Podcasting for Influence: How to Build Authority Without Ads | Mischa Zvegintzov | 631

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today my guest is Misha Zvegintsev. Did I get that right?

Yes. Misha. Correct.

Misha Zvegintsev. Okay, good. That was the hardest part of my day. Uh, Misha is a seasoned sales expert who once retired to teach yoga. And be a stay-at-home dad. Now he's the Chief Influence Officer of the Influence Army and the host of Table Rush Talk Show. He helps heart-centered entrepreneurs amplify their message and build influence without costly advertising. So I wanna dive into some of that today. So welcome aboard. How are you?

So good. So great to be here. Thank you for sharing your stage with me. I know you're all about thought leadership, building thought leadership, helping people build thought leadership. So it's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, thank you. So tell me about your journey as a thought leader.

Yeah, that's a great, great question. So really, I in earnest decided, committed to guest speaking on podcasts about a year and a half ago. I was like, I'm gonna blow up my business. I've got a message, a story to tell. I'll get to that in a minute.

Right.

But I have a history of 25 years of building telemarketing, building telemarketing teams, sending out flyers and using those flyers to get the phone to ring. All right. And then I—

you know that guy, that guy that used to call me interrupting dinner all the time? Were you that guy?

For a while. Yeah. I hate to admit it.

Oh, I think I hung up on you. I'm— well, I was going to say I apologize, but you interrupted me. So I—

no, no need to apologize. No need. No need. So Anyway, I sent out an email to, to somebody to guest speak on their podcast, and I'm really good at the pitch, right? So, right, from all my sales and scripting and all that kind of stuff. So I sent them a pitch and it was to Maria. I can't remember the name of her podcast now, but she replied back, hey, I love your pitch, but when I went to your website, it looks like you're not a thought leader. What's the catch?

I was like, ouch, ouch, ouch.

And I was like, well, darn it, I know I'm a thought leader, but how do I prove it? How can I prove it? Some people write books, some people, you know, do all these things. And, and now fast forward, I've spoken on 50 or 100 podcasts or whatever it is, and I have my as seen on list.

Yeah.

So now I send an email to somebody recently, a pitch, They said, yeah, the reply was, oh my gosh, we love thought leaders like you. We'd love to have you on our show.

So let's stay, stay there a minute because I think there's a couple of angles to that story. There are one group of thought leaders who are the real deal, but when you go to their site or go to sniff them out, you wouldn't know it cuz they're crappy marketers. They don't know how to, or it makes them uncomfortable to elevate their personal brand, speak about themselves. Talk about their accolades. And so you just see, you know, John Doe, dude, whatever, right? So they've got the real goods, but you look at their stuff, you're like, huh? Then you've got sort of another group that's claiming things that they're not. I am the world, you know, I'm number one ad, I'm an Amazon best, like, and all they do is claim, claim, claim, claim. And then you try to get under the hood a little bit and there's kind of no there there. And I think the reality is, as a thought leader, if this is your calling, this is your profession, this is what you do, you need to show the world that you do that in a way that you're proud of, in a way that's honest. Oh, and by the way, and if you're not, don't call yourself a thought leader 'cause that's like, you know, the neon sign pointing you to, you know, that says jerk, jerk, jerk. Don't do that. So, right. So it was interesting how you sort of came back at it, right? There's a certain way that. People expect me to show up or the people I'm trying to connect with influence, et cetera. I want to go back a different way to what you said that you, you chose to use being a podcast guest as one of the primary ways that you demonstrate your thought leadership. I'll tell you why I love that is I am an awful writer. Occasionally I am a mediocre writer, but occasionally doesn't happen often enough. And it took me a long time to realize that because we only had blogs, right? And so in order to communicate, you had to use words. And I did, and I did okay with that. And then realized once podcasting became easier from a technical standpoint, like, this is so much easier for me. So talk about how you sort of found your lane in podcasting.

Yeah, great, great question again. So I, I will say too, at the time I got that email that said you are not a thought leader, I didn't understand that I needed to be a thought leader, right? I mean, I didn't, I hadn't heard it in that term.

Yeah.

So that's another thing. I was like, oh wait, people, social proof, things like that, influence. There's lots of terms bandied around. But anyway, what happened was I had retired from home loans, which I'd been doing for 15 or 20 years, crushing it. I'd hit a bottom, burned out, all those fun things. And so I restarted in online marketing about 5 years ago, and I jumped into Russell Brunson's high-end coaching group. Yep. The thought was at the time, I was like, man, I want to get good at the one-to-many selling. That was my thoughts. One-to-many, like speaking from stages, selling from stages, get on the stage, selling from a Zoom. Webinar. Anyway, I'm about to try and get to the point here. But what happened was, is I was getting people's customer video testimonials, Peter. So Peter, someone like you would say, hey, we just had a customer. We helped them blow up their thought leadership, get on the big stages, all those things you do, monetize their thought leadership. I think that's your specialty. So helps monetize the thought leadership, interview Bob, get his story. So I have my customer story arc framework. My Perfect Video Testimonial System, my system for getting your customers to gladly do your selling for you, right? And so I started having success with, with that, and I was like, I need to start getting that story out so I can grow my business. I did not want to start spending all this money on paid media, right? I did not want to. I, I was like, fortuitously, I I guest spoke on a podcast and I talked about getting customer video testimonials. It was on my friend Ryan Lipsy's podcast. It was called the Small Business Spotlight. He had been harassing me. I need you on my show. I need you on my show. You need to teach my realtors how to get the testimonials and repurpose that content. And I was like, fine. I finally capitulated, speak on his show. I had a crappy little Google form. As the, as the, as the call to action, right? Where somebody could give me their info. And I got this flood of engagement and all these appointments. I was like, oh my gosh. 'Cause I killed it when I spoke on his podcast. I was like, I need to go on a podcast tour.

That's how I'm gonna stay, stay there a minute because there's a couple things that you said that I wanna unpack. So one of the great things about being a guest on a podcast is you're in essence hijacking somebody else's hard work. You're taking their audience, right? Being on a podcast, here's the dirty secret of podcasting. Recording the show is the easy part. Hitting record and, you know, for me having a great conversation with someone like you today, that's not hard. Not that I didn't prep and not that we didn't have calls in advance and all that, but like that, that's kind of second nature probably for both of us, right?

Yes.

Now it's the hard part for me as a podcaster was building a loyal following over the last 7 years. So here you're coming into my house and stealing my audience, but I want you to do that, right? I want you to have a great conversation, be valuable. If there's a subset of my audience that wants to engage you or talk to you or whatever, great. That's a win-win, right? Like, so they got something out of that. You're not coming here all salesy saying, oh, if you click this link by today, you're getting, you know, $99. Like that, that's garbage. That people are smarter than that. And we don't, and particularly in my world, I'm in the B2B world that, that we don't play that, right? So. That I think that's really important is hijacking the audience. The other thing that I think is important when people choose to use podcasting as a vehicle to elevate their thought leadership is to be really, really selective, right? Because more often than not, the shows that you're gonna be invited on are irrelevant to you, right? 'Cause when you think about how does this marketplace work, well, you could pitch someone like me directly, right? And say, hey Peter, here's why I'd like to be on your show and Here's the other things I've done and here's why I'm awesome. And I would look at that and go, okay, that's cool. Let's have a conversation. More often than not, people are using either PR firms or podcast guesting agencies and all that. And I think the thing you have to be aware of there is two things. One, there are good and bad in everything. Make sure you get a good one. Number two is, and this is the, the primary rub, is alignment. So most of the podcast guesting agencies or PR firms in one way, shape, or form are getting paid per placement that they make for you, right? And you don't care about, oh, golly gee, I got to do 9 podcasts today. It's, I got to do the right ones. And that's the key thing. Less is more. If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast.

I think that's a great point. And I will tell you the other thing, I've had my podcast, the Table Rush Talk Show, for 4 years now. I've interviewed hundreds of people like you have. I've had guest booking agencies, PR agencies book guests on my show. There's a consistent theme that I see from people who are using agencies to get them booked. Yeah, they're wasting the opportunity. They jump on a podcast like yours or mine, and all they're thinking about is the call to action. Like at the end, you're going to go, hey, Misha, where can my people find you? I'm going to say, go to guestingguide.com. Get my free download to go on and execute a profitable podcast guest.

Nice, nice self-plug, by the way.

Hey, thank you very much.

Self-plug.

Very great. See, did not go unnoticed. Did not go unnoticed.

Yeah. Um, but let me expand on what you're saying though, and, and, and, and sort of flip that a little bit. Yeah. I look at it and say, if somebody's making an investment of their time, their energy, their mo— their money, whatever the case may be in hiring a professional, hiring an agency to get them on podcast, well, what does that mean? They have a, a, uh, desired outcome that they're hoping for that, and it's probably not number of new listeners they got for the podcast host, right?

Yeah.

They have objective, they want to get in front of this audience to, you know, raise their awareness, their brand, or sell stuff or somewhere in between. Yeah. Here's what I see, and we've got over 600 episodes in the can, and it is somewhere between shocking and appalling to me how awful sort of the guest etiquette is, for lack of a better term. And what do I mean by that? People don't come on here and burp, like, well, we've had that, but often not. But we make it really easy for a guest. We'll look, we do a screening call. I only wanna have a high-quality guest. We do the show. This is the easy part. And then after, we'll, we'll say to you, hey, this'll get published in 6 weeks or whatever the timeframe is from the time that we're talking. And a week or 2 before that, I'm gonna send you, or my team's gonna send you a bunch of stuff. That we want you to use to share the launch of your episode, right? So we'll send you stuff to put on X and LinkedIn and some visuals and gra— and that costs me time and money and I give that to you, right? I don't charge you for any of that. Say, do me a favor, we're gonna promote the heck out of it 'cause that's what we do. We'd ask you to do the same. The compliance rate on that is like, I forgot what the latest data is for ours, somewhere between 20 and 30%. It's like shocking to me. Absolutely shocking.

Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah. What's unfortunate about that too, is you, you as the host take the time and effort to produce that content, give it to me. Yes. A, you're sharing your stage, which is very generous. B, you're giving me this content that's now pre-made. If I take a moment, a tiny moment and share that content and put it to my email list and all these things. There's a much better chance that we have an opportunity to work together again in the future. And honestly, those are— that's what, what I'm trying to do. There's, there's so many benefits. One obviously is again, the call to action and, and people got to see me on here. So now I have another card to put into my thought leadership, check that box, but there's so much more, right? And I would go on to continue your line of thinking. Not only do people who come on the shows, We as guests oftentimes don't do you the service of sharing the content that you gave us, which is super easy. My guess is most people that are getting on your shows have a team that could do it for them anyway, right? So take the moment to make sure that that happens. And then so many times as we interview supposed professionals, I'm sure you see this all the time. I've got my mic, so I sound good. I know that I look good enough. You might not appreciate my background, but at least It's a background other than my bed and the bathroom door open or whatever. I, because I know we as being a courteous guest.

Sure.

We need to show up properly as well.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's sort of the basics though. But I think the big piece is the, is that post-show promotion.

Okay.

Be kind of nuts. That's the big piece we've had on occasion. Guest that, you know, it's like 5 minutes before the show and it's been booked in advance and we've confirmed it 3 times, you know, digitally and all that. Like, hey, I'm gonna be in the back of an Uber. Is that cool? Like, it's not cool. Like, absolutely. Like, it's not like, I don't want to hear, you know, can you fix it in post? Yeah, whatever. But if you're so blasé about it, it's disrespectful. It's like, I invite you over to my house for dinner, right? You're like, you know, I was gonna take a shower and get dressed, but here I am in my robe. Is that, is that cool? I'm probably not going to tell you it's not, but it ain't cool. It's just not.

Hey, as a host, you providing that content to us as a guest— I'm guesting all the time— that is a dream. Like, you are the dream host, honestly. And anybody listening, watching right now, that you need to know that if Peter— if you're on his show and he gives you that content to share, that is a gift. Because it's a wasted opportunity if you, the guest, are not sharing that across your channels, repurposing it, doing all that. It's, it's shocking to me. I mean, to have you make it so I don't have to, you save me time, money, all kinds of stuff.

Well, we know that our, you know, listen, you're busy. All our guests are busy. I think it's the burden is on the podcaster to do all the things that are needed to be done so that you just literally today needed to show up. Hang out with me for 20, 25 minutes, have some fun, and then go on with your life, right? Like, you're not gonna stay up late at night trying to figure out how to, you know, make my podcast better other than giving me high-quality content in an interview.

You're giving me that pre-made content, which is amazing. It elevates my thought leadership without me having to do any work. Because when I post it across my social media channels, when I post it on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever I happen to hang out. And now people search me. There's the social proof. There's the thought leadership that I'm fighting so hard to get in the crowded market. So anybody listening, watching, if you're not, if you're on podcasts and you're getting this content from hosts like Peter Winick and you're not sharing it, again, you're wasting a massive opportunity and you're flushing your thought leadership down the toilet.

Yeah. Well, and I've had other guests, if you said to me, what would be the, your ideal guest where even before the show is out, like they'll even post a little, they're not gonna spend a lot, but, but I'll link to like, really excited that later this afternoon I'm gonna be on the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast with Peter. I've been listening for years and he's had some cool guests and this'll be fun. How long does that take? And, and by the way, that's, that's self-serving to you and is a nice little wink to me. You know, so I, people look for those things. They, they want someone that understands that, you know, I don't sell advertising on this. This isn't how I make a living, right? Like I'm doing this, A, because I enjoy it. B, I can put out high quality content. C, I learn something every day. And oh, by the way, it's good for my business. Right?

Like, yeah, absolutely. And I would say, I will call myself out on that. I have, I have what I want to be doing. Pre-show, the, the standard operating procedure that I'm trying to build is I book the pre-call with you and then I post that, right? When it literally, when I get the calendar confirmation, snap that or take a picture of it, screenshot, post it. So excited, pre-call with Peter Winick on his show, right? Yeah. And then number 2 is, so after that, then it's great. He said, yes, can't wait to be on Peter's show. There's so many different opportunities. Before I jumped on today, in a perfect world, me or my assistant would've said, just about to jump on Peter's show. It's gonna be epic. Right? There's all these points to do it. And I'm building that out. I'm better at the post-interview stuff. It's the pre-interview stuff.

That's just, um, I think that's just process, quite frankly. Right. So cool. So any other parting thoughts? If you were to talk to you 2 years ago, 3 years ago, what would you say to yourself?

I would say don't overthink it. And I'm going to go counter to a little bit to what you just said. If I or someone on my team, my assistant, my admin, someone on my team, I would be looking for volume to guest speak on podcasts. I would be looking for volume and I would say don't overthink it. And I would say make the pitches as simple as possible. So when you— by volume, number of podcasts, number of podcasts, for sure, more visibility, more opportunities to prove thought leadership, but more opportunities. It's the idea of you're just one interview away. You never know who you talk to.

So you don't think it matters as much the who, because I can tell you I'm a guest a lot as well. And I probably turn down three-quarters of the shows I'm invited to, not because I, it might not be fun, but I look at it and go, that's not an audience that matters to me quite selfishly. Right. And occasionally I might do one of 'em 'cause I'm curious or whatever, but I'm like, okay, who are the fol— who's listening to this show? And how does that line up to my business's goals and objectives? And if it doesn't, it's really easy for me to say no.

I, yeah, so I tend to prejudge a little too harshly on the shows. I literally was on a show yesterday and it was, I would've not thought it was a perfect fit. And I said, okay. And at the beginning of the podcast I said, I'm about to, I'm rolling out my affiliate opportunity. It's 40% for this, 50% for this. What are your thoughts on that? And he on the spot said, oh my gosh, I've got an audience of 5 or 6,000 or whatever it was, my email list. He emailed his marketing manager on the spot, CC me, and said, right? So that's the process that I'm thinking of.

That, that I would put that under the secondary sort of outcome or benefit of the, the power of relationship development through podcasting. Like you and I, I wouldn't say we're friends, but like I would take your call, right? Like if you emailed me in 4 months and said, I got a question of like, it's the beginning of a relationship based on mutual respect. We get to know each other. I see what you do. I, I'm like, oh, He's a smart guy. He's got a point of view. He's thoughtful. Sure. I would want to talk to him again. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think for you though, I know that you, you are dealing with your offering is very robust. It's extremely robust. So you would naturally have a smaller pool, I think. Yes. Yeah. Right.

No, I was going to say, this has been awesome. I appreciate your time and your effort and your energy, and thanks for showing up today. Thank you, Peter.

A ton of fun. Thank you.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.