#357: How Podcast Guesting Can Boost Your Brand and Help Build Your Solo Business

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1.3 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, most freelancers and solo marketers focus their marketing efforts on things like prospecting, networking, or LinkedIn. But guesting on podcasts that your target audience listens to, not so much. In fact, I've rarely seen solo professionals in, well, I should say solo creative professionals, especially writers, do this. And that's, I think, too bad because appearing on podcasts can be a powerful way to build your brand, to meet and network with great people, to generate leads and establish yourself as a thought leader in your market. In this episode, I sit down with Angie Trueblood, who's a season podcast publicist, and we explore how freelance writers and solo marketers can harness the power of podcast guesting. Angie shares her unique journey into the world of podcast publicity and breaks down why being a guest on the right shows can make a huge positive difference in your business. We dive deep into a number of key areas and discuss some actionable strategies, including why podcast guesting is an underused but highly effective strategy for freelancers, how to identify the podcast that will bring the real value you need for your business, Insider tips on crafting a genuine, irresistible pitch and why you actually have an advantage here over many people who craft pitches, practical advice on preparing for your podcast debut to maximize impact, and how to track and measure the success of your podcast guesting efforts. Whether you're looking to expand your client base, increase your visibility, or simply explore new avenues for growth, I'm telling you, Angie's insights that she's sharing here, they're going to open your eyes to the untapped potential of this marketing strategy. So I hope you enjoy it and hope you get a ton out of this discussion.

Foreign.

Hey Angie, welcome. Great to have you here.

Yeah, Ed, I'm excited to finally chat with you.

I know we've been corresponding for seems like six months now and we finally made this happen and I'm just glad we did. I want to really dive into what this is all about and get into the weeds a little bit with you about podcast guesting, but before we do, I always ask my guests to give us a brief overview of their business, what they do, what kind of clients they work with and maybe a little bit of the origin story as well, like how you got here, because I know you used to be one of us in some ways.

Yeah. And I still feel like one of you. So I was in outside sales for my career and then when my husband and I had kiddos, I decided to come home to spend a little bit more time with them and run a part time business of my own. And totally different business. I was serving mothers. And I recognized that I needed to grow my visibility in that space. So I started guesting on podcast. I just reached out to host with a topic idea and they either said yes, no, or no response. And some of my friends who also had businesses were asking questions of, well, how did you guest on that show? Like, how did you get to be interviewed there? And I learned very quickly, like your listeners, most likely, that what I am skilled at is something that not everyone else is. And a lot of people don't like the idea of pitching themselves. So I pivoted the whole business and started as a freelancer, taking on clients. First of all, I pitch them for any type of media. So television. Yeah, that was a blast. Pitching them, you know, for online media, in person. Interviews and podcasts quickly niched down the service, offering to pitching clients to be podcast guests. So we've grown over the years. I at one point grew more of what you would think of as an agency with more team members. And we've actually scaled that back to where it's me, a core group of team members, and we pitch a handful of clients. And then I'm really leaning into the consulting and training because likely, as you know as well, there are a lot of PR firms out there who are doing pitching for their clients and they really haven't been trained in how podcast pitching and guesting is just a different beast than traditional media. So we're working with PR firms, podcast production companies, communications teams that are pitching their clients and we're helping them get better results and do it in a more human, focused way.

I absolutely love that because it's very much aligned with what I've been sharing and preaching to my audience, which is you need to start moving more and more into advisory and head work, essentially, and away from hands work, you know, not that you need to stop writing, for example, but you need to have a more diverse mix and move more and more into the strategic side of things. The advisory, the teaching, coaching, training. Because that's really where the future is, especially in an AI driven world.

Yeah. And the ability to have any sort of leverage in your business. You know, we're all constrained by hours in a day.

Yes.

So if there's a way to have a bit of scale baked in without having to manage a large team, I am all for it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so let's set the stage here a little bit in the context of a freelance solo marketer or writer or copywriter, publicist, et cetera. Why even look or why even consider podcast guesting as part of your marketing mix? What are some of the benefits?

Yeah, there's a lot of pros to it. I mean, first of all, from a purely marketing getting in front of more people perspective, it is a one to many approach. So you are getting in front of someone else's audience. They are ushering you in as a thought leader or at least someone that they trust. Just like your listeners are likely thinking, okay, well Ed invited Angie on. She's legit. I'm going to at least listen and respect what she has to say. So it's a way to increase your influence and authority just by the nature of being a guest on someone else's show. And you're reaching a larger audience than if you were just reaching out one to one in a LinkedIn DM, which I still do. And it's a really big part of how I create client, like how I find and convert clients. But getting that initial exposure is really helpful in kind of seeing, well, who's interested in this, who raises their hand after that interview goes live that I should connect with the other piece of it. And I think this is, you know, I've been doing this for seven years is first I was marketing on Facebook and then I was marketing on Instagram and Now I'm on LinkedIn and the others have kind of gone away. So social media is such an evolving platform and candidly, it's one I don't always love spending my time on and guesting on someone else's podcast. Having a conversation like you and I are having, it just kind of warms my heart and reminds me that I'm in this human focused business and relationships are at the heart of it. So it's sort of a feel good approach to marketing for me. And then specifically about freelancers, they're in demand. Podcast hosts candidly are inundated with people who are business coaches or business strategists wanting to guest on their show. And often they're not getting pitched by people who are experts in their craft and, and actually doing that craft. And that is a lot of times who they want to bring to their audience. So I have several different podcast hosts who will reach out to me and say, hey, do you know someone who is an expert at LinkedIn marketing? Do you know someone who is an expert at SEO? And then I can send them that person. But there is an opportunity there for freelancers to really fill a knowledge gap.

So if I understand that correctly, you're saying that they're being flooded by, let's say, thought leaders, but not so much day to day practitioners.

Yeah, yeah. I mean they're out there. Right. But it's not the freelancers that are doing the work every single day and getting real time feedback on what their strategies and tactics are actually delivering. And a lot of hosts want to have those experts on to share the knowledge that they don't have. If a business podcast is hosted by someone who offers business coaching or business strategy, what gaps they have are some of the tactics that they want their followers, their clients to go out and do to make them successful. But the business coach might not know cutting edge LinkedIn strategy. Right. But that LinkedIn ghostwriter or copywriter does.

That's a really interesting perspective and one that I wasn't really expecting. That I get pitched all the time, two times a day, three times a day. And which is crazy to me because, I mean, I have a long standing show, we're on our 12th year now, but which is like whatever, 70 years in this business, but it's still a small show because it's a niche show. I was under the impression that it's really kind of the big authors and speakers and thought leaders who get the traction as opposed to. Well, I'm a practitioner, I'm a freelance copywriter in the healthcare industry. Who's gonna wanna talk to me? And I mean, of course I know that people do wanna talk to you, but you've just validated this idea that. No, actually a lot of podcast hosts would prefer to talk to you because they're being inundated by all the, you know, the thought leaders, the experts, the authors. That's great. They have a lot to share. But not boots on the ground kind of stuff. Yeah. So that's great.

I think. Yeah. I think a lot of it depends on the types of shows you're pitching. And I know we'll get into that. But you mentioned the health. What did you say? Healthcare, Wellness. Yeah. If you imagine a host who runs a coaching program for either healthcare practitioners or health and wellness practitioners, it would be great for them to have someone come on that is talking about how to specifically grow your business or what does SEO look like for healthcare practitioners. So freelancers and I know I've listened enough to know that not that you have a love hate relationship with niching, but you don't think it's the end all be all. The beauty of guesting on podcasts is that you can kind of niche your pitch. And I know I get bored sometimes when you have clients who are in the same industry and then I love when I get some sort of like fresh blood and I get to put my eyes on their strategy. You can pitch to shows in the healthcare space, for instance. At the same time, you can take that pitch and tweak it and make it really relevant for shows that are in the legal space. And that's how you can stand out. So getting on the giant shows that we all know is a little bit more difficult, but there are a ton of really engaged audiences like yours that are speaking to a very specific audience and you can sort of massage your expertise to fit that audience.

Well, let's start getting into that then. And I'd like to start by asking you this question. Okay. So you know that my audience, their clients, their own target audience is marketing directors at all size of companies, but a lot of mid size larger companies or you know, in many cases maybe a founder, you know, of a SaaS company, sometimes they're dealing directly with a founder because it's small enough where they don't have a full marketing team. So we're talking about people who are very busy. They're inundated already with a huge to do list and a bunch of people like reaching out to them. Do these people that those audiences, do they actually listen to podcasts? You know, on the drive home after that kind of day, do they listen to podcasts or are they trying to just completely get away from any more marketing and business advice?

Yeah, I mean, it obviously depends on the individual and the day, but the data says yes, Podcasting is still a growing industry and the number of podcasts that are in that B2B marketing, B2B leadership, niched marketing, it is suggesting, yes, those people are definitely listening to podcasts and that is a way to get in front of them. There are so many shows in the marketing space talking to a variety of individuals. Right. It could be more corporate execs, it could be CMOs, it might be that founder who's looking for someone more fractional on their team. But they are out there just waiting for people, you know, that are experienced and skilled to give them A different angle, like that's the other piece of it is offer the host up something that they haven't covered before. And again, the boots on the ground experts are the ones who really can share that.

That's great to know. And I know if people are listening, they're not going to know the expression you made when I asked you those, that last question, but you looked very, very confident. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That there's plenty out there, which is good to know because I had my doubts. I. I'm gonna make a statement. I'd love for you to react to it. Tell me if you agree, disagree. Or maybe there's more to it. The show doesn't have to be a pure play, B2B marketing show for you to really get some traction from that. Right. If a percentage of that audience, let's say 10 to 20%, are potential prospects for you, that might be good enough. Which is a little different from the traditional marketing that most of us were taught, which is like, you know, it's gotta be very, very prospect rich for it to be worth your while. But I find that, you know, there might be a different argument to be made here. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, in business today, I feel like marketing, it's an ecosystem, Right. And so there's so many sort of strategies that you can, or goals that you can fulfill by guesting that. Yeah, reaching the audience is just one part of it. For me, networking is almost as much of a play and a focus of me guesting on shows than actually reaching the audience because that host. So I feel like you and I are hitting it off at the end of this. You know, we'll likely stay in touch. You mentioned maybe you're coming to Richmond. Well, we'll probably meet up for coffee or a cocktail, whichever is preferred. Right. And so once I run across folks in my world who might be a really good candidate to work with you, I would of course think of you to send them to you and vice versa. So there's definitely the networking part of it. And in, in that point, I mean, the audience is just, you know, a cherry on top. You're getting to share and help someone else's audience in a way that they couldn't. There's definitely the lead generation, but then there's also just allowing people who might be interested in your services to feel how you are different from the next person who offers the same type of services. There are a number of podcast booking agencies out there, and I definitely have a different spin, a different flavor and take on it than some of the others. But listeners would never really know that without hearing me have that conversation. So it really helps in that. Sort of like attracting versus repelling. I rarely get wrong fit people booking discovery calls with me, and that's because I've guested so much or they've heard my podcast and been able to get a sense of who I am.

You make a great point there that a big part of it is someone getting to really know you. And there are few channels that are better suited for that than a podcast. When I mean getting to know you, getting to know the person. I always equate it to. If you've ever binge watch a show on Netflix and let's just say Breaking Bad, by the end of season two, you feel like you know Walter White. Like you have a. An intimate relationship with this person. You know, you know him inside and out, and that's really, really powerful. And it's the same thing with, I found with podcasts, I take them everywhere. Sometimes once I found find one, I get in the door through episode whatever 27. Before I know it, I'm all the way to 112 and I've just binged a bunch of episodes. And I feel like I know the host so well. Of course I don't know him or her, but I've heard enough of them that I really kind of understand what they're about, their belief system, their quirks, all of that. And I either if I'm listening to that many, I'm usually connecting with them. And that's really, really powerful. In business. You can't replicate that with a great website or a LinkedIn profile or without reach email. I mean, those things useful and they have their time and place. But this is, you know, we were a people to people business and this is a really powerful way of doing that.

For sure.

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about identifying the right podcast to you. So what advice might you have for someone in my audience who's thinking, okay, maybe I need to try this. Where do I even start? I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts. We already name one category, right? So like let's say a B2B marketing podcast. And let's just maybe we'll use an example to make it a little easier. Like the one from earlier. Right. I'm a B2B healthcare writer slash copywriter. And my clients are typically healthcare Systems, hospital systems, B2B medical device companies, you know, that sort of thing. Where do I even start? What are some different ways to attack it.

So, first of all, the clarity that you shared right there is what trips so many people up is they don't go into searching with a clear plan of who they want to connect with. They think, I own a marketing agency. I want to get out there and talk about marketing. But really you want to get in front of audiences that at some point might be interested in hiring you. That's often the goal. Right. It could be networking, it could be brand awareness. But most of myself, it's lead gen. Right. You want to get in front of the right audience. And so in lead declaring, what types of shows would those people even be listening to? And that question doesn't get answered inside of Apple Podcast it. When you're thinking, I know my client, what type of show would they be interested in listening to? What would they listen to to get complimentary information on the type of work I do for them? It sounds like to me, they might be listening to general marketing shows, but they also might be listening to marketing for healthcare shows or shows that are talking about hospitals and how hospital systems can connect with their community or marketing. So it's really clarifying. Let's get a couple search terms that we can just pop in to Apple podcasts, which is what we always go to first. And then you search with a search term, not the rankings. I see a lot of people go in, they're like, well, let me pick a category and see who are the top podcasts in this category. I'm going to go after them. It's really more about getting pretty niched in who you're searching for so that the shows that come back to you in your results have some sort of chance of being a good fit.

Got it. And there's many different ways of slicing and dicing it. I started with kind of a pure play angle, but there could be all kinds of different facets to that search.

Yeah, I mean, it could be healthcare CMOs. You could break apart some of the marketing, like email marketing for healthcare organizations. And similar to what you said before, maybe it doesn't need to be healthcare. Like, maybe whoever that freelancer is can write just as easily and happily for healthcare orgs as they can for legal organizations. Right. And they've done it before. They can pitch to this, you know, to different categories of podcasts and kind of see what kind of results am I getting. Are they saying yes in the healthcare space? No, in the legal space. So we've used it before to test out different verticals for clients if they want to kind of step into a new space. Then we can pitch, you know, 10 to 20 shows in that space, see what the interviews feel like, see if they get any interested leads from it and see if that's a good fit.

Well, and what I'm hearing from you too is that, you know, the example I use is very vertical focused a specific industry, but it could also be horizontal positioning. Like we could really approach. Like maybe my specialty is writing long form content, research heavy long form content, which means that I can write for many different types of industries. So now I have a whole new set of searches that I can make. Right. And potentially different set of shows.

Yeah, for sure. And con marketing, like that's another search term. So it's really about having the terms that people would use to find the types of shows that you think you want to guest on. It's really defining the show as I want to be a guest on the show that's talking to this type of person. Right. A marketing professional in the healthcare industry about this type of thing. And in that example, it would be marketing strategies or I mean, outsourcing marketing would be great, but that's probably not gonna like, that would be a perfect fit. But yeah, it's just getting really clear. On what terms would you put into Apple Podcasts to find the type of show that you think is an ideal fit for you?

Got it. Okay, so I'm starting to see.

Is that clear?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm starting to see a pattern here and how you could show it starts with making the decision you're going to try this. Start getting kind of a lay of the land, start looking using some very specific search terms. Let's talk about crafting a pitch that's actually going to get read and noticed.

Yeah. So it goes back to the reminder of this is a human form of connection. So. So that first interaction, which is often an email pitch, has to feel human. So whoever it is that's on the receiving end of it, whether it's the host or a producer or an admin, needs to feel like a real person on the other end sent an email specifically to that person. So it's common sense strategies. It's using the right name, mentioning the name of the podcast in the pitch. And I'm sure your listeners are thinking seriously, like, that is where the bar is.

And it's. The bar is very low.

Like, as the strategic writer that you are listener, you're well positioned to crush this outreach strategy, by the way. So, you know, our pitches are fairly templated. Like, we do start with a Template. But we don't send templates. Right. So we already know for our clients and for. Yeah, we know for our clients the topics that are gonna be most appealing in front of the people that we want to get them in front of. So we have those already fleshed out. So we're not writing an email from scratch, but we personalize the beginning of the pitch. We even personalize like why this would be relevant to that person's audience. So for you, it would be an acknowledgement of knowing that you work with and that your listeners are freelance writers. I thought a topic that might be helpful for them would be X, Y, Z. Right. So you're crafting the pitch and. And basically sharing why the topic, why you find it to be relevant to their audience. Other things are. Don't we see a lot you'll appreciate it is a lot of people, when they pitch, they sort of feign admiration. Like, Angie, I love your show. You are such, you know, motivational thought leader in your space. And it's all this very fluffy, non specific language that you could write about anyone. You don't have to do that. The host just wants to know that you know who you're speaking to and that the topic you're proposing is relevant. If you do that, you literally will stand out head and shoulders above what, 90% of the pitches. I almost feel, especially in the marketing space, in the BDC space.

Yeah. Because they're hounded day in and day out. I almost feel like maybe the best opener is I have someone I think would be ideal for your show. And before I even get to them, I might even talk about the topic, the nuanced topic first. Because that's gonna like, you know, I'm looking for reasons to hit delete. So I don't want to hear the person's bio for 20 minutes. So get to. Okay, I got a great topic idea for you. Here's who I am and my credentials. Right. And then we can go from there. So I guess a couple of things. One, I wanted to get your take on that approach and second, do you find that it's best to offer one idea or do you feel as best. There was a time when offering three without going too deep into each one seem to be a better option. So thoughts on that?

Yeah. So first off, I want to call out that this sentence that you mentioned is, I have someone that I think will be an ideal guest. That think is so important because when people email and say, I have a guest who I know will be an excellent fit, you're already putting the host on the defensive of, you don't know my show, you don't know my people. Just, you know, you would never.

The bar is really high at that point. Yeah, right.

Yeah. And you would never speak to another human like that. Like, I know I have something that's a perfect fit for you. We all hate salespeople like that. So we don't do that in email form. So we always give the host an out because we like to lower the defenses. Their gut reaction to delete, we do include and it's not a bio, it is like a one sentence descriptor of our client. And that's really just sharing credentials, level setting that they are an expert and qualified to be a guest on their show. We're not doing a paragraph. We've seen three paragraph bios be included in pitches. No. And again, your writers are skilled at this. Take their large bio and pull out the most impactful pieces of it. So the host gets a sense of like, okay, they check the box on the level of expertise that I want on my show and then you go into the pitch. So we have a sneaky way of only offering one topic. I do think it's important to offer one topic because I don't want to give the host any sort of work to do on their end. Like the onus of sending an idea to them is that it is an actual idea that all they have to do is say yes or no. And so we will pick a specific topic. And that goes to really proving, hey, we looked at your show like, we get who you're talking to. We feel so confident in that we think this is the best topic. But we do add like three to five talking points. Like a conversation on this topic could include the following talking points. And so that lets the host see, like, oh, okay, we could expand on this. Or I really like talking point number four and that's all I want to talk about. I don't want to talk about the overarching topic. So you can create depth to what you are pitching without giving the host the homework to choose what is best.

I think that's really smart because you said that. I realized that I've done that a few times. Somebody has sent me one idea with some talking points. The idea itself wasn't quite there, but I looked at talking point number four and I said, oh, well, wait a minute, I haven't addressed that at all before. And I think that would be brilliant. I know we can do 45 minutes on that.

And Ed, I think that's how you said yes to me.

Yes, I think so too. Yes. You gave me a few ideas and.

I said, I pitched a client.

Yes. Yeah, you pitched a client. I said, I'm not sure about. But you know what? I like this, however, I want to talk to you instead of your client, which, you know, don't tell anyone.

So I think she will readily.

Yeah, that's really smart. That's really smart. I never thought that that was a, A deliberate tactic. It's very well done. I do like the idea. Now, I will. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I will push back a little bit on the. If the three ideas. When people have sent me three ideas, I actually don't mind that. I like it because many times two of them won't quite be there, but then one of them will be great. And I'm glad they pitched that one. In fact, sometimes I wonder, maybe that's the one they put in last because they thought, oh, well, surely he's not going to pick this. But had they, had they picked one of the other two and just gone all in with that, I probably would have just said no right off the bat. So, personally, I don't mind all three ideas. That's just me.

Well, and that's a fair point. When they're all three relevant, I think I'm picturing in my mind some of the really off base ones that we get to where it looks like it's just their signature talk topics and they're just pulling those and putting them in a podcast pitch. Yeah. So it's a good point.

I'm assuming that then when you. And by the way, I just want to make sure nobody gets lost in this conversation because just to remind everyone, Angie is doing this for her clients. So she has clients who want to get on shows. So she's doing this whole strategic part. And of course, the execution, what we're talking about is then it would be for you guys, for you, the listener, to pitch shows. You want to essentially do what I teach you with my prospecting stuff, with my warm email prospecting material, and as you want to send out a very relevant personalized pitch. So this would be for you, not for your clients, but for sure. I want to ask you one more thing about that, which was how much should someone dig into past episodes to see if this has been covered or not? Because, I mean, I know the short answer is, oh, definitely do the research. But if you're pitching a show that's got 412 episodes, that's a Lot of material to sift through.

Yeah, that's a great question. We'll scroll back and it doesn't mean that you'll have to listen to all of them. But again, an Apple podcast or Spotify, you can just scroll and see if they have touched on the topic that you're thinking of pitching. For me, it might be podcast guesting. You know, you could just see if that has popped up. And if it has, it doesn't mean that you still can't pitch. You just need to angle the topic that you were suggesting to be different or complimentary or like a great follow up to that other episode. So, I mean, I would say we probably look back six months, you could probably scroll back to a year and feel pretty confident that you're pitching something that's at least newer, you know, that wasn't covered like a month ago. You definitely need to look that far back.

Yeah, that's fair. Before we leave the pitch itself, tell me a little bit about follow up. Your philosophy on follow up, should you follow up at all and if so, how many times do you feel is ideal?

Yeah, so you definitely have to follow up. I mean, and I was listening to one of your episodes and you said the follow up really is where it's at and it is a hundred percent true in this. So there's a difference between hounding and doing your due diligence to follow up. So our sort of timeline that we follow is we send the pitch on a particular day, two weeks later, we send a follow up and we actually use the original pitch email and kind of resend it and just put a really short sentence kind of circling back to see if you'd given any thought to hosting Susie Q as a guest on your show. Because the pitch itself will then be in line and whoever's reading it can scroll down and see exactly what we had pitched before. So we don't need to reinvent the wheel and clog up and give them a lot of content to go through. Then we do a second follow up then, and then we'll do another last follow up two weeks after that. And we use the language on that saying we're following up one last time or I'm reaching out one last time. And that signals to the host like, hey, we're not going to do this to you forever. Like, if you can let us know one way or another, cool. If not, you're not going to hear from us again. So I like, because it sort of sets expectations on both sides and that's where we get most of our yeses and so many hosts thank us. You know, even when I pitch myself and think about you and I like how much follow up we had leading up to this, you weren't annoyed that I was following up. You were thankful because it wasn't obnoxious, it was respectful. You know, we all need reminders.

Yeah, absolutely. And in our specific example, I'm not big in LinkedIn DM, you can just.

Scroll and see if they have touched on the topic that you're thinking of pitching. For me, it might be podcast guesting. You know, you could just see if that has popped up. And if it has, it doesn't mean that you still can't pitch. You just need to angle the topic that you were suggesting to be different or complimentary or like a great follow up to that other episode. So, I mean, I would say we probably look back six months, you could probably scroll back to a year and feel pretty confident that you're pitching something that's at least newer, you know, that wasn't covered like a month ago. You definitely need to look that far back.

Yeah, that's fair. Before we leave the pitch itself, tell me a little bit about follow up. Your philosophy on follow up. Should you follow up at all and if so, how many times do you feel is ideal?

Yeah, so you definitely have to follow up. I mean, and I was listening to one of your episodes and you said the follow up really is where it's at and it is 100% true in this. So there's a difference between hounding and doing your due diligence to follow up. So our sort of timeline that we follow is we send the pitch on a particular day, two weeks later, we send a follow up and we actually use the original pitch email and kind of resend it and just put a really short sentence kind of circling back to see if you'd given any thought to hosting Susie Q as a guest on your show. Because the pitch itself will then be in line and whoever's reading it can scroll down and see exactly what we had pitched before. So we don't need to reinvent the wheel and clog up and give them a lot of content to go through. So we do a second follow up then, and then we'll do another last follow up two weeks after that. And we use the language on that saying we're following up one last time or I'm reaching out one last time. And that signals to the host like, hey, we're not going to do this to you forever. Like, if you can let us know one way or another. Cool. If not, you're not going to hear from us again. So I like, because it sort of sets expectations on both sides and that's where we get most of our yeses. And so many hosts thank us. You know, even when I pitch myself and think about you and I like how much follow up we had leading up to this. You weren't annoyed that I was following up, you were thankful because it wasn't obnoxious, it was respectful. You know, we all need reminders.

Yeah, absolutely. And in our specific example, I'm not big in LinkedIn DMs, like, I'm not in that inbox very often. So I'm glad that you followed up because I, I needed that, you know, we were communicating over LinkedIn instead of email. So that's smart. It's very much aligned with what I teach, which is one follow up two weeks later, second and final follow up two weeks after that, letting them know right off the bat, this is our last attempt. I like that. Yeah, let's talk about, like moving on to. I've landed an interview. You know, I know there's a ton we could cover here in terms of getting ready, but any ideas, suggestions, Maybe some that are not as obvious on.

Giving a successful interview?

Yeah, yeah, just preparing for one. And then while you're in the interview, making sure you do your best, one.

Recognizing it is a conversation. And that's where folks who are new to podcasting, especially when we've supported clients that might be a little bit more corporate in nature. It is a conversation and so it is typically not the person getting on there and just sharing, brain dumping content and expertise. So gotta show up kind of casual, get a feel for the other person. I like to sort of mirror, and I think all of us do this inherently kind of mirror the energy that the host is giving you. If they seem to be super professional, then maybe you sort of tighten up your Persona from what it normally is. Like that's just sort of interviewing, you know, Human Skills 101, the other piece of it. And especially for freelancers that have, you know, a catalog of client work, you have case studies in your brain, hopefully somewhere else where you can really bring to life some of the expertise that you are sharing. So rather than coming on a show and talking to healthcare marketers about how they can leverage white papers, you can give specific examples and you don't have to share the client's name unless you know that they're comfortable with it. But you can bring to life your experience of writing a white paper for a client, how they used it, and what the impact was. And I think that also takes the pressure off of us as the guest to be the expert that knows everything because we're telling stories, we're sharing what actually happened. So I would just take a breath. Right. Because I know it can be really intimidating when you first start guesting and get a couple under your belt before you really go for shows that are big in your mind so that you do feel confident and you do know, oh, I can have a conversation with this person. I know that I am more of an expert at white papers than whoever this person is that I'm speaking to. And you want to bring that knowledge to the audience.

I love your recommendation. Or you're reminded that it is a conversation. I always think of these calls in these interviews is, you know, we're just meeting up at Starbucks for coffee and I got some questions that I'm really. And I'm naturally curious. I think that really helps. But, yeah, it's just really. I see people who are just so rigid. I will say it takes some practice. I was really, really, really bad at this when I started, you know, an interview. It's like somebody was interviewing me because I tried to memorize the talking points, and I was just so bad at it. So I want to encourage people to not give up too early. It's going to take a lot of reps, a lot of repetitions. In my case, it took several years. So just know that there is hope and you just have to get out there. Don't think that if you didn't do as well as you wanted to on the first two or three, that you're just not cut out for this. And this is a skill, you know, you learn. You're not born with this. Right.

But also, especially if we're talking about freelancers who are wanting to attract people that they kind of vibe with, that they enjoy working with. Showing up as yourself is exactly who you should show up as. Cause I don't want to attract someone that's super professionally stuffy. Like, I want to work with experts who are wicked smart and also like to joke around and have fun, you know, so I'm not going to show up as someone. I'm not, because it'll then attract the wrong type of people.

I think that's really smart. Yeah. Be yourself. Within reason.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, don't be yourself like you would be with your best buddy, you know, completely unfiltered, unhinged. Unhinged. So have some boundaries. But yeah, I think that's really smart. I wanted to mention something before I forgot to speak to a point you mentioned earlier where, hey, don't look at this strictly, and I'm paraphrasing as a lead generation vehicle. So you do want to interview. And if you don't get five leads, you know that's a failure. In fact, I would say if you get one lead at all from that, that's amazing. Look at it as a long game and think of it as a multifaceted strategy where the benefits can come from many different sources and many different ways you didn't expect. You mentioned one. That's happened to me and it's actually happened recently to a client of mine who does podcast guesting. She gets on podcasts, B2B marketing and other types of podcasts. She says many times the work has come from the host itself or himself or herself or from people they recommend them to. So this is now a referral source. And she said, I never expected that. I thought it was going to come from the audience. I've had some traction there, but it's come from places I didn't imagine. So I say that because I want to kind of bring down the temperature. I think many times we get ourselves in these situations and we put so much pressure on ourselves, like, it's got to yield results. It's got to yield results. And that's an unfair expectation.

Yeah, yeah. I remember early on when I knew an interview was going live. You're so excited because you're like, today is the day all these leads are going to come in and you just kind of wait. But you have to trust the process and that's why it is absolutely a long term strategy. But there are times to where I've guessed it on shows and may not have gotten any leads from that show. But then someone who is listening hosts a podcast and they invite me to be a guest on their podcast. So then that it's just a spider web of influence and it's all built on human connection, which is where I think the power in it comes from is because it's people powering. Oh, I heard this person. They were really great. You should meet them or you should connect, you know, with this person. So, yeah, I don't think we should put all that pressure on. You're going to close a sale a week after the interview goes live? You could and I have, but it's not the norm for sure.

Well, why don't we talk a little bit about results and tracking. Maybe let's talk about it as successful. How would you suggest one track and measure success? Because we do need some way. I mean, it might be, you know, gut feel, that's fine. But what do you suggest your clients do?

So for your audience, I would almost take the most simple approach to tracking. And we even find this with our clients. We've gone through iterations where I've suggested we might even look at their Google Analytics, their website visitors, even their domain authority because of backlinks. And only a handful have expressed any level of oh yeah, that matters to me. So I think first of all, you just gotta figure out what matters to you. And likely as a freelancer, you going on these shows is ultimately to grow your network and to potentially generate clients or leads that you can nurture over time. So traditional KPIs that we track, love em or hate em. For me, when I guest on shows, it's LinkedIn followers. I track that normally anyway, so I just want to see that that's growing. I also, for our clients, ask them if you had conversations as a result of your podcast going live. Let's keep track of it. So we'll keep track of how many discovery calls did you have in this month? Are we seeing those numbers increase over time? And then we'll also track booked revenue. Did you close any clients from some of the shows that you were a guest on? You can use email subscribers, but your listeners probably aren't doing a ton of email marketing for them.

Not most of them, I think LinkedIn for sure. But yeah, I mean, we don't know, of course, with LinkedIn followers or Canoe Connection requests, I should say we don't know if they came from the podcast, but I guess you're looking at trends more than anything.

Yeah, and I always like to encourage people, myself included, at the end of an interview, if you're really active on LinkedIn, which I tend to be, I say go connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm @Angie Trueblood. Shoot me a message, let me know that you heard me on Ed's podcast. And if you have a question about guesting, I'll answer it for you. So you can give them a go connect with me like a more specific call to action.

Oh, I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, again, human. It's not go sign up for my free thing. You can. But, you know, you can kind of drop those seeds to sort of reference Nikki Rauch. She always talks about planting seeds and that's what you do throughout the Interview.

You mentioned this a few seconds ago. Is there value to having some sort of freebie? Some, you know, report, some sort of cheat sheet checklist? Do you need that?

It can be. Yeah, it can be. I would say for your listeners, it's probably not that important. When I was doing primarily service work, the people that were going to hire me and pay me to pitch on their behalf, they don't want to know how to pitch. They just want to know how to be a good guest. So that was always an option. I could have made a freebie on how to be a great podcast guest. So I think it's just really knowing who's your ideal client and do they want a freebie or do you want to ask them just to book a discovery call? Like, go connect with me on LinkedIn. If you're really interested and you think working together makes sense, go to this link on my website and schedule a call. Let's talk.

I like that. I like that. Since you mentioned, you know, working with you, I'm. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on when it makes sense to maybe work with somebody like you. So if somebody's listening is thinking, I've either been doing this on my own and I don't know, I don't like doing it, or I got too many things on my plate, or I want to try this, but I don't want to go at it alone. When does it make sense to reach out to somebody like you?

I think, honestly, whenever you feel like your lack of time or skillset is holding you back from putting your foot out there in the space. So assuming you've decided I want to give podcast guesting a go, if over and over you have found that it never makes it to the top of your to do list, then I would reach out. There are a million different ways to get support running, spanning the gamut from you doing it a hundred percent DIY to fully outsourcing it. We have offerings to where we'll craft your strategy, your pitch topics, give you a pitch list, show you how to do it, and give you some support while you do it. But you're the one doing the implementation. So just know that if you're listening and you're like, oh, I'll never be able, right? I don't want to outsource something that big in my business, which I get as a freelancer. Fully outsourcing, it can be a big line item on your budget, but there's ways to do it without it being a hundred percent either way.

Yeah, I Like that, because many times it is just being honest with ourselves, right. It's like, okay, I know how to do a lot of these things, but I refuse to let them go. But at the same time, I refuse to keep lying to myself that I will do them one day. Right.

So also what we get, I mean, I don't know how many clients we've probably booked because they don't want to get the no's in their inbox, but they don't want to send pitches and have someone tell them, I don't want to have you on the show. So, you know, it happens. We, we've all got our own mind games going on, right?

Sure.

Marketing ourselves.

It makes sense as we wrap up. Anything that I haven't asked you about that you feel is really important to know or understand when it comes to guesting on podcasts for people like us?

I mean, I think it's just highlighting the overall theme that has been the through line of the conversation of. I mean, I'm saying it's not rocket science, right? So let's not make it be something bigger than it is. If you are already a strategic writer, if you are already an expert in marketing, you very likely can figure out who is it you should be talking to and what should you be talking to them about. That's really what it is, right? Getting in front of the right audiences, talking about the right things. And it's just writing a human email to see if that's a good fit for a particular host. So I think it's just like you said, lowering the temperature a little bit. This is just one form of outreach and it may be great for you, it may not, but if you're intrigued by it, it would make sense to test it because it's not going to be, you know, a large undertaking to land a couple of interviews and see how it feels.

I think it's very, very smart advice. Try it. You know, you will know. But, but don't give up too either. Don't judge strictly by those first two. Know that it will feel weird. Know that you will be very self critical and that's okay. That's normal. If you're not doing that. In fact, you might either be an expert in terms of media training or there's something wrong with you.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and the other thing, I always say this, if you were going to do this yourself, if you cannot commit to doing the follow up once the pitches go out, don't do it. It's a epic waste of time. So I'VE had people that'll have us do their strategy, their pitch, their pitch list. They come back to us. Ang, it's not working. Okay, how many follow ups did you send? Oh, I didn't send any. Okay, well, that is no indicator of if this works or not to get you on podcasts. So don't do it if you're not gonna do the follow up. You can have an admin do the follow up. That's fine too. But make sure you have some way to get that follow up out.

I wanna underscore that because again, being on the other side of the fence, I'm guessing that half or more of the pitches that I have accepted came from the follow up email. Hey, just checking back to see if you'd be interested in having this person. And of course, like you said, it's right there. I'm like, I don't remember this. And then I'll read it. It's like, oh, this sounds good, this sounds good. So follow up works, guys. Again, the money is in the follow up. So, Angie, I know you mentioned it, but before we sign off, where can people learn more about you, what you do? Where can they connect with you?

Yeah, cool. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Shoot me a connection request. Let me know that you found me through X podcast, please. And I'm Angie Trueblood. It's easy to find me. We did just revamp our newsletter and I think your writing experts would love it. So we have now a weekly newsletter called the Flop Files. And a lot of podcast hosts that I'm connected with. You are welcome to join in. Send me some of the pitches that they receive that are not ideal. I make them anonymous so no one knows who they are.

Oh, that's brilliant.

I identify three or four things they could fix and then I rewrite them. And it's like the best part of my week doing that. So folks can go over to the podwise group. It's podwise with a z.com flopfiles and they can sign up.

We'll make sure to include a link to that in the show notes. And I would do that for free if you need. No, I'm just kidding. But I got one today for somebody who's an expert in the energy industry. It wants to talk about all these alternative forms of energy. I thought that is great. Delete.

We should invite them on. Yeah, and just ask some freelance questions and see what shakes out.

Oh, no.

Yeah, it's wild.

Wild. Angie, thank you so much for coming on. This has been great. Enjoyed talking with you. You shared some great ideas and wisdom with my audience and I appreciate you.

Yeah, it was really good to connect with you. Thank you.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.