The Art of Podcast Guesting: Open Doors to Endless Opportunities

Hey, what's happening? It is Joe Fear here. And in this solo episode, I want to break down one of the most underutilized forms of media, maybe in general. And it's very leveraged. It's using other people's platforms and not necessarily having to do a whole ton on your end. But there's this front load work that you get to use over and over and over. So I want to break that down here in this episode. And that is podcast guesting that is using other people's virtual stages. These places, in any category, any niche that you can think of, there are these virtual stages that exist online. Obviously there's podcasts everywhere.

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This thing also has 1400 integrations, which I'm sure it's going to work in your business. So tons of features, ways to get creative in how to use this. So right now, at the end of this year, we want to make sure that you're making the most of it. So go make the switch to HubSpot sales. Hub over@HubSpot.com sales when I talk about podcasting to people, the first thing that people think they need is their own show. I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to podcasting is, you know, when I'm, when I'm consulting or training folks on podcasting and how to leverage podcasting to get your voice out there, explode your brand, grow your marketing in general, your earned media, and also grow your community, your tribe of people, the fans that are going to stick with you for years like they have with this show for almost seven years, and even before that, it's wild. Podcasting is this glue that connects so many people together. But the biggest thing that people don't think about, which is ironically, the very first prong of this six prong kind of podcasting to profit system, or Flywheel I like to teach, is podcast guesting. So this is the first of at least six solo episodes that are gonna break down what this system is, this podcasting to profit system. But primarily it's going to give you a very focused way to leverage podcasting. No matter if you have a podcast, if you have never thought about podcasting, if you've never even purchased a microphone or turn on the video to do podcasting or podcast guests. This is going to be for anyone with a business who is interested in growing their brand, growing their marketing and their media presence, and then also their community. Knowing that all of that is going to lift up your business and honestly, podcast guesting and leveraging other people's media, other people's systems, their podcasts and, and knowing there's an audience there waiting to hear what you have to offer to them and provide, that's the most leveraged way. And honestly, you could probably just stay there and not even have your own podcast just being real. But if you have your own podcast, then you have something you own and control more so. But that's for another day. So this one, this episode, I want to just open up your eyes and give you some actionable ways that you could start leveraging podcast guesting to, to grow all these things. I just said, so connect the dots. However it relates to your business right now, and the first place to start is knowing who are your people, who's your avatar? I like to call it the tla, the Target Listener Avatar. Who is this person that you wanna connect with and get in front of. It's just like if you were to go to any, if you were gonna go to a party, you would wanna hang out with people that are probably interesting, that are probably going to be interested in you and maybe you're going to feel good, maybe it's a networking event, let's say, let's put it in the context of business, it's a networking party. Well, you know that there's some people in your industry there. You know, you're going to learn some things maybe that you haven't learned before, and you can exchange ideas, you know, you can share your knowledge with them, then you connect, maybe get introduced to some more people and then, bup, buh, Buh, buh. Later down the road, what do you know? You're business partners with someone, or you're doing deals with someone, or you're, you're having another meeting, you know, you're, you're, whatever it might be, that it's the beginning of a relationship and a time where you get to connect. And there's nothing different when it comes to podcasting. The way I see podcasts is that it's a virtual stage and there is a virtual audience, obviously real life audience, but they are virtually anywhere in the world and they're connected to this show. So the host of that show and that brand, there's a glue and a bond and a reason why they trust that host to bring in the best guests for them. That's how I see my show Hustle and Flowchart here, is that I get to curate the best people and that is my duty to bring in the most relevant, most interesting, sometimes funny, fascinating, energetic, whoever, but someone who is going to further the mission and the reason why this show even exists. And, and that's how you can see other people's shows. So when you figure out who is it that you want to chat to, who do you want to connect to? Because again, the purpose is, however you want to do it. But you want to grow your brand. You know, you want to grow your media because you know that's going to grow your fan base, your community, who are ultimately becoming your buyers, repeat buyers. You know, you're getting long term lifetime value out of these folks because you're exchanging value to them. And of course they are staying with you. And there's a lot of other things to do that that'll be, you know, the later episodes in the coming weeks here. But going back to virtual stages, just know that you can self select who you want to speak to. Once you identify who is that target, that tla, that target listener, avatar in your life, who is that person? And then what's the stage that they're, they're, they're listening to, you know, like, where's the podcast? Who are they subscribed to? You can do so much research. I mean, you can use tools like Perplexity AI and start plugging in the type of person or the industry or the age demographics, psychographics of who's listening to what. And it's going to spit out some podcasts for you. If you prompt it that way, you can go to all sorts, all the categories In Apple, Spotify, ListenNotes.com, these are all ways that you could start Gathering data and figure out who's listening to what, what shows are most popular. And then in a moment, I'm gonna tell you a site or two that will allow you to start to connect with these shows as well. But of course, you know, don't think about the outreach yet. Just think about where are my people? Where are my people online? That's the key thing here. That's probably the 80 20. If we were to go to everything, you want to focus your message to the right people because obviously that's gonna lead to greater and better things. So. So once you do that, then you wanna package yourself up into a way that makes you look attractive. It's a one sheet, you know, a way that it's like your online business card that shows you that you are the one for the job or that position, the speaker role. And if you prep this one sheet and there's a whole template, I don't really have the time to go through it. Now this is something I break down in my podcast accelerator. So definitely reach out. If you have any questions at all or if you're curious on any of this, hit me up. My email is joe hustleandflowchart.com or you can check out the newest accelerator coming up. At the time of this recording, I'm having a Mastermind in Orlando, Florida at PodFest on January 25, 2024. You are invited, but there's only 25 slots. So it's a higher level mastermind for business focused podcasters. Ideally, they have a show or at least you're starting and you're really serious. Go to hustleandflowchart.com accelerator and you can get all the info there. All the details are there. I'm not hiding anything. It's literally a room that only holds 25 people. And it's all very, very focused. Full day. And then you also get access to PodFest and a whole long, whole bunch of training stuff online virtual sessions. All right, that's my pitch. So hustleandflowchart.com accelerator or hit me up Twitter Joe hustleandflowchart.com if you have any questions. All right, back to the programming here. So when it comes to now figuring out how you pitch yourself, essentially the goal would be not to pitch yourself. You want to package yourself up. So one sheeter. It's essentially making yourself look great, showing that you are the one for that speaking role. It's like a media kit for you. And once you create this, once you can put this on your website, this should be A PDF using tools like Canva make it so simple to make it look great. Or you can just hire someone. Fiverr upwork doesn't have to be rocket science, but know that once you construct the copy and frame yourself as that ideal person for that virtual stage, well, now you package it up one time, obviously updated over time, but now you package it up and it's good to go again. 8020, you don't want to get to too far ahead into. Let's. I want to start pitching everybody and be everybody. Like, no, hold on, hold on. Let's figure out who you want to talk to. How do you want to present yourself in a way that's presentable and attractive? And now here's the cool thing. There's a whole different process called the Dream 100 process. And this is something. It's a Chet Holmes original strategy, and I've kind of tweaked it over the years. And again, this is a deeper strategy that I won't go fully in depth now. But the premise here is that you list the names of people who you really ideally want to connect with. This could be any podcast that's out there. It could be any kind of influencer or someone that you want to get on your radar and. Or actually you want to get on their radar other way around. And what you're doing here is now you're realizing that, well, for one, you got to keep in mind we're only so many connections away from anyone on the planet. It's the whole Kevin Bacon analogy. And what I've realized is that in the business space, you're probably two connections away from most people, three max. And if you start to do the math and think of these layers, well, you can probably get connected to pretty much anyone you want, assuming that you're. You're knowing how this, this connection works or like, kind of who knows who, obviously. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you can kind of see the matrix. You know, it's all connected. And what this Dream 100 strategy is, is if you deliberately put the names that you want to connect with on this list and do it in a way where you can now share this list to anyone in your network or start to put it out to certain people that are connectors and maybe know whoever it is you want to speak to, then you'll be very surprised. But referrals will start coming in, or at least introductions will start coming in. And that's how I've been able to land most of almost all of the podcast guesting. Opportunities. It's all through referrals. I don't like to cold pitch, actually, I don't think I ever have. And. Or if I have, it's been cold to a referral partner or someone that already kind of knows me. And also, this is how I get big guests on my podcast as well. But the end of the day is being deliberate, putting them on a list and then making that a publicly shareable document. And again, that's a whole strategy in itself. But know that you can be very deliberate with your approach here and not do this whole shotgun approach and kind of scattershot of outreach, which. Please don't do that. That's not the point here. I know AI is so attractive and sexy and all these automated tools to send blasts of emails, but please don't spam podcasters or anyone. No one likes it. So that is how you pitch. And again, cold pitching is really not the game. You want to do this referral, referral approach or at least get introductions. That's the key to business in general. That's. It's who you know, right? And then. And it's providing and being intent on, on what you're trying to do with this relationship and obviously providing value. Big announcement here. The Hustle and Flowchart podcast is now the newest podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network. They're the audio destination for business professionals. It's exactly why I joined the network, to expand what we've been doing here. Making business the fuel for your life, not the stressor or the burnout. We want to build fun and make business a big part of who we are and our expression out to others. So you're going to expect a lot more, more curated guests that sync up with this mission. Also more topics and episodes from me. And I want you to keep listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Go check out other shows on the HubSpot Podcast Network at HubSpot.com podcast network. Now, when it comes to the opportunity, let's say, hey, someone invites you to go to their podcast. Well, you better be prepared. And, and this is something that, when it comes to people on my show, I'm gonna say that maybe 5% actually give me something substantial to prepare for and make me have them look great on my show. And I'm serious. Like, I'm talking like big, big authors that have been on the podcast or bigger names. I mean, some of them are prepared, maybe more so because they, they've done the thing. They have media kits, they have ways that, you know, They're. They're preparing questions that are related to my niche or my audience. They're giving me links, they're giving me call to actions of value that I can provide to my audience as, like a special deal, let's say a free book or free shipping offer or whatever it might be, and then a specific URL to shout out around my show or maybe a special coupon code. You know, things like that. Little things go a long way and when you prepare. So I'm talking about. All right, now, the third thing. You know, you're booked. You're booked for a show, and you know you're feeling great. You're like, great, I got this on the calendar. I'm ready to go. Well, make sure you're listening to their episode. You want to hear what the flows, like, what they're asking, what the. What the host is like. Even if they're your friend, well, still check out their show and see what's going on and how you can prepare to be the best for their audience in that virtual stage. But what I would implore you to do even more so is create a document that is. It's not a one sheeter, but it's more like a couple of sheets that show exactly what you love to present to this type of audience and then provide them with a variety of topics that you can now present to their audience and maybe even give them a variety of options, depending on the focuses of their show. Because, like, if it's a business podcast, you know, obviously there's different focuses. It could be marketing, it could be the mental side of business, and other things could be selling businesses, or, you know, it depends on what you do as a. What your specialty is, but. Or it could be going to a real estate show. Like, maybe you want to angle your topics a little differently for that audience. And the point here is to create a document for the podcast host that you just booked with. Now, you're giving them a lot of ammo to essentially use for their show, and you can give them specific questions that are actionable. And these are things that can now be clippable. They're ways that you can set the host up to ask you very smart questions that aren't, like, fluffy kind of all over the place. They're memorable things that you can now answer. Maybe a specific principle, a case study, three takeaways. You know, there's common mistakes to avoid. There's a whole bunch of questions that you can kind of set up these. These hosts for, and then it makes them sound Great. Makes you sound great. And now to the very last step. Here is after, after you prepare and you've done the podcast and make sure, obviously that's a whole thing in itself is doing a great interview. But you know, if you're setting yourself up again. 80, 20. The last bit is, is once this thing goes live, do your best to promote it and do your best to spread it far and wide and not only to your audience. But what I would suggest is use tools like Cast Magic. Castmagic's a tool that helps you. Essentially you upload a video audio into this thing and it's going to transcribe it and then it's going to crank out all these different bits of social media posts that you can do. A blog post, an email swipe, all these things based off of that piece of content and it does it like this. It's wild. And so I'd use CastMagic. If you're looking to get CastMagic, hustleandflowchart.com CastMagic will get you there. And there's a free trial too. I highly recommend it. Hustleandflowchart.com castmagic and what I would suggest to do is to run that guest appearance that you just did on someone else's show through castmagic. And now you have all these social media clips, you have an email and all these ways that you, not only you can use them to promote your own episode to your audience, why not package that up and give that to them and say, hey, Bill, I just did this. I just created all these different assets for you, post production things, you know, ways that you can spread the word of our show together. I would love for you to spread around and share these things with your audience. Like, hey, I just made you a Twitter post. I just made you a Facebook post. Instagram, LinkedIn. You know, here's some clips. You can even use Opus Pro for, you know, making clips from the video if you ask for that file. And I guess the key thing here is ask for the audio and video file. Almost every podcaster will do that for you. And now you're setting them up to win when to also send you more appearance, you know, awareness to their audience. Maybe they don't send emails to their list. Well, guess what, now they do because you just gave them an email. Or maybe they're not posting on social. Well, now they can. Or they can post more, especially with the clips. So this is helping your cause again, leveraging their audience on the virtual stage podcast. But now you're kind of like leveraging all their virtual stages, the social media, their blog, their show notes page. I mean, using castmagic is one of these daily tools for me. So again, that's a. That's a. It's a money app to have, and it's a AI tool that I use literally daily. So get that one. And that's kind of the process there in a nutshell. So to recap what we just talked about, leverage podcast guesting as your first step to podcasting, or even your 99th step. You know, if you're a veteran in podcasting and you haven't really leveraged guesting, obviously you're leaving money on the table. You're leaving listeners on the table because other podcast listeners listen to podcasts. So connect the two. And you know you're going to be gathering the best audience if you're zeroed in on that specific avatar. And then you're packaging yourself up. This is the second step. Packaging yourself up in a way that makes you look like the best person for that podcast. Then creating a list like the Dream 100 to be deliberate to get referrals to these podcast hosts so you're not cold pitching and getting lost in the spam inbox and being that typical AI copywriter outreach person. It's not cool. Please don't do that. And then I think go and show up actually prepared on this podcast by creating a document or something that allows that host to present you in the best light and be memorable. And then the last bit is to help them promote at the end using things like castmagic. Again, hustleandflowchart.com castmagic. Try it. It's so cool. And one of the ways, I guess one of the websites I'll just shout out top of my mind, and this has been told to me by a bunch of folks now, is to get on other shows if you don't feel like you have this network that's gonna connect you to a bunch of shows. Another resource is Podcast guest with a S at the end Podcast guests. Com. And there's a way to connect with a whole bunch of people on, you know, figuring out who's looking for guests in different industries and niches. So go to that website. It's. It's one where you can kind of go direct. There's a lot of platforms like that. That's one of the better ones I've heard. Other than that, I want to remind you that if podcasting is something you really want to double down on, especially in 2024 and beyond. It is popping off. There is a bunch of ways to leverage podcasting to grow your brand, your community, your marketing and earned media in general. This is the way to do it. This is why I put together an accelerator and why I'm doing a mastermind. And it's kind of combined with this podcasting to profit. Six week training I put out with a whole bunch of workflows, templates, in depth training and a lot more to come. There's a community element now as well, and it's packaged up like this 90 day sprint. And the goal is to give you 80% of the way to essentially doing podcasting. Right. Knowing that the next 20% is essentially the rest of your life and you're gonna be optimizing and growing forever. That's everything we're doing in general, you know. So let me be your guide for that 80% in this 90 day sprint. And I'm doing this like we're kicking stuff started in about mid December. And like I mentioned, there's a Mastermind component in January, late January, and it's actually held in Orlando, Florida at PodFest. So if you're interested, I definitely want you there. There's only 25 people and literally that is the cap. Email me and let me know if you're interested. Tell me about a little bit what you're doing. I'm trying to be very selective in curating the best group because it's going to help everyone. Email me@joe hustleandflowchart.com and then also the website if you want to just go straight to the details and join and bypass everyone else. Go to hustleandflowchart.com accelerator. Again, it's hustleandflowchart.com Accelerator. I'm also going to link everything in the show notes below along with some of these tools that we just talked about. All right, There was a lot here. Expect more of these solos to come because this is what I love. I want to help you express yourself and grow your business and at the same time and attract the people that are connected to your message. So it's going to be fun. Go try it out and let me know how it goes for you. Send me an email. All right, till next time, bye.