567 – Be a guest the right way: Tom talks Podcast Guesting

Episode 567 – Podcast Guesting
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode five hundred and sixty seven of screw the commute podcast. O.M.G. I hope I can get through this, and it's a good thing that I'm a fairly decent audio editor because the neighbors just brought me over dinner of chili and cheese rolls. Oh, my goodness, was it good? I was like, Oh, I was too too full to even talk on this podcast, and I'm going to try to fight through it for you. And if you hear any pauses, well, I edited out some, you know, noises either belches or, you know what else. So anyway, this speaker, the podcast this episode is about doing podcast interviews, also known as podcast guesting. There's all kinds of benefits to this more than you would think, and I'll go over them in a minute. But I hope you didn't miss episode 566. That was ask me a product development question, and I've been a product machine ever since Dottie Walters back in early nine. Like 1991, I was actually creating products before I met her, but she told me, Tom, you got to become a product machine because there's no downside to it. You can sell stuff over and over and over and over again and it gets you. You know, I'm going to go over the benefits anyway of podcast guesting, which will help you sell more products and services and everything, but but yeah, I'm a product machine. And so that's what we talked some of the questions I get on episode 566. Now I'm going to highly suggest if you're interested in this topic, that you also listen to episode 211. That's an always you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, the episode number so that is 211. That's how to be a great podcast guest, and I emphasize the word great. I'm not saying an OK guest. Maybe get some bookings, a good guest. I'm saying a great guest. And when you're a great guest, you get invited back all the time. And if you have a podcast or if you're thinking about starting one at the end of this episode, I'm going to have a super technique that got me invited to the White House and got me a speaking engagement that I never would have gotten any other way just because I was a podcast host. All right, let's get into some of the benefits of podcast guesting. Well, one of the things is you can reach all kinds of people that never heard of you and with a warm introduction because the people figure well, the podcast host wouldn't have you on if you weren't somebody. So you get introduced to all kinds of people that way. Now you can also build your database this way so you can offer like I offer my automate free automation book not only on this podcast, but on other podcasts that that I'm interviewed on.

[00:03:36] And so I get tons of new subscribers all the time. And then you also get I sometimes people will and won't let you do this, but you can embed your interviews on your website where people listen to them and that increases your your state time, your time on site, which the search engines think, wow, it must be a pretty good site if people are staying so long. So that's another benefit of it. And you can get back links from the show notes of all these other podcasts you've been on. Now I did a whole episode on the power of back links. If you were going to bother doing anything other than the, you know, I want you to do the basics of SEO, and I have episodes on that too. But if you're going to do anything above the basics, the the biggest payback would be backlinks. And so when you are in the show notes and a link to your website from the show notes of all these other sites around the world that makes your site look way better to the search engines. And also, it's way easier and more fun to to do a podcast interview than write a really in-depth blog posting or social media post. So it's, you know, I take all the interviews I can get because I love sitting there.

[00:05:01] I hate thinking up an idea and then having to really write it out carefully and everything. So I mean, I do it for my books. But but to crank that stuff out over and over, you know, just to keep the social media happy and the search engines happy, it's just too boring for me. But I love to get on here and ham it up and and be a great podcast guest. I've been invited back some on one show, 13 times I've been on. Oh, something just happened this week. I got an email from Jld. That's John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire. One of. No doubt that one of the best entrepreneur podcasts in the world and I've been on there twice. Hardly anybody is on twice, and I just got noticed that he's making one of my episodes in his classics edition. In other words, some of the best interviews that's been on there. He's rolling it out as a classic, and I think it's coming out next week. So that's, you know, again, I'm going to be in front of another, I don't know, a million people next week again just for doing two great interviews for him in the past, say. And also, I might add, as part of being a great podcast guest, he made money off of me because when people signed up for my mentor program, he got a commission from it. See? So if you can let the host know that they can make money because of your appearance? Of course, you have to have an affiliate program.

[00:06:30] You get kick start cart and me and Larry, I'll show you how to use it. And then you'll be able to to put yourself at the top of the pile because if they can make money, because of your appearance, you are more attractive. You know, there's lots of people trying to get these spots on podcasts, so you'll be more attractive to them. And you can generate targeted traffic to your website, the people that listen to you on a selected podcast that makes sense for what your topic is. And if they like you enough, they're going to come over and visit your website, which again pleases the search engines without you doing anything extra and without paying for SEO, say so. So there's just some. There's more more. Benefits than that, but that ought to whet your whistle. I'll throw in one more. A lot of times the host, if you're really great, we'll continue to be your affiliate and you make joint ventures and you become their affiliate. And you know, so you meet a lot of people this way. And I'll tell you what, during the pandemic, a lot of high end authors and speakers were sitting home and thrilled to death to do your podcast. You know, I don't think they even vetted them that much. They just wanted to have something to do that would keep promoting themselves during the pandemic.

[00:07:52] So. So you've got a lot of potential out there for great guests if you have your own podcast. Ok, so let's get in, I think I got one two, three four ways that you can get yourself on podcast. One is just booking yourself. So all you have to do is Google, your topic and the word podcast. And then you'll come you'll see hundreds of things up there, some will be off topic, some will be right on topic. You know, I get asked to do a lot of podcasts that aren't directly about internet marketing and digital marketing and professional speaking and entrepreneurship. Those are my main things. But, you know, I've been around a long time, and so you've got to be able to expand your topic. This is part of being a great guest and fit the the profile of their audience and what they want to talk about and still get your promotional goals achieved. So of course, that takes experience and practice, but you can do it if you really pay attention to this. So anyway, you Google your topic and podcast and I mean, you can Google topics you're interested in or you think you could talk about, but don't don't book yourself on something that's totally off the wall. And I got to tell you, I get asked to to talk at some of these podcasts, and I I asked them back, I say, Are you sure you want me here? Because I have said this about your topic and I don't want you to be blindsided.

[00:09:34] You know, I don't want to be in a situation and make the host uncomfortable and and so forth. So. So one recently this happened and the one guy said, Oh yeah, as long as you know it's civil, I'll have, we'll have a nice debate. Yeah, that's great. That makes for great listening. But, you know, don't book yourself on something that's just makes no sense for you because a bomb will carry fast. You know, all this podcast host, many of us know each other and we'll say, No, no, don't have that person because they they stunk. So be careful about that. Now, if you're going to book yourself, I would start building a guest appearance page on your website. And I mean, if you've only if you had no appearances, there's nothing to put on it. So I wouldn't brag about it at this point. But every time you land a deal or a podcast interview, you put it up there. And as it builds up, then they become easier because when people say, Well, have you been on any other podcast and said, Yeah, well, here's I don't know a couple of hundred of them right here. And and I've done long before this, I've done over a thousand of them. So and that included radio interviews and TV interviews. But but there was no doubt to the people that I was competent enough to be on their podcast so you can take a look at my page and just start one for yourself.

[00:10:59] It's screwthecommute/recentappearances. And then I would also have a page specifically for podcast hosts to check out your topics and your credentials. You can look at mine at screwthecommute.com/podcasthosts. So that's the first thing is book yourself and yeah, it might be a little frustrating if you haven't been on any before, but make sure you start listening to podcasts and definitely even as many interviews as I've done. I always listen to a show that I'm going to be on at least one episode. Now, if many of the sites have it where you can speed it up, you know, because I don't necessarily want to hear their ads, I want to hear the the style of the interviewer. And maybe if it's a guess that interests me, then, but I'm still going sometimes up to double speed. So for a half hour show, it takes me 15 minutes and I still might be working on something else, but I want to know. And they have. Some of them have like a surprise segment at the end, and if I hadn't listened to one, I wouldn't be ready for that segment. So they might say, Well, we got the the the lightning fast round and whatever comes to your head, you know, and these questions know things like that. You should know the kinds of things you're going to get hit with so that you're ready for it.

[00:12:24] Say so. So those are booking yourself. Ok, now the next level. And it cost some are free and some have a paid part. But these are relatively cheap. The next thing I'm going to tell you about and these are podcast matching services. Usually it's a service that has both podcast hosts and podcast guests and then matches them up. And so the one that I use most is called Pod Match, and I have the paid version. I forget exactly what I get for the paid version, but they have a free version and a paid version, and I get lots of people off of there. I get lots of interviews and then I get lots of people wanting to be interviewed. Now I get so many that my response is, Hey, I'm unless it's a really unique, cool topic that I never heard of, or the idea is, is that I I send them an email saying I'm mostly booking reciprocal appearances, which means if they have a podcast, I'm on their podcast. If it makes sense again and then they're on my podcast. So that's the first thing I shoot for is then that gets me a appearance on somebody's podcast that I wouldn't have gotten. I wouldn't even have known about them, probably. And they aren't always the greatest, biggest venues. But when you have a product mix like I do, one person that hears me can spend up to fifty eight thousand dollars if in the long run, if they join my mentor program and pay all their commissions.

[00:14:13] You know, they made a couple of hundred grand and I got my fifty eight and everybody's happy say so. It only takes one person to do that. So. And I've been sitting home for two and a half years anyway. You know, so. So why not use that as a marketing tool? So that's part match and. Another one is I interviewed this guy as podcast guests. That's plural podcast guests. And he's got a service that it's a relatively inexpensive. You pay a little bit more and he has a feature, you know, features you and his weekly email, which is great. And so that's Andrew Solomon. I think his name is. And so that's a place that you can match yourself up with podcast and pitch yourself and put a profile up there and all that stuff. All right, now, there's another one, and they kind of got an old kind of website, but they've been around a long time and they're very inexpensive. It's called radio guest and you know, it covers podcasts too. So so those are three that you can use to list yourself. And if you happen to have your own podcast, you can find guests there also. So, so that's the next level. Ok, now the next level up from that. Is podcast agencies. Now I'm going to provide a link, and I've interviewed some of these people and they seem nice, but I've I I found an article by a ex federal agent who has a private investigation bureau, and everybody that works for him is either f ex FBI, DEA or some kind of law enforcement, federal law enforcement.

[00:16:07] And so he wrote a blog posting which I'm going to put the link in it in the show notes where he and his investigators and he he kind of bragged about the fact we know how to interview people. Right. So he called all up these podcast booking agencies and made a list of them and ask them what the deal was, and he tried to rate, which seemed to be the best one. And then they ponied up the money and they joined one of the what they felt was the best one. And it was, I think, fifteen hundred dollars a month for this particular one. And after two months, there is no bookings. And so they really pushed it, you know, since their ex feds, you know, and they got at least part of their money back. So he writes about this in this blog posting, I'll give you so he didn't have much good to say about these agencies, and there's things that they'll do, you know, if they know you're a newbie, they're going to. And part of it is like, Yeah, you need this stuff. But no, do you need to pay them to do it? You know, so they say, Oh, you got to have a one sheet and they want to charge you five hundred dollars or something to make a one page PDF file for you where you could go on.

[00:17:32] And and I think he alluded to the fact that or maybe there's another article where you know, they charge you that and then they go to fiber and have somebody make it for them, you know, for five bucks or 10 bucks. So his overall opinion was very poor against podcast agencies. Now. There's another link I'm going to give you on a blog post, and it it isn't plus or minus on any agencies. It's 10 agencies where they actually tell you the prices and the and the pluses in the minuses or the the. Probably the promotional material for each one of those agencies, I'm not sure if they're an affiliate or not for all of them, but. It's worth looking at to get an idea of how much these things cost, and then I was in a podcast mastermind and one of the guys there had paid eleven thousand dollars and was supposed to get 50 interviews. And I believe he got most of his money back. They didn't. The interviews didn't appear. And. The ones that they did pitch him for were pitiful shows, you know, we pay eleven thousand bucks, you should be getting top tier shows. So it was just a I don't want to say it was a scam.

[00:18:55] It was just they didn't have the ability to book you on top shows, but they had the ability to charge you top dollar, you know, so. So I would have, you know, I personally would avoid the agencies unless you're really, really flush with cash and you find one that actually gets your bookings. And I would be careful with the contract to make sure that they can do it. And and if they don't, you know that you get your money back and stuff like that, you know? So and then don't let them talk you into creating all this stuff now. Again, it's real that you should have a good quality sound if they book you on a talk show, you better sound good. But I'm just against charging you thousands and thousands of dollars just for that one little thing to help you sound good, you know, because I can teach you that and I got episodes here for free. That'll teach teach you that. Yeah, I don't know if they they sell the equipment or whatever, but but certainly making a one sheet is not worth fifteen hundred bucks in today's atmosphere. Okay, so that's podcast agencies, so, you know, they're probably not going to be too happy with me, but if they produce, then they're worth the money, but if they don't produce, that's that's not good. And from what that that investigator said it didn't look like, many of them were producing much of anything. Ok, now the there's one more I'm going to tell you about.

[00:20:23] And that's to attend podcast events. And so I'm going to give you several of the big podcast events, at least here in the North America. There's other ones in Europe. One is PodFest, and that's PodFestExpo.com. I'm going to have all these in the show notes. Another one is podcast movement. Dot com, another one is podcast show London. I guess there's Europe. And then we got podstock, like instead of Woodstock, PodStock.us. Those are all being the show notes. And so these are places that are going to have training sessions by top podcasters and tons of guests and tons of hosts, all, you know, interchanging and meeting each other and so forth. So now that would cost you money to attend whatever the fee is to attend and the hotel airfare and all that stuff. So I put it up here with the more expensive things, but whenever you're face to face with actual hosts, then you know you have a better chance of they'll remember you and if you follow up properly with them later. All right, now I want to give you a tip because lots of these podcast hosts are using online calendars like Calendar E and I don't know what the other ones are. I can tell you in the let's see. Over a thousand interviews I've done. In I don't know how many years the I think it was now the three of them that got messed up were using their online calendar.

[00:22:06] Ok. One of them, I think it was Kalinda. I booked it and right on the screen where you're clicking the date and everything, it says East Coast Time. And so great, that's my time zone. Wonderful. So I booked the whole thing, did all this prep work, did everything, all that. And I got after you submit it, you get this thing back in your email as a confirmation thing. And so it came back. And I mean, I just filled the thing out and it just came back, I knew it was there and I didn't, you know, have to to look at it so carefully, I thought. But it was in Pacific Coast time. Why? Who knows? Maybe that's where they are. But why would they send me a confirmation in somebody else's time zone? And it got screwed up, and that's happened to me at least three times. So probably the second two are my fault for not, you know, checking, triple checking and everything but. But, you know, I still use a paper calendar to book mine. So. So that's a tip. And then. Now, before I tell you about if you have a podcast, how I got invited to the White House and I got a speaking engagement, I just want to remind you about a couple of things. We have this really great program to help persons with disabilities get trained in internet and digital marketing.

[00:23:36] And one of the people, Charlie, who is legally blind. We get a notice that he's been in class, he's been missing class a little bit. And so I said, Charlie, you OK, what's up? And he emails me, Oh my God, I made a joint venture with somebody and they got this gorgeous website built and everything. So so I can't get mad at him. But I said, you know, you got to get through to the school because you'll learn a lot of stuff that'll help you with that new joint venture and the gorgeous website and all that stuff. So. So and like I said, he's one of the persons that are blind. There's another blind person, there's another school teacher that's got all kinds of physical mobility problems and so forth. So. So they're doing great. So we'd love to have your help at IMTCVA.org/disabilities. I know you can't remember that, so it'll be in the show notes, and we have a Go Fund Me campaign to help finance the training for all these folks and give them scholarships. All right, and the other thing is, my mentor program, it's the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. I triple dare anybody out there listening to put their program up against my line for line, and I've been saying that for years and nobody will do it because they're scared. They know my and when they hear all the things that might provide, you know, the way we operate it, the way my success is only big.

[00:25:08] And if your success is big and you know, the one on one training and the retreat center visit and the TV studio visit and all the one on one for a year, you know, so nobody can hold a candle to it. So check it out. A great internet marketing training. All right now, let me tell you about. How having a podcast, this is a super super trick that people just drooled over this in the master podcast mastermind when I told him about it. So I used to teach people to go to Facebook and find groups related to your topic or, you know, people that would be your potential customers and join the group. Be nice. Don't be too promotional. You'll get kicked out and make good comments. And and if you if you're lucky, somebody will go check your profile and maybe see what you do. You know, so that was the way it was. Well, no, I figured this out pretty quick. If you have a podcast, you go directly to the admin of the Facebook group and offer to interview them, and then you do a great interview with them, make them look great. And guess where they're going to put that interview right in that group that they're the admin of. So now you're in front of everybody in the group and, you know, pretty much overnight. And what happened with me is, I, you know, my school has this scholarship program for military spouses, and I wanted to get in front of a lot of military people.

[00:26:43] So I interviewed a guy that's they have fifteen thousand members in this veteran group and we hit it off great because we both like guns. He's a Bronze Star winner and he's a tough guy and, you know, so it is awesome. And so he invited me to do some training for his group of veteran entrepreneurs. So I did a free series of things for them. And I'm, you know, I'm in front of fifteen thousand people in my target market, and one of the people that was in there was a female. Spouse of the year and an ex, Marine and her husband's a special forces, and so. She got in touch with me, and she said because of the military spouse angle, she said, well, the second lady from the last administration, Mrs. Pence. That's her platform, is military spouse employment. So she got me invited to the White House to speak to the office of the Second Lady on military spouse employment, what I could do for them. And she agreed to come to one of our events. And then the guy from the original group said, Hey, we got this big conference coming up in D.C. and you want to speak there? I said, absolutely. So I spoke to the veterans group and all of that happened within about a month of me interviewing him.

[00:28:15] So that's the tip that got me invited to the White House and got me a speaking engagement. And and and I'm still in touch with that group. I'm still. They made me an admin so they wouldn't have to bother when I go do a free training for the group and stuff, and I've got mentees out of it and all kinds of product sales and. And I just love helping the veterans because they get a 50 percent discount on everything along with first responders and nurses and things like that on my bigger stuff, my school and all that. So. So I love the fact that I can help them out. And but I got invited to the White House and I got a speaking engagement out of it just because I was a podcast host and I interviewed the admin of a group and there's tons and tons of groups on Facebook that you can probably hit up. That would your where your customers are. Ok, folks. So get out there and do that podcast guesting. Make sure you listen to episode 211 so you learn how to be a really great guest when you get on there. And let's see. Check out the impact of disabilities, help out those persons to get their scholarships and check out great internet marketing training. Hey, if you're in my mentor program, I will rock your world, folks. I promise you. Ok, that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you all in the next episode. See you later.