The Four Types Of Podcast Guests That Inject Fast Growth To Your First 100 Episodes

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host Tracy, and today we're going to talk about the four types of podcast guests that inject fast growth to your first 100 episodes. Although, Tracy, as you often say, it may be your second hundred episodes, you could be doing this even if you're an existing podcast.

Right. You might find a type today that we're going to talk about that you're like, I didn't try that one before. But my objective is to get you guys to try the four different types as early in your podcast as possible because you'll see what starts to resonate and what helps you inject faster growth into the growth line, you know, into that curve of your podcast. Right. You know, sometimes some works and some don't. So when we started feed your brand, we really started it with more topic based episodes and some interviews. And we kept getting demands and asks for more and more interviews. And so we said, you know what, we've got to define this. And as we started to find it and test it, we realized it was its own entity and it no longer belonged in feed your brand. We spun that off and turned it into the binge factor. So these are the kinds of things that we started to discover. Then we discovered that we actually didn't want to have any guests at all on our show for the feed your brand model of it, because it was really Tom and I coaching, really all of the tactics and tips and the those kinds of things. And to take someone from outside was so hard because so often what they did didn't align with our methodology or with our view of what was working and what wasn't working for podcasters out there. So we stopped doing interviews on the feature brands show. But this is specifically for those of you who are taking guests or who want to take guests on your show, whether you're mixing them in. And I've given you four types because I think you should split them in the early days and do 25% of each. So if you're doing four episodes a month, then you want to try it, one type for each episode so that you're giving it at least once a month that these people are showing up. If you're doing, you know, two a week, you have an opportunity to do more, you know, one episode on the first week of the month and that with this, a certain type of guest and another one on the third week of the month with that same certain type of guest again. So it gives you a chance to do a little more variety if you've got more episodes that you're doing well.

So, Tracy, tell us about the first type of guest.

Well, this is the one that I know you are a big fan of because we're all about authority building shows here, right? We want authority building in our podcast. So we want authority building guests for some of you that might be celebrities, but for the most part, I'm going to call them industry celebrities, right? And I did that with air quotes for those of you who are just listening in. Right? The industry celebrities, the ones who have better placement than you, better market share than you, have a better positioning than you now, you may need to ratchet up to get to the top. So it took me about, I'd say, 100 episodes before. 100 and maybe 10 episodes before I was able to get Pat Flynn on the Binge factor, which I wanted to do. Right. And so, you know, because that authority of him being a major podcast coach, in fact, the coach that I followed to start our very first show, right? So bringing up that authority value and bringing him on the show was really important to me. That took a long time. So it may take you longer to build up to that over time, where you're ratcheting that up with, you know, the next level guest and the next level guest and the next level guest. But always be looking for the ones that are gonna help you build your authority, the ones who you wanna be seen side by side within your industry.

All right, that makes sense to me.

Don't you want the backlinks from those, Tom? Right? You don't want them on your website, right?

Yeah.

You want your name associated with them. You want that ego bait of the two of you side by side in the imagery of, you know, your guesting output that you do or your social posts, right? You want that.

You want them to help lift you up, right?

And you want them to share it with their audience because, you know, they have a bigger one than you do. They have a more prestigious audience, you know, more prestigious authority than you do. So you want that association to happen. So that's why that one's my first one. Most important, especially when you're starting a new show, try to achieve that as fast as possible. Right. Keep ratcheting it up and working on that.

So what's the second one?

So the second one is what I find to be more successful for most of the shows that we help set up here, apartitized tends to be the ones that are funnel like guests. So where you're building a funnel for your show or from your show to your business. Right. So if I want to get potential clients from my audience, eventually it actually helps to get potential clients from my guests first. So if I target my guests, whether I build a targeted list, I try to meet them on LinkedIn, offer them an interview on my show, bring them on, have build rapport over the course of my show, and then invite them to a sales conversation or an enrollment conversation, as many of our clients like to discuss it as you invite them to that. That's an ideal. So you're getting your potential client base. What that really does and helps you do is also refine, especially in the early days of your podcast, refine whether or not you've got this client profile and the audience profile aligned in the right way. So understanding of who I'm inviting on my show, is that really what my listeners want to hear? And you find might find out, you get a totally different set of listeners. Right. Than you expected. And your clients may never come from your listener base. For some of our clients, it only comes from their guest base. So thinking about that, that might be an ideal way. Looking at it is it might not only just be the client who's paying you, it may be also the person who's referring you. So for a lot of our podcasters, you know, many of them, Tom, they do this referral based connection in that the people they interview on their show are actually becoming their JV partners or their joint venture partners, their collaborators, their referral partners, affiliates, if you want to call it that, any one of those things, that's another model. So whatever that is that generates you business, this is a way to have a sales conversation or have a relationship conversation. So that's my second type.

I like it. Okay.

And that one helps you make more money faster in your podcast, right?

That's the thing. When people talk about monetizing a podcast, the fastest way to do it is somehow with either your own products or services or others products and services that you can make money on, giving access to them through your show. So I like that. All right, what's number three.

Number three is one of the best ones and the easiest ones out there once you have your show started. Other podcasters, they make great guests. First off, they're pros. They know what they're doing. It's not hard to check them out and see if their show is good. So you know what they're going to come on and talk about. What you want to make sure is that they're aligned with your audience or the audience. If you don't know for sure who your audience is, you're in the testing mode of it. You know, you might want to have a little more variety in what you're doing there and sort of test around the industry. So if you're in real estate, maybe you want to test shows that are talking about note closing. If shows that are talking about syndication, shows that are talking about investment, shows that are talking about fix and flips so that you're kind of covering your base. And even though your topic may be in a very specific niche area, just to sort of understand where the market's going and where the listeners are. So that helps. But the reason why other podcasters make some of the best guests is because they have an audience and they're going to share you because they know how important it is for you to share them when you go on their show. So you're asking for a podcast swap. That's sort of like the industry lingo for it. You're asking for a podcast swap. I go on your show, you come on my show, and that's an ideal thing to do. You're sharing each other's audiences. Your audiences should have a match as your show grows. The other thing is, when you're early starting out on a show, podcasters understand that the early shows get a lot of listenership over time, even if they don't have it yet today. So if your show's not popular today, they understand that your early episodes will always have more listeners and that you're obviously putting more effort into making sure you're publicizing your show when you first started. So it's a boost for them as well. So that's kind of a nice benefit. So you won't have that barrier of, well, let's see how your show does. It helps to have a couple of episodes under your belt, or at least a sample you can send them that's always good so that they can hear you got good sound, you're produced. Well, they're not going to go on a show that doesn't make them sound Good at the end of the day. So I think that's important, don't you, Tom?

I do. I don't like the let's see how your show does. Objection. Honestly, I think that's shortsighted. But it does happen.

But it does happen. So if you've got something there, that always helps. And other podcasters are a great way to access that. The other thing about other podcasters are, is that they know people, so they're great to have a chat with afterwards. Ask some tips of get some help from, try some things to see what they're doing. And when they share your show, you're getting out to their audience, you can see how that's working. And if something's working well there, you can reach back out to them and ask them. The other thing is that if they're aligned with you, they might have some great guests. So at the end of your conversation you can say, hey, I really want to reach this authority guest. Right. So, hey, how did you get them on your show and would you make an introduction for me? So they're a great access point to those authority guests that you want to get on your show anyway.

Yeah, that was something I was going to mention if you didn't. Certainly your other podcasters have a huge amount of shows, probably if they've been doing it for a while, that they've done interviewing other people. So they may be able to get you access to some guests that you'd like to get access to. So don't be afraid to ask.

Absolutely.

The last type that I like to look at is the type that I call the ones that build and nurture your community. So sometimes that is people who are deeply in a topic that's really relevant right now, and I need to address this topic. So you make sure and get to that you have ways to nurture your community in the sense that you might want to bring community members onto your show and have conversations with them. So some of the latest ones I've done on the Binge Factor earlier this year is I invited some podcasters on for on air coaching because what happens when we're listening to a podcast show, especially with binge listeners, that this is an occurrence of is that while we appreciate all that you have and all that you do, what we hear is this high level of expertise in something. So we hear that you're an expert, you've got these expert authority guests on it on the subject. And I'm still sitting back at the beginning going, what's step one? Where do I Go, is this a fit for me? Are they a fit for me? Am I going to be able to achieve the success? Wow, this sounds really flashy. But is it for me? That's the evaluation we're trying to make when we're listening for a show. Not if. Not just is this show for me, am I going to keep listening to it? But is this product for me, is this service for me, is this host for me? Right. And sometimes when you bring on someone who's only a couple of steps ahead of where I might be as a beginner or I might be at the start of evaluating you, it helps me see myself in that guest, in that person, and makes it easier for me to make the choices. It removes some of the barriers.

Well, and the great part about that, Tracy, is if you are obviously in business and you do that kind of coaching for a living, you get paid to do it right. Or anything that you might hot seat somebody for. And that's what I like to call it, that you're hot seating somebody and going through something you might do privately and get paid for by peeling back the curtain and letting people see that with. Maybe initially you do it with a client of yours who is trusted and is willing to have some coaching that is public for the world to see. Everybody else starts to see, wow, that was brilliant what the host did with them. I really need that. Right. And it breaks down barriers, makes them much more interested, and they may very well chase you down to work with them. So I think that's very important. Tracy, that's a great one.

Yeah. You know, sometimes you can lump the two things in together. Like very often on the binge factor, I'm going after other podcasters because that's just an easy one. They don't always invite me on the show because it's not a right fit for me. Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. But they are also my potential clients. And a lot of times, if I pick them at the right stage or overcoming the right problem, my future clients, my listeners who will become future clients, can hear themselves in that podcaster. And just by being associated with me in authority building level, they look at me as the expert, me as the conduit to making that happen for them.

Now.

So I've done it a combination where I basically built all three of them into one, and then the authority building I add on whenever I'm looking for it, so they will never become my clients. Someone who does a wondery podcast. But don't we all want to know how the wondry shows work, so I bring those in or I'll bring Pat Flynn and he's not going to switch what he's doing to come and do production with us, but he learned something from us and we learned something from him and we had a great rapport built and the authority was off the charts. So looking at it from those perspectives, we want to make sure that we're doing that and when you can start to figure out what's working by isolating the types of people, see what's resonating working now, you can start to build it into a tighter profile for the guests you invite. Like I do and really only have two types in my case, and that's where I moved to after my first 100 episodes.

So I think that's really important to consider. Tracy, is what's the right mix of these four different types of guests? And for, you know, that may be different for each of you. Some of you may put more heavy emphasis on one type than another. You may not just alternate 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. You know the type. You know, you may do a whole.

Month of a certain type and then try another one. When I do a test like when I did with the on air coaching, I lumped them all together in a series of six so I could see the results of that and get feedback. Because it was a pattern of doing multiples in a row, I was able to get engagement from the audience because I already had engagement going on, so they were already talking back. When you're first starting your show and you don't have that ability, you've got to give it more time. That's why I recommend this as a first 100 episode strategy. But really, I mean, if you do it within a year, you're doing really well. Or if you're doing 25 episodes and you did it within a month, you'd be doing really well. So this thinking about how it looks from that standpoint of how often you're going to do it, you got to give it more than a one off. You can't just have one of those guests and go, well, that didn't turn out well or well, that was great, I want to have more of them. And then 10 people later, after you've done a whole bunch of bank interviews, realize, wow, that wasn't really right for me. So give it some time, give it some patience and evaluate it based on engagement and feedback, not just the numbers, because the numbers can sometimes be anomalies from really great podcasters who share Better than potential clients. Right. But the potential clients might make you more money. So we have to look at it from all angles of how we evaluate the stats of how this is doing for you. Right.

And I really think all too often, especially new podcasters don't really consider.

So much about the types of guests that they have from all of those perspectives, Tracy, and all the different potential, different benefits to you as a host and to your listener for the different types of guests. And I like talking about all these four types because if you haven't been thinking about them all, then you will start to now and have more of an intentional plan for your podcast and not just have it be. I don't want to say that your guest choices are otherwise random, because I'm sure they're very intentional. But you may be only thinking from one perspective. A lot of times people think, all right, how big is that guest's reach? Right. How many connections do they have on LinkedIn? How many followers do they have on Facebook? And you're not considering one of these other factors. Right. So I think it's very good to give everybody a framework and to be able to develop a strategy. For sure.

Absolutely. So, everyone, just so you're understanding how the feed you'd brand podcast is broken up, this particular episode is going to be under the feed you'd brand guest tactics section. So if you want to learn more about different types of guest tactics, you're going to want to go to that specific feed. Feed your brand guest tactics and go to that specific feed to find it. And you can find that all@Potatoise.com all right.

Hey, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next time with another great episode. This has been Tom and Tracy on.

Feed you'd brand.

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