A short coaching conversation (Tracy Hazzard + another speaker) about podcast guest strategy emphasizing "give to receive" reciprocity: proactively invite established podcasters to your show, use guest swaps to gain access to elite shows, and treat guest interviews as opportunities to learn promotional tactics (e.g., Instagram/TikTok promotion). The speakers argue new shows can still deliver value to guests because early episodes are often highly listened-to, and recommend asking guests to share their promotional methods during interviews.
Chapters
Give to receive. Create reciprocity in the process. So go out there, reach out on LinkedIn, invite someone on your show. Invite someone who already has a show. You're not on their radar yet. It's great. Put them on your radar. Let them say, hey, come on my show. Nine times out of 10, they're going to invite you on theirs when you've done the work to know that they're a right fit, their audience is the right fit. They know that, that their audience is going to want to learn from you too.
And that's a really powerful move too, for any new show. And the thing is, even for the seasoned show, the seasoned podcaster who's being invited to go on your show, that's brand new, I have a lot of new podcasters always are apprehensive about that. Well, they're probably not going to weigh them on my show because it's one of the first few episodes and I really have an audience yet. And that's actually not true. Any good podcaster knows those first few episodes are going to be the most listened to and it's a good opportunity for them. Even though your show is new now, it long term they'll be heard by every one of your listeners, where somebody who is at episode 44 or 50 or something, you know, may not, you know, may not be heard by as many people.
Yeah, my favorite thing to do is go find those elite shows that claim that they don't take any guest solicitations and like, you know, they're too hard to get on and just invite them on my show because they will always invite me back. That. So it's also a way to get into something that you might not have had access to otherwise. So that is also a power move for you. Use your podcast smartly. The other part about guesting that I really want you to think carefully about in the guest swapping model is if they're doing something that could learn from, are they doing a really good job of putting stuff out on TikTok or Instagram and you just don't do it. That's a great way. Go on the invite them on your show, talk to them about things, and then at the end of the call ask them, hey, I see how you're promoting on Instagram and I was really hoping you're going to do that for our interview right now. But could you also tell me a little bit about how you do that? Podcasters are so open to sharing their ideas, their tactics. So if you see someone who you want to be like, invite them on your show and learn from them. Take it as an opportunity. You just gave them publicity. There's no way they're not going to answer your question.
