475 – Don’t let your pitches sound like Blah, Blah, Blah: Tom talks How to Pitch a Podcast

Episode 475 – Pitch Podcasts
[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 four hundred seventy five of Screw the commute Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about how you can pitch a podcast host or producer. Without using an agency plus, I'm going to give you my secret technique of having a podcast booking agency work for you for free, and I'm going to come through on that. Hope you didn't miss Episode 474. That was Jaryd Krause. He shows you how to buy an online business. This is an episode. We've never had that topic before. And it's very cool where you cannot start from scratch and buy something that's already existing. So check that out. Episode 474. And of course, when you want to get to a back episode, you always go to screw the commuter car slash and then the episode. No, no. How do you like me to send you big checks? Well, email me at Tom it screw the commute. Com If you'd like to be in our affiliate program, you can make lots of money. I'm always happy to send PayPal or cheques or however you want paid because you're referring customers to me and we appreciate it. And when you do it, you get keep getting paid for the same customer up to three years. All right. So it's very cool. Grab a copy of our automation ebook at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:01:52] If you wonder how with a small satellite staff, I can handle so many people and so many customers. This is how I do it. And you can do it too. We sell the book for 27 bucks, but it is free for listening to the show at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And of course all this stuff will be in the show notes. While you're over there, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. Now, I got to tell you, I mean, I usually tell you about my school at this point, but there's something way bigger going on with my school. And we are helping persons with disabilities get scholarships so that they can not only study legitimately from home, they can legitimately work from home. So it's a great program and I've got big ambitions for it after I prove the concept that we can get them hired or in their own business, then I took a grant writing course so I can go to big foundations and so forth and and get big money to roll this out really big and help lots of people. It's one of my legacy projects to really help change people's lives. But I need your help for this pilot project. So go to IMTCVA.org, that's my school websites, the only licensed dedicated Internet marketing school in the country, probably the world license to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia.

[00:03:25] So go to IMTCVA.org/disabilities and at the top of the page we have a crowdfunding campaign. Click on that and you'll see some of the people that are in the program, the program, see how it's going and anything you can do would help out. Please share the program so other people can see it and contribute. And I've got some cool prizes for you. I have a crowdfunding e-book and we're having a contest pretty soon with some really big prizes. So so please get involved. And it's something that you can really, really be proud of helping these folks.

[00:04:03] All right. Let's get to the main event. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of pitches to get on my podcast. And I got to tell you, many of them, I just zone over, I can't even read them, my eyes glaze over and all I see is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "I help small business people". And even worse than that is "I work with big companies". Well, that pretty much proves they're wrong for my show and they didn't do their homework. And then they have the gall to say that they're perfect for my show. They're idiots. Now, I actually bought the website domain name, highly educated idiots. I haven't decided what to do with it because there's so many of them out there. I mean, I've had pictures from massively big name people, mostly through their representatives, they told somebody, hey, go get me on podcast's, and they also didn't do their homework. Here's an example. I won't use the real name here, but. Here's the example from their representative, my X Y Z big shot, got the Fortune 100 award, it just made up that award. So you can't really find this person for excellence and taking Fortune 100 businesses up 20 percent consistently. OK, so so my listeners are really going to relate when I think about this, the 100th. Top 100 Fortune 100 companies, Wal-Mart's the first one, the 100th one is Coca-Cola, at least, you know, in recent years. That earned 32 billion dollars and has 63000 employees. Yeah, oh, yeah, this guy is really going to relate to to a small entrepreneur cup. Listening to my my podcast is holding off till next month to see how sales goes before they buy a new printer, you know, so so they're morons. I mean, they're highly educated idiots, but even the good ones, you know, that might be good for my show. Just don't stand out. You have to make yourself stand out. And and please don't tell me you invented a unique process to help small business. Everybody says that. And then I get you on the show and it's the same crap as everybody else is doing just under a supposedly cool name that you just made up. Right.

[00:06:44] And even if you did come up with a unique process, you have to pitch it in a way that grabs attention. I call it using superlatives, basically, you're you're doing a media hook, it's called when you're trying to pitch radio stations and everything, but podcasts are the same thing. You've got to hook the producer or the host to make them even want to look at your pitch. And. I'm not sure if what I'm going to tell you is the exact definition of superlative, but it's what I call it and it's I know it's close to what I'm going to tell you, and it works because I've been doing it for a long time. All right, so let's talk about superlatives. So tell me something that you're number one at. For instance, I was the first first first is the superlative right to show sales figures online. And then I go into a segment about how you can't trust that anymore and how people manipulate the figures or out and out fake them. But the hook was I was the first to do this. If it was a sports show or if I'm pitching how to make your hobbies tax deductible, I would say I have the dubious distinction of being the largest, largest as the superlative, the largest person ever to produce and star in a tennis training video. OK, that's a hook. And again, largess would be the superlative. And if you go to fatsotennis.com, you can see the trailer to the video where that I sell, where I'm playing tennis and eating pizza at the same time.

[00:08:33] All right, have you done something faster than any one else? Are you the youngest person to do something or the oldest person to do something? Those are all superlatives. Are you his first or last? Like like I was the last person to see Randy Hoffa alive. Oops. I mean, Jimmy Hoffa. And let's see who actually gets that joke, and yes, it was a joke, I don't want the FBI showing up at my door. Are you the biggest, the best, or did you get the highest score, so let's say you really didn't did not get the highest score ever on the SAT test. But maybe you got the highest score ever in the state of Pennsylvania or the western Pennsylvania region, that would grab attention. Now, if you want to be funny, you could say you got the highest score on the SAT in my cul de sac of old people who never took the right. I mean, funny things can can be hooks. Dumbest. So you can say I made the dumbest business mistake ever. That cost me four hundred thousand dollars again. Superlative. The meanest. You could say I'm the meanest boss ever in my employees love it. Many have been here more than 10 years. The slowest. I was the slowest kid ever and actually deemed retarded and now the valedictorian of my school works for me, something like that is a great hook.

[00:10:12] So you get the idea, superlatives help you to stand out. So use them and figure out several of them that you can use as hooks and they can change over time as you improve and do more things in life. Keep in mind superlatives. You want to be the first, the biggest, the best, the fastest, the big, you know, the slowest. Whatever it is, use them because they get good hooks. All right. Other pertinent credibility. You kind of want a bullet it and you got to make it easy for podcast host that see a lot of these pitches to stand out and and get hooked on you. And you may not have much when you start, but whatever you have, use it, but bulletins it. So it's easy to grab it like glance as part of glance about marketing. They can glance at it and see what you're all about in mine. I say Internet multimillionaire. I might mention, you know, I might say been on entrepreneur on fire twice, which is one of the top entrepreneurial podcasts in the world. Mentioned other great shows mentioned, I mentioned over a thousand interviews. I said I'm invited back often one show more than 13 times. I say pro speaker with 3000 speeches in 12 countries. I don't use all of these on one pitch. It depends on the show. You got to think what would make sense for them and to grab them.

[00:11:43] All right, the next concept is the Garnick principle that I've been teaching for years and years and years in my copywriting training at Copywriting901.com, you are crazy if you don't buy this program 297 bucks where I paid 4000 bucks plus had to fly to Texas for just a headline course. OK, this is an enormously comprehensive, comprehensive copywriting course. Go over and grab your copy and you'll thank me. I guarantee you, Bluma Zeigarnik was a Russian psychologist, psychiatrist who came up with the principle of the human mind that the human mind cannot stand unfulfilled. Curiosity. I teach just like crazy and subject lines of your emails and to get him opened and then in the body of the email to get the click through rate all these things. But very, very powerful technique. So these are part of your media hooks, and again, you're pitching podcasts for this episode, but it's a media hook, your you can use the same things for major radio, TV, whatever. So here's a bunch of mine, and I got way more than I'm going to tell you. But there's just I use them all the time. So the first one, I couldn't stop the money coming into my checking account if I tried. Well, people are thinking, well, how could that possibly be? They got to get you on the show to hear about it, how to make a 50000 dollar video about you and your company for only pennies on the dollar minds brought in 13 million dollars.

[00:13:27] Another one, how to make your hobbies tax deductible. I mentioned that one a little bit earlier. People want to know how how to write a mean, rotten ad that attracts the best employees. That's a great one. Here's a funny one that's I totally explain this on the interview, how used bras can make you two hundred thousand dollars per year. Another one, how used cell phones and doll heads can make you twenty thousand dollars a month? I have. Plausible explanations for all of this, see, that's part of it. You know, I have a bunch of these, but you got to come through on the interview with a plausible way to do what you hooked them with or your reputation and referrals to other podcast hosts will suffer. In other words, you lied to them, you hooked them and then disappointed them a couple more. Mine is how to make a fortune online with no website. How to create an online income generator in one hour or less people. How do you do that? How do you do that? Some of these are book titles also, and I sell the books so you can use them as media hooks and still sell books with them. The one sentence business plan. And then last one I got here for you is how does 20 dollars turn into twenty four thousand dollars per year? You know, so like I said, I have tons and tons of these, but they get me on podcasts, they get me on major media, TV shows, all this stuff.

[00:15:01] OK, now the next topic is you have to make a little bit of a commitment to, and that is if you have your own podcast, see having a podcast put you at the top of my list. As long as it makes sense for me to be on your show. See if you do have a podcast lead with an introduction that you trade appearance's. And that I've done so many reciprocal interviews now, you know, you do have to check the other person out to make sure they don't suck. So they sound bad on your show and you have to make sure that you're right for their show. I turned I. I kind of semi pitched one to a lady I was supposed to do a consultation for. And then after I did the consultation, I could see. I'm not right for her show and she's not right for my show, and she obviously agreed to so I said I forget that because, you know, the people on my show are not your kind of customer and your show people are not my kind of customers. So let's just drop that. And we're both happy by I mean, it made sense because we want our shows to stay quality. So make sure if you offer to trade appearances that it makes sense for both of you. Now. Don't think that you're too good for smaller or new shows.

[00:16:30] See if you have the right product mix and I have a podcasting course, too. That's also very inexpensive. Same price, in fact, as the copyrighting 297. But one person that listens to that show can still make you a lot of money if you have the right product mix and so forth, so it cracks me up when I'm at a speaking event and the diva rolls in with her entourage. And it's when I say divas could be male or female. And a blow in with their entourage, and they do their dog and pony show and they they tell you you got to buy now because they're due at the airport because they got to go somewhere more important than where they are right now. I see. I love that because I know I'm going to take home all the money the way I do it. And I teach you these techniques. Do I got so many courses after being in business for four years and doing all this stuff to high levels so I can teach you that in my how to sell at the back of the room course in my professional speaker mentor program and all that stuff. But I know I'm going to take home all the money when I see that and then I do. Anyway, most podcast hosts are really nice. I was going to say there are really great, but that's not true, they're nice, but they're not great.

[00:17:55] Many times I have to pretty much carry the entire interview because they have no interviewing skills. So that's where you got to get better at running their show for them without being a jerk about it. For instance, the host might ask me a stupid question and don't believe the old saying that there aren't any stupid questions. There are plenty of stupid questions floating around in the world that that must be why the price of them is so low, because there's tons of inventory and no demand. OK, so I get ask a stupid question and I might say, yes, that's an important part of whatever ABC. But first, I want to tell you about X Y Z. And many media trainers, which I also trained media for you to have had some of the best people in the world, Joel Roberts and Starlee Murray train me, so many media trainers will tell you to answer the question you wish they would have ask. So I do that all the time. Now, if it's a great answer and it's interesting and with me it's always fun. No host is going to complain about it. They're going to be secretly thankful that you carried and made a great show because they probably know that they don't have the skills. Now back to having your own podcast. Well, this gives you a massive leverage to get on shows, see podcast hosts, know the value of being on podcast.

[00:19:31] So an opportunity for them to be on another show than their own show. And when you drop it right in their lap, it gets attention. That's why I put it right at the top. Some if it's an email, I put it in the subject line. And also, unless they are a total dud who just tries to do their podcast off their cell phone, you can pretty much be sure they know how to get on technology wise and probably sound pretty good. Now, that's not always the case. And and I recently had an episode where this guy had a really cool and unique story, but he lived out in the boondocks where Internet coverage was terrible. I had to spend hours doing the best I could to edit that episode that he was on. But generally, podcast hosts have pretty good sound quality that you should also have a Web page or more than one Web page a host can check out before they respond to you. And you put the link in the email or however your contact. Now, we all get pitched so much that we don't necessarily want to actually talk to you before we do a little more research about you. So you got to make it easy for them. Now, I have two pages will have it in the show notes, screwthecommute.com/podcasthosts and screwthecommute.com/recentappearances. I also have an episode. I'll get, you know, Larry to put it in the show notes. I can't think of the number right this moment, but it's how to be a great podcast guest. See this episode about how to pitch to get on the show. And then that other episode is how to be great all around before the show, during the show and after the show. So make sure you check that out in the show. Not. And I tell them they can make money from my appearance with my affiliate program, and I make it clear that I'm not obnoxious and will not hard sell their audience, but that gets attention when they can make money because all these podcast people want to make money and they're all trying to chase sponsors. But I've spent I've said thousands of dollars. The podcast host far more than they'll get for sponsors in years. Probably so. So that can help if you have an affiliate program in the right product mix. OK, now is the time I'm going to tell you the super cool. Technique to get expensive podcasts, booking agencies to work for you for free if you have your own podcast. So I have like a boilerplate little thing that I cut and paste. If podcast agency Booksmith or tries to book one of their guests, I get these every day, all day long, where a booking agency says, Oh, we love your show, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we got this person, blah, blah, blah. And so I just immediately send them an email back that says.

[00:22:38] About I'm currently only doing reciprocal bookings, so if it makes sense for your guest and myself or maybe one of your other clients. Then we can make a deal, and you're welcome to send anybody to pitch anybody that has their own podcast. So. So he's booking agencies get paid. Some of them are very expensive. I heard one guy say he paid eleven thousand dollars for 20 bookings and they don't even. And I said, well, they guarantee the quality of the booking. He said, no. So you can be on any podunk show on Earth. And they paid him eleven thousand dollars, so. These are very expensive, some of these agencies, so getting them to work for you for free is great. But anyway, from the agency point of view, they're desperate to get these bookings for their clients so that they don't get refund request. So there's been many occasions where even the guests that they're pitching didn't have a podcast, but some other guest that or some other client of theirs does, and we were a good fit. So they got me on that show in exchange for getting the one person on my show. So this is so cool. I've told I believe I invented this idea. Nobody has ever said they came up with this before me. And I've had very high level podcasters like gushing over the idea and starting to use it after I told them about it.

[00:24:15] So there you go. All right. Now, make sure you listen to at least some of a bit of a show before you pitch it. I somehow got referred to a show. I can't remember the name, but the host was an egotistical asshole. And he wanted me to do an hour long pre interview, a guy that's done was doing interviews around the world when this jerk was in diapers, you know, and he wants me to waste an hour on a pre-interview. I mean, he was really an anal guy as anal as they come, a total egomaniac for his pretty much worthless show. And and even before the interview, he called up and canceled me for an entrepreneurial show. The idiot never had a job. An entrepreneur my entire life. Bit odd thousand shows around the world then three thousand speeches. And I'm not good enough for this jerk show. But anyway, either he didn't do his homework about me or he did do his homework and knew I would be the star and he would look terrible. And I'm not saying that out of arrogance, it's just that when, you know, you've done as much as I have and I could have done the show in my sleep and and killed it like I do all the time, you know, it was just ridiculous. But I'm glad I didn't do the show because I certainly didn't want him on my show after I listened to a little bit of him.

[00:25:51] He's just an anal idiot egomaniac, so. You know, I got to tell you, if you listen to his show and don't like the way the host acts, don't pitch it. It will not go well, even if you do get on their show. All right, so I'm going to do a recap here for you of the the items that you need to do, but before that, I just want to remind you about the program I'm doing for persons with disabilities. You really can do something great in your life. I kind of equate it to getting your name on the side of a library or or a plaque at a park that you helped build, you know, because you're just going to help change the lives of people that got dealt a hand that was much, much tougher than most of us put it that way. So check it out at IMTCVA.org/disabilities and at the top click on the Ghofran Fund me go fund me campaign. I don't know why I was going to say, go friend me, go fund me, and you'll see some of the people in the program. We put updates there and you get perks. You get my crowd funding 27. Well, it's a 47 dollar book. I said 27 because we did prepublication sales at 27. But it's a 47 dollar ebook on how you can have money coming in and about 30 days that you don't have to pay back.

[00:27:17] So it's rolled out now at 47 bucks. So if you contribute at least 47 bucks and then you email me, you get the book. So you're helping them out and then you get a book that can help change the course of your business and your life. How about that? So check it out at IMTCVA.org/disabilities and then click on the Go Fund Me campaign and then email me with your after you contribute and I'll send you the ebook right away. All right, to recap. Make sure that the show is right for you, that you can do something great for their audience, use superlatives, list other pertinent credibility, but bulletins it, you don't want to send a whole book. When I get these long pitches, I can't read them. Use the Zeigarnik Principle for media hooks, start your own podcast, and I got a course on that, I got a course on the copywriting. If you call me up, I'll give you a deal if you buy both of. And then listen, before you pitch and you could get on tons of podcast and be in front of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that never heard of you. So give it a blast. And hey, pitch me if you got the guts and let's see how it goes. I'll critique it for you if I turn you down. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.

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