Melanie Benson - Growing Your Platform By Leveraging Competitor's Audiences

Well, let's start with picking the right shows. I think one of the things we have to remember, the show matters. If you're just getting started, it might make sense to get on some less niched shows to get some momentum building, kind of get your feet wet, like, start to get comfortable with getting your message out. But once you start flipping from, I got all the time in the world, I'll take any show to, I got zero time. Like, he's got to count. You want to hone it in. And so here's my little trick. I first look at my competitors, who are my competitors. Competitors who is serving my ideal audience. And they already have a podcast. Second part. What's the problem that I am uniquely qualified to solve?

Boom, boom, boom, Boom, Boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flow Chart Podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear.

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to the Hustle and Flow Chart Podcast. I kicked Joe out to make this intro today. Who needs him anyway? No, I'm just kidding. He's. He's in the main interview. I'm just doing this intro today. We're talking to Melanie Benson. Now, her resume is quite impressive. She's guested on over 500 podcasts, interviewed over a thousand experts on her own show called Amplify youy Success. She's the author of Rewired for Wealth, the co author of the bestseller voices of the 21st century. She writes for Entrepreneur.com, american Express, Open Forum, Bloomberg Businessweek, Women's Day, Parenting Magazine, University of Phoenix, and she's just got a ton of accolades to her name. So we were really excited to talk to her on this episode today. What we did on this episode was deep dive into podcast guesting and going on virtual summits. In this episode, we literally walk you through how to pick what shows to be on, how to actually reach out and get on those shows. Once you're on, what do you say? How do you actually get people impressed with you who are listening to the show? And then how do you actually capture the listeners into leads on your own list? And then what happens after that? Once somebody's on your list, we dive into that a little bit. The core of this episode is really everything you need to know about podcast guesting and virtual summits and how to really leverage those to the max and get the most out of them. And you're gonna want the notes on these. So to get the notes, you can go to flowchartgroup.com can request to join our Facebook group and anybody who joins our Facebook group, we're hooking you up with the notes for the latest episodes. So go check that out. And finally, this episode is sponsored by our favorite SEO tool over at ahrefs. That's a H R E F s dot com now, one of the things we've been doing a lot of lately is we've been trying to optimize our YouTube channel. We have a YouTube channel now where we're posting video clips from a lot of these podcasts and we're trying to optimize our SEO over on YouTube. A lot of people don't realize this, but Ahrefs isn't just an SEO tool for Google, but Ahrefs is also an SEO tool for places like YouTube, Amazon, Bing, all sorts of other search engines. But lately we've been doing a lot of optimization around trying to build our YouTube channel so we can actually find keywords, find competitors, keywords, and all sorts of deep dive info into how to actually optimize a YouTube channel. Now we use it for SEO and all of our blog posts and things like that, but lately we've actually found ourselves using it to really dial in our YouTube account. And that's something that you can be doing as well for just seven bucks. Ahrefs has a$7.7 day trial and you can go get in there, test it out, optimize your YouTube channel, optimize your blog post, optimize anything that you're doing that you need more traffic to. Ahrefs has got you covered. It's the best SEO tool out there. If you listen back to any of our episodes where we talk about SEO with any of our SEO guests, Ahrefs is a tool that is mentioned on every single one of those episodes. Anybody who's serious about generating free, high quality, targeted traffic using SEO is using Ahrefs. So if you want to be serious about it too, make sure you're using Ahrefs. You can go get it. $7 7 days a h r e f s.com all right, let's go jump in with Melanie Benson.

Hello, Melanie. How you doing?

Hello.

Good morning. Yeah, we were reconnecting on all the different ways that we hung out together over the years. The last 10 plus years, maybe. I don't know, we don't have a perfect deep.

We sort of re realized that we go back about 10 years, which was kind of crazy to go to some of the previous events that we met at. We were talking about how somewhere around 2010, 2011, we met at A James Malinch event. And then again at Action Seminar, which I think was probably around 2011, 2012, somewhere in there, something like that.

And we got to give shout outs. Yeah. Henry Evans. I always like to give shout outs to our buddy.

I know he listens connector.

He is. Yeah. I just chatted with him yesterday. So, yeah, Henry.

What?

Bradley Will was there at the Action Seminar. So all of our buddies.

Yep. And then Steve Ulsher again. Let's see, when was the first new Media Summit that we were all at together? That was. Were you at the one in Austin?

I missed the Austin one, but I think we all caught up in the one in San Diego. A year ago.

Yeah, September. That's right. That's crazy. It's been a year.

Got a little podcasting crew.

I know, it's so fun. Yeah. And that was ironically around podcast guesting and stuff. We're all icons at that event. So, yeah, we got the little mastermind. So I think that's where we, like, dug deeper into things and I think that's where we're really going to take this conversation too, is all around podcast. It's like expert guesting. I like that term. I've never thought about that, actually, but it, like, it's everything. You can apply it everywhere.

Yeah, well, you know, you think about. Most of us have recognized the value of speaking, but if you're gonna do it virtually, like, there's a lot of different platforms. So it's not just podcasts, it's not just virtual events. It's not just like Facebook lives. There's a whole bunch of different ways. So I was trying to find a term that kind of caught it and I saw guest experting. We gotta find a better term.

Still not the best term, but it's very clear on what you're talking about when you say it. There's no sort of ambiguity around it. So. Well, let's get a bit of your history. I just learned now in our sort of pre interview that you were doing stuff with Stompernet before you kind of branched out on your own. Let's go back. How did you get into the entrepreneurial world? What's the story there?

Yeah, well, so this is my 20th year in business. Little crazy. As a matter of fact, in September, it was 20 years and.

I came out of corporate and I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to have freedom and independence. And so I started a coaching business because I had been trained and certified as a coach. And I thought, oh, yeah, that'll Be perfect. Well, you know, I gave my notice two weeks before 9 11. So all of that went out the window and had to really kind of scrap around and figure out, how do you make money as a coach, as a service provider? And that was kind of the beginning of an arc of learning about all of the online side of things. And what happened for me was as I tapped into a mastermind really early on with some very powerful marketers, and we all know the value of masterminds. We were just talking about that and we all connected there. And my whole reality went from you sell your time to you sell results and you leverage the online space, because it was really emerging at that point. And I got very well known for teaching people how to create scalable results, really leverage their time and energy without all the overwhelm. And so I got put on a lot of stages, and that's how the stompernet faculty evolved. I was one of the big name coach speakers on a lot of the popular marketer stages. And literally, it's like I just took off because I was one of the only female coaches at that time who was able to have greater than six figures in her business and was teaching something that solved a problem that other people were creating. And that's a key idea.

Go deeper than that.

Yeah.

This is going to thread through everything we talk about today. Because to me, in the beginning, I had no idea how to talk about anything. I had no clear message. I had no clear concept. What I did, I was like, I'm a coach. Don't you need a coach? And that didn't work so well. And people just looked at me and went like, I don't need a coach. Like, why should I do this? And when I realized that one of my superpowers was to help people solve the overwhelm that was paralyzing them from being able to achieve results. And this major shift occurred. And all of a sudden, when I said, I can help you stop feeling overwhelmed and 10x your results, people are like, I'm in. Where do I sign up? Ding, ding, ding.

Yeah.

And so a lot of the marketers, as we know back then, because I know you guys were emerging at that time, they were teaching people all these things with all these ideas, and there was a million things. People will walk away with notebooks with 17 pages from an event, and they're like, I don't know where to start. So I became their secret weapon. And that's really where a lot of that originally kind of all took off.

Interesting. Yeah. Because I remember even the James Malincheck event. I think there was a big notebook you get and all this stuff.

The factor.

If you're watching the video, you can see down on my bottom shelf, there's a whole bunch of binders down there from various conferences.

Yeah, you still have it. You love that stuff.

Actually, one of those is John Carlton's thing. I think this one right here, you'll.

Probably see my little. My little section in there. I think at that time I was teaching how to leverage your time and energy by hiring the right virtual assistants. Because that was really getting popular at that time.

Interesting. Nice. Yeah. And so in Stompernet, that was in the digital marketing, online marketing space. And yeah, this is interesting. So what was like the big thing? I mean, obviously it's the overwhelm to results. Does that carry over now into guest experting and all the other stuff you're up to?

Well, I think overwhelm is kind of a persistent state for most of our entrepreneurial community right now more than ever. No shortage of ideas. There's no shortage of things to learn and to navigate. It's like if you don't have the right team and you're doing a lot of things yourself or you don't know how to say no and you don't know how to prioritize, you're always going to feel overwhelmed. And I think as it ties into podcast guesting, and this is a little bit of a kind of a side detour, but this, it's really about, like, can you afford to say yes to everything? No. And like, we're in this space right now where I have a really popular topic and I've been getting just like requests out. The just like crazy. And I'm super honored. High class problem. And we can't say yes to it all. So we had to learn how to really define what is an ideal audience for me to be in front of as a guest expert, as a speaker, you know, as a part affiliate marketer, whatever that is. And what do we say no to? Because even though it's a great option, it's not the right option for me. It's not where my ideal clients are going to be. And can I tell a quick story about this? Because I learned a really expensive lesson. This will also be a great throwback. You guys will love this. Probably 15 years ago, I got invited to that coveted stage. Do you remember back when they were doing.

The cage matches, like UFC style? No, the digital cage matches where they were bringing popular marketers onto these teleseminars we didn't even have Zoom yet. And Alex Mendozian was one of the big ones. And I'm trying to remember the guy who was the NLP copywriter. He's kind of faded away. But anyway, there was a big thing, and so I got asked to go against Alex Mendozi. And you guys know who Alex is. Right. And so.

The idea was, whoever gives the best answers, people vote for. And you have to, like, whoever wins wins an opportunity to have their email broadcast go out to their big list. I'm in heaven. I'm like, this is cool. Like, 200,000 people on this list. Like, I want to win. And so I did. I won. I was like, little old me. And I thought, wow, this is perfect. I get the email broadcast, I get 250 people to sign up for whatever my offer was. And as soon as the offer expired, because it was like a trial, 235 of those people bailed. So what do you think I learned? Right idea, Leverage more time, get in front of a big audience. Wrong audience. Because if you're not in your sweet spot audience, if you're not talking to the people who really crave what it is that you do and want to work with someone like you, it doesn't matter what the visibility is. They're not going to take action. They're not going to say us, and they're certainly not going to stay around. And it ends up being a profit leak in your business. So big costly lessons. But it really stuck with me after that. Target the right audiences, Be with people who are your people.

Yeah. And that's such a good story because it's easy to get caught up in the hype and the excitement of, like, this here's a special event that's happening. Oh, here's a big marketer. And you could get seen by so many people. And you hear that all the time. I mean, yeah, and we get wooed into that sometimes, you know, going even, like, you know, I know. We'll talk about virtual summits and going on podcasts and stuff. And it's very easy to just say yes to everything and then fill your calendar. And then you're like, ah, cool.

We've done stuff even with our podcast. Right. Where we will go and, like, pay a company to promote our podcast on their platform. We'll see a giant spike in the download numbers for, like, one month, and the next month they're just kind of back to what they were. Right. And it's kind of the same thing where like, we're trying to put our podcast in front of our audience. They may go give it a listen, but if it's the wrong audience, they just fade away.

Yeah, they're not going to. I call it like following a golden thread. You know, there's a. There's a. An energy that builds up with the right audience where they want more and more and more. And if they're not the right audience, they're like, next.

So what's the golden thread? Got me curious now. Go deeper.

Please tell me about gold.

Well, so I was Little backstory is about. I was right about the time we saw each other last. I started making a new decision about my life and what I wanted for my life. And I had been on the road for probably close to 25 years by then, between corporate and. And my entrepreneurial speaking, and I was starting to realize, like, I wanted a different quality of life. So I started making the decision that I was going to pull back on traveling and speaking and do more virtual stuff because those platforms were starting to emerge. And so podcasting obviously became one of the ideal platforms about eight years ago. @ that same time, I also realized that translating from live stage, where I can see you, I can connect with you when I get off the stage, is very different than what happens on a podcast, because most of the time they can't see you. All they can do is hear you. And the idea of what my topic was and what I would talk about and then whatever invitation I would make had to really be intentional. Because first of all, on a podcast, you're not going to listen if the topic doesn't pull you in. Unless you're like, a avid fan of the show and you're like, I'll just binge listen everything these guys put out, which I know everybody does with your show, but you guys have a rocking.

Show. Thank.

You. And I know they do with amplify your success. So let's just get clear on.

That. The only two shows that they do that for, though, all the other.

Shows.

Right. But the topic really does make a difference. And I'll find myself scrolling going, that doesn't pull me in. That doesn't pull me in. We're listening for relevance. And that's the first step in the golden thread. Is that topic relevant enough to pull me in? And then it goes into talking points like, are we building up some momentum and moving people from being just interested to being intrigued enough and invested enough to take an action? And then that action is the key. So I've probably interviewed over 500 people by now between all the different podcasts and shows that I've done over the years. And what I realized is a lot of people don't really know what their action should be. They don't have an action. They don't have something that makes sense. They're like, oh, just go to my website. I'm like, I wonder how well that's gonna work. And I started hearing clients coming in and actually guests of my show that are really big names, and they're like, this podcast guesting thing is working for you? I'm like, yeah, it works for me. Like, what are you doing that I'm not doing? Like, I think it's a waste of time. And I would start digging into their topic, and I'd be like, ugh, topic's kind of boring. Like, it's really vanilla. Their talking points are okay. Like, it's getting built up there, but the action doesn't make sense. There's not a clear action or there's not a defined action that we're actually pulling in our ideal client. We're just making it so broad that we're not really kind of like creating a prospect pool that's relevant to us. So that's the idea behind the golden.

Thread. So with the action, that's like a call to action during the episode, right?

Sometimes. Or an invitation or a next step, whatever you want to call it. And some people, you know, there's probably like 10 different ones that make sense depending on the kind of business you run and what it is you want to get out of podcasting. And I know some people are like, I just like.

Talking. Yeah, like, yeah, that's true. You could do that to anyone on the phone. But, like, let's make it count on a podcast to the people you.

Should be chatting with, because you are making an investment, you know, investing your time. And sometimes there's an investment of money behind it. And, you know, some of the bigger name shows, you got to put some skin in the game to even get on the show.

Now. Yeah, Yeah. I feel like there's, like, sort of four segments that I almost want to break this conversation down into. But you probably have more of a framework that you already have. But here's kind of what I was thinking is like, you know, how do you pick what shows that you go on? Once you've picked the shows you want to go on, how do you actually get their attention so you can get on the shows? When you're on the show, how do you sort of angle Your message and how do you talk to them so that people want to hear more from you? And then finally, how do you get people to take action as a result of you being on that show? Is there any other, like, sort of pieces that we can.

Do? Let's do a mini workshop. Let's turn this into a half day workshop. We've got.

This. No.

Problem. Well, let's start with picking the right shows, because I think we've defined that's so huge and. Okay, so I think one of the things we have to remember, whether we're a business owner, a business leader, entrepreneur, service professional, I like to call them expert preneurs. People building a business around their expertise.

The show matters. Now, in the beginning, let me give a caveat. If you're just getting started, it might make sense to get on some less niched shows to get some momentum building, kind of get your feet wet, like, start to get comfortable with getting your message out. But once you start flipping from I got all the time in the world, I'll take any show to, I got zero time. Like these got to count. You want to hone it in. And so here's my little trick. I first look at my competitors. Who are my competitors? Or we might say our collaborative.

Partners. You can just say.

Competitors. Yeah, well, ranges both, right? But it's like who is serving my ideal audience? And they already have a podcast second part. And this ties into what I led with in the beginning. What's the problem I am uniquely solving that they don't do, or they don't make their focus point? And it goes back to many of my competitors are solving or creating a problem that I am uniquely qualified to solve. Okay, so if you can't find that angle, then look for something that complements what they do. You could actually have the same core delivery, but maybe you have one little specialty piece that they don't do, but you're solving. So really the core is like, who's my audience? And that means you really need to understand who your core audience is. And I don't know if you guys have picked up on this, but a lot of people, they don't really know who their audience is. They don't know who their ideal client is. Right. And you go in to start. Like, I'm really big on helping people develop a magnetic message to deliver in those times. And what I found is they don't know who their ideal audience is. So they're talking to everybody and nobody's.

Listening. I mean, we honestly are very guilty of that. For a while. We literally just recently did a whole full avatar, like, what's our perfect avatar? And reworked a lot of our messaging. I think we kind of mentioned that in the beginning of the show. But you're right, most people don't think, who is that? Where are they at? Who are they reading? Who are they listening to? How can you show up right.

There? Yeah, and I like to think of it. There's probably more than we have time for, but there's a little formula that I designed to help people really uncover who that person is. But even if you know who that person is, you're still going to find there's times to refine it. So if you're on someone's podcast who maybe attracts all women, but your core audience is women who are building a business around their expertise, you want to, like, have the courage to lean into that and say, great idea. But probably, you know, unless I've got some bandwidth and I just want to test it out and see what happens, I'm just going to keep passing on the people that are talking to everyone so I can focus on the people that I really want to be in front.

Of. Yeah, that makes sense. So when you're deciding which podcast to be on, where are you going to look for them? How are you discovering them? Is it you just browsing itunes or is there some sort of resource that you use to pick out podcasts to be.

On? Okay, well, I don't have a super scientific method. I'm really in a very high class problem situation where I have an abundance of podcasters around me and podcasts are coming to me more than I'm going to them at this.

Point. Knowing Steve Ulcer will do that to.

You. Yes, there is a benefit to being an icon.

And if I want to really start niching down, which we have been, what I might do is look at who this shows my best competitors have been featured on lately. So you can kind of do a little spying on them on social media or go look on their media page and see where they've been featured lately. We can do Google searches and actually, I don't remember what the name of this tool is, but I just got. I'm in a mastermind that I was like, oh my gosh, like this guy just gave all this cool SEO tools to. It actually will go and look up what the shows are that fit your niche. So I'll circle back and give you guys the name of.

It. I have to go look it.

Up. I don't remember what it is. It's so hot. I was like, I haven't tried it yet. So full disclosure, I don't know if it works, but he was talking about. And I'm like, I'm totally doing.

That. That sounds one of the tips. I know, like where we do some research and maybe it helps you. It's similar to Google searching. But listen. Notes.com plugin, I think that was it actually. Is that. There you go. Yeah, we use it. We use it for research for our own guests, like coming on the show. But definitely for podcast guesting. It's the best way. Totally.

Nice.

That's my core plan. And also I keep a database. So if I'm working with a client and I know there's certain shows that I love and so I keep a database of. All right, so client, I want you to go pitch yourself to these 10 shows because I think in the beginning a lot of people are like, I don't even know where to start. So just even having a kind of a something to get going on helps you kind of get in that.

Momentum. Yeah. And that's the thing is, so you said kind of start with a less niched show. Right. So would that be to kind of like get their chops going, kind of get the flow, their.

Messaging. You're going to screw up. Screw up on a show nobody's listening.

To. Well.

Or even it's more fun. That's what I was going to.

Say is like, pick the lesser known shows to start. And I actually tell my clients that I'm like, don't go for the big shows out of the gate. Like, let me listen to your episode and give you some critique before you go for the big show. I actually had a client who, she bought a segment on John Lee Dumas show and I went, she told me her topic and I'm like, oh, man, can we work on that before you.

Go? Yeah, you're gonna have to pay. Fork over some coin to get on his show.

Yeah. I mean, with his show though, I have heard that if, if you get on it and you are the right audience, he will send you some traffic. He will drive. It's worth it if you have the right.

Audience. I still get leads from my episode I did with him seven years.

Ago.

Wow. That show has brought me something close to 45,000 in revenue that I can track. I don't even know where half it came from. It is a great show and you get on a good show and I think that's what's possible, especially if you know how to work the episode once it.

Airs.

Yeah. Well, let's get there in a second. But before we do, how are you doing the outreach? How are you pitching to be on the show? Because I know that's.

It'S sort of easy to go and go, okay, I think I'd be a good fit for this show and this show and this show. It's a whole nother deal to actually get on their radar and get them to reply to.

You. Yeah. Now, what I'm about to tell you is very much podcaster specific, so I'd be very curious to hear what you guys think about this. I am one of those podcasters that's getting pitched all the time, and it gets. I mean, I'm grateful and it gets a little overwhelming and sometimes annoying because I actually have a whole process on my website of how to pitch me to get on my show. That's where you're, like, obviously not listening to the show because you would know how to do this. I think the first thing we can do that, especially if you're just kind of getting warmed up in a new niche, you don't have a lot of connections yet, is start to go look for the show and share the show on your social media and tag the host, leave a review. You may not realize this, but most of us avidly read every review that comes in. Now, I read them because I actually pull certain reviews and I spotlight them in social media and I give a little love back to whoever leaves the review. But it's like I'm paying attention to, have you been listening? You know, like, do something to. To build a relationship and give first to the host, especially if they're getting nonstop pitched. The other thing is to go and look on their show site and see if they have a posted process. So I know a lot of podcast booking services, they're great because they save you time as the expert, but if they're not recognizing the process, they're probably not going to do you a favor on getting you booked, because we're just going delete, delete, delete right now. I think once you've done a little bit of nurturing and I've had some people do this to me, and it actually does get on my radar, is, you could say, you know, I've been listening to the show and I saw you talk about A, B and C, and it made me think, I have this topic that I've been getting booked on. I think it would be really perfect. Would you be open to hearing more about it to see if it's a fit for your show. And guess what? I did this with you guys.

Right?

Yeah. Like, I saw you make a couple, hey, who's doing this? Who's doing that? And I'm like, I got a topic. You want to talk about it? Like, I'm up. And eventually you're just like, boom, right time. And that's what happens. Like, I had somebody pitch me to talk about doing guest article posting for Citrus and optimization, and I was like, I just had somebody talking about something similar. It doesn't sound the right time. She circled back about four months later, and I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And so there's that next piece. Is that consistency and to not give up just because somebody doesn't respond the first time, don't be afraid to nudge them again and say, just want to check back in. Think it might be relevant now. Or, hey, I have this new topic that might be a better fit. And then I think the last piece is, once you've done a little bit of social media nurturing is you can do an email pitch, but tailor it.

Don't, like, send the same flipping letter every single time. And I actually have one guy, and I almost booked it, but the topic wasn't right. And I am very protective about my topics. Like, I'm not going to have to say anything on my show. So this guy, he's really clever. He's a podcast booker, but he grabbed these little funny video gifs and he put it in. He goes, you know, it was like, please, please, please, please, please. Like a really cute puppy dog face. And I'm like, all right, like, let's look at what you got here. And it's like, think of this as a person and not, like, this conquest that you've got to get on. Like, how do I really connect with this person and make this something valuable that they can't say no to? That's really. And again, that's where the messaging comes in. Because if your topic title doesn't really land and telling me you're doing.

A book tour, okay, that is not.

A selling point for a podcaster at.

All. How is this relevant to my audience? And I think this is where we have the opportunity to really stand out in the crowd is think about what's the topic and the takeaways that that audience can't afford not to have access to. That's when you're going to grab the host's.

Attention. I like that perspective a lot. I can speak from our experience that I actually don't mind persistence. If somebody emails me a bunch of times and tries to hit me on LinkedIn and Facebook, I don't mind that. That's cool. What really, really bothers me is when I can tell it was a canned email that you sent to 400 people and you have no idea what our show is about and who we are. That is what. That's an instant delete in my book. It's just like, we'll open it and I'll go, okay. There's no customization. They're not referencing our show. They're not suggesting ideas that would be a fit for our audience. I'm not even gonna reply to it. We're just the instant delete for that email. And we told our VA the same thing. She knows that if an email comes in, it's a pitch, and you can tell it's just a cold pitch with no additional context around our show. Just get rid of it. We're not.

Interested. They name our company name instead of our podcast name. They're like, that's a common one. I'm like, come. Like, you're obviously using a scraping device. There's so many tools out there that make follow up even easy. And it's pretty easy to spot. Usually they go on the same frequency. It's like the same kind of modified email. And you're like, okay, come on. There's like, no.

Effort. Yeah, they found a template inside of Mailshake and everybody's just using the same.

Thing.

Exactly. And one last little piece on this. Don't just send a LinkedIn email saying, Hey, I see you have a podcast. I'd love to talk to you about getting on your show. Come on, like, tell me what it, what, what? Where's the value? It's like, unless I know you, like, just be forward with the value. Like, what's the outcome? And I think it'll give you much better.

Results. Yeah, I love.

It. And one thing we've actually been seeing quite a bit more lately, which does get our attention more than just a cold email, is people actually sending us personalized videos. We actually got one on LinkedIn just a day or two ago from somebody that we don't really know, but he's a listener of the show and he made this video of. He knew we were a San Diego Padres fans and stuff like that. He's up in la. He's a Dodger fan or.

Whatever. He was wearing a Dodger jersey. I'm like, this is actually pushing us away. You're in la. I don't.

Know. So he sent us this video and was sort of leaning into talking about baseball and things that he knew about us personally. And a small piece of it was him saying, hey, I'd love to be on your show. I think I can talk about this, this, and this to your audience. But most of the video was him talking about us, an interest that we all.

Share. He pulled us in, like, minutes in, and then finally there was an ask at the end. Yeah, it was really.

Cool. And I mean, he's somebody that. Joe and I both watched that video and we're like, should we book him? He actually seems like a decent fit, which, if he did it in any other way, he probably would have never got on our.

Radar. A little trick like I'll do to. Not to get on podcasts, but just for other things, like to actually get people on our show that we have no connection is like a little loom video, a little personalized video. I did this yesterday, and yeah, it's either in on, you know, on camera. I do a little research on their social media. Oh, he just had a baby. Cool. Gonna mention that. You know, it's like little. Little nuggets like that will just catch attention enough where at least they're peeking in a little deeper in who you are. I think that's what's so.

Powerful. It's like we're people. Connect with us, you know, and, you know, don't do the date and ditch thing either. Don't date us and then disappear when it's time to share the episode or like, you know, oh, where did that. That's been so connected for a long.

Time. So that's okay. So that's good. So. So pitching. Is there anything else on that? Because I think those.

Are. I could do a whole class on that. We got other big fish to.

Fry. At the end of the day. I'd say the overall synopsis of pitching is personalize it. Know who you're talking to. That's like, whether you do it in video or email or whatever, just don't send canned automated messages that you send everybody. That's just. You're not going to get any attention that.

Way. By the way, I did all this wrong in the beginning. I didn't know any better. Luckily, I had some people went, oh, this is cool. And they're like, put me on their show. But I did it all wrong in the beginning, too. So if you've been doing it the wrong way, just pivot and start using some of these.

Techniques. Yeah. So once you get A yes. So what would the next step be in your eyes for that.

Person?

And I think this is where a lot of people get paralyzed or bottlenecked, depending on how well they know their message. This is where you want to really, like, be thoughtful about the topic. What is the topic? So I do a lot of stuff on podcast guesting. I have several topics I get booked on, but this is a popular one right now. But what I try to do is kind of like, make it a little unique to the show we're getting on. I think about what is the outcome or what's the niche that they're in? What is the kind of common theme of this podcast? And how can I just. Just maybe tweak the language a little bit so that it really meets the theme of the show? So a lot of people, when they pitch me, they're going to put amplify in the language they're using on the show.

And really think about submitting materials that are really valuable. What I find, and not everybody's the same. Some people don't care about talking points. But give me a little bit to work with here. Give me some ideas of what you might want to talk about as a running start. Don't just give me some. Like, I had someone not too long ago, give me three very generic sentences. I was like, where are we going with this? Like, this is not going to help anybody be curious. So I say, don't make the host work too hard, unless the host wants to work that hard to really make a custom, unique show, which is great. But a lot of times, like, give them enough to work with so they can showcase you very.

Well. And you did that amazing for us. I mean, we always do research, but yeah, like, what would you call that? Is that.

A. It's like a one.

Sheet. It's kind of like a one sheet.

Okay. It's kind of like a one sheet. It's like, I call it like a speaker kit. It's like, this is this kind of stuff. You might need pick and choose what works for you. I know you're going to want to make it your own, but this is a running start to make their job.

Easier. Oh, I love it. I wish more people did that because you have, like, suggested questions on here. And, I mean, we may not ask the questions specifically, we may not get to all of them, but it definitely gives us sort of a roadmap of, okay, we know what she's trying to achieve on this show, so we kind of know how to direct.

Things. Here's why this is so important. And this is such a great point about what this part of the golden thread. If my host doesn't know me really well, then chances are they're going to ask me questions that don't help me showcase my message well, and then I can't build that golden thread. I can't inspire someone to want more from me if the host isn't asking great questions. And I've actually had people ask the questions that I'm like, where? Like, I don't. Where are we going with this? Like, this. I don't understand. Like, this isn't even, like, relevant. And so I try to honor whatever the host wants to create for their show. But look, if I'm investing my time, I still want to make sure I'm going to be able to generate a result. And so giving people a starting point will help them shape the flow of the conversation. So you can create that momentum necessary to get people to want more from.

You. I love that. It's like, it's such a, you know, like, hey, I'm going to help you, podcaster. But really, it's helping you. It's helping the audience. Audience connect with you in the best way for you in that. That thing that you're going to offer for free or whatever it is, the invitation at the end. I mean, that's. And it's so perfect because there's a lot of podcasts where you get on the podcast and there's no pre talk. There's no, hey, what is the biggest takeaway that you want to leave my audience with? And, like, we try to do that every pre talk before we have a podcast, but it's always surprised. You're like, I don't know, I'll just flip on the mic and see where it goes. Like, ooh, that hurts. I don't want to just talk to talk. Come.

On. Well, also, you know, think about the experience of the.

Listener.

Right. So are you building a conversation that the listeners are like, ah, I'm hanging on every word. I need to know what's going to happen next. Or are they like, this sounds like every other conversation you've.

Had?

Yeah. So having some intentionality and really feeding your host some things that might help them create those intent, that intentional flow questions, I think it does everybody. It makes it better for everybody. Let's put it that.

Way. It does.

Perfect. And, you know, there's a common question that people ask all the time. It's like, and I see this in a lot of the podcasting forums, I'M in. People are like, so how do you actually know if the podcast is generating leads for you? So there's one. And you guys have probably covered this before. But one really simple thing you can do is have a pretty link.

Send wherever you want. But I create a pretty link for every single episode I'm featured on. So my team tracks to see how much traffic is really coming from these different shows. And that way, you know, like, okay, I want more of these kind of shows because this is working. We're gonna do less of these kind of shows or virtual summits or whatever. Like some virtual summits I've been on. I'm like, did anybody actually get on and watch that summit, Know that feeling?

Because there's a lot of great people on, it doesn't mean anybody knows how to market and enroll. So it's really great to have that tracking just for your own knowledge. So you, you want to do more what's working and less of what's not, and that helps you make those kind of grown up decisions about where are we going to put our time and marketing.

Focus. Yeah, I think we're always kind of blown away by how few people actually do that. How many people just kind of give their generic URL to their website and they have no idea the effectiveness of going on podcasts or they just.

Say, yeah, just get me on.

Social. Yeah, follow me on Facebook. That's fine. Follow me on Twitter. Like.

Really? Okay, wait. So, Melanie, what's an example of a pretty link that you might have made for this.

Show?

Melaniebenson.com.

Hustle. Nice.

I just had that. Yeah, well, go check that.

Out. Might as well slide that in.

A little earlier than we normally.

Ask. Here's something I want to get. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, finish your.

Thoughts. I was just going to say create a name that ties back to the show. It's much easier for the listeners to remember it.

Too. Yeah, absolutely. So what I wanted to ask next was what if your topic, the niche that you're in, the thing that you teach, is not really that exciting of a topic? Like, how do you make it sexier for the.

Podcasts?

Oh, I was going to be a smart ass and say, you don't. This is where I specialize. So I guess I need to.

Come on dude or.

Something. And, you know, it's interesting. This is actually a fun topic because there are a lot of people whose core work sounds like everybody else. I mean, look, I'm a business coach. There's a bazillion business coaches right like, how do you spice it up and make it unique?

So one of the things that I like to do, and by the way, this is a mistake that people make, is just putting out these vanilla generic topics that don't stand out. One of the things that I think you can do super easy is actually two things. One is think of a formula that kind of like connects back to your work. And don't do the smart goal formula. You know, like everybody and their brother does smart goal formula do, or their sister do something that's really branded to you. So I, when I started teaching this work last year, realized that people don't know how to craft magnetic messaging. So I created a formula called the Rocks.

Method.

Okay. Relevant outcome driven specific.

Credibility boosting. Okay, so now when I'm teaching, I can say, look, if your message isn't converting, if you're getting on these podcasts and you don't have people saying yes, then chances are something's broken in your rocks formula. You're either not relevant, you're not having a title and talking points and outcomes, or outcome driven content. You're not able to be specific enough. So one of the little cheat things you can do is find a way to put a little specificity in it. Can you do it in 90 days? Is it a five day system? Is there a four part formula? Right, so find some way to like bring a little specificity in and then it shines a little more, it has a little more sparkle to it and then credibility. Oops, I did that wrong. Credibility then specificity. I can.

Spell. I really.

Can. Credibility is. This is a piece that a lot of people miss because they get a little humble in their delivery and they're like, oh, I don't want to like make it seem like I'm more than I'm not or people get trapped in imposter syndrome. Well, if you can bring a little bit of credibility into your intro, into talking about case studies or client successes, when you're talking or maybe even in the title of you and what you do, then what happens is think about like the. You're one of a million people or 100 people, or however many people that do something similar. And I'm listening to a show and I listen to all these guests. The credibility is where you stand out and someone goes, that's nice to. Okay, I think I better pay attention because this person knows what they're doing. So I'd be curious as listeners, like, as you're listening in, did you catch where I dropped credibility all the way through, but keeping it really natural. So what you don't want to do is be that name dropper that everybody's like, shower, I need a shower.

It's like, it's not about the hype. It's about really creating clarity that you can generate results that you know what you're doing and doing it in a way that the listener goes, yeah, okay, I need to know.

More.

It's just really cool stories, and you can weave those into any education. You can relate that to anything you're teaching on the podcast. It's a cool story that you did with a client, happens to be maybe a big name, or maybe there was a big result that you came up with. I can imagine on that. Well, one sheet to the podcaster. This helps them name the episode as well. Where I. It does, because I know as podcasters, that's one of the biggest things I know you stress about the most. But we like collaboratively, like, that's copywriting. You need something catchy there. You don't want some broad and.

SEO friendly, like, you have to think about, like, is there some kind of an SEO, you know, like a word that your audience connects to or the search engines are going to connect to? That.

Helps. Yeah. I love.

It. And not all the hosts are really good at naming.

Shows. Most are.

Horrible. Yeah, it's one of the. The funny thing is with our show, the thing that I sort of. I always use the word agonize around, but, I mean, I'm not really an agony. It's that sort of little.

Dramatic. A little dramatic.

Matthew. Yeah. One of the things I actually spend the most time on with our podcast is thinking of titles for our episodes. It is like, I probably spend as much time thinking of a title for the episode as we do recording the episodes. It's kind of.

Crazy.

They have a support group for.

That.

You'd be the champion. All right, so I want to make sure that we cover all the high points before we run out of time with you. So we have them on the show. They're on the show. They have their message. They're telling stories. Call to action on there. I know you mentioned there's like 10 or more. There's probably like countless CTAs on the show that you can give. I might be jumping ahead because, like, I'm kind of curious, like, what are some of the mistakes that people like when they're on the show recording? Like, what are. These are just like, stay away. Don't do that. Just keep it top of mind. And it's like, you navigate around.

The actions on the invitation or just in general, actually.

Prior. Yeah, in.

General. Okay.

So there's a few. And I started really paying attention to what people are telling me. They're getting clients from the episodes and what people are like, I'm getting nothing. And so if they were guests on my show, I could tell right away, like, that this isn't going to work. Or if I have clients who are guessing other shows, I'd listen to one of the episodes. I'm like, okay, I think I know what's going on. And I actually found 17 common.

Ones.

Ones. I'm happy to share that as a resource later if you guys want me to. But the three most common ones is not having a good topic. Okay, We've already covered that. Not having a golden thread, meaning you're not building clear talking points and stories that demonstrate what it is that you're delivering. And stories could be your own personal story. It could be an experience that a client had. It could be. But try to be specific. Again, that specificity and not just general. The third one, and there's so many I could cover, but we talked about this a little bit, so I want to come back to it. The third one is what happens once the episode airs. And I think, and it's funny, I was doing a talk for someone's mastermind, Suzanne Evans, who I think you guys know. And there was a guy in there, big marketer, who had been on my show. And when I taught this, he went.

I just realized, like, I'm blowing it. And that is, once the episode airs, don't let the host do all the marketing. You do the marketing, too. And I have five things that I teach my clients to do here. Because what I have discovered along the way is that, yeah, I might get some great people from there.

Following, but I've got dormant social media followers who are lurking around doing nothing. So guess what wakes them up when they see me on a highly credible podcast. A authority boost moment. Right. Like, there's credibility in that. I'm borrowing the credibility of my host. And then second, they'll be like, oh, that's exactly what I'm struggling with right now. I'm going to listen to that episode and guess what just happened. I have now reignited their desire to learn from me. So I'm going to move them from social media to my list and reignite that. There's no Facebook ad. There's no retargeting. Right. There's no costly affiliate splits to get that person back into My list, I just leveraged that 20 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour that I used, you know, got on that episode and turned them back into an intrigued and invested action.

Taker. So, like, would you be. So it's all social media, you know, like sharing a story, sharing a post, sharing your.

Insights. You want me to share you my five tips real.

Fast? Oh, yeah, if you can, that'd be amazing. All right, thank.

You. Let's go.

I'm giving you guys all my best gold here. It's good. It's.

Really. It'll come back to you, I.

Promise. It will always. I know. I'm happy to share it because. Because, look, it's really simple stuff. First of all, yes. Put it into a social media rotation. And if you are not on Twitter, some of this. What I would do is not do it every day. Like, I would maybe every six weeks, drop it on your Facebook page or put it into your LinkedIn. You can get really creative and create blog posts of the favorite podcast you've been on. I do that. Guess what? Great search engine optimization. But on Twitter, what's really great is, you know, it's like the timeline is moving so fast all the time. You can put something on every couple weeks and, you know, so I have all of my podcasts, especially the higher profile ones that are really targeted, they drop every two to three weeks over and over and over again in a recur post. So that's great for search engine optimization. I've actually gotten media pitches by doing.

That. Wow, that's. I can see it.

Yeah. Big media pitches on Twitter because Twitter, I have a decent following on Twitter, so we can connect there if you guys.

Want. We love Twitter. Everybody listening. Everybody listening needs to hear us. It's my favorite social.

Media. Yesterday, because of this, I just got booked on the single greatest Twitter chat that is currently happening. Winnie Sun's Twitter chat. And the follow up, which goes to like 17 different big names. It's like a news segment that she brings in and highlights her Twitter chat. People. I'm like, like, okay.

Cool. So it's like, hashtag or not, I can open up that whole nother.

Episode. We can do another. But yes, it's very healthy to do that. Second tip, do an email broadcast or at least put it in your newsletter again. You're warming up your audience and saying, hey, look, this influencer picked me and spotlighted this topic. It's good. And then put it on your media page. Okay, so put it on a place where people can see if they go to your media page or your booking page that you've been highlighted on these big name shows. Guess what? Hustle and Flowchart is going to go up there as soon as this airs. Right. And you start to have a place where people see, oh yeah, this person knows what they're talking about. So those are some of the big ones I suggest doing. Just get creative and remember that it's not what the host is doing for you. It's also what you're able to demonstrate to your followers and to your community. Oh, I remember the other one. This is not my original idea. I learned this from my assistant and then I heard someone else talking about it. You can put it in a follow up sequence when somebody is going to book a consult with you and you've got a couple really good episodes that you think would demonstrate and reinforce your expertise before you meet. Say, hey, by the way, you might not know this, I was featured on this episode. It's a great showcase of what we're going to talk about. So grab 10 minutes or half an hour and listen to it before we meet. It'll help you be ready for our.

Conversation. That's clever. I like that. Yeah. There's so many cool things we've chatted about. Like on guesting. It's a lot of what you could take from as a podcast. You can repurpose all that content that you just did on the that show. The cool thing is usually podcast hosts have assets and all these graphics that they make for you that they put their time and effort into. You might as well leverage that as much as possible and sprinkle it in your own content. It's just a win, win all around.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times if we're on a really, really good podcast episode and we loved the conversation, we might even put it into our podcast feed for other people to.

Hear. Yeah, that's a popular way to do it. Yeah, JJ Plazanes does that a lot.

Too. JJ is like a beast. It's like 50 shows always make fun of.

Her. I know they just a new podcast.

Too.

So I want to circle back around real quick to the calls to action on a show because I know like when we go on a lot of podcasts, we go on probably between the two of us, we're going on 8 to 10amonth combined. So when we go on podcasts, we do put out tracking links and things like that, but we don't always get traffic from all the podcasts we're on. And some of it could just be the volume of Listeners they have, but some of it could be our call to action and how we actually tried to drive them away from that podcast. So do you have any like, best practices that you can share as far as like, how do I get somebody from a listener of this podcast over to what I'm.

Doing? Well, I think it's a couple steps involved here and it's not, it's not like one size fits all. This is where you really need to understand your desired outcomes. And how do we take. I say start with the end. So when I'm building out out a magnetic message for somebody, I always say, where do you ultimately want them to go? What is the program you're trying to fill and what is a first step we can give somebody from a podcast that is making that a no brainer to start moving through your client journey. But then it goes all the way back to the topic. So if you're not picking the right topic, chances are you're not going to get them to take action. So I like to look at, there's a couple, I think tried and true ones, some kind of easy one sheet download that's really catchy for the topic that the person is talking about. That solves the problem that you've created during the conversation. So now we know we want to get booked on podcasts, but it's still not working for me. What do I do? Well, you got to go evaluate and make sure you're not making 17 of these mistakes. Otherwise it's all for naught. I had a client who, she was a really good accountant. Really, really good accountant. She had a great business and she had started getting on podcasts and then was like, oh my gosh, like I have the opposite problem. Like I'm getting all the wrong people who are requesting a consult. So what we did was we remapped A, the niche, which, which podcast was she getting on? Do they attract the right people? And B, stop making her so accessible. Put an application or put a little checklist first so that people can go through the checklist and say, yes, this is me and I want this. Then book the consult. So what was happening is there. She was sending them, right to a consult. Her assistant was sitting there like, booking, booking, booking, booking, booking.

Yeah, it's like, and no one's buying, this is a good return. And she's like, I don't want to do this anymore. I go, not yet. Let's fix the problem. Then you can assess whether or not it's going to work. And it did. Like just making One little tweak, she started getting better targeted prospects and then she was enrolling one out of four instead of one out of.

20. Wow. Yeah, it's all relevance. And yeah, I like the fact or the way of having a couple barriers in there and use those as filters and you're still giving value in that. But yeah, anybody who kind of raises their hand after that cheat sheet or whatever it might be, it's pretty likely to convert into someone, even if it's a digital product or.

Something. And this is a common thing, I think in marketing, it's like, yeah, we're testing stuff all the time and it's not always going to work. And there are some great podcasts that may not really be attracting your perfect people. And what I've always said is, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Before you give up on that call to action, try a few more podcasts. Tweak the way you explain it. Because one of the common problems is how you explain what your thing is. Because if you just say, oh yeah, here, go to this link. Why am I going there? But if you really build it up and say, so, look, we've been talking about this. I want to give you a solution. It's the first place we, you know, I would encourage you to explore working with me anyway. And it's full of jam packed value. You're going to get A, B and C. And here's where it's at. It's my gift to you today. They're 10 times more likely to do it than, yeah, I have this thing. Go look at it over here. It's all in the delivery.

Right? Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah. Because it's very easy to just kind of rush the call to action. And they're like, hey, I got this free thing over here. It's on my website. That's a pretty common one. And it's like, but that's not exclusive to the show anymore. It doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's not a gift as.

Much. Well, then I also have to.

Work. And guess.

What? Remember, we're listening on our devices, right? We're out on a walk. Like one of the things I'm going to start testing and I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to start texting, testing, text to the gift on podcasts. Because am I going to remember to go do this when I get done with my walk or I'm not driving anymore, but can I do a text message even Verbally and go, hey, I don't want to forget this. Let me text this right.

Now. Yeah, true. That's a good one. We never tested that on.

Guesting. Not on.

Guesting. We've used it on our podcast to get our little action guides. But you're.

Right. Let me know if you try.

It. Yeah, we should. Definitely. Good.

Idea. Well, I have one sort of last, I think, quicker question before we wrap up. Is there any sort of distinction or anything that you do differently between going on podcasts versus going on virtual summits? Is there any sort of differences that are important to touch.

On?

On? Yeah, it kind of depends on if it's video or audio. I think when I'm in a virtual summit, I typically, there's a beginning and an end to the access versus a podcast. And it was one of the reasons why I'm such a fan of podcasts is it's 24. 7 evergreen access. So I'm always going to think about, is my offer evergreen? Is it something they're always going to get, or is it time sensitive? So again, another mistake that I made along the way, I was getting on podcast and I was sharing these time sensitive things and then of course, when the scone. So's the lead. So I actually went on Bob Berg's Go Giver podcast a few years ago and I did a time sensitive.

One. Oh.

No. What was I.

Thinking? Go.

Giver. Yeah. So I, I learned that you, you've got to really make sure that virtual summit's great. It can be time sensitive. You want to have some sense of urgency. You want to have a little bit more specificity to the offer in getting that person to take action while they're participating in the summit. Because once it's over, it's over. They're not going to keep listening. But the podcast, it's always there. So you got to think about that in what you're inviting people to.

Do. Case in point, still getting leads from what, seven years ago on JLD's.

Podcast. So, yeah, here's the crazy thing, too. Whatever I offered them, it doesn't even exist anymore. I don't even know what I told them. I had to go listen to it, but they're still finding.

Me. So that's as long as you can capture the lead and give, you know, start a cover. Well, Melanie, this is amazing. Yeah. And I'm, I'm happy that you were able to do like a condensed version of a masterclass or workshop, basically. Tell us about your gift, because I know you have one. What Was that pretty link anyway, where is that going to lead people.

To? Yeah, so what I did, because this has been such a big conversation and so many people are curious about how to make the podcast guesting but better, I started to study what are the mistakes and how do you fix them. And it's at 17 common mistakes that people make when podcast guesting and virtual, you know, being a guest expert that are costing you the lead and the sale. And you can get that at your custom pretty link. Melaniebenson.com hustle and what it is is it's a very simple download that goes through what these common mistakes are, how to recognize if you're making this mistake and what to do different. And then it leads you to a really, very fast mini training on how do you really like magnetize your message so you are enrolling more of your ideal clients. And then if somebody was like, Melanie, how do I work with you? It'll tell you what that looks like at that step. But that's one of my people are like emailing me all the time like, Melanie, this has been so helpful. I didn't know I was making this mistake and now I know how to fix it. So it's got really practical, easy to implement advice for.

You. I'm sure there's stuff we can learn from that too, that way that we're committing and just not.

Knowing. No, I'm done learning. I figured it all.

Out. Did you teach me the ways, man? All right, so melaniebenson.com hustle and we'll link that in the show notes as well.

Anything, any.

Final. Is there anywhere else you want people to follow you? Social media, anything like that? What's your.

Twitter? Actually, because my Twitter is Mel Coach. I'm also huge fan of Instagram. We do a lot of sharing of the podcast there. Coach Melanie Benson. I'm on all the big platforms. I'm not really a big Pinterest person. That's the one I don't do. But I'm on.

LinkedIn. Big Pinterest.

People.

Apparently there's a whole thing you can do to boost followers for your podcast with Pinterest. But I'm like, yeah, one too many.

Things. Yeah, Kim, she's got a course about how to grow a podcast through Pinterest, which we should probably go through at some.

Point. That's a good.

Point. I just don't know if we have time to add extra social media accounts into the mix right.

Now. But just outsource it if you're going to do.

It.

Thank you, Melanie. And also shout out to your podcast, too, actually amplify your success. I know you quickly mentioned it before, but go check. That's another place that they could go explore.

Deeper. You might find Matt and Joe on it in the very near future.

Hopefully. All right, Melanie, thank you so.

Much. Okay, bye.

Guys. Bye. Bye. Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey. So that was.

Fun. It was fun because it's extremely relevant to people that listen to our show. We talk a lot about guesting, but it's also great for the guests that come on our show. We should give them that training so they get the most out of their appearances on our podcast, we literally.

Should do that, where when somebody books into our show, say, go listen to this episode before coming.

On. Like, it's nothing against you. It's gotta help you.

Promise. Or we should just put it on the page. So on our contact page right now, there's a little disclaimer below the contact form that says, hey, if you're reaching out to be on our podcast, just be aware, we almost never accept cold outreach, so your email will probably get deleted. And it says something like that on their contact page. I should put that link right below it and be like, if you really, really want to get on this podcast, listen to this.

Episode. Listen and follow Melanie's.

Advice. I'll do that because it'll get some extra traction to this.

Episode. Well, I think it's going to that. And it's also going to save us a lot of time and our support time, you know, just time across the board with all these pitches that we get. We get a lot of pitches. We're grateful, just like Melanie.

Is. This is gonna be very meta when the person who is going to book into our podcast gets to this point of the podcast right.

Now. I hope they listen this long because it's only gonna save them some time in the long run. Maybe not.

Today. What we should do is give them a code word right now, and if they say the code word in their pitch, then we know they listened to the whole.

Episode.

Banana.

Banana.

Yeah. So you gotta incorporate banana into your pitch somehow, and we'll know you listened to this.

Episode.

And brownie points. Go to someone who has a video and incorporate banana in there somehow. That's. I mean, weirder the.

Better. Yeah, we like weird stuff, but Joe's into some freaky new.

Note what Joe does with.

Bananas. You got a whole level I can't even fathom, but you're right. No, I think this is great because Melanie, like, one of the things I think we could probably do in which you're alluding to in this video is have having. Showing how to book on our show. And like, I mean, our. We've said it many times, we're very thankful for the audience or the network that we have or we get a lot of input, just people that we already know we want. But yeah, I mean, it would be interesting to give someone a process. You know, the cold pitchers out there. Yeah. Because we get multiple a day now and it's thankful, but at the same time, it's like, oh, my God. Yeah. Most of these don't even even take a second, you.

Know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it would be not. Not that we're necessarily looking for a ton of guests, but if you are going to cold pitch us, like, we want you to do it in a way that's going to get you the best potential result. I mean, most of our. Most of our guests. So I'm going to be totally transparent. 98.73% of our.

Guests. That's.

Accurate. I've done the math. 98.73% of the guests have come through. Either people we've already known or our network introing us to them. Almost none of our guests ever. I can probably think of like two guests that have ever come on the show that got on the show as a result of cold outreach, and you have to assume that those people had pretty exceptional.

Pitches.

Sure. So I'm just going to disclaim that. But after listening to that episode, you do have a better likelihood of getting on our show if you follow some of the stuff that she was.

Saying. What is 320 divided by.

Two? 320 divided by.

Two. How many.

Episodes?

160. Yeah. So what's the. I'm just trying to check your math, actually on the fly. But it's probably. Probably. Yeah, no, I mean, like about the percentages of getting. Oh, oh, too much. Too much right now. We're not going to do.

That. Yeah.

Yeah. But, yeah, no, it's. It's so true. And Melanie, I mean this. I liked her whole take on guest experting, like that term and that phrase, because I think that kind of wraps this whole conversation we had up with her. Really well, speaking is kind of off the table for most parts of the world right now, probably for a while. But podcasting, like she said, she absolutely loves and she's not speaking. I think she stopped speaking a long, long time ago. And that was kind of her thing. And there was a reason for it. That's how it sounds like she got her business. We didn't really actually go into that part, but really got her business off the ground, got her honed in on what she's talking about and connected with the right people. People. That's what podcasting can do. Yeah. And you don't need to go anywhere. You hang out in your freaking whatever you woke up in. Most of the time, it's not even audio. You mean video or video? Yes. If it's not audio, it's.

Weird. You just make it a video podcast, but it's.

Silent.

It works. But yeah. No, it's like the power of podcasting. But not only that, doing it right with the plan Melanie lined out is pretty.

Perfect. Yeah. I mean, so here's a couple of my big takeaways from this show. They may be the same as yours. You may have different.

Ones. Probably.

Not. But one of my big takeaways is when going on podcasts to try to think of some sort of formula that you can teach. When I asked her, like, okay, what if I have a boring topic? Like, what if I am someone who has like an e commerce store that sells clothing or something like that? Right. There's so many different businesses like that. How am I going to differentiate myself? Well, here's whole concept of create some sort of formula or an acronym or something like that makes you memorable. Inside of that topic, I think was a sort of really powerful.

Concept. That was a good one. Yeah. And because you stand out and you get more specific on.

Something. I wish more guests on our show would do that for.

Sure. And that goes into that whole, like one sheet prep doc thing that you could send. And it has all that because. Yeah, when Melanie sent her prep doc, it was no joke. It was almost two pages or something like that. She had like, like four different methods or frameworks or acronyms that she had. You know, she lined out one the rocks R.O.C. s method. She also had the golden thread. I mean, there were like all these things that you're like, wait, hold. And we literally highlighted them. The showstopper, we didn't even get to that one. It's like, these are things that she kind of titled for herself. They're.

Memorable.

Yep. They're catchphrases. And that's actually one of the prem things that she gave us. Didn't even see that until now. Another. So I'd say that's a good takeaway. And that's one that where I think we've done pretty well, but we're always thinking like, yeah, how to name things for our own ecosystem. But I feel like going on podcast is probably a good thing that we can even refine better. It's like having a specific name or acronym. The CAP method for a.

While. CAP and then perpetual audience.

Grow.

Pag. Yeah, our affiliate promotion.

Engine. That's right. Right. So those things, they work. They're memorable. Something that showed up in what kind of stood out to me was her whole thing of picking shows. And I like the fact where she'll actually go after competitors or ones that are kind of playing in a similar space so she knows they have a similar audience and then essentially focusing on a problem they don't do or complimenting. I thought that was interesting. Is. Is you can actually have your competitors out there promote you because. And she kind of said this a little bit more in our pre interview, so I'll say it now is that she actually will approach ones that would never probably promote your stuff. You have a competitor or similar product. Well, they need content. And if you're an expert that you're solving a problem that they don't, or, you know, you have an acronym that sounds cool to their audience that they just want to know about, like in your specific and compliment, they're probably gonna. Well, they will promote you because it's their.

Episode.

Yeah. So like now this is a great way to get some marketing promotions from someone that would never promote you.

Otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was a great takeaway. I feel like with what we do, we don't really have a lot of competition. We just have like, sort of similar.

Businesses.

Right. Like, I guess our competition would be the people that are promoting the same products or similar products that compete against the products that we.

Promote.

Sure. So as affiliates, we do have competition in the sense that there's other. Other people promoting the same product. And there's also other people and other products that compete with the products that we're promoting. But that's not really our.

Message. Right? Yeah, yeah, but. But it's great for like an E Comm or. Or. I don't know, man. But any specific offer. Let's say that you might have. Or consultant. If you're a consultant going on a consultant's podcast, like a business coach or whatever. Like, you know, not a lot of. If there's like, overlap of like, hey, we share the similar audience. Well, go there with like solving a different problem. Problem in a different way. And they'll still promote you to their audience that might not be buying their stuff. They can buy your.

Stuff. Well, I also like what she talked about, about getting on the radar of some of the podcasters when she was talking about go find up, listen to their episodes, find ones you like and share them on social media. Retweet them, help. A lot of so many guests come to us and we're speaking from personal experience with our show. So many guests come to us with just a pitch, but the pitch is all what's in it for them? And not what, what's in it for us. And not that we're always looking out for us, but if you're sending us a generic pitch and we don't know who you are and there's no personalization to it, we're probably going to ignore you. However, Joe and I, we've mentioned we're both on Twitter attrwolf, Joe's at Joe Fear, but we're both on Twitter. If we started to see somebody like tweeting our episodes going, oh, this episode was fantastic. Here's what I loved about it. Here's another episode. Here's what I love, loved about it. We started seeing people actually sharing our content. Well, you're going to get on our radar because you're sharing our content. You're helping, you know, grow our brand with us. And because you're on our radar, you're much more likely to get a conversation with.

Us. Totally. Yeah. I mean that's, that's the name of the game. Yeah, you got to do.

That. So, but so many people don't think ahead and go, you know, I'm going to do something for these guys before I ever make the ask. I'm going to do something for Melanie before I ever make this out.

Ask. They do more of a numbers game. It's like more of a like I'm spray and pray. Yeah. It's just a numbers game. And, and, and they just, and that's where those mail shake campaigns or gmass campaigns, those automated follow up or mass broadcast, but like, but they look personalized. Great tools, don't get me wrong. But use them in the right way, folks. Come on. But yeah, like if you really want to get on a show, like get personal. Yeah. Get super personal and try some video to like Tonya, like the loom videos. They work all the stuff Melanie said. Layer every, whatever you feel comfortable in but just be different. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Cool. Well, I think that's good. Those are great takeaways. So, you know, let's give a quick shout out back to Melanie one more time on her the 17 mistakes and all that stuff. For guesting, it's@melaniebinson.com hustle, so go get that. That's free. And of course, you can get the notes for this episode. You can get those@hustleandflowchart.com.

Comp. Or if you go to flowchartgroup.com and you join the Facebook group, you can actually get them through the Facebook.

Group. Now, everybody who's probably better even.

Huh? Yeah, everybody who joins the Facebook group now, we're going to send you an automated email saying, hey, here's the latest notes for the latest episodes. So go to flowchartgroup.com join the group. And in the process of joining the group, that's how you can get the.

Notes. Yeah, go do that. And it's good people in the group, you know, go introduce yourself once you join and just last shout out to our sponsor as.

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Up. Get it. All right. Till next time, go share this with your friends. You know what? Think about who's doing podcasting right now, who's guesting, who's just maybe thinking about guesting. Go share this episode with.

Them. Do.

It. You'll love them. You'll love them. You'll love.

It. They'll love.

You. They'll love you. That's what I'm trying to say. Thank you very.

Much. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Before taking the time to listen, we want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliff's Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the of the resources that they laid out all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for.

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