviously something a little bit bigger than that, but there are still people you come across that expect you to do it for free, or I'll pay you when I get results. I can't believe that happens, but it happens. It happens all the time.

Jessica Rhodes  21:32  
We had a situation recently where somebody wanted to barter, and I'm like, bartering doesn't make payroll, buddy, like, and I respect that for people just getting started. Like, I remember when I was a kid, and my dad was first starting his business, he was bartering as a way to get clients, as a way to start building relationships, like early, early days, just getting started. But when you're running an established business, you have employees who've got payroll. Like, we're not bartering here. If we both want each other services, I will pay you for your service, and you will pay me for mine, but we're not bartering. I

Matt Cundill  22:03  
mean, it's incredible to think that 10 years into this that has come this far, when you look back at the beginning to where it is now, I don't want to say, like, what changes are there? I think we know what the changes are, but maybe looking a little bit ahead into the future, what excites you about podcast guesting that I don't see right now,

Jessica Rhodes  22:24  
I will answer a slightly different question, but I think I'll still get your answer. I think what excites me about my business and the industry is that, like, one thing that I'm doing right now as an entrepreneur and as a business owner is like, what else can I do to serve the needs of my clients, which may be adding more potentially. Who knows? Really like investigating? Because we've just done podcast booking. That's the only service we've provided for 12 years. And so as the industry grows, as the client pool grows, more and more people want to do this, it's like, okay, how do we maybe there's other services that we can offer in addition to podcast guesting to help people see a bigger ROI. So that's just a question I'm asking myself, and that excites me, because people do want to get on podcasts, and there are so many ways to do that, from freelancers to in house team members to agency like ours to matchmaking softwares. So what can we do to really differentiate ourselves and help people have a better ROI? And so maybe that's doing something in addition that helps them do that. So you're catching me with me thinking about this over the last like, couple of days, but that's exciting to me is like, how do we innovate? You know, in our second decade,

Matt Cundill  23:33  
what's a space that you looked at and you thought, we can go into that? And then you said, No, we're not going into that. Well,

Jessica Rhodes  23:41  
in the past, we've had mentors say, like, you should start doing PR. And I was like, No, I'm not opposed to that. Forever, I would have to learn more about it and like, see, how do we start building relationships in traditional media? But I did like, that has been brought to us, and we're just like, no editing, podcast, podcast production. I'm like, no, no. I just had a call this morning with an old client, and we were just kind of catching up, and he was like, I need help with advertisers. Start doing that. He's like, how do I get advertisers? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, find business owners that are your happier target market and just ask them if they want to advertise. I'm like, so these, these are all kind of the synergistic services that I think would align, but have to ask myself, like, do I want to add that in to our service offering? And I'm not sure,

Matt Cundill  24:27  
see, that's where you're smarter than me, because I go into everything, I say, I'll, I'll take that on. Oh, video production. Yeah, we'll do that too.

Jessica Rhodes  24:33  
I mean, if it's profitable and you can do it all the more power to you. I feel like I wish that I was a little bit more open to trying new things. And I think that's one of our biggest strengths as a business, is that we've only done one thing, but then I think sometimes that creates a feeling of like stuckness, like we can't change, but I think we do need to be a little bit more malleable.

Matt Cundill  24:54  
And it's funny, the PR thing comes up in my mind. I can see how easily, you know, interview can. Connections could morph itself into PR, yeah,

Jessica Rhodes  25:04  
I just don't know if our clients want or need PR. You know, I see the services that our ideal clients want more is like they need help leveraging their social media more and starting a podcast, which, again, I don't want to be a podcast production studio. There's more than enough podcast production companies out there. I don't need to enter into that competition. But like our clients, being coaches and consultants, small business owners, I'm like, do they need traditional media placement? I'm not sure. But I've also never invested in PR, so I don't have the experience of knowing really, what the value is of that.

Matt Cundill  25:41  
The last time you appeared on the show, we talked about the growth and, you know, the money growth. And you went from six figures to seven figures fairly quickly, going to eight figures. You said it a little bit more time. How much more time do you

Jessica Rhodes  25:56  
need? Well, Matt, we're still, still working our way there. Our revenue has plateaued a bit over the last several years, which apparently is quite common. We've learned through the mastermind groups that we're in because we try to surround ourselves with other business owners that are like at or above our level, revenue wise, and we hear quite frequently that you kind of hit that low seven figure mark and then not get stuck. But the whole new host of challenges arise, and so that's what we've experienced, but actively working our way through those challenges, like growing a sales team. Probably don't know a lot of people that have their own sales team, because it's one of the hardest things to accomplish, but we're making progress there, and I feel like that will create a big breakthrough to higher revenue levels when it's not all on me to close all the sales so

Matt Cundill  26:40  
and one of the things I love is how you spend a lot of time myth busting. There are people going, Oh, I heard podcasts are on the decline, which is, you know, not true. What are some of the other things you have to convince people, you know, that's not true.

Jessica Rhodes  26:54  
It drives me absolutely insane. How I continue, I have to continue to tell people that podcast download numbers aren't public. It's just a fact, I guess, as of this recording, that can change tomorrow, I suppose, but the number of listeners, downloads that a show has, the number of subscribers, is not public. And I'll literally have clients that would be like, yes, it is. And I'm like, I've been doing this 12 years. You signed up with me three months ago, but this software says it is, yeah, that's their guess, but it's not true, but it must be true. I'm like, okay, just keep talking about it.

Matt Cundill  27:30  
I heard podcasting has a discoverability problem, no, but maybe your show, your podcast, has a discoverability problem.

Jessica Rhodes  27:39  
Yeah, that's true.

Matt Cundill  27:42  
Interestingly, though, a lot of people do come to you because they have a personal discoverability problem, and you're always talking about being discovered on podcasts,

Jessica Rhodes  27:51  
for sure. I mean, I frequently have this conversation, but it was most frequently with a coach, and she's like, been working with a business coach, and I've got my social media but like, I just can't get my sales up. And I'm like, nobody knows who you are, nobody knows who you are. All my local network does. If you want more sales, you need to introduce yourself to new people every single day, like, you need to go on other podcasts, explain who you are, tell your story again and again and again and again. And people like, oh, well, I'll just test this out and see if it works. Okay, so you getting visibility to new audiences might stop working. What like doesn't make any sense. Yeah, from the

Matt Cundill  28:29  
files of nobody knows who you are. 80% of radio listeners don't know who the person is on the air at any particular time. They can't name that person. It's just a voice, and they're never going to know. So you're not as famous as you think you are. Was what I was told when I was in radio Exactly. Something else I really like is how you bring your personal life into work. Because you work from home. You had an office at one point, I'm waiting for chickens to wander around in the background. Oh, my God, Matt,

Jessica Rhodes  29:01  
I forgot to let my chickens out this morning, so I had to, I let them out at, like, 1245 they're just like, stumbling out of the coop. Like, what time has felt so bad. But yeah, chickens could be walking around. My kids are at a really fun age where they can start being involved in the business. I'm like, they're 10 and 12, and I'm like, No, you guys could have your first job in my business. Like, you don't have to go to frickin McDonald's and start serving burgers. Like you can actually work for my business, which I'm very excited about, because learning how to do sales and marketing and run an online business is the future for these kids. And so, yeah, I've been playing around with incorporating mostly my daughter, because she's the ham. She likes to be on camera and be a part of things. Like, I'm like, Hey, can you film me doing this podcast? And she's like, yes, yes. That sounds so fun.

Matt Cundill  29:50  
Last time we spoke, we talked about what happened when you removed alcohol from your system for a long period of time. This time I get to ask you, what happens when you remove sugar from your system?

Jessica Rhodes  30:00  
System. Oh yeah. So I did third Well, I would say 14 days with no sugar, no added sugar. I will say there's like, natural sugars and apples and stuff. But it felt great. Oh my goodness. I felt so much leaner. Like the inflammation really went down. I could tell how sugar, like, really inflames our system to the point where we just feel bloated all the time. And when I wasn't eating sugar for those two weeks, I just felt I wasn't binging. And not I'm not like a food Binger, but like, the example I gave on my Instagram was, if I have a, like, a thing, a trail mix, and I have some chocolate chips in there for a little sweet treat, I'll just keep eating those that trail mix, like it's so yummy, but I just wasn't, like, I was just eating my meals, and then I would just feel full, and I'm like, Oh, this is so this is so good. Now it has creeped back in as soon as you let the sugar back in. Oh, my goodness. It's a little bit of a slippery slope. So, but now I'm, like, mindful of it, and it's been really good. I've been definitely in a season of lots of health challenges, not like, you know what I mean, like the challenge of removing sugar and the challenge of removing gluten, like that type of challenge.

Matt Cundill  31:09  
Jessica, thanks so much for doing this and continued success. And congratulations. It's like well past a decade now.

Jessica Rhodes  31:16  
Yeah. Thanks so much. Matt.

Tara Sands  31:17  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan cerminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aidan glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.