760 – Being pitiful doesn’t make you money: Tom talks Pitiful Podcast Pitches

Episode 760 – Pitiful Podcast Pitches
[00:00:08] 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 760 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about pitiful podcast pitches. I get pitches all the time to be on this top rated show and most are pitiful and hardly even get looked at. And it doesn't take much to turn this around and put yourself in a position where podcast hosts want you on their show. And that's what this episode is about. Hope you didn't miss Episode 759. That was best software and software as a service, a whole bunch of free programs. I think I counted 55 different programs for you that you can use that don't cost anything to help your business out. So check that out. Episode 759 When you want to listen to it back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash and then the episode number. That was 759 And also, if you like our training, I've got probably close to 400 training episodes that screwthecommute.com/training and of course you want to download our automation book. This is how I have the time to do all this stuff for you because of these automation techniques. So screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And then also follow me on TikTok at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire.

[00:01:46] All right, let's get to the main event. I'm sure I've fielded a couple thousand pitches to be on this show. I'd say over 90% of them either should never have been sent to me in the first place or were so pitiful or boring they immediately got dismissed before I even read a sentence or two. I've gotten to the point if I recognize the agency who's sending the pitch, I don't even open it because I know it's going to be worthless for me to do so. Here's an example and I even told this agency to only send me pitches on certain things. Did they listen? No, they didn't. So I never open their emails anymore. I know the owner, so I have an unsubscribe to make them feel bad. But unless they do something enormously changing their system, I won't be opening any of their pitches any time soon. Now, let me tell you a couple of things wrong with their pitches, which these things apply to all pitches, whether you're using an agency or not. First, they send me pitches about people who are clearly wrong for my show. I'm going to give you an example of each mistake and why it's a mistake so you don't waste your time and look like a fool by doing the same mistake. Now, my show is clearly about entrepreneurship and small business. I get pitches where the guest that's the guest that's either pitching themselves or an agency is pitching them, makes a big deal. How the person was a big time CEO or CFO for a Fortune 100 companies for the past 25 years.

[00:03:32] Does this get deleted? Yes, instantly. I like to say, frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn about your 25 years kissing butt up in the corporate offices. All right? That person is most likely clueless of the troubles you face in a very small business. Now, the only way I would have them on is if their topic was to teach tiny businesses how to get contracts from big corporations. Now, that would make sense. Another mistake is trying to make me read an entire book about the potential guest. All right. Mean each pitch. This agency makes would be 2 or 3 pages of small print about their guest. Guess what? I'm not interested that that guest got a, I don't know, fire making badge in Cub Scouts. All right. I might be interested in that after the guest was booked for something that was going to be well received by you, my listeners. But if you expect me to read several pages about you before you have even garnered any interest, you're you're wasting your time and making yourself look foolish. Now let's go back to this pitching the wrong show topic. When you pitch the wrong show, either yourself or through an agency, you are clearly, clearly telling the host that you don't do your homework and you can't be trusted to give their audience something of interest.

[00:05:10] You just want to get your name out there and you don't care about the show or the show. Host. If I get that pitch from some big shot CEO from a big corporation that probably was just a good ass kisser to rise to that position, I'm not going to put him or her in front of my audience. Who expects good entrepreneurial tips. So you've got to do your homework and only pitch the shows where you exactly align with what the show is about. You are literally just pissing in the wind. If you just send a generic pitch to hundreds of shows, many of the people out there are sending generic pitches to to actually thousands of shows. And what do you think their conversion percentage is? In other words, how many shows do they actually get by doing that? Well, not very many. Now, if you skip your homework step, this is what I'm talking about. Most of your pitches will never be seen. And if seen, you'll start getting the reputation of being clueless. Well, guess what? I don't want that kind of reputation. And you don't either. Now, another thing that drives me crazy is boring pitches. You have to understand that competition is fierce to get on the best shows. If you ever get word that this show has ended because I committed suicide, right, it's most likely I got another pitch saying Joe Schmo has a unique leadership style and will inspire your guests to greatness or some shit like that.

[00:06:51] You have to stand out. Yeah, you might be in the leadership field, but you better not say the same stuff in your pitches as everyone else does. Or hosts like me will just glaze over and delete your pitch faster than I don't know. An inflation rises when dipshits run the country. All right. So so I get here's another thing. I get pitches from some accomplished online marketers. They really made a lot of money, but I hear the same stuff over and over again. Like Sally shows small business owners how to make their e-commerce operations more prominent profitable. I mean, can you can you hear me snoring out there? You got to come up with some catchphrases that are catchy. That's how they got the name catchphrase, I guess. They got to be catchy. Now, when I was doing more pitching about online stuff, I had to catch phrases I would hit people with right off the bat. Here's mine. I teach people how to make their websites, make money instead of eat money. This is catchy and it reflects the frustration many small business owners feel about their websites. If I was speaking to real estate agents and brokers, my catch phrase was how to make the sale when you just backed over the mailbox.

[00:08:19] Again, reflecting something that really pushes their buttons. Their frustration of driving around people and the kids are making noise and the parents are lying that they're the only agent they're using and all that stuff. Now, my best one that I still use to this day is I couldn't stop the money coming into my checking account if I tried. Couldn't stop it. And this basically talks about residual income, but it's put in a way that grabs you by the throat. And the host thinks, I got to have this guy on. So work like crazy on some catchphrases that take you from the ordinary guest on your topic to the extraordinary guest on your topic. Okay, now let's talk about some other things that will up your percentage of bookings that you get. Prove that you've listened to several episodes and do it fast. Prove it fast in your pitch. I get people faking that like they listen to episodes or just giving a disingenuous comment like, Oh, I love your show, Or someone will even say, Well, I love the name of your show. Well, how fake is that? The same line could be put in a pitch. They copied and pasted the thousands of people. So name an episode or guest that I've had on or whoever the show is and tell something you learned or really liked.

[00:09:51] And here's the real top tip from the middle or end of the show. If it was something the guest said right in the beginning of the show or could be gleaned from my introduction of them. Well, I know you didn't listen to the show. You're talking to somebody that's heard, you know, tons of pitches. You know, you can't put them over on me. And all the top hosts are like that. Then immediately tell me, because it was so great that what you learned or heard from the show, you left a review on Apple. See, both of these things will pretty much guarantee I will look at the rest of your pitch. It doesn't mean I'll book you, because if you immediately go into your corporate crap that proved that you're not right for the show, well, that's the end of it. So again, of course, you've got to make sure you're pitching the right show next, if possible. Give me a topic I haven't heard before or a clearly different spin on a common topic. An example of this is I'm going to book a guy who has a really great course on renting your home out for film, video and commercial shoots. I haven't heard that topic and it sounded to me like you needed to live in New York or LA to make this work.

[00:11:09] So he gave me a copy of the course and I went through it and I could see how this could work anywhere because commercials are shot all over the country. So he'll be booked on the podcast very shortly. Unique topic. Now, if you have a common topic, think up a different spin and catchphrase. Let's say you're one of those gazillion leadership speakers out there. How about this to get on my show, the ten leadership things you're messing up so that the team makes fun of you in the bathroom. Okay. You see, something like that would grab me. Now, this next one is kind of, quote, ballsy. Yep. Literally ballsy. It might be too too much for you, but let me tell you the results. So I was looking for a network guy and I'm talking about computer networks. And his catch phrase was, this cracks me up. If I can't fix your network problem in 30 minutes or less, you can kick me in the balls. I kid you not. That was 13 years ago and I'm still friends with him today. And he's the first person I call when I have a network problem. All right. And yeah, I get it. This may be that one might be too over the top for you or your business and personality. But the point is, you better do something catchy if you want to get on shows.

[00:12:38] Another unique pitch I got was from an 84 and 84 year old guy talking about the sex business he started. And it was totally legit. I mean, he's talking about how elderly people can keep the spice in their relationships and all this stuff, but I couldn't get him booked fast enough because I thought he might die before I got him recorded. Okay. Now here's a pitch that just came in yesterday and it doesn't have a chance in hell of getting on my show. And I won't say the person's name, but I'm sure they're a wonderful person do and try to do nice work. But the pitch started this way. I'll call the person, Sally, let's say. Sally will teach your audience how to tap their inner wisdom and divination. I'm like, What in the hell does that even mean? That's not my kind of show. This show is always almost non woo woo unique business type things or practical business tips for online selling or something related to entrepreneurship and small business. She can take her divination elsewhere, whatever the heck that is. It's just it was ridiculous. So be catchy with your pitches. Pitch the right shows and do your homework so you can be in front of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people with who never heard of you before with warm introductions from hosts that they trust.

[00:14:21] Now I've got a new course on this. There's only four slots left and it's all one on one. So I gave the first ten people get the introductory price and it's screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest because besides what I just told you, there's like 100 other things that you can do to put yourself at the top of the heap when a host is deciding who to have on. It's not just what you do while you're on the interview, although that is a part of the course also. And you get a feature here on Screw the Commute. Now, if you're not right for our audience, we'll make you a special feature and you can use it for your promotional things and all that. So that's it. screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest. And then of course if you want my entire shebang the longest running, most unique, most successful internet and digital mentor program ever and I triple dog dare anybody to challenge me on that check out great Internet marketing training.com and of course all this other stuff is free. The course on podcasts being a great guest is free if you're in my mentor program. All right that's my story. I'm sticking to it. Go out there, be catchy and exciting and let's hear you on a lot of podcasts. I'll catch you later.