B (2:53)

Man. I am an extrovert. And. But even extroverts sometimes, especially sales people, have a hard time. Like, how do I come across as, I want to get to know you and I'm not trying to pitch you, but then also, deep down inside you're like, this might be an opportunity and it's this weird balance, man. Like, honestly, like, you're truly wanting to serve them, but you're like, can this be a closed deal somewhere down the line and people could sense that motive? And what I have found is I remember thinking to myself, how do I walk through this in a authentic way and also meet new people that normally if I just ask them to go meet up for a cup of coffee, it would never work? Yeah. And I remember when you told me about James Carberry's book, and I've got to meet him a couple of times now, and I read it, it was like this light bulb that this is the door or the gateway to any. Anyone that I want to meet. And sometimes it takes a little bit of finagling, but, man, it has opened so many doors for me in just about any industry that I wanted to get into. I literally just start a podcast, I start interviewing a few people, and then I start interviewing higher end people. It has not failed me yet. So it's. It's beautiful. I'm. I'm excited we get to talk about this because I feel like in some ways, I've developed my own framework on this area as well.

A (4:19)

This chapter is so powerful that you literally could ignore the rest of this book, do nothing but build relationships through a podcast, and still make out incredibly well. It's just that powerful because we all know, like, relationships, they can move mountains, you know, and not just in a buyer way. Sure, you can interview your ideal buyers and provided you're not just, like, pitching them at the end of the interview, don't do that, because it builds Trust people, buy from people they know like and trust. So if you can figure out a systematic way to build relationships, and I'd say podcasting is one of the best ways to do it, then you have a great system for making friends. And friends buy from friends, friends recommend friends, friends give endorsements or help share content from or all kinds of things when they're people that they know like and trust. So a podcast gives us a systematic play in order to do that. But let's talk a little bit more about, like, why relationships are so important to thought leadership specifically. I'll give my first one, and it's one we actually already kind of previewed when we were talking about the 30, 30, 30 plan, which is after reading your 30ish books, doing 30 interviews with people who are already in that space, who are already influential out there, or specifically the authors that you're reading, because it's one of the best ways I've ever found to learn something. It's one thing to go and read the book, but if you ever talk to the author, author of a book, you find you can go way deeper because now you can get your unanswered questions answered. You can actually find the deeper meaning behind what they meant. You can actually wrestle with them if you have a difference of opinion in a polite way, but in a really constructive way, you can actually solidify what you really know about a topic after talking to the people who really know what they're talking about. And you might find that some of them don't know what they're talking about even though they've written a book. But generally you end up really solidifying your own learning by being able to talk to people who are world class on that very specific subject that you want to become known for. And that's one of my favorite things to do with the podcast. It's what I did with this one. When I started AI Driven Marketer, I just started interviewing people who were doing great things with AI in the early days. And it was a great way to kick off my own learning.

B (6:27)

You know, I even have a little. I don't know if I've ever told you I've done this before. I don't do it a lot because I like buying books, but if you ever want to get free books, you could even ask that guest to come join and be like, hey, by the way, do you mind sending me a copy of your book so I could read it beforehand? And dude, most of the time they're like, absolutely, because they want the, the audience that you're about to go in front of them. So I've gotten free books that way. And I have. I have a lot of books, bro.

A (6:55)

I just buy their book.

B (6:57)

That's what I'm saying. I still buy.

A (6:58)

There have been people that have, like, can I send you a. More a newer version of my book? And I'm like, sure, here Sunday. I have certainly gotten free books from being a podcaster, but I generally just buy their book.

B (7:08)

I normally buy their books. I have a lot of books that I buy. If it's a higher end, like a. A lister, right? I have, like, I rank them sometimes like an A lister. I typically buy their book and I tell them, hey, I just read your book. Yeah, would love to interview you on your podcast. But then there are other people. I don't have time to do that. I don't. I don't have time to read 50 books if I'm, like, reaching out to that many people. So it's. It's just a fun way for those of you who are book aficionados like I am. But another. Another way that. Why relationships are so important that you got to think about is it's credibility through association, right? Like, when people start to picture you, they're like, oh, yeah, Ken has been on a podcast with these guys. Yeah, I could do that, right? I. It's funny because, Dan, you and I have been friends for 20 plus years now. I think I got to do the math. Or. 19 years. 19 years, right now there are people who reach out to me, and they're like, dude, you're friends with Dan Sanchez. And I'm like, yeah, dude, I've known him forever. They're like, oh, my gosh, he's awesome. He's amazing. He's so great. Like, he's such a whiz with AI. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, you know, like, I forget about that. Like, and they're like, you must know a bunch of stuff. I'm like, I mean, I guess. I don't know. I was like, I just learned a lot from Dan. Like, I just look at you for that stuff. So. But there is so much from just being around the same group of people that people naturally think, oh, you roll with this crew. You must know a lot.

A (8:36)

Especially if they're all within a very tight niche. All of a sudden, you're showing up on the socials like, oh, I just talked to so and so, oh, I just talked to this person. I just talked to this person. Even without you saying anything, like, you could literally put no ideas. Hopefully you're talking about the books you're reading, some of the ideas you've had, and you're like posting those too. But even if you do none of that, people are just going to start associating those people's success with you. At Sweet Fish, we used to call this the Oprah effect. And that's kind of like how Oprah got her rise to power. She was interviewing all the most awesome people, right? Interviewing them. And some of that would come off on her and she would shine because of it. It's funny because you don't really even have to say anything. It's just some of that credibility just from being associated with these people ends up coming off on you. But you don't have to brag about it. You don't have to be like, oh, you don't have to like, name drop it. You just tell the truth and be like, oh, I interviewed so and so. Here's what I learned from them. Again, go the humble route, be the student route, and that ends up being enough. But the other cool thing is once you get to know them, they might, your relationship might go farther than the interview, which is the hopes that you actually build a method of maintaining these relationships. And if you become friends with these people, you know, sometimes they might even give you something like a formal endorsement. They might give you a kind word that you can post on your website or be like, I love the way you do X. And you can put that on your website next to their photo like that. That becomes real credibility, real value. Because even though your ideas might be great, again, we're dealing with the trust problem, not amount of ideas problem. And in order for people to believe your great ideas and actually put them to test to find out how great they are, they need to actually believe it first. So credibility is everything. And showing up as your real authentic self, showing up in humility as a student is one way to do that. But another way is to get other people saying awesome things about you. So again, first rule of thought leadership is you can't call yourself a thought leader. You let other people say it. And if these people say it, then it's probably true.

B (10:34)

Yeah. Which brings up the next one, is that while it creates association, it creates endorsements, it's also creating great distribution content. Right? Because if you have like for example, Dan, if I have you on my show or whatever, you're going to share that. Or most like, more often than not, you'll share it. People will share whenever they've been on a show and that's how your audience starts to grow. Right. So if you're building relationships with people within your niche and they're like, oh my gosh, this guy was on the podcast, that's great, right? And also now you have more content to distribute. Sometimes it's hard for people to just come up with content week after week after week. But when you're interviewing someone, they're creating the content for you and that grows your base. So I find that being able to do both of these is super valuable, super important. And, and it can change the dynamic and how quickly you grow your thought leadership.

A (11:35)

And also you build relationships with these people. They see you on social and if they're active on the same social platforms, they might be more likely because they know you now. You know, you start in a relationship and hopefully you keep it going. You text them fun things every once in a while, you keep that relationship going. When they see you on LinkedIn or Instagram or wherever you are, they're going to be more likely to engage with your stuff, maybe even share it every once in a while, maybe just on LinkedIn, you know, it's driven by comments. So they comment. That means it goes out to all their people with their comment attached to it. And that just tends to build over time. When you have all these relationships, it's distribution through all that too. It also creates. This is the most fun part. It's the part that you can't really measure. There's no ROI on this. But the serendipity of the opportunities that just comes from knowing lots of people and having them know and like and trust you on a one to one basis with these kinds of people. I can't tell you how many opportunities have just shown up out of the blue. One phone call like, like, I work at Social Media examiner because of a friend, not because of like, because I just got lucky with like Michael Stelzner, like my Logan Lyles, who's a friend, plugged me into a smaller podcast, which then got me seen by Stelzner, then got me on his podcast, which got me into his group and then got me into his conference and then working for him full time. Like there was a progression there because of who I knew, not because of what I was actually publishing on my own. It was a relationship that got those connect that that whole path started. So there's all kinds of opportunities that come just because of who you know and how they trust you.

B (13:08)

Yeah. I'll give you another cool story. This just happened yesterday. I was on a podcast for some of you don't know, I have my own personal podcast. It's a passion project that I love. Helping men kill shame and find their God given purpose. Right. Like that's a lot of what I do. So I was on this guy's podcast, he has a pretty big podcast. And then afterwards we were interviewing or he, we were just talking and he was telling me stuff that he was going through in his business and I was like, hey man, I know a guy who actually grew a community within a similar space that you are and he's crushing it right now. What if I just put you guys together and like all three of us get in a car? And he was like, would you do that for me? I'm like, absolutely. So I like, I'm literally on a three way text message with these guys and I'm just seeing the potential of how much both of their businesses can grow and people could be impacted for the better because they're both in the space of like healing and making sure that people are and men specifically are walking in their God given purpose. And I just got excited to see that like I have no skin in the game on it, but just to see that come to fruition gets me excited. Which leads to. Ultimately what we're talking about here is that when you build these relationships, they help you scale so much more faster than you actually think. It's the intangibles that people don't see. And that's what we're really talking about here is like the more people see you, you're not isolated, you're not by yourself, you're not a one man show, just kind of growing your, your thing on your own. There's so many people supporting you and encouraging you and relating with you. That's what this is all about. And ultimately that that's what brings significance to our life. It's not the money that you make, it's the relationships that you've built that people are like, oh yeah, I'm going to go for them. And here's the fun part too. Like even if you're growing a business and that one, for whatever reason you transition out of it or you sell it, you still have those relationships that they're going to back you up.

A (15:06)

So now we want to talk to you about which people you should be interviewing and what other kind of collaborative opportunities there are when you're doing a video podcast specifically. But before I do, I do have to make a plug. Are you on the edge about starting a podcast? If you're selling with your expertise, you probably should. But to be sure, we built an assessment just for you. If you go to aidrivenmarketer.com pod P O D you can find out, take the assessment, find out if the podcast is right for you and see if that's the next step you need to take. Hopefully, if we're creating enough content and pushing towards the podcast, it's probably becoming obvious that you should start one. It's the ultimate tool for building authority. But if not, there are certain indic. Certain things that where a podcast isn't the right choice. So that's why we built this assessment. Go take it at aid rivermarketer.com pod so things people you need to be thinking about interviewing if you're trying to build authority. And I usually do these in between even doing at the beginning I'm doing all interviews, but then later on in a podcast I like to sneak into a lot more solo episodes in order to build authority. But here's some people you need to build in the beginning and then every once in a while later on in order to continue building relationships. The obvious one is like other thought leaders, like the people, the people you want to be more like and other influencers you want to rub arms and rub shoulders with those people, whoever they might be out there. One they have some tidbits that you can learn from. They have some influence that you can gain and credibility just from association, from having them on. And you want to learn from them and get a better sense for the industry from them. You might even ask them after the interview like, hey, like you're crushing it here. And I'd like to be more into space too, but from this angle and ask them for advice like a juice. Generally a one question advice. You don't want to ask them too much because you just did a whole interview with them. But they can help you in all kinds of different ways if you're actually just taking the time to interview them and talk to them. Another one is interviewing gatekeepers. Like there's a lot of people out there that would love to be featured in whatever media outlet it might be a big one like Forbes, or it might just be a niche industry conference, whatever it might be. Think about who controls what gets on said articles or on said stage. Interview those people. They are the gatekeepers. Build relationships with them because they're trying to figure out, they're trying to find out who's coming up next on their stages or who's coming up next, who they can interview and who's got what when it comes to the topic that you're talking about. So interview the gatekeepers of all these different things just to build relationships with them. They're also moving around all the time. So if you maintain these relationships, you'll chances are that's going to work out in your favor when it comes to getting in the position to get some of that earned media later on.

B (17:45)

Yeah, absolutely. And, and so, so many times people would think, oh, I shouldn't reach out to the gatekeepers because I'm going to be kind of blunt here. But they think it's too low level. And that is actually the biggest misconception you could have. No one's too low level. It is like sometimes it's that person who's gonna give you the doorway. So don't ever like assume, oh, they're just a manager or they're just an ICP or whatever. Right. Like it's. Or anybody could work.

A (18:17)

That person's usually got good insights too. For sure. They're not out in front of the limelight, so they probably have some things to say that aren't usually said. And some hot takes that you should probably hear.

B (18:27)

Exactly. All right. The next type of people that you would want to interview are your dream 100 prospects.

A (18:36)

Think about kind of an old concept. I forget which book this comes from actually. Dream 100, I feel like it's one of those old school direct marketer guys. Which one is it?

B (18:45)

Who I learned it from was Russell Brunson. I don't know if he came up with.

A (18:49)

He didn't make it up.

B (18:51)

I knew you were going to do that.

A (18:53)

It wasn't him. It was someone else.

B (18:55)

It might have been his mentor who came up with it.

A (18:58)

Now I know who it is. I just can't remember his name because he passed and he passed it on to his daughter. Chet Holmes invented the Dream 100 strategy.

B (19:06)

There you go. Google or ChatGPT for the save. I learned it from Russ, you know. Well, here's the fascinating part. Even this is a great point is that like when we're talking about thought leadership, when you start to create content, if you're the one who are just rehashing some. Some content or something like that, you're going to be remembered by that. Like just now I didn't know who Chat was. Right. I just knew Dream 100 because I learned it from Russell. Right. Now, here's the deal with the Dream 100. What you want to do here is like, who are the people that you would want to work with. And you can start interviewing those individuals and just kind of have a hit list, right, of who you want to interview, contact, reach out to. This is such a great play for you. If you're in a B2B space and trying to close more deals, man, like, we were just talking about someone who's thinking about doing this in the higher ed space. Literally, if they just start interviewing 100 different schools, right, and finding the right person in that school to interview, man, they're going to start getting more leads and deals. It's just going to happen. Like, because you started the relationship on trust and reciprocity, not on, like, hey, can I just show you this new pitch deck? Right? Like, it's just fascinating how that works.

A (20:25)

There is a caveat in that you could, if you're too aggressive in your sales, in using a podcast to interview ideal buyers, provided another caveat is that you have your, your, your annual contract size with clients has to be large enough to justify spending them this much time on it. Otherwise it doesn't work. And I'm generally looking at, like, your contract size being, I don't know, about 40,000, five or 50,000 a year in annual contract size. That's kind of the size where it's like, it starts to make sense. But even a smaller you could probably still make it worth it. It takes a lot in the very beginning. Like, you have to do a lot of these. You also have to do it in such a way that you're not, like, hard pitching people at the end of the interview. Otherwise it becomes a bait and switch. And I've seen people do it. It's so bad, it's like, makes me want to throw up because they're literally burning relationships faster than they're actually building them. There are nicer ways of following up where you can kind of like just kind of like, give a hint. That's like, hey, if you need help with this, I'm available. Without actually going in for, like, the sale. But again, the goal is a relationship because relationships are more powerful than going even for a direct sale. Because if you can build goodwill with people and actually build a genuine relationship, that usually comes back around in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it comes back in the round in the form of sales directly with the people you're building relationships with. And that's great. Though some people go a little bit too hard on it. So it's worth worth mentioning that another one is interviewing peers in your industry or people who maybe sell to the same audience, but aren't your Ideal buyer. They're not gatekeepers and they're not necessarily thought leaders themselves, but they could be strategic partners in some way. If only you had the relationship and got to know them and what they're trying to do, you might be able to figure out a win win relationship. There's, for example, you might be a coach who sells to real estate agents. So what's stopping you from interviewing people who sell software to real estate agents? Well, nothing. You could interview their people and see what they got going on. You might be able to find some kind of win, win relationship between that software company and you as a real estate coach. There's probably a win there. If you would only take the time to build some relationships with some of those people that are also like, selling to and talking to the same audience. There's a lot there.

B (22:44)

Yeah, you know, I even do it from, you know, people who work really close together. Like, for example, I would say we are in the space of helping people with their marketing. The marketing side. Right. Legion, developing all that. I know a lot of sales coaches, so I've partnered with them and I said, hey, man, if you ever want to do a collab, like, I our clients, I don't want to be. I've been in sales for 15, 20 years. I don't want to be the sales coach. But if you. I'll refer them to you guys. And they're like, dude, that'd be awesome. I'm like, hey, can you do the. Can you do the same? There's going to be some people that they're going to need some marketing expertise. Would you be. Would we be willing or would we be your preferred partner? And they're like, oh, for sure, dude. Well, because we built a relationship, it's so easy for them to say, yes, of course, you know, so we have that reciprocity there. And the partnership works so well. When you're talking about marketing to sales, Sales and marketing, I find too many times people are trying to do both, but the reality is that they're not good at both. So they should just stick to one or the other in that scenario.

A (23:47)

The last one in this list, it's probably not limited to this, but it's a pretty good list. This is a new one that's become possible recently. It's something you've been able to do on Instagram for a while, but it just became possible on YouTube being able to do collaborations. So if you are doing, hopefully if you're doing a podcast, you're doing a video podcast, which means you're distributing on YouTube. If you interview somebody who has a larger channel than you, or maybe similar size or even smaller, it doesn't really matter. You can officially link their channel to your channel on that one piece of content so that their little, you know, Persona, their avatar shows up next to yours when it comes to this video. And it goes out to some of their audience. It goes out to some of your audience. That's a great way to get crossover. And I'm seeing people do this more and more. I'm starting to see collabs pop up on YouTube. And YouTube is a great way to get seen by audiences that probably wouldn't have found you on Apple. YouTube has way more distribution power for content than podcasts ever do. Which is why we usually later we'll talk about like the two channel rule specifically for growing a podcast. But for now, just know that YouTube's is one of the best ways to get found as a podcast. And doing collabs makes it even easier.

B (24:57)

Yeah, dude, that would be awesome for so many people that I would just say when you're even coming up with your list of 100 or you know, just the people that you're thinking about, start using that framework of like, oh, who has a good YouTube list? Because, because there are some people who have great like LinkedIn profile or great like Instagram, but they don't have a massive YouTube platform. So it's a great one to think about. Dan, let's walk through the process. Okay, so we kind of gave you the, the why, the what, the how. But now let's like get down to the how. How do you actually use relationships? How do you bring them into the podcast? What do you kind of do?

A (25:36)

It's not too hard of a process. It's kind of five steps. You need a list, you need to do outreach, do a pre interview interview and then follow up. So let's break this down one by one. Uh, first is the list. This is in my opinion like the fun part because it's always fun to start. Yeah, the hard part's always the middle. Right. But the fun part is actually coming up and I usually, I almost do this solely in Google sheets. Yeah, you should do this in a CRM. But for some reason if I'm creating a list, I'm usually, I'm usually a sprinter. I'm not like a long game guy. I'm like, I'm going to go do this for 30 people in a row and then take a break. So I'll come up with a list in Google Sheets, and I'll go and find the names and usually LinkedIn profiles of the people that I want and why I want them, right? And then I'll usually create another little column with status of, like, not reached out to yet, reached out to, replied, joined, or booked, pre interview, did pre interview, did interview, done or follow up, you know? So, like, I give it some status indicators, and then I just build that whole Google sheet. It's a pretty simple Google sheet with name, LinkedIn badge, a place for notes on the far right, and then the status indicator of them all. And that's. I build that list, and that's pretty much it. Do you do anything else with your list?

B (26:52)

Yeah, I do something slightly different with my list, but pretty much that. I. I have my list in Google sheets, right? My initial list. But once someone says yes, I actually move them to either, like an asana or trello board, something where I can walk through the production where they're at. The reason for that is the list. I. If I'm using it like a CRM, I want to see how many times I reached out to them. Like, is this the first outreach, second outreach, what time? Like, I also talk about days. Like, I'm looking at that, so it's helpful. I'm not like, spanging, spamming them, like, you know, right away. So I do little things like that. That's super helpful. That gets me.

A (27:31)

That's why you're the pro sales guy.

B (27:35)

That stuff, man. I. I tell people all the time. I get about eight to 10 people who will say yes to me who would want to be on a podcast. Like, rarely do I get people who say no, like, not at all. And like, one out of ten would be like, no, I don't. That's not what I want to do. The other one literally is like, they're like, I can't do it right now, but can you reach out, like, in September when I'm back from vacation? Which is like, okay, cool. And that's the other thing I have on the list is like, if it's a delay, when I should reach it back out to them.

A (28:08)

I had one guest say no to me once. I was like, bro, you're not. You're not that famous yet. Okay? To be asking me for my audience size. It was a new. It was. It was. When there's this podcast before I had an audience on it, but I did make it work, and he got on the show anyway. I'm like, otherwise, yeah. I'd hardly ever have people say no or not now because I'm busy doing a. Writing a book or something like that. So I've had people do that, come back later.

B (28:34)

Yeah.

A (28:34)

Very few no's. If anything, you just get ghosted and they don't respond. The next one is outreach. You actually have to do the deed of reaching out to them. I find this part, this is where most people die. This is where people don't, like, execute. But it's actually one of the simpler parts because your outreach just needs to be really simple. It should never be more than three sentences. Hey, I'm doing an interview series on X. Would love to have you on my show interested. It's like the simplest outreach script of all time. And there's a bunch of different little variations and little tweaks you can test and do, but generally that's it. I just go ham and start booking it. And also, even better, if you know who they are and what you love about them, like, oh, I read your book. Oh, I love this thing you say. Then of course, customize it a little bit. But it should only just be a small little tweak so that they know you actually know who they are. Because there's so many people spamming people on LinkedIn with like, mass messages, and you can smell those coming from a mile away. Yeah.

B (29:24)

Two, two things that I would add that. That first anchor message of like, do you know something about them is really important. I found that it's super helpful.

A (29:31)

Yeah.

B (29:32)

And then the second thing is don't write a massive paragraph of what your podcast is, what you do, all that fun stuff. Like, you're like, get rid of that sales pitch. Just be like, yeah, would you be interested in being a guest on the podcast? That's it.

A (29:47)

Like, if they want to know about you, they'll just freaking click through the link. Like, don't introduce yourself.

B (29:53)

You don't need to do it. Or they'll be like, oh, tell me more. Great, now you're starting a conversation. But like, don't put it in. Oh, my gosh, for the love of God. I see this all the time and it drives me nuts.

A (30:06)

I get pitched for people being on this podcast all the time, and they just make the same mistake over and over because they automated it, all of them do. I probably get like five or ten a day now. Like, it's becoming a problem. It's like filling up my inbox. I'm like, I gotta change my email now. But it's always way too long. I can tell they've actually never listened to the show. Even though it says it takes uses AI to listen to a recent episode. Be like, I love when you and Travis or you and Ken talked about Mike Friggin. No, you haven't. Y' all lying. It's not a good place to start from.

B (30:38)

I know that's the one. Yeah, for sure. I don't.

A (30:40)

So you can't automate this. Essentially.

B (30:42)

You can't automate the outreach. This outreach. You gotta do it manually to just like, go do that. The only caveat I have added, or I will add, is if I'm going for like a. A lister or someone who's a lot more famous, I do tend to, like, put a little soft pitch in there. Like, hey, would you be interested in this podcast? We get about X amount of downloads or X something to show some credibility. But again, it's like real quick. It's not a long paragraph. It's so that the person will think it's worth it enough for them.

A (31:16)

Yeah.

B (31:18)

Because there will be people who ask, like, what's the size of the podcast? What's like, what's the audience? And most of the time, those people are a little bit more experts, you know, in the field or in the world. So it's like, all right, they're going to want to know that. That's when I add it one way.

A (31:33)

I think the most well known person I've ever gotten a podcast is someone who's on LinkedIn with like a million followers. So, like, lots of reach. But I took a lot of time to get to know him because I was showing up in his posts, in the comments regularly, early. Like, as soon as he posted, I was there commenting because I had notifications hit me instantly and he knew what time he posted. But I was showing up in there for weeks, showing up, major comment, major comment. So we'd interacted in the comments multiple times. Eventually I show up in the DMs and I'm asking him for a tip. He gives a tip. I implement it. I give him feedback on how I implemented it. So, like, I'm showing that I'm hustling and I'm actually taking the devices seriously. Eventually he starts showing up in my comments because I think he had a system where he was like, okay, if someone's showing up consistently, I'm going to show them some love and give them some comments too. And eventually I just shot him a dm, like, hey, I'd love to have you on the show. And he said, yes, great, great guy. But I had also taken time to do that so some people who have are getting hit up for podcasts all the time, like this particular guy, and it just. It just took more time. And if you ever come up with a list of, like, a bunch of people to interview and some of them are too busy, like, that doesn't mean no forever. It just means you have to try harder and take quite a few extra steps sometimes in order to get their attention so that then you can make the pitch and them not just ignore you. So almost anything's possible. You just have to get creative, be patient, and be generous and compassionate. Know that their inboxes get crowded if you're going after someone who's more like B list. A list.

B (33:03)

Yeah, well, and one key thing there before we move on, because you built the relationship, people would be more likely to say yes.

A (33:13)

Oh, yeah.

B (33:13)

And I just don't want people to miss that. Yeah, but, like, there was some reciprocity there that people are like, oh, yeah, for sure, dude. Dan's asking me, yeah, why not? You know, like, it's natural. There was some positive, you know, whatever thing in the bank, right? Positive coin in the bank for people to say, yeah, I want to hang out with Dan. Let's do this.

A (33:33)

I probably could have kept developing that relationship. I let it go after a while, but he even bought my kids book when I was promoting it. The AI or the. Not the AI one, the Marketing for Kids book. I was like, man, that could have been something more if I would have kept that relationship going. I should probably reach back out to him again.

B (33:47)

Bro, you should. This is your. This is your sign. This is God saying, all right, so.

A (33:54)

Next step after outreach, of course, is the pre interview. And if your goal is relation, you don't. Oh, you don't have to do a pre interview. Shoot. Most of the podcasts I get invited to speak on, like, very few of them actually have a pre interview, But I'm this kind of person that if I just show up, you just started asking me questions about marketing, AI or any of this stuff that we're talking about on the pod. Like, I'm ready to go. Like, shoot, let's go. But if your goal is relationship building, having a pre interview is actually a really good thing. It slows everything down if you're reaching out to people who aren't normally on podcasts. And a pre interview is really helpful for them, and it gives, it allows you more time and more touch points to actually build relationships with them. And you can even use it to kind of get to know them outside of what their expertise is and maybe even get to know them outside of it. You know, ask them how they're doing, what's, what's. Some good things, some good, bad things may be going on in their life. Some things they, they might need some help with. Depends on, like, who they are and, like, what position of authority they're in and all that kind of stuff. So you have to feel it out. But the pre interview is where a lot of the relational work comes in. How do you use pre interviews, Ken?

B (34:56)

It's exactly that way. I, I built the relationships and also I, I try to give them really good clarity on what this process is going to look like, because especially if they're, like, really efficient with their time, they don't want it to, to be like, what's going on? I. It's almost logistical at some point, too. Like, near the end of it, I'm like, hey, by the way, after this pre interview, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to send you the link. It's going to give you the calendly. It's going to do this. And then after the interview, I'm going to do this, this, Like, I lay it all out for them so they're never wondering. And I tell them, like, by the time we record, it's going to be three to four weeks before it gets launched, right? Because I have that much in the pipeline, man, it just gives so many people peace. And then actually, the reason why I tell them how long it takes for it to actually the podcast to get launched, it then forces them to say, oh, I want this podcast to come out sooner. Let me book a time with you faster. So it, it's been like, super helpful for me when I'm interviewing people, because especially if you start interviewing people who's got busy schedules, they're like, oh, I'm three weeks, six weeks out. Well, I'm like, hey, man, if you're six weeks out and you want to promote your book, and you're like, I'm gonna be four weeks out. So that's like 10 weeks. He's like, oh, for sure. Let's. Let's do it a little bit sooner. Let me squeeze you in in two weeks. I'm like, perfect. You know, that's how I used a pre interview, too.

A (36:22)

So we've gone this whole episode on a show called the AI Driven Marketer. So I'd be remiss without talking about how AI could help us power this whole thing. I've actually talked about the first couple of steps here, the lists in the outreach with and avoided talking about AI, this is where people freaking screw it up. AI has its place, but you should not use it in the list building part, especially in the beginning and the outreach part. This is what like AI is ruining this part. Do it manually. It will go better for you. Maybe you can start automating pieces of it and using AI and pieces of it later on down the line once you've done a lot and you kind of have a system where it's like, okay, I just, I know I run through this process like this every time and AI can do it. That's a great in the beginning for your first hundred episodes, do not use AI for this stuff. Do it manually. It just. Everybody using AI to do it really fast is making a huge mistake. But AI is super helpful for this next step of the process. After the pre interview, after the pre interview you have to actually start planning the episode. One thing you can do is use a tool that I created a long time ago with Susan Diaz. There's a collaboration right there, see that I did from building relationships with this show. We built a tool called My showrunner. You just go to myshowrunner.com It's a custom GPT. You can either use a pre built custom GPT or take the whole instructions, build your own, customize it, use it to help you actually prep for the interview. And AI is really helpful for the pre production process. So I pretty much use AI solely or not solely, but for a lot of the pre production for every single episode, including this one. Help me build out my list, make sure to think and check all the different ways we could be using relationships. I had most of it down for this one, but it actually filled in a few that I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Specifically strategic partnerships. AI chat GPT was like, don't forget this one. I'm like, oh yeah, I've talked about that before, I just forgot. But it can help a lot with post pre interview before you get into the interview. Or you can just record the pre interview and have a process for taking the transcript from the pre interview, giving it to AI to help you think through the angle, how you're going to frame it, how you're going to title it, how you're going to even questions you're going to ask. You might have a few questions you have in your mind already, but ChatGPT or whatever AI system you're using can help you flesh out those questions and you can pick the best ones out and then send it to your contact. So this is where AI really comes in the process and speeds up the whole thing. Yeah. Anything you would add, Ken?

B (38:51)

I was just going to say I give. I like, I do the latter where I have my fathom note taker in there. I know there's otter. There's a bunch of them out there. That's the one I use because I've just gotten comfortable with it. I. I literally just copy and paste the transcript and then I start walking through it. And it helps me because I'm more present when I'm doing the pre interview. I'm not looking down, I'm not writing stuff, I'm not taking notes. I'm just like asking the right questions of, like, trying to find the angle to the episode. And it's super helpful for me. I will say, going back, I'm just going to challenge you a little bit on the list and outreach on how I use AI. I don't use AI on outreach, but for the list. Once I create my list, I ask AI if there are other people based off of this list that I should add to it.

A (39:35)

Okay, that's fair.

B (39:37)

That's the only, that's the only time I would do.

A (39:39)

You got to build your initial list.

B (39:41)

You do have to build it. And here's why. I think it's really important. And I just wanted to address this from a sales perspective. AI still doesn't have the intuition of like, exactly who you're looking for.

A (39:52)

Yeah.

B (39:53)

So when you let AI build your list, the problem is that it's going to give you a bunch of generic stuff. You may not like it for fully and you're just going to be we. It's. It needs some sort of input. So you giving it the right input can help a little bit. But for the outreach, I, I don't. I've tried it. It doesn't work. I, I actually burned a few relationships doing automated AI outreach and I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing that again. Right. So, like, I cut that out. All right, after pre interview, now we have the actual interview. Dan, walk us through this. This, I mean, it's pretty simple as just asking great questions.

A (40:27)

It is pretty simple, but I think a lot of people don't realize there's a few different steps other than the interview itself. And it's funny, after working for Sweetfish, I had to train a lot of new podcast hosts. Like, okay, here's the steps. Baby steps. First they jump on the call. Like, you both end up in a zoom Meeting or like in here, we're in Zencaster. Sometimes it's Riverside. It's up to you as a host to actually make the guest comfortable by showing like, hey, welcome. I'm going to walk you through the process before we record. Here's the process. And then you actually have a pre recording process. And I usually have like a checklist of checks of like technical checks, strategic. Remember, if you've sent them the questions ahead of time, it's like, are you, is there any questions you're confused about? Like checking with them? I usually do a sound check and a few other checks. I make sure their Internet's good. My Internet's good. Everything's taken care of. I have a checklist of all the things I need to do on my computer, like putting it on, do not disturb. I have a, have a sign. I turn out, out in the hallway. So my kids quiet down a little bit, all the kinds of things. And we walk through the list and I'm like, okay, I'm about to record. So that's like there's a, there's a pretty pre process before you even record so that we, when you record, you're. You have walked through a checklist. They know you're on, they're. That you're taking care of them and that you really sound like you know what you're doing. Right. When you have a checklist that you walk through that like everybody gets more comfortable.

B (41:44)

Yeah.

A (41:44)

And then there's the interview itself. There's a bunch of different ways to approach an interview. I'm not going to cover any of them right now. I think most people kind of get it. If you listen to podcasts, you've heard a lot of interviews go down and there's again a bunch of ways to slice it and dice it. Whether you do a cold open, you jump it to the conversation or we record that afterwards, it's. There's a bunch of different options, but that you do the interview, interview finishes and then you have the process after the interview. The post interview process. If you're building relationships. I actually learned this little tip from Timmy Bauer. He's like along, along the line somewhere in the pre interview or if you book a calendly meeting for the pre interview, you want to get their cell phone number because you want to follow up with somebody and build relationship. You want to become text message friends with them, which is a different level of relationship. And you can use this process to get on texting basis by saying, hey, I want to follow up with you. I'll let you know when the episode goes live. Is this your. Is this the right cell phone number for you? Right. And then when the episode goes live, you text them the link rather than emailing to them, rather than. Most shows don't even follow up on this process, but during the post interview, you ask them, you tell them some great things that they said during the interview, you make sure you got their cell phone number. And then you walk through your post interview checklist, whatever you might have on there. And is there anything else you add to the interview process in the pre. Or post.

B (43:01)

In the pre or the interview process itself? Right before we hit record, I learned this from a friend when we were doing the full focus podcast, Focus on this. He would always tell people whenever he hit record, don't panic, there's going to be a countdown. Because if people are not. If people are new to podcasting, they freak out by the countdown.

A (43:22)

That's interesting. I've never had that on my list.

B (43:24)

So that one I picked up on, the other one that I've actually done that's really important for a smooth transition is that most people start a podcast if they don't have a good cold open of like, hey, welcome to the show, my guest. And then they ask a silly question like, how are you doing today? And then they're like, good. You know, like, it's this weird thing. I actually prep my guest beforehand on how we're going to handle the introduction. And like, I'm like, hey, here's the question I'm going to ask. Do you have an answer for that? Cool. What's your answer? I hear it and then I'm like. Because what I'm doing, trying to do is find a transition to it, to the actual conversation. I think that part is really important because it's like public speaking for a lot of people. They have a really hard time with the intro and they don't know how to navigate it. So giving them that space that, like, I got you, I'm backing you up is super good.

A (44:18)

You know what's funny is I've. I've gone through different phases of doing different things, and there's a really common thing that, like, some. I don't know what to call them, like, people who are a little bit snooty about podcasting. They're like, you're, you're. You're wasting your audience's time by asking silly questions like, oh, welcome to the show. And then they say, thank you. You know what I'm saying?

B (44:39)

Yeah.

A (44:39)

I found if I If you can prep them for this. But I found if you don't give them the chance to say thank you for having me on the show, they will force it in awkwardly when it's their turn. Time to talk after you've asked the question. And it's almost always way more awkward that way. So I just, I'm just like, welcome to the show. They say thank you, we move on. And it's like, it's so short that I just don't really care. But people who are, like, into, like, more heavily edited podcasts, who are usually, like, crafting narratives and really care, like, really care about that stuff, I'm like, I don't know. Michael Selzner does it. So I'm like, he's got way more podcast followers than most of the people who get snooty about podcasts, so. Exactly. Like, I think it's fine, but people will like, it's. It's one of those funny things. Like, they will say thank you for having me on the show if you do not give them a chance to do it.

B (45:24)

Yeah.

A (45:25)

And I don't even have to train them for it. I know they're always going to say the same thing. As soon as you say welcome to the show. They will say, thanks for having me on every time.

B (45:32)

Yeah. Oh, the, the last thing that I do personally, this is actually in the pre interview when I send them. I actually send them the questions beforehand of like, hey, here's the questions. I'm going to ask them. And this is really important to find out from your guest. I say, hey, do you want me to stick really strict to this or are you okay with me bunny trailing and asking follow up questions? There's some speakers who are really good at follow up. There are others who are not good. And I have learned to mitigate a lot of editing in post production by just asking that simple question. Because I'm constantly, like, saying, oh, I send them the questions and they just want me to follow this. Cool, I'm gonna stick to this. That's just been helpful for quite a bit of podcast guests that I've had.

A (46:20)

Oh, gosh. I would never give somebody that option. If you're not okay with follow up, you do not want to be on my show. This is the game for me. The first question was the tee up. And I'm like, I don't know. I do tell them that that is part of my pre production process of like, hey, this is how this is. These are the guidelines. But we're going to deviate from these, I might even skip a question. So be prepared for that.

B (46:42)

Oh, for sure. But there are some people who, like, again, I'm thinking about people who they might be interviewing them that they might just not be ready for follow up. It depends on the, you know, my, my other podcast, like the types of people that I interview, I have to be mindful about certain things. So I have to be like, asking them, like, what are the boundaries? What can I not ask? What can I ask?

A (47:03)

Yeah, sensitive topic.

B (47:04)

It's a sensitive topic that could happen.

A (47:07)

If you're an enterprise company. You really have to be sensitive because legal is going to come after you. Exactly. And they're going to tear you apart if you don't. So, yeah, there's times, there's times that's just not what I do for mine. And the last step, of course, is the follow up game, which is where most relationships never happen because you did all the work of teeing it up and then you don't actually follow up and build the relationship. The easiest way is actually just following up with the podcast episode. Why? You want to get their text number. Their number so you can text them when it actually goes live. I'd say 80 to 90% of the podcasts I've been on don't follow up at all when the podcast goes live. I have to go find it afterwards if I ever find it at all. That's sad. That is not even email, nothing. I'm like, wait, what happened to that one show I was on? And there's probably a lot that I forgot, so I never even had a chance to promote it or get it, get it out there or give it any extra love or share it on my socials. So it's too bad for those shows, but at the same time, I get it. It's hard. Like you're. If you're hustling on a podcast, you got episodes to do and once you schedule it, you're like, that's done. I'm already moving on to the next one or two. So I get it. But if you want to build relationships, this is like all of this work that we've done for this one person is literally just the beginning of where the relationship begins. The game now is in the follow up. And I think this is where you could probably speak to it more because you're much better at this than I am. As many times as I've done it in a podcasting rhythm, you've probably done a lot better with the follow up.

B (48:36)

Yeah, so. So a couple things on follow up. You see, now that you're. You're bringing up the whole thing, the whole process, I'm like, thinking about all the little things I do during the interview. I actually have a time where I try to find a funny personal story. One, it lightens up the mood of the conversation, but the other reason is because once I have that personal thing, this is my, my, my personality. And Dan will know this to the T when I say it. But once I follow up with them, I actually will start a conversation via text and I'll send funny memes based off of the personal story that they shared with me.

A (49:10)

Yes, you were the meme friend for sure.

B (49:12)

I am like, I am meme king. I will send a meme, a gif. A real like, I'm like, hey, dude, I was thinking about you the other day, and I have so many friends, friendships, and relationships that I've built just by sending memes and reels, dude. But I am now known as this guy's like, oh, this guy's not gonna bother me and asking tips all the time. He wants to build a relationship. So then when I do ask and I haven't asked for them, they're very quick to respond. So I typically try to do that again, I'm a little bit more systematic. I try to do that within, like, 24 hours of me recording. So it's not just this, like, Gone with the Wind kind of deal. Then I'm real clear about the process that I'm working through with the podcast of, like, how. Where they're at. And then somewhere within two or three days of me sending that meme or real, I'll actually text them and say, hey, dude, I've been thinking about something you said on the podcast. Can I help you with that? Or I think I know someone who might be able to help you with that. Would you be interested in jumping on a conversation to talk about that more? And it's a longer process, but, man, again, some of this is a sales process, but other times it's just a relationship process and just building relationships with people, dude, it's awesome.

A (50:25)

Even if you're just doing it generally to build relationship, great. But some of these things, like, if you're trying to look for strategic partners, you might have something specific you're looking for. So you have to think like, okay, post. Once this goes live and I give my digital high five, it's gone live. We've shared it. What are you doing afterwards? Most people, if you just sit down with a pen and paper or even have ChatGPT help you, you can think of like some touch points that can follow afterwards. And this is where ChatGPT can give you ideas of a process to build in order to systematically interview gatekeepers or interview thought leaders and how you can follow up and strengthen the relationship afterwards. If you just sit down with pen and paper and think about it for 15 minutes, you could probably come up with some awesome ideas and then give them to ChatGPT to flesh it out even more. But you have to have a game plan for after the interview because again, the interview is just the beginning. It just you have now opened the door and you have to walk through it. And the walking through happens in the weeks and months after you've opened the interview because now you're on texting basis and have a good reason. They know you, they're starting to like you, but it could die there. Really easy. Yeah.

B (51:29)

And that's where a couple other final tips that I would say here is if you're using a CRM to keep tabs of these relationships, keep tabs of them that way and know have like a weekly or bi weekly follow up doesn't have to be long. It's like again, I'm building a relationship so I'm not pitching them anything. I'm actually following them on social media. If I see something that, that's a.

A (51:49)

Big one, it's an easy way to add a touch point.

B (51:51)

At a touch point, if I see something I'm like, I'm liking it, I'm commenting on it. But also if I see something that they need help with, I'll actually shoot them a DM or a text them and be like, hey dude, I saw you posted this. I know a guy or I know someone or hey, here's what I've done. Let me know if it's helpful for you. The other thing is that if you haven't, I don't know about Android, but I know from a smart, from an Apple. What I typically do is I'll have like a strategic partners list on my content. Yeah. On my iPhone. So like I'll look through it regularly and be like, oh, who's on this list that I need to reach out to or connect with? Yeah, right. So sometimes it's more organic. Like I'm not systematic. Like every two weeks I'm hitting them up, but I'm just looking, I'm like, I haven't talked to this person in a while and I'll just shoot them a text and be like, dude, what's up? What's going on, man? How are you doing? What's happening? Anything I could be praying for you about? Whatever it is, they're just like, oh, I'm thinking about them. People love when you are thinking about them or you're encouraging them. And I would say this is just as much for an A lister, B lister, whoever it is, as most. Most of the time people are having a hard time and they are struggling, dude. Like, even business might be going well. Their personal life might not be going well. Like, something's going on. And I again, coming from my faith background, there's a lots of times I send this stuff to people. I'm like, hey, dude, I'm thinking about you. I've been praying for you today. Here's what I'm praying for you about. Or hey, man, I just thought about you. I'm really excited. I'm really glad that you're doing this. You bring so much impact to whatever. I'm sending an encouraging note. It's just like again, I'm sending memes, I'm sending encouraging things. I want people to know, like, I'm for them. Even when life is getting going hard, I'm going to be there. I want to be pastoral. I want to take care of them. This is just all the stuff that you can do and follow up and building relationships so that when you do have an ask, it just becomes a whole lot easier.

A (53:42)

And this has been a long episode, but probably one of the best ones because it's such a powerful medium and it's one of the most undertapped marketing channels of all time, which is build genuine relationships with people because that's what builds trust. People buy from people they know like and trust. If you can do it individually, one relationship at a time. It is a long game that no one's gonna. People are gonna be playing it less because of AI and that's exactly why we need to lean into it because while everyone's trying to automate everything with Chad GPT, you need to be building genuine relationships. This is like, this is almost the anti AI book. But it's not because we want to use AI to the best of its ability, but we also want to double down on the things AI can never do. Relationships is one of the best ones of all time. Always will be, never will change. So it's worth doing a longer episode on it.