Mastering the Art of Being a Podcast Guest Jessica Rhodes

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders. Who in the world would want to waste their time on a podcast? That was the question I frankly heard 10 years ago, seven years, five even a couple of years ago. But not anymore. You have major superstars like Tim Ferriss claiming he sells more books on podcast appearances than he does on the Today show. And that's why our guest today is so popular. Jessica Rhodes is the founder of Interview Connections. This is a service that connects people who want to be podcast guests with podcasters. Many of our regular listeners here and viewers on my YouTube show know that while I love going on national TV and CNN and Fox, I do think that podcasting is hot. Not just for the moment, but really for the long term. So that's why I'm happy to have our guest today, Jessica Rhodes. Jessica, thanks for being with us, dj.

I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Now, a lot of our listeners, they're obviously not afraid of or ashamed of podcasting or they wouldn't be listening today. But I do have a lot of people who work in large traditional PR firms, large corporations, governments, UN agencies who are thinking, okay, we know we should be doing this. We know there are podcasts out there, but really don't even know where to start. Can you give them kind of a brief overview of the podcasting world, specifically as it relates to businesses and organizations that have something worthwhile to promote?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing is that you have to not view podcasting as another form of publicity, the same as you would the Today show. Right. Or getting on your local news. It's not the same kind of media exposure because when you're on a podcast, you're speaking to a target audience, very, very niche, targeted audience. So the number of people listening and consuming your interview on a podcast, it's going to be a fraction of what you would get if you were on traditional media, something a form of media that a PR agency would connect you with. But the reason podcasts are really powerful is because the people listening, they're mostly all very targeted. And in your target market, if you're on the right shows, where to start is just to know and be down with content marketing, because that's really what it is. I think that publicity and media exposure, getting the as seen on logos on your website and the credibility that comes along with being quoted in major publications is amazing. But it's not necessarily a strategy of content marketing, which is where podcasting comes in. When you host your Own podcast or when you appear on podcast as a guest expert, you are providing valuable content. You're giving longer form, transparent, unedited interviews that your target audience is consuming. And then as they consume that, they're getting to know you, they're hopefully liking you, they're raising the trust factor with you, which leads them to say, hey, I want to go to their website, I want to check out what they're doing. I want to be connected with them. On social media, it's unlike any other form of media, because if they just see a quote or spend three minutes on an article or hear you sound bite with you on a television show or radio show, there's not that much time that they're spending with you. But when they hear you on a podcast, they're spending 30, 45 minutes, 60 minutes with you. So really powerful connection is made there.

Much, much deeper, and as you mentioned, a more niche audience. If you are starting your own hedge fund and you're trying to raise billions and you're. Your marketplace was billionaires and you had a choice between going on the OPRAH WINFREY SHOW 10 years ago and being in front of 14 million people versus a podcast that is highly targeted and only about where billionaires should put their money in hedge funds that had an audience of just 14 people, you'd probably want to go with the podcast.

Exactly, exactly. You want to be in front of the people that are most likely going to invest in what you have to offer. Not to mention that the hosts of podcasts are often the best connections that you're going to make. You know, sometimes a podcast might not have that big of an audience, but if the host of that show is somebody that's going to become a referral partner, one of our clients, you know, she's been doing podcast interviews for so long, and she sticks with it because she's like, I'm frequently connecting with the host. We're doing webinars together, and that leads to more business. So looking at the relationship with the host and saying, what can I do to foster this relationship? Podcasters all have audiences and followers that aren't actually listening to their podcast. I have hundreds of people. I have over 1000 people on my email list, and I don't have a thousand people listening to my podcast. So I have people that are following me, watching my videos, reading my blog that aren't just listening to my podcast, but if I connect with a guest on my show that I really like, I'll promote them in other ways. I'll talk about them on my blog and in my videos and I'll mention them in my email newsletter. So by making a connection with a podcast host who is a leader in your niche, you are basically joining forces with an ally and with somebody who's going to help get you more exposure in your industry.

In full disclosure, we should point out you are a podcast host as well. You host Roads to Success, the podcast. You also have a weekly web TV series called Interview Connections and you're the co host of podcast producers. And for any of our listeners who want to ask you questions directly or thank you for being on this show, they can just tweet you at Jessroadsbiz. That's @J E S S R H O D E S B I Z. And of course you can check out her website as well@interviewconnections.com I want to drill a little deeper on this idea of really the focus audience because I will tell you my own shameful personal experience in that I've been on literally thousands of Talk radio shows, AM, mostly some FM, over the last 30 plus years, and I like doing it. It's. I mean, I've also hosted thousands of shows, but I can't tell you how many. I mean, I'm not exaggerating, I don't mean 120. And I'm calling it thousands. I mean literally I've been as a guest on thousands of talk radio shows. The number of books or products I've sold or trainings I've sold or speaking gigs that have come in from all those appearances, probably less than one handful. So there's an extraordinarily low level of return for me. Now I can write it off of my day job is I'm a media trainer. So I'm always gathering ideas based on my own experiences and I can chalk that up to my own personal development. But most people who are in business, if you're a lawyer, if you are a plastic surgeon, you need some more direct return on investment. How have your clients been able to target that, manage that, and measure that when it comes to podcasting? Because it has been a real flaw with traditional broadcast radio.

Well, it's a really good question, tj and the key is that, and I did a video on this on my web TV show called the Interviews Aren't Enough. If you are only doing interviews and expecting the sales to come in and the books to fly off the shelf, it's not going to happen without a lot of other pieces in the puzzle before, during and after the interview. So for Example, you want to leverage the power of the interviews and know that podcast interviews and appearing on shows, that's not advertising. When you are advertising, you know, Facebook advertising, you're advertising your products, then you do expect that to result in sales because you're advertising your products. But when you're a guest on a podcast, when you host your own show, you're doing content marketing. You are attracting people to you by giving them valuable information. You want them to keep coming to you for that information. And then at the end, when there's a call to action and you're telling them, you know, hey, by the way, you know, at the end of every single one of my videos, I say, and if you want me to help get you booked as a guest expert, here's how you can do that. So I expect that people are going to watch a lot of my videos, they're going to hear a lot of my podcast before they say, okay, I've learned enough, you're clearly the expert, I need to work with you. But they're not going to hear one interview and say, oh, okay, I'm going to work with her. So it's a longer term strategy. People will usually need to hang out in your community, quote unquote, for a while before they actually buy. And so then when they do end up buying, they might not say, oh, I heard you first on this interview a year ago. You know, my coach, as I was saying, buyers buy when they're ready to buy. I have people that, you know, this one guy met me at a, you know, he heard me on a podcast and then he went over to find my show, then he subscribed to my podcast and then he was watching my videos for a while and then he met me at a conference and then he invested in my service two years later. And yeah, it takes a little while to get that roi. But the strategy of content marketing is that you're providing a ton of value, that people are consuming that content for a long time before they say, okay, I'm ready to invest. So that's one aspect is knowing that it's a strategy of content marketing, not advertising. So the direct ROI isn't immediate. And the other thing is to have a clear call to action, something that is related to your content that you're delivering and that listeners actually want. So at the end of the interview, what are you doing to get listeners to take action with you? I can't tell you how many podcasts I've listened to that I really enjoyed. And at the end, shows, oh, this is my website. This is how you can get in touch with me. I'm like, okay, that was great. But I wasn't excited enough to go to their website. But if an interview is so compelling and so interesting and so relevant to my pain points and my needs at that time, and they say, and if you go to my website and you put in your name and email, I am going to send you XYZ giveaway, or if you need to talk to me, just go to this website, set up a free coaching call with me. It'll be 15 minutes. If the person who's listening hears that and they need it, they're going to take action. So giving that strong call to action is really important and it's got to be something that, you know, that people want.

Let's go a little deeper there, because certainly most producers, and I'm told this, although I don't think I'm guilty of it, but I'll have producers and hosts tell me right before we start, hey, hey, don't, you know, don't be pitching, don't be plugging. The host will mention you once at the end. This show is a little different because we're all about how to speak, how to present, how to pitch. So let's dive right in. Let's say we're at the end of a show, how would you then position your pitch to the audience?

And I mean, that's a good question, tj, And I'm glad you dug deeper there because you don't necessarily want it to be a pitch. And so with podcasting, I always recommend to people, hey, if you have a free offer, and I think generally if it's free, the host is going to be okay with that. I always say, ask the host first, hey, I have this free rapport or a free checklist, can I offer that to your audience? I think the protocol is always to check with the host and say, hey, is it alright if I offer this to your listeners and just to check with them first? Because they might say, you know what, no, I'll put it in the show notes, or no, I don't want anyone offering anything. And then that's fine. But if you have to know what your goal is with podcasting, I don't have necessarily a free offer or a giveaway, but I want people to come to my website because I have so much content to consume that I know if people end up on my website and they're consuming my videos, that's a good thing for me. You have to know what your goal is with the podcast, and if your goal is to get people to buy your book. One of our clients sells his book. It's for free, but they pay shipping and handling, so he makes that offer when he's on a podcast. I just say check with the host first.

Well, I'd say I'm shocked at someone going through shipping and handling for a book. I've. I've had so many books over the years, but I've been nothing but ebooks for the last half a dozen years now.

Yeah, people love free stuff, and even if they have to pay shipping and handling, it's still free. So my client, he's sold hundreds of his books, and people just pay the $6.97 for the shipping and handling.

Oh, wow. I couldn't even imagine accepting someone sending me a paper book. I'm so digital. But that's just me. Some people.

Yeah. And I'm an audio person, so I don't, you know, I have a lot of paperback books, but I listen to my content. So everyone has different ways of consuming their content.

Now, you work on both sides of the aisle because you're representing people who want to be guests on talk shows. On podcast, you represent host producers, and the two often have similar goals, but sometimes it's very different. I want to know from you exactly what are the things that make a guest really stand out as a bad guest? And I'm sure you hear grumbling from some of the podcasters, oh, it was an awful guest. And then what are the things that really stand out and make someone a great guest, beyond the obvious, not pitching every two seconds?

So I think, you know, what makes someone a bad guest. It's everywhere from, you know, the instant somebody is, you know, reaching out to a host, if there's just disrespect and not listening and being difficult to work with. And, you know, thankfully, a lot of. I have very rare experience with my clients because we actually have our clients apply to work with us, so we maintain a high level of standard. But of course, here in the podcasting community, guests that are, you know, even when they're pitching themselves, it's all about them. The thing, you have to remember that when you're a guest on a podcast, remember that word guest, it's like you're a guest in somebody's home. You're going by their rules. So you are a guest in their home. You have to treat them with respect and try to just add as much, much value to their show as possible. Add as much content to your show as possible. A lot of guests will come in, they're like, okay, am I going to have an opportunity to talk about my services or my product? Focus on how you can make that show as good as possible. Making that host look good to their audience and just making it the best show that you possibly can and not thinking about the pitch and what you're trying to sell. Because if you go into every interview with dollar signs in your eye and you're like, I have to sell my book, I have to sell my book, I have to sell my book, that's what's going to make your interview stink. So just focus on providing value. Focus on making the host look good. Be easy to work with, easy to schedule. Respond to your emails. I mean, all this stuff seems like, of course you should respond to your emails, but you'd be surprised that people that are really disorganized, they don't have their bio, their one sheet together. They're not going to connect it on Skype. They don't have a microphone, so their sound quality is terrible.

Dig a little deeper right there. But first, a quick reminder. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker. Our special guest is Jessica Rhodes. She's the founder of Interview Connections. You can reach out to her on Twitter srhodesbiz. You can also go directly to her website, interviewconnections.com you mentioned the mic quality. I want to dig deeper into the actual performance of, of how people are once the interview is happening. And I'm not asking you to name names. I don't want you to anger your clients, previous clients or current clients. But do you ever hear from host who said, my gosh, that person was using the built in microphone and it was echoey, or that person tried to read from a script and they sounded canned. What sort of horror stories do you have?

Yeah, I mean, there, there have been a couple over the years. You know, sometimes it's background, you know, so if you're, if there's a guest who is, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people work from home. Or even if you're in an office, if there's construction happening outside or you have a really loud cat or a kid's coming in your office, if you're working from home, I mean, there's, there's, I've heard stories of, you know, there's just too much background noise. You know, we had one client who said, listen, I had to reschedule because I need the sound to be clear. I can't have background Noise. I kept hearing the construction and the sirens outside, so. So just making sure you're in a clear space. We had one, we had one person who called into the podcast on their cell phone while they're driving. You might hear call in interviews. When you're on radio with a podcast, the sound needs to be clear. You need to be in your office on a microphone. Calling in on your cell phone is just not going to cut it. So, I mean, that's one story that stands out. And a lot of guests who don't have their own podcast, and that's an.

Important distinction because I know even today there are times when I'll do three minute talk, traditional AM talk radio interviews, and I am on a cell phone.

Right.

And nobody's unhappy. But the audio standards are generally a little higher with podcasting.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. It's just different. And you know, there's, there's something that we like. When we hear people call into the radio. We know that that guest is going to be on the phone they're calling in. But on a podcast, you want it to feel like the two people are sitting there in a studio together. So that's why the microphone is important for the guest to have, because the listener wants to feel like they're listening to two people having a conversation in the same room. Most of the time they're not in the same room, they're on Skype. But that microphone is key because it's 30 minutes. It's not a three minute call in segment. It's 30, 45 minutes to an hour long interview. And if one person's audio is so much different than the other person's, it's difficult to listen to, it's hard to listen to. So it's important to have at least a basic microphone as a guest and to wear headphones so there's not an echo. I mean, that's another thing that people don't know. Why do I have to wear headphones? Well, because if there's sound coming out of your speakers, it's going back into your microphone. That's going to create an echo in the recording, which is really, really hard to listen to.

And by the way, you sound fantastic. And that's one of your attractions as a podcast guest. You sound good, you sound kind. And by the way, people should know you and I have never talked before.

We never met.

This isn't the old boys and girls network scratching each other back, but this is our first time encountering each other. We Talked for about 30 seconds before we started rolling But I can just tell everything about you is professional. I'm not hearing hisses, sounds, background noise. You sound conversational. You certainly don't sound like you're reading from a script. And I can tell it's a quality microphone.

Yeah, It's a high LPR40 if anyone's wondering. But if you get an ATR 2100, an Audio Technica 2100, it's a fraction of the price. It sounds just as good. So you don't have to spend a lot of money to sound decent.

And by the way, I would love to claim complete expertise on all aspects technical, but I'm really not. One place I do go for information is eofire.com equipment and John Lee Dumas really dives deeply into all the intricacies of equipment and essentially endorses exactly what you just said. Regarding.

Yeah, I think he uses this microphone. So yes.

Now let's switch gears and talk about the positive side. You must have, I don't know if it's your top 1% or 5 or 10% of clients where after the show the producer is saying, wow, that person was fantastic, we'd love to have her back or him back once a month. What does it take? And there feel free to name names. What does it take to be so good that the producer, the host, wants you back and perhaps back regularly?

Yeah, well, the first person that comes to mind is my first client ever and is still my client. He's my business coach and he also happens to be my dad. His name is Jim Palmer and he is definitely one of our best guests. We get rave reviews from him about him and he goes into every interview with the mindset of I am going to make this show the best that I can. I'm going to be easy to work with. And he starts his interviews asking the host, how can I make this? Who's your target audience? Who are we speaking to? Because that way he can tailor his answers to the audience. If it's an audience of women entrepreneurs or maybe they're mom entrepreneurs, he's going to make his answers a little bit different. He might give examples from women and mom clients that he's had as opposed to the 40 year old male client that he has. So he asks who their audience is, who they're targeting, who they want to speak to. He asks, how can we make this show amazing for you? What can I do to make this the best show you've ever had? And he says usually it blows the person away because they've never been asked that Mostly guests come on and they're like, okay, how can this be great for me? So he always looks at how can this be great for the host? And the other thing is, he is not stuck up about how big an audience is. A lot of guests want to be on the biggest show possible. And if they're on a show that's small, or if they're on a show where the host is a little bit new, so maybe their interview chops aren't super sharp and they're a little bit nervous getting through the intro. He doesn't make people feel uncomfortable. He doesn't roll his eyes and go, oh, this is a waste of my time. He makes the interview as good as he can for them, and then if they're open to it and a lot of times they'll ask, he'll give them really helpful tips on how to improve. And then if it was a good experience, he's going to promote that episode. He'll send the host copies of his book in the mail and stay connected with them. So just being a giver, serving first, and making that show as good as possible and not thinking about, how is this going to be good for me? How am I going to sell what I want to sell?

You mentioned the audience of the issue of audience size. I have long advocated to my clients, people in the corporate, government, business world. This is pre podcast era, but it applies today, which is if someone asks you to do an interview, just do it. You don't have to spend three hours with them. Maybe it's two minutes over the phone. When I look at some of the most wildly successful media figures in the world pre podcasting era. I think of people like Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, who's no longer with us, and you saw them on major national broadcast shows all the time. But they were also known for returning any producer's call. Doesn't matter. If you were in the smallest town, on the smallest region radio show, they would call you back and they would do the interview again, maybe only for three minutes, but their first instinct was, let's just do it. Whereas I encounter people all the time who are obscure unknowns and they may be talented in their own profession, but they want to spend three hours on a market research for a show because they think it's not worth their time to do a small show. Meanwhile, if they just done the show in two minutes or three minutes, they would have saved two hours and 57 minutes. So I take the attitude, if anyone is asking you to be a guest, just say yes.

Yeah, I totally agree with you, tj. John Lee Dumas, you mentioned he's the host of Entrepreneur on Fire. For those of you who don't know him, when he was starting Entrepreneur on Fire in the first six to nine months and after that he would go on every show. And I think he continues to say yes to probably almost anyone that asks him. And now the bigger, more famous he's gotten, you know, he'll say he'll probably schedule out a few months. He limits his appearances to 20 minutes. So even if somebody has an hour long show, he'll say, I'll come on for 20 minutes. And most people will say, okay, I would love to have you for that 20 minutes that you're available. So he will still go on pretty much any show because he has. I, you know, I challenge anyone to find somebody that genuinely does not like him. People might not like the interview style, but he's the nicest guy in the world. He says yes to people who ask him to be on their show. And he doesn't say, well, what audiences? You know, what size is your audience? I only go on shows with this size audience by saying yes to pretty much everyone. And when I first started booking podcast guests, I got some clients on Entrepreneur on Fire. And then if my clients had a podcast, he'd say, hey, I would love to have on my show. Can I go on their show? And so some people call that interview trade or an interview swap, but I just call it, they went on each other's shows and built a great friendship and a great relationship out of it. I just did a whole podcast episode on my show called the Audience Size isn't Important. So it's so true. Because really, if you have a great business and a great service, if one listener takes action and signs up with you, that's going to be a great return on your investment.

You're preaching to the choir. You or I are in sync there, but I do know some of our audience members are heads of public relations within major law firms or banks or mutual funds trying to get their bosses booked. And their bosses may be, if you're a partner at a major law firm, you might be billing $1,000 an hour. If you are a major mutual fund manager, you might be making tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year. A hedge fund manager. And a lot of times they do want by the numbers. They're going to ask, who's the audience? How big is the audience? How do you help your clients figure that out because if they have really, really limited time, I mean, if someone says, okay, my client has time to do three interviews a month and let's say they are in the legal or finance world, there's a gazillion shows. How can someone rationally go about figuring out, first of all, ratings in general of what shows have bigger audiences than others? And how do you quantify it, if at all?

Well, I mean, that's just it. We don't quantify the, you know, the audience size. We don't, you know, if somebody says, okay, I can only do two shows a month, or I can only do three or four shows a month, we don't say, okay, we're just going to try to get you on the biggest shows. Our priority is finding podcasts where you're going to be speaking to your exact target audience. Especially for somebody that can bill thousand dollars an hour if they get one client out of. But chances are they're going to more than pay for the time that they spend. It would be a really good roi, especially for people that have really high end services and products and make a lot of money per hour. If they get one sale out of it, then that's a good fit. Let's just say each show that you're appearing on is 50 people. Let's just say it's super small, there's 50 people listening and you go on three shows, you have 150 people and they're all your target audience. Heck, if two people, if three people invest in you after that, that's a good day. So it's really, and I could say, okay, well, we'll try to go on the bigger shows, but the bigger shows might not be the right audience. We might be watering down the content a little bit to try to get you on a bigger show. So trust me, it is better to be on a podcast where your target, where the content is relevant, where the host is going to be somebody that's likely going to help promote you and like you and become a referral partner at the end of the day. I was talking with someone the other day, they were really not sure if it was a good fit. I said, listen, I'm not here to convince you to podcast or to do interviews. If you don't think this is a good use of your time, don't do it. But I can tell you if you do want to do it, I can tell you how to do it well and what shows to go on. But hey, there might be people that maybe this isn't the right marketing strategy for them and that's okay.

Let's switch gears and look at at things from the other side. You also represent talk show host looking for guests. Here's my big concern. In the whole media world, not even specific to podcasts, we live in an era where everyone has an infinite number of choices of what they can do with their eyeballs and ears. When I was growing up, you basically, you had your one local newspaper and you had three broadcast channels and pbs.

That was it.

So if you were on, you were on tv, you're basically famous. We don't live in that era anymore. And so if you're a podcast host and you're looking for guests, it would certainly seem. You mentioned John Lee Dumas and I have a certain respect for him. So many of his guests were Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, people who are already wildly famous, huge Twitter following, huge blog post following. If you are a host of a show, why shouldn't you just spend all of your time going after the big names? Because I can tell you from my own experience, I've sometimes done shows with people who I thought were fascinating and were big broadcast stars at one point, but they are perhaps retired now, not active on Twitter, and the number of listens was far below, was even below, just sort of my weekend viewer mail segment. So what's the solution there? What's your advice to host?

Don't just go for celebrity guests like that strategy. And that formula is dead on arrival. I mean, it might have worked a few years ago when podcasts were just starting to pick up steam and you could get a lot of attention and it just doesn't work anymore. You know, couple things. Listeners of podcasts, your listeners, they're there for you. They are there for tj, they are there for Jessica, they are there for the host and they want you. They're not listening to see, oh, can you bring me a celebrity guest? Somebody gave the example. I was talking about this to somebody the other day and they said, you know, people watch the Ellen show for Ellen. They tune in and watch the random mom in Indiana who filmed a cute video of her three year old because they like Ellen and they know that Ellen's going to make a great interview out of that no name that she brought brought in from across the country. So you've got to own the fact that it's your podcast and not rely on a celebrity guest to try to make your show as good as possible. A couple of things about celebrity guests is that they do 1001 interviews a week. So they're probably not going to tweet it out for you, which is what a lot of people hope. If I get a celebrity guest and they tweet it to their million followers, I'll have made it. And it just doesn't happen. They're not going to tweet about your show. The other thing is with celebrity guests, most people, if your listeners know these celebrity guests, they might have heard them on a million other shows. Like, people are tired of hearing the same guest story on every single podcast. Bring new and interesting people that your listeners have never heard of before. My most popular shows on my. On my podcast are the people that nobody's ever heard of before, but they have amazing stories, they're great interviews, they're conversational, we get along. But the big names people are like, oh, yeah, I've heard him on another show. I don't need to hear him on this one.

And again, that. That podcast is Roads to. That's R H O D E S Roads to Success. And you can find that on itunes.

Thank you.

What is the most popular show you've had or most popular guest?

Marouche or I'm sorry, Maura Sweeney. Maura Sweeney. She actually pitched me. So she sent me a pitch I'd never heard of before. She sent me a great email, told me all about her story. She gave me links to interviews that she had done. And I kind of checked her out, and there was one thing she said that made me say, oh, I want to talk to her. She mentioned that she homeschooled. And my show is not about parenting or education, but I happen to be interested in the idea of homeschooling. So I thought, I'll have her on. I'll talk to her about business and stuff like that, but I'll also ask her about homeschooling. That show has way more downloads than any other episode I've done. I'm not really sure why, but maybe she promotes it. But that clearly has been a really, really popular episode. And she pitched me. I didn't even seek her out and I never heard of her before. So that was an episode that was really, really popular. I went over in my hundredth episode, which is a few weeks ago, I went through my top five most downloaded episodes. And it's kind of interesting to do that after a while to see, okay, what topics, what kind of content does my community clearly really like? And it was interesting to see that. And none of. I've had a couple people that I think are big names. I interviewed Michael Stelzner from Social Media examiner. And he's not in the top five. Great guy, great interview. But wasn't something that everyone was like, oh, my God, I have to listen to that.

Let's get right down to it. Now. Some of my listeners are thinking, hmm, you know what? I've been sitting. I've been hearing about podcasting for years. I've been thinking about it, I've been chewing on it. I've just started listening to a few, but my goodness, I'm doing SEO, I'm doing blogging. I've done Internet videos from time to time. I've had traditional priorities. I can't wait any longer. I gotta dip my toe into this. What's the easiest way for them to start? If they come to your site and want to go to the next step, do you have a questionnaire for them? What do you like to do to start?

Yeah, so somebody's ready to start a podcast. So we're a guest booking agency, so we handle all the guests. And starting a podcast, I would say.

I apologize, I meant to be specific about people who want to be guests, not necessarily hosting.

Sorry about that. Yeah. So to be a guest expert, I mean, first is to present yourself as a guest. So having a one sheet is the first thing that I tell people that you've got to have a one sheet. Something that gives your bio, your interview topics, your questions. Because every now and then, you'll see people post online, hey, I need a guest in this category. And someone will just say, oh, I can do that. And you need to present more info as to why are you the right person for that? So if you have a one sheet, it's kind of like a speaker kit or a media kit, but it's specifically for a podcaster, so it will give them potential questions they can ask. It will give them topics that you could talk about and your bio, something that they could read to introduce you to the show. We do that for our clients. We do designs and we have a template that people can get. Or if you've got a designer on your team, just put it together and have that content readily available. So you can use that to pitch yourself, or you can use it to. When you get booked, you can send that to a host. So, I mean, when you said this morning, TJ said, hey, do you have a bio? I sent you my one sheet so you would have everything that you needed.

And I'm looking at it right here, and I see a nice big smiley face of you.

It's nicely branded it has your photo on it, it makes you look good. Some people just have a Microsoft Word document and I guess it gets the job done. If you have your content, the copy is there, but you do want it to position you as that celebrity because you do want to start thinking about yourself as a celebrity expert.

And you mentioned that some guests actively are promoting your show afterward. What's the proper etiquette as a guest as far as promoting? And then what do you recommend to hosts? Like, how much pressure should they be putting on their guests to promote them? Tweet them, put on Facebook. Is it considered, for example, a faux pas to go to a guest guest Facebook page and post the interview you did with them on their page? Is that too far?

Okay, so first, I don't think you should put any pressure on your guest, but you should make it easy for them to share it and promote it should they choose to do so. So, for example, sending them an email when the interview is live or letting them know, hey, next week your show is going to be live. Some people plan their social media promotion out. So letting them know ahead of time, emailing them when it's live, giving them using click to tweet or tweetdat. There's a couple different ways you can write a tweet for them and say, click this link, tweet it out. So giving them a graphic, hey, if you want to promote it, here's a graphic you can use. Here's what you could say in a Facebook post. Here's what you could potentially write in an email. So basically it's not pressuring them, but it's giving them the tools that they would need to promote it and make it really easy for them to promote it. I don't think there's anything wrong with going to their Facebook page, posting like, hey, thank you so much for being on my show. I'm really excited to have you. So you can kind of get in front of their audience, tagging them when you are promoting the show, tagging them. So that way it shows up, they'll add it to their timeline. I mean, anytime somebody interviews me and they're tweeting the show, I'll always retweet it so you can do that. So the answer is just making it really easy for them, but not putting pressure on them. Because I did a video on this how to get your guest to promote their interview. And I didn't talk about any of these tips as far as getting the click to tweets and the graphics. Because the first step is just to make the interview a really great experience and to conduct such a wonderful interview that they want to promote it. Like tj I'll tell you right now, I'm going to promote the heck out of this interview because I think we're having a really great conversation. There's a ton of value here and I want my listeners to hear this interview, all my followers to hear this because it's great content. So just the first step is just to do a great show that they are going to want to get heard by their community.

Jessica Rhodes, you have been a great experience for me and our audience. Thanks for being our guest. For more information go to interviewconnections.com that's three W's and you'll find this in the show notes. Three W's interviewconnections.com and you can thank Jessica on Twitter by going to Essroads R H O D E S Biz. Thanks for listening to Speaking with TJ Walker where the communication skills and practices of world class leaders are dissected.