How podcasting powers this high-growth conveyancing firm

KIANI Mills understands the power of podcasting. The founder of Melbourne-headquartered residential conveyancing firm Imperiale, Mills reaches thousands of listeners weekly via her podcast Success x Happiness. The podcast showcases inspiring people to help listeners “achieve success and happiness in our own lives and live our potential”.

Mills, a licensed conveyancer with extensive training in both property law and conveyancing, says podcasting offers a unique way for her to cut through the noise of social media.

“The reality of the world that we live in now, especially with social media, while we’ve got access to everybody, it’s becoming harder and harder to have really integral and meaningful conversations with people,” Mills tells Australian Conveyancer.

“There’s not only the superficial world of social media, which is exactly that superficial, but we’re all so busy. I think we had so much time to sit and rest during that awful four years (of COVID-19), but now we’re all catching up for lost time.”

Via the podcast, Mills gets her firm’s brand across to a vast network of potential clients while at the same time building trust through the relatable and relaxed nature of the audio show.

“It’s been ridiculously inspiring,” says Mills, who has 10 years of industry experience at Imperiale, which specialises in residential conveyancing and developments. 

“I was reluctant to do it at the start because of time and energy and things like that,” Mills says.

“But once I started, it became addictive, and it really was that door opener to be able to create those deeper, meaningful conversations that everyone is dying to hear with those people who have earned the right to discuss those topics”.

A key benefit of podcasting, according to Mills, is that it boosts the maker’s public standing.

As she explains: “In our world, credibility is everything, and to be able to speak on platforms with certain business owners, even be able to speak in certain topics that maybe don’t necessarily relate directly back to property, but it all relates back to business and back to life, it’s built my credibility”.

“It means that people trust me more, trust me quicker,” she adds.

“I can build my business through really strategic and direct alliances, as opposed to just, you know, throwing things at a wall and hoping something sticks.”

On the technical side of podcasting, Mills urges outsourcing where possible. 

She says doing everything to get a weekly hour-long show out is usually too much for one person, especially on top of regular business and personal commitments.

“I got a podcast network to manage my podcast, and then I also got a social media team to do the social media posting. It was a cost, but technically for me, it was fantastic.”

For those thinking of starting a podcast, Mills says choosing the right guests is a key challenge. 

She says podcast often logs more than 10,000 listeners per episode, but that numbers can fluctuate depending on the public profile of a guest, and their social media presence.

“It really does depend on picking a guest who is willing to reshare it on their platform, because that’s where the massive reach is,” she says.

A mistake in the early days, she concedes, was “picking people because I thought from a stature or from a credibility perspective would make it look good” but who did not share widely.

“When they didn’t reshare it, and I didn’t have any agreement with them that they had to reshare it, it flopped,” she says.

Hitting on shareable topics also helps boost Mills’ podcast numbers.

“You don’t want to choose a topic that’s got to start and end, because you’ll finish really fast. So, if you can, find something that’s super adaptable,” she says.

“Like me, I’m doing business and I’m talking to sexologists.”