← Podcasting Made Simple
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A
Hey, Alex here. Before we get into today's episode, I want to share some really exciting news with you. We just launched a podcast network. If you go to podmatch.comnetwork, you can take a look at all the shows and categories that are involved. And if you'd like to have your show listed in the network, you can press the Join Network button at the top. I look forward to seeing your application and I hope you enjoy some of the shows there. And now let's get into today's episode. You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple.
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People often ask me what it's like being an entrepreneur, and I describe it in the same way every time I say being an entrepreneur is where almost nothing is your fault, but almost everything is your problem. And every few years or so, the entire ecosystem implodes and we have to figure out how to make it work all over again. The good news is you're already doing one of the most important things that you can do to protect your business from all these ups and downs. And if you learn how to do it strategically, it will absolutely carry you through the hard times. My name is Rachel Allen and I am here to teach you how to use podcast guesting to recession proof your business. Now, in Internet terms, I am from approximately the late Cretaceous, the year I started working in business. Kanye was going to let Taylor Finish the VMAs. Harem pants were making a brief ill thought out resurgence, and the term podcasting had actually only been in existence for a couple of years. Then the apocalypse happened. Google did the Panda algorithm update, which completely changed the way online business worked and everyone was sure it was going to collapse. It was like, pack it up, go home, you cannot make money on the Internet anymore. Now, clearly talk of the Internet's demise was premature. Everybody picked up the pieces and learned how to do it again. And then, oh good lord, the rules changed again and it was like, no, pack it up, we're done. And then of course, there was GDPR and the year that all the Flebs fell apart, and Covid and now our current weirdoism. So I watched all this happen over and over and over again and I got really curious. So I started analyzing and I learned that this stuff tends to happen in about a four year cycle. And the one thing that keeps businesses alive during these periodic threshings is the quality of human relationships they're able to form with their clients, their colleagues, and their audience. Now, there's lots of ways to form relationships, as we all know. There's VCs, there's affiliates, there's summits, there's community projects, there's email marketing. There's all the things. And I tried them all, because, in case you can't tell yet, I am a giant nerd. And I found that, bar none, the best bang for your buck. And when it came to forming relationships that keep your business going, was strategically excellent podcast guesting, there's just nothing else that lets you build that kind of rapport, especially in a way that lasts over time and in a way that converts. So how do you do that? I'm going to give you one reframe and then three steps. So the reframe is you are not doing podcast guesting for visibility. You are doing it to build relationships. And of course, everybody thinks visibility, right? That's the whole point of doing that. You want more people to know your name. You want to be in front of different audiences. I call this strategy getting loud. And of course, that's what everybody on the Internet tells you to do, right? You want to be everywhere. You want to post everywhere. You want the whole entire world to know your name, because then you will have those wonderful, lovely conversion numbers, and you'll just sort of pick some people up, even if not that many people are a fit for your audience. But here's the problem. Having that kind of strategy, being loud, that just puts you in an arms race with anybody with a little bit of digital smarts and a marketing spend. So that means you, my friend, are in an arms race against Coca Cola. And let me tell you, you are never going to have a bigger marketing spend than Coca Cola. That is not a game I want to play. So what I tell my clients, and the thing that I do myself is you don't have to be loud. You just have to be heard. And that's why podcast guesting is so effective. It lets you step out of that arms race and actually be heard by people who want to seek you and your voice out. You're not just, like, broadcasting at people and hoping somebody cares. You have people who get interested in what you have to say and actively come to you much more effective. Now, how do you go about specifically being an excellent podcast guest? I've got three steps. The first is you want to provide value in your pitch so that you form a relationship with the host, whether you end up guesting or not. Now, the way that podcast pitching is sort of formatted or thought of is generally very adversarial. Podcast host has the podcast, you want to be on the podcast, but they have all the power. So you have to like, convince them to say yes to you. They have something you want and you must force them, manipulate them somehow, make them give it to you. No one shows up at their best in that kind of relationship. And so if you go into it, even with this subconscious mindset of this adversarial dynamic, you're just not going to give your best pitches and it's not going to be all that effective. So instead you want to turn that around and think about how you can provide value right out the gate. No matter what, getting the yes actually gets taken off the table. Like, it's a really nice bonus. But since we have our overarching reframe right of we're not doing this for visibility, we're doing it for relationship building. It's kind of a secondary thing. The main thing that matters is that you get to form that relationship with the podcast host. So you want to start by thinking of ways that you can be of service to them. Now, I do not mean go around and like throw a free PDF at everybody. You don't even know if they would want that. What I do mean is you want to look at each individual host as a person and think, okay, how can I genuinely be of value to them? What can I give them? Maybe it's a connection, it might be a resource. What it's much more likely to be is that you provide value in the actual structure of the pitch. So you show them that you respect them, you show that you respect their time and you show that you understand what, what they need to hear from you to know whether you're a good fit for them or not. So that means keep it tight, keep it personal. And I mean like each single one individually personalized to the post and give them everything they need to know to make an informed decision about you quickly. It's a huge, I guess just gesture of respect. And also it really shows that you are an empathetic honor on it. Good partner as a podcast guest, which is going to do much more for you than any sort of like really fancy dancing with some sort of elevator pitch. So that's the first thing you want to provide value in the pitch, that you form a relationship whether you end up guesting or not. Secondly, make sure that you approach your interviews like conversations, not presentations. And I think that most people intuitively get this. Nobody wants to listen to people like saying talking points at each other, but I think people get nervous and then they get on the podcast and then they get sort of wrong footed and Just sort of end up reciting things and that doesn't make for good conversation. It's really hard on the host as well because then they feel like they're trying to like break you out of this little nervous Persona to get to the real person. And that's a lot of work. So what I recommend is prepare really well and then absolutely forget about it. Like, just leave your notes aside. I love a little index card talking point, but this is not the place or time for that. You just want to have this stuff well enough, I guess, acclimated in your body that when you get into that situation, you don't even have to think about it, right? You're not like, okay, I got to make sure I, like really get my points across. You already know this stuff because you're an expert in it and you're not stressed about it. And you have enough trust with your host because you've approached the site like a relationship that you know that they're going to try and show you at your best too. So do a lot of preparation, then let the conversation unfold and you will find natural points to get your key points across. So that's your second thing. Finally, you want to have a stellar follow up system so that you can develop an ongoing relationship with each host and ideally each person who listens to you. I think a lot of people, especially if they're a little bit newer again at podcast guesting, have this like big buildup to the interview and then you do it and it's like, okay, I did it, it's over. I didn't fumble over my words. I came across, okay, I. Nobody got mad. It's all done. And now I can just like hand it over to the host and not even think about it. But remember, we're not like having one night stands here. We want this to be a lasting thing. So don't just like dump it all on your host. Instead, show up as a good partner for them and work on forming that lasting relationship. So the way that I do this, I've got kind of two tracks, one for host and one for listeners for the host. I have a conversation with them immediately afterwards and I also send them a personal email immediately afterwards just to say thank you, like, thank you for your time. I. I really enjoyed our conversation. I can't wait to share it. Then when it's out, obviously I message them again. Thank you so much. That was awesome. We sound great, don't we? Can't wait to share it. You're cool. Hope everything's Good in your world. And then I set a reminder in my inbox to check in about three months later, right? And I just, like, look at what's going on in their world. I see what their latest episode is, maybe, or if they've got something they're launching or whatever they posted on social media. And I'm like, hey, oh, my God. It's been a minute since we talked. I saw this. That looks awesome. You doing okay? Is there anything you need? Can I help you with anything? And it's just about putting a little structure around the natural development of a human relationship just so you don't forget about it, especially if you're doing, like, a whole bunch of them or just, you know, are a busy human in this world. So that's what I do for host and then for guests. Kind of similar, right. First, I make sure that I give them a very clear call to action, and I do something that. I don't know. I haven't heard anybody else do this, but it's possible. I just don't listen to those podcasts. I actually hand out my personal email at the end of each podcast that I guessed on. So anybody who listens to it, they can email me directly, and I'll email them back. And people seem to actually really like that. It's kind of. I don't know, they get to, like, talk to somebody who maybe they've got assumptions about or they felt like, oh, my God, like, they're so distant because they were on a podcast. But I get to email them. And so it's a cool way to start a relationship. Sometimes no one will email me directly, but I'll get a large influx of people on social media, and then I'll look and see, like, they also follow the podcast host or the podcast that I was just on. And then, of course, I'm like, you know, you can make a pretty good guess that that's where they came from. So I send them a message, and I'm like, wow, thank. I'm assuming you came across me via this. Thank you so much for listening. That's really cool. Tell me what's going on in your world. And as with the host, I don't go in looking to be like, let me form this plan. So they will go into my sales funnel and eventually I can ask them for something. It's like, no, I just want to get to know you as a person, because something might develop down the road, and that would be cool. And I have no idea what that could look like. So I just really encourage you to go into this with a very open mind because people will make connections for you. They will be able to help you out in ways that you would have never imagined had you gone into it trying to reverse engineer the relationship. So after the message, similarly with the host, I do a little like three month reminder and I just check in and I'm like, hey, how's it going? What's life like in your world? Can I help you? It's all about looking for ways to be useful and it's all about building that human to human connection. And that's what this comes down to, right? Because after going through this for so long, I can tell you with absolute certainty that human is the only move left. All the tips, all the tricks, all the hacks, the biggest list in the world, the cash reserves, a strategy. None of it can stand up to a strong human relationship. And that is so hard to do these days. We are exposed, depending on what study you look at, to 100,000 to 400,000 words a day. So we're all so tired and we're so just inundated with information that we have to continually raise the bar for our engagement just to keep from going absolutely insane. So we crave people who show up, real and human and flawed and complex and, and just interesting. We crave that humanity. And from a business standpoint, it's the one thing that can't be replicated or taken from you. Now the downside is it's harder to show up that way because you have to be like this real complex person. You don't know how people are going to respond. So it can be really vulnerable. And there's no direct ROI on this. You can't measure the amount of humanity you demonstrated and tie that directly to a cash outcome. So it's harder, it's more vulnerable and there's no direct roi. Do it anyway because it works. Because it is the one thing that will set yourself up for business success no matter what the economic climate is looking like. And because it means that you have a chance to get your true voice out there in the world, heard and remembered. And that's worth doing hard things for. Thank you.
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For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com episodes thank you so much for listening.