AIDA for Podcasters: How to Pitch & Partner (Business Creator Club Special)

Summary

Content Is Profit: Episode Summary

Episode: AIDA for Podcasters: How to Pitch & Partner (Business Creator Club Special)
Release Date: July 1, 2025
Host: BIZBROS

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Introduction

In this episode of the Content Is Profit show, host Fonzie and co-host Surya delve into effective strategies for podcasters aiming to build authority, particularly those running interview-style podcasts. Drawing from their extensive experience managing over 600 podcast episodes, they share actionable insights on pitching and partnering with influential guests, using the AIDA framework to enhance outreach efforts.

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Understanding the Question: Building Authority with Interview Podcasts

The episode begins with Fonzie addressing a prevalent question from their community: "How do you build authority with your podcast, especially if you have an interview podcast?" This question centers on inviting influential individuals who can not only resonate with the audience but also serve as potential partners or referral sources in the future.

Fonzie [00:00]: "How do we actually invite people of influence into your podcast?... how to do it ethically."

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The Importance of Effective Outreach

Surya emphasizes the critical first step in the process: securing conversations with potential guests. He underscores that effective outreach is akin to selling—podcasters must present a compelling proposition to attract influential guests.

Surya [02:22]: "For me, one of the main principles is what's in it for them."

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Applying the AIDA Framework

Central to their discussion is the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) framework, a staple in copywriting and marketing, which they adeptly apply to podcast outreach.

1. Attention

Capture the guest's attention with a concise and clear message.

Surya [04:30]: "The attention piece, I usually keep it short is like, 'I want you to come to our podcast.'"

2. Interest

Foster interest by highlighting the podcast's credentials and network affiliations.

Surya [05:15]: "We're part of the HubSpot podcast network with podcasts like 'My First Million' and 'Entrepreneurs on Fire.'"

3. Desire

Create a desire by aligning the guest's ongoing projects or campaigns with the podcast's audience needs.

Surya [07:45]: "If she's running a campaign about converting customers with small audiences, that's exactly what our 80% small business owner audience is looking for."

4. Action

Prompt a clear call to action, tailored to the guest's availability and communication preferences.

Surya [09:10]: "If you're open to being on the podcast, let me know. We have these days available."

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Practical Examples and Strategies

Fonzie shares a successful outreach example where they invited Todd Brown by personalizing their approach with a detailed message referencing his work.

Surya [12:00]: "I sent Todd a video message expressing our admiration for his book, which led to an immediate positive response."

They also discuss adapting their outreach methods based on the platform's effectiveness, opting for less crowded mediums like LinkedIn over inundated channels like Instagram DMs.

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Overcoming Common Challenges

The hosts address common pitfalls in podcast outreach, such as generic pitches that fail to engage. They stress the importance of personalization and genuine interest in the guest's work to elicit meaningful responses.

Surya [13:40]: "We never hear back from pitches that are clearly not genuine, like copy-pasting podcast titles without listening."

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Pricing and Positioning Strategies

Exploring monetization and positioning, Fonzie discusses the idea of premium pricing to enhance perceived value. Referencing Dan Kennedy and Alex Hormozi, they advocate for positioning the podcast as a high-value platform where pricing correlates with quality.

Fonzie [15:09]: "Your competitive advantage comes from being the most expensive in the room type deal because of perception."

They caution against competing on price alone and emphasize delivering substantial value to justify premium rates.

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Utilizing “Open-Minded” Phrases

A significant takeaway is the strategic use of "open-minded" phrases to reduce barriers to acceptance. By framing invitations with questions like "Are you open to collaborating with us?", they tap into the guest's self-perception as open-minded, increasing the likelihood of a positive response.

Fonzie [18:28]: "If you're open to, people are, again, everybody considers themselves open-minded... they will probably agree more to it."

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Leveraging the "Exactly What to Say" Book

Surya and Fonzie highlight the invaluable strategies from Phil Jones' book, "Exactly What to Say," which offers language techniques to enhance persuasion without sounding salesy. They share personal anecdotes on how these methods have improved their outreach effectiveness.

Fonzie [20:14]: "I don't know if this is for you, but Phil, do you want to come to a show? Yeah, it's good."

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with actionable homework for listeners: utilizing the AIDA framework and "open-minded" phrasing in their outreach efforts. Fonzie and Surya reinforce the importance of authenticity, value delivery, and strategic communication in building authority and fostering successful podcast partnerships.

Surya [24:30]: "This also unlocked for us direct outreach on social media... it went from like 100 to 300 in, like, a month, which was awesome."

Listeners are encouraged to implement these strategies to transform their content into profit, aligning with the podcast's overarching mission to "entertain, educate, and turn your Content Into Profit."

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Notable Quotes

• Fonzie [00:39]: “Over the 600 plus episodes that we've done, and I think over the 600 people that we've invited, only one person said no.”
• Surya [02:22]: “What's in it for them? Literally, when I have a conversation about it, what's in it for them.”
• Fonzie [18:26]: “If you're open to, people are, again, everybody considers themselves open-minded… they will probably agree more to it.”

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This comprehensive breakdown captures the essence of Fonzie and Surya's discussion on leveraging the AIDA framework for effective podcast outreach, providing listeners with actionable insights to enhance their podcaster authority and monetize their content effectively.

Transcript

[Fonzie]

Hey, guys. Welcome back to Content is Profit. Today we bring you an answer to a question that has been asked not only in our community, but also in. In our studio multiple times. And I'm checking here on my notes because this was answered in a Q and A session inside of Business Creator Club. So Business Creator Club, if you want to be a part of the Founding Fathers. And we'd be meeting every Thursday answering questions mainly about podcasting and how to monetize around podcasting, but also content frameworks in general on how to gain traction in your business with content. Not only that, but we're adding every single week different resources that we bring in, experts that have actually achieved incredible success in their business with their content every single week. So we're excited to start this over. And this specific question was around, like, how do you build authority with your podcast, especially if you have an interview podcast? And those are one of the most popular. We talked about it in previous episodes. But we go about like, how do we actually invite people of influence into your podcast? You know, an influence can mean many things, but in this specific case, people of influence for your audience, but also for you as your business, how that person that you're targeting to bring into your platform, that you're inviting to your platform, can also become an opportunity of partnership of a great partner in the future of a referral source, maybe a customer. Right. And how to do it ethically. So. So we go over a couple frameworks then, and we also go about specifically on the Aida framework, like, how do we actually apply it when it comes to this? So Fonse goes on and he explains it to Surya, who's the one that's actively going to invite these people in the platform. And it's something that we've used over the 600 plus episodes that we've done. And I think over the 600 people that we've invited, only one person said no. And it was not actually that person. It was somebody else that. That was kind of like a person that worked under them. And then we ended up getting that person through this method. So super exciting, and I'm sure it's going to be super useful, so enjoy.

[Surya]

Let's go back to the question that Surya had, which was pretty much, how do. How do you do the outreach? Right, to get people.

[Fonzie]

Yeah, here, I'll read the question. Right, so, hey, Fonzie, do we have any podcast outreach examples we can refer. Also, I would love to know the process to conduct the interview. Like the framework on how we can Build authority, position ourselves as an expert, even during the interview. I appreciate your help.

[Surya]

Yeah. So we can talk about that. We can talk about the second part of the question today. Right. And yeah, but like, I might have a little tangent here and there, but first thing, we gotta, before obviously focusing on that part of how do we build trust in the, in the conversation. We gotta get people booked, right? We gotta get a conversation going on. So for us it has always been, and this has been, I believe, like copywriting has the best principles honestly, for just for marketing, for content creation too. In general. If you study copywriting, you can translate that into your videos at the end of the day, you know, scripting. If you script your videos, outlines, etc. Right. And even your, your outreach, right. At the end of the day, you're trying to sell somebody your podcast. You're trying to sell them coming onto your podcast. So for me, one of the main principles is with right, which is what's in it for them? And just think of everything from that perspective. What's in it for them? Literally, when I have a conversation about it, what's in it for them? Right. I think a lot of people just approach everything for. From the point of view of what's in it for me. Which, you know, then it starts us when it sounds a little salesy or just, you know, just doesn't give that good feeling to the person on the other side. But if you are, you start with a head look, this is what you can get from this. They might show more interest. And then Aida is just pretty much like a small copywriting framework where you can, you know, write stuff. There's a bunch of those that you can get out there. I'll say that it does. One, one of the most popular ones out there, which stands for is an acronym that's our. For attention, interest, desire and action. So how can I hit all those? I try to hit all those literally one of those per line, not be paragraph, something short that is going to get that person interested. Now the delivery method, the medium is going to be depending on, you know, I like to approach them through a medium that they're not too busy in. So if they're super busy on Instagram and they have a huge account, you know, you know, they get a bunch of comments and stuff out. They're probably getting a bunch of dms. Your, yours, my, my get lost. I try to find them on a, on a different platform. Right. Maybe their LinkedIn is not as popular. I'll reach out. I'll probably reach out on the other platforms as well. But, you know, I'll put a main focus on. On that one that is a little bit slower, but I still see that they're active. That's probably where I will do my outreach. But, you know, long story short, start with that principle of what's in it for them. Aida is the framework that I write my message with. So let's say I'm trying to get in a. Right here on her show, right. First I would obviously, I would just go, what is. I would define what's in it for her if she comes to our show. So the main thing would be, hey, look, you have a new audience you can tap into. Maybe if I know she's running some sort of campaign, if she is trying to promote, you know, one of her products or, you know, a lead magnet, I can just be like, you know what? You can come and promote this. We're going to talk specifically about this thing that you're solving, this problem that you're solving on our podcast. And, you know, hopefully we can leave some traffic back to you. So that is my. What's in it for them? Then I go, okay, how do I cross my craft, my message? So the attention piece, I usually keep it short is like, ina, I want you to come to our podcast. Right? That right there is. She's going to be like, okay, a podcast. Interesting. Probably I get 20,000 pitches a day about coming into people's podcasts, but is a distribution channel for her message, so she might be interested. Right. Hey, you know, we would love to invite you to our podcast. Then I go into the interest part. How do I create interest? Right now we're in the position where we are part of the HubSpot podcast network. So that's a big lever that we use every single time. We're like, hey, we're part of the HubSpot podcast network with podcasts, like my first million. Right. Other big podcasts are in there. John Lee Dumas used to be in it. I think he's not in it anymore. But we would put, you know, entrepreneurs on fire with John Lee Dumas and so many more. Just that one quick paragraph. People are like, wow. So they're in a network that is fairly big with a big audience. I'm interested now, right? Then how do I create the desire? How do I make them want now to be in the podcast? And then we, you know, we might share with them. I don't know what line I wrote here on the. On the message. Right. But for, you know, would Be hey, I know you're doing this campaign about X, Y and Z. You know, about converting with. Converting customers with small audiences. And that's exactly what our audience is look. Is looking for. Right. We have, you know, 80% of our audience are small business owners. And I think your message will resonate with them. That'll be probably my desire part I'm talking, I'm crafting her message specifically for her. And then the action would be, if you're open to being on the podcast, let me know. We have these days available. That part I will change depending on who I'm talking to. If there's somebody that I know super busy and they're just going to make a decision right there, I will put the dates. You know, this is option A, B. Which one do you. Which one is better for you? If it's somebody that I potentially want to go a little bit back and forth and build a little bit more rapport, you know, somebody that is more on, you know, or level of influence, if you want to put it that way, you know, based on what we talk about, the ladder of influence, then I will try to get them on a call so I can also know them build more rapport and then we can, we can boot them in there. Right. So that part, it changes a little bit now. That's pretty much it. And then I just like, thanks. Fancy. Right. The action I always put, if you're open to. Right. And this is something I learned from. Well, I forgot the guy of the name, so I got to look him up to give him proper credit. But he's this English guy. He talks about sales a lot and he has a book called exactly what to say. Phil Jones. Yes, Phil Jones. Totally recommend that book. If it's amazing they get. The guy is incredible. He's not like, you know, super sales. I personally don't like that, like super salesy, you know, culture, you know, Grant Cardone style, if you want to put it that way. Obviously I know it works and stuff like that, but it's just not my personality. But this guy, that book, exactly what to say is absolutely amazing. And one of the things that I to cow that I use literally at all, I use it in my personal life every time as well, is rather than to say, you know, do you want to come to. If you want to come to our podcast, you know, let's book a day. Because if you want is makes people, you know, I get it. It's easier to say no to if you want because you cannot want to. But if you say if you're open to right. People. Most people consider themselves open minded, right? So sure, of course there's, there's a chance that we'll say no. But every time you say if you're open to, you know, people, again, everybody comes up to be pretty open minded and they will probably be more willing to say yes because subconsciously they're going to be like, of course I'm an open person. Right. And they will probably agree more to it or at least give you an opportunity to chat back and forth. So I always use that. Always use the. If you're open to pretty much the basic of the. Again, keeping what's in it for them always in my. I keep that in mind for everything. Literally when I'm going to write something, when I'm going to where we're on the podcast, it's like my foundation pretty much for everything. What's in it for them? And then the IDA is use a framework for, for the messages to have a little bit of structure. Try to make it as punctual as possible. Make it short. Right. So I mean, I don't want them to. If, if I open a message and I see a bunch of paragraphs in there, like, you know, I'm not going to read this. Especially if the first time you're doing some outreach for them. For some people, we do it on video. The message. Right. It might be easier to catch their attention. When we got to Brown, I had a. I printed one of his books as a PDF and I had notes all over, I had posters all over it and I literally sent him a message or the video like, Todd, I love your book. You know, like the thing is all written over with notes. And I use the same framework, right. The interest is I was like, we have a podcast we love. At that time, we weren't on the, on the HubSpot podcast network. So for me it was more like, hey, we have a podcast where we have people like Steve Larsen. I use, I leverage our previous guest into drawing attention for him. And then the interest I was like, I would love to talk about this book and help it promote it is. Is so good. Of course he wanted to do that. And then the action was like, if you're open to it, you know, let's book for this time for him. Didn't, didn't try to jump on a free call with him because obviously he's super busy. I just straight up give him a time. He said yes. And then we jump on the podcast with him also. That's A pretty good example of, you know, what medium to use, whether video, all that stuff. If you wouldn't have answered there, I probably would have go somewhere else and send him a video as well. Or send them a message, find his email. And an email is not the ideal way if, you know, you want a lot of volume. But, you know, one of our previous clients, his name is Ramberger, he talked a lot about AI, but his AI was attention and intention. It's not about the artificial intelligence, about attention and intention. And sure, you can leverage AI for a lot of stuff. I think it's great for a lot of tasks, but you can definitely feel the message when it's created with attention and intention rather than AI. We get pitches all the time on our email of like, oh, I love this episode of your podcast that you publish. And they put the exact same title that we put on the. On the episode. And we always respond, oh, yeah, what was your favorite part? Crickets. Silence. We never hear back from them, you know, not like, that's just not genuine, you know, like, I haven't listened to a podcast. I'm not going to tell you that I listen to your podcast. Yeah, right.

[Fonzie]

Lately. Lately we've been also counter pitching. So we're like, hey, if you want to, that's great that you love it. Which I don't believe you 100%. But here's some options. Like we're referral only podcast, so it has to come from a guest. If you don't do that, then you can sign up to Podmatch. Here's the link. And on Podmatch is this platform where people can interact and then our team can get back to you. But we also have a paid option which 90% goes to marketing the podcast. And we started at 500 bucks and right now we're pitching 1500. To be completely honest, nobody has bought, but the messages have stopped. So we're like, awesome. Worst case scenario. Because at the end of the day, those are also. There might be one or two that there might be interesting, interesting people. But also we want to have the control of, like, who's coming to our show. We're not a show that's open to everybody.

[Surya]

At first we will. We would look because they send you like a one pager. So we would like look through the one pager, look at the person, you know, is this person of interest? Like, is it aligned with the podcast? Like, maybe at first, when we needed to build a little bit more, you know, I guess like leveraging to the podcast more, more Proof of concept into the podcast as well. We were looking a little bit more into those of some of those. We were like, oh, you know, he's actually a good fit for the show. We also want to have a conversation with them after the show to see if there's some sort of opportunities in there. So we will. We would do that. But, yeah, you know, now that the show has grown, we got that. We're trying to protect also the quality of the show by who we bring on it. So that's why we started doing that now.

[Fonzie]

And also to be. At the end of the day, to be completely honest, that's not our model. Our motto is not to charge per episode. Right. So there's a great person in one of our other communities, Vinnie, So he used to work for mtv, big networks, and he's all about, like, status and making sure that your image and the perception of others compared to what you're doing is worth it. Right. So I remember he got pitched to be part of a PR network and people could pay to have a conversation with you and learn from you type deal. And I think all the pricing there for him that everybody. He was like an average of $150 an hour. And he's like, look, I want to be in this platform as a way to, like, leverage. It could be marketing, it could be things, but I personally don't have the bandwidth. Like, if people. If I put that price and I get like five calls booked, I don't want to have five calls booked a week at that price point. So he basically put in $5,000 to have a conversation with him. And most people obviously will say no to that. But then he said, like, one person bought it at $5,000, and then he was like, really, really excited to have a conversation with them. And it turned out to be an incredible investment. And he rolled it into a program that he has with that person. So I'm like, okay, what are some things that can differentiate yourself as not only as entrepreneur but also as a show? Right. And there's. I've been rereading $100 million offers from Alex or Mosey. And I mean, this part of. There's. I think it comes from Dan Kennedy, as in, like, your competitive advantage comes from being the most expensive in the in the room type deal because of perception. So people associate the price with quality as well. At the end of the day, also, if we're offering a service or if we're offering a podcast experience, for example, it has to be top notch to be able to do that. Right. Like we have to believe ourselves. Like if end up, people end up doing that. And he's talking about like when he was in the gym, everybody was charging, you know, 100 bucks or so for memberships and it's like, okay, how can I differentiate myself? And one of those methods is through the pricing. And he's like, I don't want to compete on a race to the bottom. My price is up here because we pack a ton of value and it's delivered and we offer their results. And that's why he followed Dan Kennedy on that advice. He's like, okay, how can we start shifting our positioning not only for our show but also for our social media. And whenever you're ready, I would love to hear your experience. Right. Because you had a really cool story, not only with your show, but when you travel doing the shows remotely. And that was so exciting. And then the opportunities that came from that right now. And I think you might be in one of those big jobs at the moment or opportunities. So you can give us an update whenever you can. Yeah, no, you're good While you do that. On the open minded part of the, of the book, I'll just read it real quick. This is direct quote from exactly what to say Bill Jones. We're not affiliates or anything but this, this little booklet has helped us big time.

[Surya]

Yeah, the book is awesome.

[Fonzie]

Yeah. If you were to ask a room of a thousand people whether they consider themselves open minded, I am sure over 900 of them will raise their hands. Just about everybody in the land thinks of themselves as meeting, as meeting this criteria. It is pretty easy to understand why when introducing a new idea, start with how open minded are you? This will naturally attract people towards the very thing that you, that you'd like them to support. Everybody wants to be open minded and I would challenge everybody here to try that phrase. And the second we started doing it, we started getting like responses back, which was incredible. Right. And that's what we wanted. Right. We wanted the traction for the conversation. So here are a few examples of the words in practice. How open minded will you be about trying this as an alternative? So obviously, like this is very sales related. So whether we're selling people into being in our show or into our programs or into the things that we're doing. Like, would you be open minded about giving us about giving this, this interview a chance? Are you open minded about giving this program a chance? Right. How open minded are you about increasing your monthly income? This is a great one because everybody's like, oh, yeah, I'm very open minded.

[Surya]

Tell me more.

[Fonzie]

Right? Will you be open minded about seeing if we could work together? That for me, that was the one that we added at the end of our interviews. It's like, hey, will you be open minded to collaborate with us? And people are like, yeah. And then that's where we transitioned to the thing. So we mixed a couple and we were like, hey, I don't know if this is for you, but we do X, you know, will you be open minded to collaborate with. With us?

[Surya]

Quick parenthesis here. Sorry for interrupting you. I don't know if this is for you. It's exactly from that book as well. Because when you say, hey, I don't know if this is for you, subconsciously people say, but what if it is? You know, their ego is like, what if it. You know what? Actually I, I can make it work. So when you're like, yeah, I don't know if this is for you, but this is what we do, right? People are like, oh, interesting, you know, and like they naturally get, get drawn into that. So yeah, we use that combo that. I don't know if this is for you. And are you open minded?

[Fonzie]

So from there, I'm not sure. This for you. Which is, by the way, number one in here is like one of the most common reasons I hear from people as to why they fail to introduce their product or service is the fact that they are fearful of rejection they might receive. Right? Which is, you know, we've been talking about this in the last couple of sessions. We're like, oh man, like, what if, like this person says no, a different thing. So I'm not sure if this podcast is for you, but insert here. Right? But I would love to have you. I think, like, your message is impactful and I think your story is incredible. Because of item one that I saw on social media. Because of your book, because of your workshop that I took. Because of. We work together and I think like, you would be very. You can bring a lot of value to our audience, you know. And as you know, Fonzie explained his. The framework of what's in it for them. And Ada, you can start inserting like these little tactics in there. So awesome. I recommend it.

[Surya]

Yeah, we're going to have to call Phil and be like, hey, dude, for a book.

[Fonzie]

I don't know if this is for you, but Phil, do you want to come to a show? Yeah, it's good.

[Surya]

All right. Fun fact, we actually, actually we learned about Phil because of our very first client ever Was like one of his, like, first three interviews that we edited. And I was doing like, the edit at that time, and I was listening to him and I was like, damn, this guy is so good. And he just has such a good demeanor about himself. So I went straight up and grabbed his book. This is like, I don't know, over five years ago. And honestly, I don't know why we haven't reached out to try to get him on the podcast because we use his stuff all the time. We do use his stuff all the time. Maybe time to send an invite.

[Fonzie]

There we go. That's our homework this week. Fonzie, this is your welcome. Welcome back to the show part.

[Unknown]

The book is really helpful. I just bought it, so I'm going to start reading it.

[Surya]

Honestly, you can. You can read that in. In a single day. And yeah, I just bought the book.

[Unknown]

As well as the audiobook, so I kind of read faster.

[Surya]

I put that, I put that on the car and I just listened to. And I was like, like, every time I, Every time I listen to it, like, one of those resonates more of the time. I was like, oh, let me use this one. You know, let me, let me grab that one. And you put it, like under your belt. It's a good tool.

[Unknown]

I really like the way of transitioning into a backend call from the interview which said something like. I believe it said something like, hey, not sure if this is for you, but. And go into that. Or I'm not so sure what we do. I'm not so sure if you are aware of what we do. We collaborate so. And so. And so are you. Will you be opposed to giving the first thought or something like that? I'll just read the book and I'll.

[Fonzie]

Come up with a phrase. Yeah.

[Surya]

It'S important to definitely build rapport during the interview. Yeah, before, you know, asking those questions. But it's also a way like, yeah, it might not be for them, but now they're also aware of what you do. And you can go after you show them. You can be like, well, cool if it's not for you, if it's not a fit, it's not a product fit for your problems right now. Do you know anybody in your network or would you be open to then collaborate? Can we do something together? Or I can tap into your network and stuff. It really opens a lot of opportunities.

[Fonzie]

This also unlocked for us direct outreach on social media when we were building the group, because, hey, we will connect with them and be like, hey, Surya, I just saw that you publish content daily. Will you be open to be part of a community of creators type deal? You know, it was awesome because it opened a ton of communication with them. So it went from like 100 to 300 in, like, a month, which was awesome, dude. So, you know, when we were doing the work of that outreach. Yeah.