Who Is the Right Podcast Guest? The No Hype Guide You Need To Read Now

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Hey everyone, got a great question from one of our podcasters today. I think it serves those who are speakers, authors, entrepreneurs who want to guess on podcasts, not just be a podcast host. So I thought this one was more universal and I just really wanted to make sure that all of you out there have this information because this is some insider tactics and tips and things that you may not have heard. So how do you get to be a guest on a podcast? And I did this quite a few years ago and I used a service. So many, many people do use a service. There are multiples out there. Contact me if you're interested and I'm happy to share the ones that I recommend. But using a service is great because they have a process. They create a one sheet for you, they create a pitch letter, and there's sort of a system for doing that. But it's also a little less personal. And I can say we've never used a service on any of our three podcasts to bring us guests. So as the host, we've never used that to get our guests on there. I actually personally go out there and invite people to be guests, or people send me emails, messages, LinkedIn requests to do it. And so we've done over 530 episodes on our 3D print podcast and I never had to worry about it. I've never run out of guests. And so because enough come to me and enough I seek out just because I happened across them, met them somewhere, their name came up in an article and I was interested. But I like to handle it more personally because I care about the relevance to my audience as a host and many, many hosts are the same way. So I'm bringing it to you from this sort of host perspective so that you can understand the good things that you need to do and what you need to do to make sure that you are being as attractive as possible to them. So that's really this perspective that I'm bringing. So the first thing that I want you to understand though, that we're in a new age of podcasting and there is a lot of pay for play going and that may not be apparent. I guarantee you many, many people are not talking about that, but we know that it happens. So in other words, there are these guest placement services. A couple of them are highly associated and or subsidized in a way by big podcast groups and or podcast hosts. So what that means is that they have an investment into taking the people that come through the guest placement agency onto their podcast. They're invested in that. There's also an affiliate kickback that happens from some of the guest placement service companies that happens to the host. We don't do that on any of our shows. I don't like it. It's not authentic and it's not in keeping with what is it. Because getting to be a guest, you're paying them money to place you on the right shows for you, not pay so that you're subsidizing them searching for guests. So I don't like that process, but it happens. And so you're competing against that. If you're just pushing your one sheet out there and it's going out there, you're competing against some of these people who are paying to be on shows. They're not paying the host maybe directly, but they're paying these service companies who are paying the host. And so in the end you're paying for your placement. So you should know that there is a pay for play going on and you are competing against that. However, I find that's on the shows, they might have millions of listeners, they might have a lot of listeners, but they don't necessarily have the highest conversion rate for you. So they're making the host a lot of money because there's ads on there and there's millions of listeners. But as a guest, you want to make sure their audience is really dialed in and invested in it. The larger the audience, the less kickback that happens. And sort of, I'm going to call it, click through that you would expect, right? The less people will go out, seek you and find you as the guest on there and go out and contact you. And that's the residual value you want to have, right? You want them to find you, you want them to do business with you. So finding the smaller podcasts, the ones with really good audiences, the ones in the growth mode, the ones where the hosts are still in that management mode of it themselves, are actually better for you in terms of returning value to you as long as there's a good relevant match. And so that's kind of my second item. So being aware that there's pay for play and Number two, that you need to do your research, right? Actually listen to the show. I can't tell you how many times I've had guests on and they've never listened to my show. And it does a disservice because then they go on their tangents or they go off on the way that they want to present themselves. And I'm like, that's not what the best for the listener is. And I'm good about it as a host because I've been doing this long enough to reel them in and force them to be relevant. But at the same time, I'm educating them on my show. And so to me, it's a waste of their time more than it is a waste of mine. Because I can structure a show that is really, really great for my audience. I can make that happen. Plus, I edit my show so I can cut out anything I don't want. And I also have the option not to air that episod. But it's likely a waste of your time as the guest if you have not done your homework, if you have not done your research. So that's my second recommendation to you. If you really want to be more attractive, make sure you've listened to their show and you know about it. And you got to be careful because some of those have surprises all the way at the end. I've had a few shows who does this, like Fast Five, and they ask you these five rapid fire questions and you better be prepared. I've had another that asked me some random questions about weird things like what would I do if I had a magic wand? That was my favorite person, actually, Abby Levine. And Abby asked me what would I do if I had a magic wand. So knowing that they asked these odd questions, right, you could be more prepared for it. And I was more prepared for that answer. So anyway, these are some of the kinds of things that you really want to be aware of. And doing that is really great. So have an angle. Because you now have researched a show. You know what they're like, you know what interests the host. You kind of have a sense of who their audience is. You know that they're right fit for you. So have a relevant and customized angle. And this is where one sheets just don't fit the bill. And this is why I'm not a huge fan of using placement agencies, because it gives me a sense somebody's good. Like they have a one sheet and I definitely want to see it. I want to know they're professional enough and I want to know some statistics about them. And I want to have stuff that I can do some due diligence on and look up, right? So they say they were featured in Ink or they say they were featured in Forbes. And I can go look that up and read that article and go, yeah, they're pretty interesting. So it helps me do my background, so that's important. But going beyond that and saying, hey, I typically talk about innovation in disruptive technology, so I talk about that. But you are a podcast that's about educators, and I understand that. And that's the major part of your audience that you're attracting. Let me talk about how that fits into education, specifically early education, or whatever you want. So that's really what we want to see here, is that customized messages. You're offering to give them something special. Which leads me to my number four thing that I want you to do. If you do the same thing, if you follow sound bites, if you say the same thing on every single show, if you go on shows that all ask you the same set of prescribed questions, then what happens is that you end up in this place where you are duplicating content and it's hurting everybody all around it. So I'm going to talk about this on the content side and from a sort of personality perspective of, like, what that makes you look like. And I want to talk about it on a technical side. So from a personality side, it sounds boring, right? I'm sick of hearing the same thing. You say the same thing every time. You tell the same story every time. I have heard people who do that, and I understand that some people, they're shy. It makes them comfortable to have rehearsed this, to be practiced about it. But it doesn't make for a great show, and I can guarantee you won't get the results that you want out of it as guesting. They know when it feels that way, so definitely don't write anything down. Don't be that rehearsed, Be off the cuff, be flexible. Really try to answer the questions different every time. I can tell you, I have given hundreds of interviews and I have never answered the questions the same way twice, even if they are the exact same questions. Because I didn't want to be that person who answers it that same way. And so embody that right? Be brilliantly. You be the expert that you are and answer it with an aspect saying, hey, I know you're asking me this, and the pat answer is usually that, but, you know, here's something more I'm going to give you more. Be A little bit deeper on it. And so that's really one of the great ways to do that. Now, on the technical side of that, remember that being on podcasts is supposed to help you. If you're being a guest on there, it's supposed to help you. And it's helping the podcast host and their website and what they're doing, and all of that is this backlinking and Google ranking and this search engine optimization thing that's going on there, and you really want all of that to tie together. So here's what happens. If you say the same exact thing, the same way on every single show, you've now duplicated content. Not only have you hurt yourself because that backlink to you isn't really doing much good, but you've hurt every single one of those podcast hosts because you gave them the exact same content across it. And Google's going to devalue all of that. So it is of no service for you to do those kinds of pat answers, rehearsed answers, and say the same thing on every show. So definitely don't be that person. Because if I'm researching you and a good host or a host that has a vetting group, whether it's virtual assistant or whatever, vetting people, that's usually what you do is I'll go check them out, I'll listen to them on a couple of shows, and if I hear them say the exact same thing all the time, and it's a pitch, they're not going to get invited in. So that's the fifth thing that I want to head into, is that the last thing that makes you really attractive to a host is to have an authoritative person platform, right? That means you should have your own show, you should have a book, you should be a speaker, right? You should have a website that is good value. And I talk about this all the time when I give speeches all over the place that I talk about. Having a platform is the way to get the media to write about you. And podcast hosts are media, right? They are. Some of them are writers, some of them are bloggers, and they do more than that. They came out of that. Some of them are TV interviews and you're doing videos, right? All of that. Think of them like the media. And the first thing I do as an ink columnist when someone sends me a pitch is I go to their website, I Google their name, I click on their website, I check them out, and I go, is this a sales site? Is this a platform site? Do they really have lots of media coverage? Have they been in lots of press. I'm going to check that out. I'm going to look at that. What do people say about them? Right. That's your overall platform. But I also want to make sure that it's going to serve me well. So if you're a really smart podcast host, you're going to do, and if you come out of the digital marketing world, which many of them do, we're going to also do a little background check on your website, on the ranking of it. How powerful is it? Are you valuable to my audience? Are you valuable to me from a Google standpoint, from a technical standpoint, from a search engine backlink standpoint? So there's some of that value. And then also it's just name recognition and industry like, do people know you and do I want to be associated with you? So if you have not yet established your authoritative platform, it's a whole lot harder to get people to agree to have you on as a guest. If you haven't launched your book yet and that's it, and you have no website and you have nothing else going for you, that makes it a lot, lot harder to be that person that you want to be and be that authority that makes you a great guest. So establishing our authority platform is the number one way you do that. Make sure you do that on a website first. Make sure you have that website in place. You have to have a home. It's an address, right? Many of us don't have an office. You're like, you can see behind me all those things on the wall, right? This is my home office. So I don't have a real address. My real address is on the Internet. And that's where people are going to look me up. They're going to find me, they're going to see that I've done all these writings, I've been on all these shows, I've done all these things. And they're like, I think Maya's show being associated with that is going to be valuable, even if I've never heard of her before. So that's really it that I wanted to go. But I have a question here. Does social media platform pay a part in that authority? Oh, William, that's such a great question and I'm glad you asked that. And it does. So social is a part of it, but for many people who are doing the sort of business side of podcasting, and for many, many companies, it is a business part. Podcasting because you're content generating, right? Social is only one aspect of that So I want to know that you can talk out on social and you're going to drive traffic to me from that standpoint but it's not the only factor because I do want to at the end of the day give my site value, give my blog value, give myself Google ranking. So as long as you have a social map platform plus if your social authority is way, way higher than your web authority that's probably still okay but the fact that you have both that's best. Anyway guys this is feed your brand kind of off the cuff because we've been so busy getting some back end things happening on brandcasters that we haven't had time to record episodes. So I wanted to quickly come on because we had some urgent, urgent information that's coming up and I promise you some new episodes are going to be coming out but we got to sit down and do some recording here. So until next time thank you all for joining.