How to be a Good Guest on a Podcast

Speaker 1 (00:02)

Hello and welcome to Podcasting Anything and ask me anything for all things podcasting. I'm your host, Ben Killoy, and I'm joined here in the studio with Mathew Passy, the podcast control. Matt and I wanted to move the conversation beyond the Podcasting 101 topics and move into the intermediate to advance podcasting strategy to reach your goals, to interact with the show, submit your questions to be answered live, book a podcast audible with Matthew, or find the notes from today's show. Head on over to podcastminitting.com. Well, welcome back to another podcast, meaning, as always, I am joined by Matthew Passy in the studio. You know what I realized the other day, Matthew, when I was editing these podcasts, we talk about the weather way too much in this podcast. So I'm going to avoid talking about the weather. And we're going to deep dive right into our conversation today, which is about livestream, which is the conversation that we have many times where these episodes are streamed on YouTube. Many podcasts are streamed on stream, yard, YouTube, Facebook It's this new big, giant thing. Technology out there is always trying to reinvent livestream, edit more places, make a simplicity to it.

Speaker 1 (01:06)

We use one stream in the background of this. So Matthew, when it comes to livestream, for paying attention on the news, what do we need to know?

Speaker 2 (01:16)

I think what you need to know is that you need to be taking the livestream world seriously. So, right one, like you said, there are lots of great platforms that make it easy to live stream your conversations. We record on Riverside. Riverside is the option to go live straight from here to Facebook. Twitter, Twitch, LinkedIn, if you have it, all those different platforms. Stream Yard is very popular in the podcasting space and they make it super easy to connect with people, have a show, take guests, take calls, put yourself out there, but even make it easy, right? If you want to think just audio only Twitter spaces, there are lots of podcasts that are regularly doing Twitter spaces and finding some success with it. Because one, these platforms give preferential treatment when you are live, right? Every time somebody goes live on Facebook, if you follow their page, you follow their group, whatever, you definitely get a notification, whereas you usually don't get a notification from these places for other stuff posted to a Facebook page or something like that. I think Twitter might even notify you to the fact that you can be live, you can interact with people in real time.

Speaker 2 (02:25)

It can create a sense of audience, a sense of engagement that is not possible with your pre recorded podcast. Also, it could just be fun and it can kind of train you to have a different performance behind the microphone than you normally would if you were taping.

(02:43)

Right?

Speaker 2 (02:44)

When you are taping, when you are pre recording something, you know that it's okay, I can totally mess this up. I'm just going to, whatever, not take it very seriously. When you are alive, you've got to bring a different energy, you got to focus, you got to pay attention and it can be a little bit exciting, a little bit thrilling and honestly I think it can make you a better podcaster overall.

Speaker 1 (03:05)

What about the advice that you don't want to be everywhere you want to be on certain places when they tell you to start podcast and they tell you to pick a platform. Own that platform. Does that advice applied to live streaming or should we find restream one stream any of these things that can duct tape the internet and connect it to the back end and do it once and then broadcast it five times at the same time.

Speaker 2 (03:28)

I mean if you have an audience on multiple platforms then you should be on all the platforms where you can have your audience. My advice to people is usually when they are just getting started they're like I did Twitter, I did Instagram, I did Facebook and they can't keep up with all of them. It's too much work. Or they're writing one message and just copying and pasting it to all the different networks. When truthfully, your language, your messaging, your post has to be tailored for each one of these networks. Even the cadence in which you posted these networks has to be tailored to their algorithms, that community and whatnot. So yes, if you are not very social and you're just getting started, I don't think you have to blanket every single platform just because they are there. You should find the networks or the communities where your target audience is going to be. Now that's it. If your target audience is on three different platforms and you are present on three different platforms and you have the ability to live stream to three different platforms, yeah, go for it. No reason not to, but I think just don't force yourself onto platforms when you know it's not going to do anything for you.

Speaker 2 (04:40)

For example? For example, I would probably not take my shows over to Twitch for live streaming because Twitch's audience tends to be tailored towards gaming community and maybe a skews to a younger audience. Whereas we tend to be targeting and thinking about businesses, business owners, entrepreneurs and probably folks who skew a little bit older. So to me it doesn't make sense for me to go out of my way to create a Twitch account to try and show up there when I'm probably just going to be left off as like a boomer.

Speaker 1 (05:13)

I don't disagree. I also run into my own.

Speaker 2 (05:16)

Thanks for calling me a boomer on the show.

Speaker 1 (05:18)

I appreciate that you added yourself on that one. I didn't even set you up for it. One thing that I run into you.

Speaker 2 (05:23)

Didn'T have to agree.

Speaker 1 (05:25)

It was a perfect t. Sometimes you got to go for it. One thing that I run into when I'm on everything or when I talk about in an omnipresence, which I think is the right description for being everywhere. Trying to tell people to follow me often becomes overwhelming and I feel like I often dilute getting followers on anything really, because I'm talking to the wrong platform. My go to on any podcast, whether I'm gifting or whether I'm doing my own podcast, is, hey, reach out to me on Instagram, at vendors, underscore CLOY, or tag me on an Instagram story and crickets, nothing happens. And so that's always my default because I feel like most people follow on Instagram, but then no one does it. But then do I lean on LinkedIn? And so often when you're trying to measure feedback from these streams, telling people where to follow you and measuring that engagement, that can often I think it leads to a lot of shooting, or at least it does in my podcasting world.

Speaker 2 (06:22)

Well, I think one, if you are going to tell people to follow you on all the networks, then you should have a consistent username on all those networks, right? You shouldn't be at Benk on Instagram. But I'm at Bkoy on Twitter and then I'm at Military Veteran dad on Facebook. That is certainly going to create a sense of confusion and it should be something that you are thinking about when you are coming up with the name of your show, your website. All those different things should be a factor when you are doing the branding for your podcast or even for yourself personally, podcast aside. That said, I tend to focus again back on my website, right? So one, like I was just on the show recently and they said, how do we find it? I said it's just at Matthew password. Wherever you go, if you search for Matthew Passy, one t, no Ian Passy, right, you're going to find me. But what I typically tell people is go to this website and there you can follow me on the platform of your choice. You can subscribe to the show on the platform of your choice.

Speaker 2 (07:23)

So I make it easy for them to find me where they are comfortable finding me, as opposed to trying to spit out a bunch of letters and jumbles and things like that to be like, follow me here. If you tell people to do a million things, they're not going to do any of them. So I make it easy. Go to our website, follow us there. Boom, done.

Speaker 1 (07:44)

Yeah, I like that as well. And what you're also putting a bow on this whole live streaming is when you do decide to go live, there are little pieces of things you need to dot the I's and cross the t's. Like making sure you're communicating call to action clearly and making sure you have a clearly. Like if you have people coming to the website, make sure those link works. Because I can't tell you any time to go to a website and the icons don't actually go anywhere and they never programmed to do anything or they go to default squarespace and no one ever switched them out for their own. So those little things like that really become important when you are doing more live stream because you are having people sit somewhere with their phone and they have more ability to interact with you and they're more likely to take action. You have to make sure that that action goes in the right direction as well.

Speaker 2 (08:28)

Yeah, and I mean to your point also when you're doing a live stream you really need to kind of practice livestream. One, it takes a little bit of practice just to be comfortable doing a live thing. But also sometimes it can be difficult to make sure that your stream works. Whether you're using stream yard one stream, you're just using Ecamm, the RTMP settings on Riverside, right. You want to make sure that first time you go live or the first time you announce that you're going to go live and you're going to make a big production out of it. That the title of your stream is what you want it to be. The description shows that the way you want it to show up that you are in fact live on all the platforms that you think you are live on. That just because you hit record over here doesn't mean you necessarily went live over here. So I would strongly encourage you to do a couple of dry runs. Just make sure that all of your tech works the way you want it to. If you're going to play music, make sure the music is coming off of your board or off your sound board and is actually going down the feed, right?

Speaker 2 (09:30)

Believe it or not, there are lots of platforms that even though you've got this fancy board with twelve inputs on it, sometimes the platforms like, yeah, I only hear input one stupid so play all the music you want, I don't hear it. Right. So these are a lot of things you have to think about before you go live so you don't look and feel silly when you are doing this. And by the way. Just so you know. Another reason why this whole live stream thing might be important. There was a piece in Pod News this morning down in the tech stuff area. So we haven't really talked a ton about this. But there is this project out there to beef up the RSS feed. Right. To incorporate all these different tags and fields to kind of give podcasters more control and more power. One of them is this live item tag that you're going to start seeing incorporated into more podcasting technology and hosting and all these different things. Also this morning they talked about there's a Twitter account, podcasts Live and every time you use the live item tag in your RSS feed, podcast Live is basically going to find the stream and tweet out that you are doing this.

Speaker 2 (10:36)

So right now, listen, right now the Twitter feed does not have that many followers, not going to make a big splash, but at some point this could catch on, this could be useful. And so people are focusing on this live stream aspect. I would say at least, at the very least, start to think about incorporating it into your future podcasting performances.

Speaker 1 (10:57)

And there's also, as one random, this is a long time ago, there's also the domain you can also get of a live domain. So you could actually create some URL magic of something tied to that for your own communication of follow me on Benclay Live if you always want to stay up to date or something like that. So one also there to go with that, switching gears a little bit to our deep dive. And this one is inspired by an exercise that you just did. And then I was talking about my.

Speaker 2 (11:25)

Speaking of going live.

Speaker 1 (11:26)

Yes, speaking of going live. That what most podcasters often get lost in is our own podcast that we get so focused on everything we've talked about trying to create a good podcast and keep it moving, that you also forget that you also can go on other people's podcasts. And John Lee Dumas always says it this way, is you want to go where they're converted. For a perfect example is when you spend money on Facebook ad. Not everybody who sees that ad cares about podcasting, but when you're on other persons podcast, everybody listening to this already cares about podcast and so they're already converted. So going on other people's podcasts and just to even plug how important this is, john Lee Douglas, who by all means has a multi million dollar platform, still goes on 25 podcasts a month as a free thing to continue to promote his brand because he sees that much value into it. So Matthew, tell us your story about what you had happened when you went on Dave Jackson's Podcast Live.

Speaker 2 (12:27)

Yeah, it was really cool. Dave Jackson reached out to me. He does a show, asked the podcast coach Saturday morning. He usually has it with a co host, Jim Collison. Jim could not be available to be on the show last Saturday. So Dave asked me to pinch it, jump in and talk on the show and had a ton of fun. We kind of did a lot of the things that we do on this show. We talk about some common questions in the Facebook space. Dave livestreams the show through stream yard and so we got people in the chat room asking questions. We even got people who volunteered, wanted to be on. One woman came on the show, I think she was almost like 20 minutes asking a bunch of questions. We were answering them right there on.

Speaker 1 (13:08)

The spot, coaching 20 minutes.

Speaker 2 (13:13)

Yes, she definitely got some serious value for them. And truthfully, everybody else listening got similar value. And then at the very end, I just kind of casually mentioned that we're doing this town cast thing. We're really focused on the local hyper, local content creators and stuff like that. And I was pleasantly surprised at how many emails and I am and DMs and whatever I got as a result of just that casual mention at the end of Dave's podcast. And it's just a really good reminder to your point that a lot of people, they say, I'm trying to build my business, so I'm going to start a podcast. Well, you're trying to build a business now you're trying to build a podcast. You got to build an audience for that. You got to build an audience for your social network, right? Like you can really run around in circles trying to build all these different things at once. Whereas if you can go on somebody else's podcast, you can take advantage of the fact that they have already done the building. They've already built out an audience. In many cases. They've already built out a big social following.

Speaker 2 (14:23)

In many cases, they've already built out a relationship with people so that when they say to that person, oh, you know, I really enjoy talking to Ben, I think Ben is a really good guy. Now that person has lent their credibility to you with their audience and that's going to make their audience more likely to reach out to you. So I would say in many cases, before you start a podcast or before you get overly anxious about your podcast, before you worry about how am I going to grow this audience, it might be good to get out there and kind of take a tour on the podcasting circuit. Get yourself out there on shows that are talking to your target audience or talking about your niche, any place that you could show off your expertise. To me, that could be a really great way to get started.

Speaker 1 (15:15)

And you're also speaking to there are new podcasts starting every single day, so you don't have to go out there before you launch your podcast and go on a big name podcast. You could go newbie to newbie podcast and you're both practicing, but while the other person is doing the work of releasing that episode, maybe they're a little bit ahead. Every rep of putting a bunch of words together that coherently sounds like a paragraph that actually leads someone towards a different spot, that's pushing the muscle towards podcasting. Whether you're doing that for your podcast or on someone else's podcast, that is extremely valuable. And I was also sharing my story that I did some math a couple of months ago that in three years of me podcasting, I've been on over 50 podcasts, and most of those are in Dadspace. A few entrepreneur, few business ones, but only one ever generated leads. And I was like, that is a telling tale. And for me, the lesson was, and it's similar lesson for you, I think, is it taught me that being on the podcast is good. It gets practiced, creates your network, expands your network.

Speaker 1 (16:16)

People know you, people might think of you, but you actually need to also think about go where people don't even know that your idea exists. So the one podcast that hit where people do still reach out to me years later, I've done this podcast like a year and a half ago. People will still find this podcast and reach out. It's a transition podcast out of the military and they're there to get better transition advice, resume advice, career planning. And then there's this guy me talking about, you know what, it's more important than your career, your family. And almost every person that's reached out said, I wasn't even considering my family really in my career transition plan out of the military, and I was the only one in that podcast saying those things. And so then it made me inspired to reach out, to like, I need to find places where I'm the red dot and the blue ocean type concept. And then in that moment, you're like, man, you're walking in and people are like, you're evangelizing them with these people because you're the first person to speak in life into a category that they were ignoring most of the time.

Speaker 2 (17:17)

Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting you say that, because you're right. I actually still to this day, we'll get an email or two and somebody will come up to me and say, I heard you on such and such podcasts and you sounded great, so I thought you might be the person to work with. And I was like, which one? And I honestly couldn't even remember doing that show. And so, yeah, that is an example of a how helpful podcast recordings can be, or being a guest on other podcasts can be to your brand, not just worrying about your own show, but going on somebody else's show with an established audience in a relationship and things like that. Because it's a lot harder to tell people, listen to me, versus having somebody else say, listen to them. Right. It's a lot easier to build trust when somebody else is selling you as opposed to you trying to sell yourself, unless you are a chronic personal salesperson, which I am not. But also just to the staying power of the podcast archive. We've talked about this a little bit in the past where you shouldn't just focus on the episode that you're putting out this week and then forget about everything you've done in the past.

Speaker 2 (18:24)

Your archive can be super powerful stuff and can honestly pay dividends years and years after you put it out. And that's truly been the case with this, where I've been a guest on other podcasts and it's been a year, two years, three years, and that appearance is still coming back and creating a positive relationship with the business.

Speaker 1 (18:47)

And in many cases it's not Facebook ads where you pay and they get turns off. It's not a billboard, it's not a Spotify ad, it's not Google AdWords. It's literally a billboard installed into the internet that never goes away until they stop paying the credit card and that likelihood and even we just talked about how to make sure a podcast always lives by putting it over on anchor. So this idea that you could do an hour's worth of work and get mountains of ROI and you're actually I'm going to try to sell you on something of almost the magic of why you need to do more of these podcasts, think about in podcasting itself, how many people are talking about a local podcast? I think from our conversations it's still a pretty limited unless you're one of the businesses focusing on local podcasting, which is like three or four, very few podcasters have guests talking about local podcasting. So you walk in the room and you're like talking about local podcasting and people become re inspired or maybe inspired for the first time and they've never been able to figure out what their podcast is because you're the only one talking about this really smart idea.

Speaker 1 (19:55)

That's low energy but high value. And I could actually get to meet real people in real life at a lot faster rate. To me, you're going to place and talking about something that nobody else is talking about. And in this case, you are the red dot in the blue ocean. Even if the blue ocean is still podcasting no one's talking about. That's. Probably why it was so resonating is because no one is mentioning this undervalued, underserved replacement for the newspaper called a towncast.

Speaker 2 (20:24)

No, I mean, I hope you're right and I think you're right, but maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe I need to focus more on my efforts, on getting out there to other shows about podcasting, specifically focusing on this topic versus putting out this content or putting in another podcast myself because there's definitely a benefit to doing that. Now. That said, we were kind of talking about it before. Like before you start a podcast, go and do other stuff, but also don't waste those efforts. I remember talking to someone, they were working on launching a podcast. They were spending like four to six months going through the launch. It was really slow. And then about five months and they're like, you know what, I'm getting ready to do a whole bunch of other podcasts right now. It's going to be a ton of fun. I was like, cool, where are you going to tell people to go? And they didn't have their stuff ready and they've been stalling and delaying and putting it off and all this other stuff. It's like we should have a place for people to go now so that when you say to them, oh, this person is amazing, learn more about them and blah, blah, blah, you're capturing that audience.

Speaker 2 (21:29)

Even if you don't get them to subscribe to a podcast that has launched it, get them to sign up for an email from you, get them to follow you. Make sure you have created a tenable call to action for the people who are hearing you on that show. Before you go out there and waste this time and energy being guessed on other shows or for a plug, go.

Speaker 1 (21:48)

To podcastnamething.com Podpage and create a simple Pod page website that has a trailer with no episodes. And by the way, you can add your own email list, the Pod page, and start capturing those emails without ever publishing a real episode. It takes barely any time. If you're not willing to publish a trailer, you probably need a second guess your podcasting. And there was one other thought, as you were riffing there, that you inspired a secondary riff. Think of part of this. We're doing a podcast about podcasts, but in a lot of cases, podcasters already have a guru. They already have someone that maybe they consider and use the person to help them get wherever they're going. Like there's just a path and very little time do people go find a new guru, and in this case, podcasting about towncast. We're hoping that people go out and find looking for a new guru. It's like that probably doesn't happen as often. You're almost trying to find someone that doesn't have a guru to listen to TomCast. But in this case, if you go to people's other gurus communities to talk about Tom casting, you're not taking their business because they're not using local podcasting.

Speaker 1 (22:52)

But then you're also going where they're already converted and that guru has already got their attention.

Speaker 2 (22:59)

Amen, brother.

Speaker 1 (23:00)

The bill will be in the mail.

Speaker 2 (23:01)

For that coaching bill, by the way. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (23:04)

So Matthew, as you think about maybe some of your own clients, is there any stories of podcast gifting or general advice that you give out to when someone's like, you know what, I think I'm ready to go visit the internet and talk to other people's podcasts.

Speaker 2 (23:21)

I guess what I can really give you is the perspective from the podcast host itself, right? So they're definitely good services that will help you become a guest. There are also some easy like self delivery services. You just kind of sign up, create a profile, and then people can find you and search for you. And you can search for shows and pitch yourself. But as someone who both works with clients who regularly interview guests, and also as someone whose email address is inside of the RSS feed for tons of podcasts out there, let me tell you some things not to do. Number one, do not email a podcaster. Pitching yourself without actually exploring what that show is about. I get so many pitches for Cause Pods with people saying to me so and so would make a great guest on your show.

(24:21)

Cool.

Speaker 2 (24:22)

And they have this amazing altruistic lifestyle. They do this, they do this, they've created this society, they got this foundation to get to this 501 C three. And my response to them is always cool. What is the name of their podcast? Well, they don't have one. Then they do not belong on the show, right? It is there in the description, it's there in the intro. If you listen to one episode, you understand to be a guest on Calls Pods, you have to have a podcast. We don't do anything else other than that. And so right away you have burned that bridge with me, you have annoyed me, you have wasted my time and you have shown me that you are not a serious person, right? If you're not going to take what I do seriously, there is no way I'm going to take you. Either you the person bitching yourself or you the PR person that is blind emailing tons and tons of people to get this person to get on the show. There's no way I'm going to take your stuff seriously. I'm going to delete your email and I'm probably going to block you.

Speaker 2 (25:18)

And I get so many pitches for other shows that I work on and I've responded to them hundreds of times to say, listen, they do not take outside guests. They source their own guests. It's always their friends or their colleagues or people who they admire. They are not here for you to pitch your book. Stop emailing me. Two weeks later they email me again. It is infuriating and all it does is it makes you look bad. Actually, there's a guy whose name I can't remember and I'm probably doing him a favor by not saying this, but he'll email me and say, I've got a great guest for your show. And I'm like, what show? Because one, I host two shows, I am producing a third for myself and my email address is associated with 50 other podcasts. So what show are you pitching? And the best thing was when I asked this person that question, they admitted, I don't know, at least make something up.

Speaker 1 (26:24)

It's not that hard.

Speaker 2 (26:24)

If you Google my name and podcast, you'll find a few answers. Just obscene how lazy people are when it comes to doing this. So that's number one. If you are going to put yourself out there, make sure you have listened to this person's show, make sure that you are really a good fit for what they want to do and make sure that you are reaching out appropriately. There's another example. I got pitched for one of my clients and like, this person would make a great guest on the show. And I wrote back, I was like, they don't take. Guests. If you listen to the show, it's always just the host. They do not interview other people. Why would you think that we would want you to be on the show? And it just blows my mind, especially when they start off line like, oh, just listen to your show. It's so good. No, you didn't. The new thing I've been getting is a lot of people who will write to target some of my clients and say, hey, host, the latest episode of blah, blah, Blah was amazing. It was so good. I already left the five star review.

Speaker 2 (27:26)

As if, like, they can coax me into taking their pitched guest for themselves because they left me a review. No, you're full of it. I don't care. So that's number one. Know who it is pitching, why you're pitching. Well, it's all part of the system.

Speaker 1 (27:42)

You could probably say you're at number ten, but technically, I take your head.

Speaker 2 (27:45)

That's true. The big heading here is don't just pitch yourself blindly to anybody hoping that you can throw s against the wall and see what sticks. It's not going to be a good look for you. Number two is when you get on the show itself, don't just pitch your book or don't just pitch your service. I have one client in particular who literally, every time you mention your book in your interview with this person, he deletes it. He's like, I will plug your book for you. I will put a link to it. I'm going to do all those things. But if you answer every question with, as I said in my book, or you know what, that's in our new book coming out on blah, blah, blah, I got it on Amazon, he's going to delete it every time. He doesn't want to feel like a shill for you and your products. He's brought you on because he thinks you are interesting. He thinks he could provide value. But he wants you to be human and really answer questions and have a good conversation. If all you're doing is pitching yourself, it's pretty obvious, it's pretty transparent what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (28:56)

The host is not going to like it. And truthfully, his audience, the guests are not going to like it either. So don't spoil that opportunity. Try and bring your best game. Try and bring a real relationship to the show. Because, one, if you do that, the host is going to have a lot more fun talking to you. They're probably going to do more to promote your episode if they have a good conversation with you. And you're probably going to do a better job of connecting to the audience. I can always tell when a host has really enjoyed a conversation because they wrap up with something like, man, I could talk to you for hours. We're definitely going to have you back on. Everybody listening. Do me a favor, go out and get this person. But right, like, they will sell it for you if you just show up and are a good guest. Don't just be there to pitch yourself. Don't be there for those selfish reasons. You will enjoy the benefits of those selfish goals if you are not selfish in your appearance.

Speaker 1 (30:05)

And I experience the exact same thing, and I would solidify everything you said, and I would maybe my mind works. If I feel you're in a book machine mode and you're using me to sell your book, you're out because you can almost feel it in the description. They have the big long pages of the description. And for me, for that podcast, it was always blatantly obvious. I would read their bio and I'm like, I don't even know if he's a dad. I'd reply back, Is he a dad? And they're like, oh, yeah. I'm like, maybe you should spend 10 seconds doing that. Like, just paying attention to what I actually do and tell me and pitch his story. How many kids does he have? Does he have any struggle? Like one time it's almost difficult to completely blanket everybody because one person I was like, you know what? I'm just going to reply back is he a dad? And he had this amazing story. His wife survived cancer, he transitioned and had a bunch of deployments. And it was just like, that's a really good story. Run with that in your pitch. Don't give me this blanket crap about your book.

Speaker 1 (31:10)

Because the first rule of writing a book is no one really cares about your book. I mean, people do care about your book, but in general, people don't care that you wrote a book and using that to just inflate your ego and saying, like, I'm amazing. Pay attention to me on a billboard. I'm not.

Speaker 2 (31:26)

Most of the time when people write a book either, the audience already knows they want to buy it before it came out, right? Because Stephen King writes a book. People want to buy the book because Stephen King has shown that he can write good books and tell good stories. And it makes sense you want to get a Dan Brown book as well.

Speaker 1 (31:47)

Like the same category.

Speaker 2 (31:48)

Dan Brown. Right, whatever. There's lots of lots of offers like that. But for a lot of people who write books, it's rarely ever really about sales. Most authors are not going to get rich off their book. They are not going to make bank off their book. They are not going to retire off book sales. What they are going to be able to do is when they are introducing themselves as a TV personality, as a podcast guest, as someone who is applying for a job or somebody who's going to work with a client or something like that, what they're going to get out of it, most likely, is the cachet of being able to say, I'm an author. It's like an honorary thing. It's like a title, right? If you can't be a doctor, be an author. If you can't be a lawyer, be an author.

Speaker 1 (32:42)

Being able to be an Amazon bestseller.

Speaker 2 (32:48)

Right, it is a good thing to put in your email signature or any other thing on your business card that says author. It gives you this air of credibility. But don't pretend like you're going to sell a million copies and wind up on the New York Times bestsellers list because you know how many books come out every day? I don't know the answer.

Speaker 1 (33:10)

If not, it's like thousands of numbers.

Speaker 2 (33:13)

Thousands every day. Thousands and thousands and thousands of books come out every single day. And of those thousands, 99, 9% are never going to crack into any sort of best ranking. They're just not. There's too many books out there. Get over yourself. Okay? So if you want to build up your cachet and you want to use your title as being an author to do so, great. Don't sell the book. Let them call you an author. And automatically it gives you an air of authority because you have enough knowledge that you were able to fill a.

Speaker 1 (33:51)

Book and show yourself as a human being. And maybe we have a conversation and I'll love what you put in the book and maybe I'll be inspired to read it. And it's a very simple process of showing up as a human being versus something that I should read on a billboard or a bus bench.

Speaker 2 (34:05)

And of course, don't be wrong, there are plenty of podcasts that are specifically designed to help people sell books and to promote books and flush out what are good books and what our bad books. But most of the time you are probably paying to be on those shows. And again, it's still not going to be the panacea of book sales that's going to all of a sudden turn you into somebody who can retire in the Caribbean off your book sales. Probably not going to happen to the people who we're talking to. Mostly they are businesses, right? So it's cool. Do I want to work with you? Oh, you're an author. Maybe I do, right? It just gives you that extra bit of authority. So take advantage of that. Don't sit there actually trying to make your $0.12 off every book you're going to sell. It's not going to do much for you.

Speaker 1 (34:54)

Yeah, especially if you had a publisher do it, then you're even making less and you went to self publishing route. Well, I think we wrapped up this idea of guessing. Hopefully everybody feels inspired to go on people's podcasts because it is the largest ROI that you can get and the easiest way you can get listeners is to go again where they are converted. I am going to be selfish, as I have to have with this question at the end of our episode, take our riff on podcasting interviews and up it a little bit that one thing that always gets in my head. So I was recently asked to pitch for a major podcast, millions of downloads for Father's Day and I ghosted it because I got really nervous that I was going to mess up the pitch and I had no idea how to pitch properly to a larger podcast and I got my own head. So what advice do you have when you are shooting for the moon? And in this case, the door was kind of already open but not really sure how to structure a pitch that's worthy of someone. It was almost like because they're at a million downloads, my mind was like, well, their pitches must be really good and I must have to have a really good pitch and I don't have a lot of practice pitching like to high professional people and I just got my own head.

Speaker 1 (36:09)

So I'm wondering if anybody else out there like me that struggles a pitch to the higher ones, even if they have maybe a yellow road all the way there, what does that look like? Or what advice or is it I mean, coach me, what do I need to know about going higher when it comes to pitching to those people that are on the big time podcast list that you want to try to get? Like, what is those pitches look like? Is it a video? Is it an email? Is it a message?

Speaker 2 (36:37)

I'm going to be honest, I am not the best at pitching myself.

Speaker 1 (36:42)

So we're both by each other.

Speaker 2 (36:45)

Yeah, no, the truth is I don't really do it a lot. Honestly. Most of the time when I get to be a guest on other podcasts, it's because somebody has reached out to me, right, because I've got some brand recognition or I've answered a bunch of questions in the Facebook group and somebody's like, oh, this person actually knows what they're talking about. Or it's people who I already know, who know that I have some expertise in this space. It is rare that I am out here trying to pitch myself to be on a bunch of other podcasts. Now that said, being on the other side, the person who received pitches both in this role where I'm mostly deflecting pitches because I have no interest in them, but even before this when I worked in News, my job was to sort through a lot of pitches. And so what I can tell you is a few things. One, if you are really going after pie in the sky type of people, right, if you are pitching yourself to someone that you really have no business being on their show yet, you don't have the audience, whatever, the first thing you probably need to do is you need to start building a relationship with those people because it's going to be pretty right.

Speaker 2 (38:04)

Like start by connecting with that person on social media and not by pitching yourself on social media. Just communicate with them, ask questions, make suggestions, offer opinions, be a part of the conversation that they are having and show that even though you are not super popular famous person, you have an interesting perspective and you can be respectful and thoughtful in the way that you are going to communicate with this person. That would be the first thing I'd do. And that can even be true if you are emailing them. Not even going on social media and just saying, hey, so and so, I listened to your latest episode, just wanted to say I really enjoyed it. One thing I was wondering if you thought about this. I've seen in many cases, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? I'm not criticizing the person. I'm not insisting that I'd be a guest on the show. I'm simply asking a question in a respectful way that maybe is going to provide a unique perspective or a unique angle that this person hadn't thought of. And they might go interesting. Now, that's not a guarantee that they're going to ask you to be a guest to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (39:15)

But if nothing else, they're going to say, man, this person had an interesting thought and they ran with us. Now the next time you email, you do it again, they're going to say, maybe this person's onto something. Maybe they do need to be a guest. So that's one thing, right? Start to build a relationship with people and open that door before anything else. This is true, by the way, when I worked with PR professionals. Now in the podcasting world, it doesn't happen as often for me, but when I worked in media, PR, people would often reach out to me and say, hey, I'm not pitching anybody today. I just want to understand. We listen to your show, we like it. What are the type of guests that you were looking for? Or what is the best way to put our people in front of you? And by taking the time to ask me that question, it showed that they are actually going to be respectful of what my needs are. And so I would turn to them and say, hey, thank you, nice to meet you. Thank you for asking this question. Here's what we are often looking for, right?

Speaker 2 (40:19)

We're looking for people who can react to stories of the day, usually at short notice, who are not necessarily selling something, and who maybe have an interesting authority on these various topics. The person would say, great, just so you know, here's some people who I do represent. I don't know if you need any of them today, but just keep us in mind in the future. And I would, I would put that email, I would store it over here and I would think, oh, there's a big story today. Who am I going to talk to? I'd look at the email. Anybody over here? There's this person and I'd reach out and say, hey, we're doing a story on this. Could so and so chat? And if they could produce that person in a timely manner and the person showed up, was respectful and a good connection, all those different things, then, yeah, I'm going back to this PR person for my next guest because they showed me that they can help me do my job. That is true of podcasting guests as well, right? Maybe you don't have a list of people who you could talk about.

Speaker 2 (41:15)

But just the fact that maybe you show up with a microphone. A strong internet connection. A willingness to record your audio locally and send it to the podcast. The staff to be like. Hey. Listen. I know we're doing this over zoom. But if you want. I'll record my audio and send it to you so you have a high quality copy me. As a producer, I love it when a guest sends us their locally recorded audio. When it's done correctly with a good microphone and headphones, nothing makes me happier than having that source. So it's good to not to know how to be a professional and what these people need and ask them ask them what it is that they're looking for and be prepared to provide that when the time comes. What drove me crazy was the person who would say, hey, I saw you're doing a story on whatever today. Do you want to talk to so and so? You know what? Actually, yes. That sounds like a great gift. I'd love to talk to so and so today. Can you get them? And then I get an email back in 20 minutes to be like, oh, they're not available.

Speaker 2 (42:15)

All right, what was the point of you emailing me then? Right? Like, that kind of frustration is not going to help. Truthfully, it all comes down to relationships. You have to build a relationship with the people who you are contacting with the host, whoever, and show that what you are providing is value for the show and the audience, not just for yourself.

Speaker 1 (42:37)

The end of the day, you reminded me of I think it's Seth Golden that does all this, but it's like permission marketing. It's like, before I send you emails, I give you permission to send me an email. And it's the same kind of here. It's like I'm checking in. What kind of things can I send you? And you either give me permission or you're saying, thanks, but I don't like that kind of PR agency or those types of guests. I'm not interested, and they no longer have permission. And theoretically, if they're respectful, to go away. And you're inspiring that same kind of here is like going back to our deep dive. The pitching is don't just blast. Even as a professional speaker, I don't pitch myself as like, hey, this amazing person. My very first question to a cold person is, hey, who's responsible for booking speakers at your events? It's a very simple question and they usually tell me if it's them or if it's someone else, or they tell me to piss off. I get permission of what to do next. And it's not me. Like immediately sending them all this information. I had to learn it the hard way, but initially it's asking permission like, hey, who is the right person to communicate, how do I communicate?

Speaker 1 (43:44)

And who can we talk to.

Speaker 2 (43:48)

A man? I'll be honest, I am somewhat sure that one of the reasons I don't speak at one of the conferences is because I got on the wrong side of somebody who makes those decisions. Now, I didn't mean to do it. I didn't think I was particularly egregious or nasty or purposely hurtful. But I got on the wrong side of somebody and I'm pretty sure that has put me in a lower priority to speak at events than I would have otherwise because I have no problem speaking at any events. I've put on good performances. I'm often complemented or appraised for when I speak to a room. I don't sit there and sell anything. I talk. I answer questions. I'd like to think I'm a pretty good speaker, especially when it comes to the topic of podcasting. But I am constantly locked out of speaking opportunities at this one thing and I think it's because something happened and I can't undo it. So it just really goes to show you that it's not just about you being the best and the brightest and smartest and the coolest, the big book that you're willing to sell because, oh, you've got an Amazon book, a lot of people books.

Speaker 2 (45:03)

But it does matter that you've built a relationship with the people who you are potentially pitching or wanting to pitch too.

Speaker 1 (45:13)

Yeah, we're even. Very simple step. I'm always following people on LinkedIn, either before or after. Anytime I get a list of names or any type of breadcrumbs, I'm always checking on LinkedIn before I even have a chance. Like they'll theoretically see me there or see my feet or see what I'm talking about before I ever even send them an email as well. And you also inspired that, these ideas of relationships and also that the pitch as we were talking, essentially the one thing that kind of was coached into my mindset is one of the things that got in my head was it felt like Shark Tank. And if I didn't have Shark Tank type selling experience or pitching experience, I had no chance in getting these sharks to say yes. And podcasters are not sharks. If anything, they're the opposite of a shark. They're like a gentle shark that has no teeth. But there was that pitch. Whenever you think of pitch, you think of something as a pitch fest. I think culture as wise. We think of a shark tank. Like, you've got five people pitch your best effort and if they like or hate you and it's going to be based on your pitch and there's a science of pitching.

Speaker 1 (46:17)

And I pitched myself out before I even had a chance to throw the first inning.

Speaker 2 (46:22)

There you go.

Speaker 1 (46:23)

Well, that does it. I opened up my life and you opened up your life a little bit. We've dove it into a lot of different areas and hopefully inspired some action for podcasters that are maybe looking for a different way to market their podcast. Get out there and find other podcasts. A few guesting. One is pod match. There's guests, there's interview, valet. Those are the three primary big, like.

Speaker 2 (46:45)

I would say Interview Connections.

Speaker 1 (46:47)

Interview Connections. There's a lot of other ones that I've never heard of and I get pitched by these people. Those are the ones that maybe I would say a little sketchy, but overall, I would say those big ones are the ones to go look for as an easy way to get started here. But there's a lot easier than you think and a lot of people will say yes as long as you pass the crazy test and you look like an old person and you want to talk. So, Matthew, thank you for another great conversation. That'll do it for us. And I also wanted to remind people, going back a little bit, you want to check out the Town cast special that we did for this podcast about Matthew riffing on album of reasons why local podcasting is the best kind of podcast. Go check out episode 21. Matthew, that is it great to be here.