How to be a Great Podcast Guest

Kathy (host):  

Well, hello there and welcome back to another episode of “Help My Business Is Growing,” a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina, a fractional CFO and founder of Newcastle Finance, a company that believes everything you do in your business will eventually end up in your finances. To achieve healthy finances, you need a healthy business. So, how do you get there? This is where this podcast comes in to help.

Kathy (host):  

In recent years, podcasts have exploded in popularity, and businesses now recognize their power as a business development tool. However, simply using a podcast to raise awareness and reach a target audience may not be enough to leverage its full potential. And this is where guest podcasting comes in. Guest podcasting is a powerful strategy for expanding your network, sharing your expertise, and connecting with an even wider community and audience. But you know, it’s very hard to know where to start. How do you choose the right show to guest on? Which guests should you invite to your podcast? How do you prepare for these types of conversations? And even once you’re there, how do you make the most of your time and create valuable content that will resonate with this audience?

Kathy (host):

As a quick reminder, all the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for all the topics we discussed, and each one has its own blog posts as well. You can find all the links and related topics in this episode’s show notes. My guest today is Tom Schwab. He is an entrepreneur, author, podcast interview marketing pioneer, and founder of a company called Interview Bali. Tom believes that the best things in life come from conversations. It’s these powerful, sometimes awkward conversations that propel us from where we are personally and professionally to where we dream of being. As a small business owner and entrepreneur, he understands the unique challenges of business owners. This led him to be an early pioneer in using inbound marketing for e-commerce and targeted podcast interviews for marketing that connects.

Kathy (host):

Tom is the author of two books. The first one is called “Podcast as Profits: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy,” known as the Bible of podcast guesting. And the second one is called “One Conversation Away: Manifesto for a Rich Life and a Profitable Business.” Join us.

Kathy (host):  

Tom, welcome to the show.

Tom (guest):  

Kathy, I’m thrilled to be here.

Kathy (host):  

I’m super thrilled you’re here because we’re going to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and that is guest podcasting and using that as a form of business development. It’s something that I use in my business, and I really enjoy it. It’s also how this podcast started. To put it simply, I went on a couple of podcasts as a guest and realized that I really like the medium. It’s a great medium to create content because it’s useful for my audience, and it’s a great form of networking. You can repurpose it. It gives you the ability to create authority all around. It’s a gift that keeps on giving to everyone, the guests, the hosts, and the audience. And as great as this is, there’s also the right way and the wrong way to do it. But we’ll get into that a little bit later. But I’m curious, how did you fall into this podcasting world?

Tom (guest):  

Well, to me, everything in life is evolution, not revolution. So I’m an engineer by degree, and I’m always trying to optimize things. The last business I built was on inbound marketing, right? We went from a regional player to a national leader, sold it off, and it was all done through guest blogging. Right? So, about 2014, some friends asked me, “Well, how did you build up the business?” And by that time, blogs were pretty old, right? It wouldn’t work anymore. So I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if you could guest blog on podcasts, right?” Same thing—tap into the audience, get that know, like, trust, get the backlinks, get the follows. And so, we started to test that, and it worked so well, Kathy. We saw that conversions were 25 times better than blogs. And so I’m like, “This works!” I went and did a cheesy little PDF to tell people how to do it. I did a course that I never took out of beta because the people that were honest with me just said, “You know, I just want to be the guest. You do all the rest.” And so, with their encouragement, we beta-tested what would become Interview Valet in 2015 and launched it in 2016. And now, we’ve grown to a team of 30 in Europe and North America, serving a couple of hundred Thought Leaders at any one time.

Kathy (host):  

That’s impressive, and you bring up a good point because when I started looking into podcasting, it’s so easy to go into this mode of, “Oh, I can do this myself.” But there’s a benefit to actually having someone else do it because it’s not just emailing people, but it’s also finding the right podcast that matches your brand, that aligns with what you want to achieve. So there’s a lot of research that goes into it. It might look simple, but it really is not.

Kathy (host):

So, if someone is trying to use podcasting as a form of business development, can you talk a little bit about the benefit of going through an agency like yourself or doing it themselves? And when would they want to use one or the other?

Tom (guest):  

I think you pointed out two things there: one was podcast guesting and business development, right? So they don’t necessarily go together, right? Just because you’re doing an activity doesn’t mean you’ll get the results there. So I always say nobody wants to do a podcast, nobody wants to be a guest. They want the results that come from it, right?

Tom (guest):  

So that’s why we sort of focus on podcast interview marketing, finding that right podcast, and then using the system that’s been shown to work. So you don’t just have a nice conversation, but you find a way to move people from being passive listener to an active visitor to an engaged lead.

Tom (guest):  

And as far as when is the right time to use an agency? Well, I would always say that don’t try to do it on your own, read a book, read some blogs out there, and find out how people are getting results from it, not just getting an interview, right? Because depending on what you look at, there are 4 million podcasts right now, granted, 400,000 have only gone active and published in the last 30 days. But you want to make sure that you’re doing it the right way.

Tom (guest):  

So I would say start with the why: why are you doing this? Is it for business development? What kind of business? Who do I want to talk to? Do I know any of these podcasters right away? If they’re already in my network, that would be an easy ask to ask them. You know, I’d love to be on your podcast and bring some value on that. But I would definitely do preparation beforehand. Let’s think of it as leveraging other people’s audience like Oprah, right? You want to make sure you have your ducks in a row before you go in front of that audience.

Tom (guest):  

And sometimes we underestimate podcasts, right? I would never show up at a live event with 100 people not being prepared. But yet, we’re also used to being on a Zoom call. And it’s like, yeah, it’s just a Zoom call. Well, it’s a Zoom call, it’s going to be heard by hundreds or thousands. And it’s going to be recorded. So you want to make sure that you make a good impression.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, these are all good points. And also, the other thing I think people don’t really think about too, there’s obviously the audience piece, whether there’s a target audience, but also the audience could be the host themselves. Because the way how I look at podcasting, it really is, for me, it’s more of a relationship building, then it’s not transactional at all.

Kathy (host): 

And every single guest that has come on this podcast is a person that I have kept in touch with. We’re connected on LinkedIn, we support each other. And people ask me constantly all the time, like, you know, how much business have you gotten out of this podcast? But I think that’s a little bit of a wrong question. The right question is like, what are the relationships that you’ve developed that can potentially, you know, refer me to the businesses that I want to work with, or on the other way around?

Kathy (host): 

Now I have a really nice network of people that I have vetted myself, I have had conversations with myself, and they can potentially help my clients. And I use this podcast a lot as a resource for my clients as well, or potential clients. So there are definitely the benefits of podcast guesting that don’t just go towards the audience, but also the relationships that you develop with the host.

Tom (guest):  

Very much so because often, the audience is like the host or aspires to be like the host. So when you’re there building the relationship with the host, they could be a great referral partner, they could be a great customer. We say we’re one conversation away from all the things that are great in our life. And I think in modern marketing today, there’s this idea that everything can be measured and perfect attribution and analytics. And the people that are telling us that are the ones that say they’ve got the numbers.

Tom (guest): 

And you know, the example that I always use is, if somebody hears me on this podcast, and they go to Google and they get some of it right. And Google shows it in the search, and they click on there, Google’s gonna say, we did that for you. It’s like, no, not really, you helped in it. And then if that person, before they buy, if they get distracted and they leave, and there’s Google or Facebook retargeting, and then they see an ad that pops up. And it’s like, “Oh, that’s right. I meant to go to Interview Valet,” and Facebook brings them back, then Facebook is going to say, we did that all on our own.

Tom (guest): 

Now, it wasn’t Google. Was it Facebook? Well, they wouldn’t have known any of that had they not heard me on a podcast. It’s almost like that idea of how do you attribute perfectly to public speaking? If you go out at an event, at a conference, and talk to all of those people, can you look on a dashboard and say, “Oh yeah, there’s my cost of lead acquisition and all the rest of that”? No, but you know that that had an impact qualitatively in your heart. But then quantitatively, when you talk with other people, it’s like, “Yeah, I heard Kathy speaking, I don’t remember where it was, but they know who you are, they have heard you.”

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, and I do have a perfect example of this. I recently had a conversation with someone, and they, their family friend heard me on a podcast that I was guesting at. They had a conversation with them. So the family friend went and referred me to this particular potential customer. And then we had a conversation. And obviously, that went through the whole Google channels, the “Google me” and all that stuff. So it really is, there’s a lot of stuff happening in the background when you’re visible that you just have no insights on what’s happening until you ask them, “How did you hear about me, right?”

Tom (guest):  

And sometimes they don’t remember, you know, somebody told me about this, I don’t remember what podcast it was. I can think of one client that we worked with over the last nine years. They were targeting people that were expecting their first child, right? A very small market. And how long do you actually have, maybe seven months, now to try to find them during that seven-month period and not when it’s like, “Oh, I wish I would have known about this a year ago.”

Tom (guest):  

But one of the calls to action they use at the end is, “Hey, if you know anybody that could be served by this, could you tell them about this podcast episode?” because everybody knows somebody. And with that, they were able to magnify that. So it wasn’t just people stumbling across it. But like your example there, somebody heard it and referred someone else, saying, “Hey, you should listen to this.”

Kathy (host):  

Let’s go back into when you’re hiring an agency. And what I’ve noticed, too, is that because podcasting has become popular, obviously. And there’s a lot of agencies that are pitching podcasts, you want podcasts as a guest. And again, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. And I definitely see that.

Kathy (host):  

I will say, this is obviously I will say this right now publicly that the way how your agency does it, I love that because you’re not going through the spiel of, “Oh, I have listened to your podcast, and I love this episode.” It’s like no, like, these are the guests that I think are relevant to you, you give me bullet points. And your agency is actually the only agency that I work with, that I love the guests, every single guest you have sent me has been a high-quality guests. And I thank you for that. So there’s a little ad for you, I guess, right there.

Kathy (host):  

But I’ve seen pitches from other agencies, and I have seen people pitching me like I have hired agencies pitching me. And there’s a variation of quality, how they do it. So if you’re new to this and you are vetting a couple of agencies, what are some of the things that you should be looking for when they’re pitching you? Because one of the things that I have always been very clear about is that whatever person works for me and pitches me, or, you know, they do anything on my behalf, they’re an extension of my brand. So it needs to match the way how I’m talking, like how I’m thinking about the business. It’s very, I don’t want them to pitch me on some weird stuff that it’s not going to be a fit for my brand.

Kathy (host):  

So how do you make sure that the agency really aligns with your brand, with your values, and the way how you want to be perceived in the business space?

Tom (guest):  

I think you nailed it there when you said it’s an extension of you. Right? If you wouldn’t be proud to have them represent you, don’t do it. Right, because it will do more harm than good. Because we’re judged by the company we keep. There’s a reason when people go on speaker’s bureaus, they always say, “Yeah, I’m on the same speaker’s bureau, as you know, for the last five presidents,” right? Because they want to be associated with that quality.

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Tom (guest):  

And I would really look at how they view their place in the market. Right? Are they looking at this as a PR thing? Are they looking at this as marketing? Are they looking at it just as a transaction? Because if it’s just about getting random podcast interviews, they could do that. But that’s not the ultimate goal. What extra value do they add? What insights can they help you become a better guest? Can they give you feedback on it? Do you see this as a partnership or just a transaction?

Tom (guest):  

And if all you’re looking for is a transaction, I wouldn’t hire an agency. There are some websites out there that are like matchmaking services, and you could probably find some there. But just remember the same way if you represent yourself or someone else does, that’s going to say a lot, right? One of our clients said, “I remember she asked to introduce her to a podcast, and I’m like, I thought you knew the host.” And she’s like, “I do. But it’s unprofessional for me to reach out to them.” She says, “If I ask them, and they say yes, it burns my social capital.” If you ask them, it burns your social capital, and it’s not awkward if they say no.

Tom (guest):  

The other thing is, even look at how they do pitches. And I hate that word. Right. Okay. Not supposed to hate—I loathe that word. I understand where it comes from, right? You pitch an idea, you pitch a story. But in podcasting, now it’s become, we’re pitching people, right? I’d like to pitch Kathy to be on your show. That’s dehumanizing to the person, to the guest, to the host, to the audience, right? We always look at it as introducing a human being. So I’d like to introduce Kathy. She would be a great guest. Here is why. Just the same way we do it there, help them connect the dots. And ask them to see some examples of introductions they’ve made. Because if it’s just a boilerplate, you can see those a mile away, right? And most of those go to blackhole.com. And the better the podcast, the less likely they’re going to get through, right?

Tom (guest):  

I get pitched to be on my podcast probably three or four times a day. Now, I don’t have a podcast. But I’ve been around long enough that I’m on lists. And every one of them says the same thing. “Kathy, I hope this day finds you well. I love your podcast and would love to be a guest.” Right there, you know it’s a lie. So with that, just make sure whoever it is, it’s consistent with you and your brand.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, that’s a good point. And I keep getting those type of pitches, like they’re really pitches; they’re not introductions, and they just go into spam because the value is not there. And the way how it’s phrased, you know, that they’re sending it to probably hundreds and hundreds of podcasts and people.

Kathy (host):  

One thing that I think I realized, now when I’m on this side of the microphone versus being a guest, you don’t realize how much work a podcast truly is, a good podcast. Because it’s not just about the conversation. It’s also the way how you host the show, the type of questions you ask, you have to prep for it. I mean, right now you hear us having a conversation. But before Tom and I started talking, we had a conversation before we started hit record. Also, before that, we had a 20-minute prep that we went through. And before that, I even had a 30-minute review of Tom’s social profiles, seeing background on him. There’s a lot of research that goes into it to have a 45-minute conversation. And that is just the prep before you start. And then it comes after, there’s the editing, there are the social assets that we create. There’s a blog post, there are all these other things.

Kathy (host):  

So when you think about all of this all together, this probably it’d be a 45-minute conversation, you have about five hours of work. So every host is very protective of that space on their podcast.

Tom (guest):  

And the guests should have preparation before that too, right? So before this interview, you know, before we first talked, our team has a brief sheet for every podcast. So I could go up there and say, “This is the name of the podcast. Here’s the host, here’s how to pronounce their name. Here’s how to connect. Here’s everything we know about the podcast, the description, all of the social media.” And then to listen to some of the episodes because you want to be prepared. Once again, you wouldn’t walk on somebody’s stage and just wing it, right? You shouldn’t do that on a podcast interview.

Tom (guest): 

And the other thing is data. The data has gotten so much better in podcasting now. We’ve got a phrase internally and what are the time isms, right? “In God we trust, everybody else brings data.” So when you’re looking at an agency, what data do they have, right? Why do you think this is a great podcast? And if it’s just, “Well, I’ve got this feeling,” this podcast guessing, not podcast guesting, right? So we licensed dozens of different databases, and everyone tells us something different. What’s the audience skewed male or female? What’s the age of the audience? What’s the reach? Where are they? We’ve also got ones that say, you know, if our listeners always go to Harvard Business Review, well, what podcasts do people that go to HBR subscribe to? So there’s all kinds of data ways that you can really identify target audiences, as opposed to “That podcast looks nice.”

Tom (guest): 

And it’s much better. One of my big things this year is more is not better, better is better, right? And so many people are out there just saying, “I want more leads.” No, you don’t. You want better leads, right? “I want more sales.” No, you don’t. You want more profits? Right? It’s the same thing with podcasts or interviews. You don’t want more and more and more podcast interviews. You want to get more from the podcast interviews. You want to make sure that everyone gives you the maximum return on investment of your time and your money.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, that’s a good point. And do you think that there is a number that people can strive towards, like, how many podcasts? Should they be on a monthly basis is that 123? doesn’t depend, how would you figure out? Well, how many podcasts Can you have as a KPI when you’re going through this process of being introduced to podcast host?

Tom (guest):  

All right. Now, take this with a grain of salt, right? Because remember, you just asked somebody that owns an agency what are the biggest agencies out there. And typically, our campaigns are charged by the number of interviews. So most agencies will say, ‘Do more, do more, do more.’ All of our data has shown that when clients do less than two interviews a month, they never get comfortable with it. It’s like reinventing the wheel.

Tom (guest):  

Right. So we always say, ‘Don’t do less than two a month to two great interviews a month.’ Now, the flip side is we don’t advise most people to do more than one great podcast interview a week. And some people go, ‘Well if one a week is good, let’s do one a day.’ It’s like, ‘No, more is not better, better is better, right?’ Do one great interview and be able to promote that, be able to repurpose it, and get everything you can out of that interview.

Tom (guest):  

Now, there are exceptions to that rule, right? We work with a lot of authors that are doing book tours, right? Last year, we helped four books hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list for them. They do what we call a guest storm, a lot of interviews beforehand. And then they all launch plus or minus a week when the book launches. So there are exceptions to that. But if you’re using it for just brand building, or business development, I would say do somewhere between two and four a month.

Tom (guest):  

And we’ve had some clients like HubSpot at one time, had six different talents. So they had six different people that were speaking on different things. So they each did three or four. But it’s just overwhelming and mind-numbing, you know, just to do them over and over, it becomes like Groundhog’s Day. And I remember last year, somebody came to us and said, ‘I want to do 100 interviews in the month of June.’ And I’m like, ‘Why? Because it’ll be massive exposure.’ And I’m like, ‘Good luck to you.’ But if you just want exposure, if that’s what you’re optimizing for, sounds like a plan. But if you’re optimizing for results, we typically say somewhere between two and four a month.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, that’s a good point. And also, as you’re doing these interviews, and I’ve noticed too, as you have certain talking points that you talk about, what they say marketing is basically an exercise in repetition. You know, what we cause ‘we say something new’ in each podcast, because if people are listening to it, you want to be consistent with what you’re saying, obviously, so that the messaging goes across. Just because you hear it 100 times, your audience might only hear it once or twice.

Kathy (host):

So what I’ve noticed is if you are in a lot of podcasts, there’s this fatigue that sets in because to you, everything sounds the same, but really, to the other person, it’s new material. So you constantly have this feeling of ‘I need to do something else, I need to reinvent something,’ and that’s the wrong path to go down.

Tom (guest):  

I look at it as ‘content is king.’ But context is God, right? So every podcast, I try to make it a little bit different or at least contextual for that audience, right? Because if you’re just doing the same talking points, it’s almost like when you were talking about asking the same questions. That was okay, I think this was our pre-pre call when they say they asked the same questions over and over and over. And the guest gives the same answer over and over. That gets really old after somebody listens to, like, three of your podcasts. It’s like, ‘Wow, this guy has 45 minutes of information, and he just keeps repeating it over and over.’

Tom (guest):  

So you want to make sure that they have more context to what you’re going in there. And we’ve done this with authors before, where they may have a great book. I think of one, ‘Creative Careers’ by Jeff Madoff, right? There were 13 chapters in there. And he said, ‘Instead of trying to talk about the book in its entirety, why don’t you break it up into different ones?’ And, you know, today, we’re going to talk about the myth of the lone genius or why art is like entrepreneurship. Figure out something that’s standalone there because then it’s easy to promote, it’s easy to repurpose. And when you start putting it up on your website, ‘as seen on,’ there’ll be different topics that you’re talking about. So it’s fresh content.

Tom (guest):  

If you’re sending out to your list the same interview over and over, you’re gonna burn out the list really, really quickly.

Kathy (host):  

That’s true. And having that idea of how I can repurpose that content down the line also gives you that space to think about your talking points. Yeah, you still talk about the same things, but you’re spinning it in a different direction, so that it’s not completely 100% repetitive like you’re talking on the other podcast, but it’s a little bit different.

Kathy (host):  

We’ve talked about this too, having the same conversations on every single podcast because the podcast host asks every single guest the same questions. I think that’s a little bit of laziness on the host’s side as well. Because it’s so easy to have six or seven same questions that you ask every single guest versus having a conversation that, yes, it’s still a conversation like we’re having right now, but it has a focused topic and a flow.

Kathy (host):  

So that gets a little bit harder on the host’s side. But it makes you an active participant, but also it makes it a lot easier to listen to. And it’s a much better listening experience for the listener, but it’s just a little bit more heavy lifting on the host’s side, that’s for sure.

Tom (guest):  

Yeah, I think the word ‘interview’ at times is misused, right? When people say, ‘How do I prepare for a podcast interview?’ Well, an interview assumes that there’s a trained journalist on the other side, they’ve got 10 questions, and number four is a gotcha. What we’re having here is a conversation. And I think that’s what people really like.

Tom (guest):  

To me, a good podcast is a conversation, a conversation that makes people think. You know, do you agree with this? Don’t you agree with this? We had one client, a futurist named Bix Vixen out of Vancouver, and he’s worked with big brands like Nike and Apple. I loved how he defined a podcast interview going viral. He said it’s not about the number of downloads. He said it’s when you listen to it in the morning, and then it starts to roll into your conversations.

Tom (guest):  

Right? ‘I was listening to this podcast this morning, and they talked about this. And I had never thought about that.’ Boy, when it jumps from just being a podcast to going into conversations, talking with family members or colleagues, that’s the huge impact of a podcast.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, it is. And let’s talk about the preparation for the podcast if someone is just starting to dip their toes into being a guest. I remember when I started, it was nerve-racking. It’s like, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ I remember calling my business coach and practically crying. I’m like, ‘I got booked on these four podcasts. I have no idea what I’m doing. Should I just cancel? What should I do?’

Kathy (host):  

So because it’s new, it’s obviously something new, even though you might have done public speaking before. It’s a different forum, medium, it looks different. So if someone is in that space right now, what would your advice be?

Tom (guest):  

I would first say, be a great podcast guest. What do you need to do to be a great guest? If you’re invited to someone’s home for dinner, what does it mean to be a great guest? You better confirm the day before. Be prepared and know beforehand, is this a barbecue or a formal dinner? You show up not as the center of attention, but to make your host look like a genius for introducing you. Then, afterwards, make sure you say thank you.

Tom (guest): 

Alright, so how does this work as a podcast guest? Confirm beforehand, listen to the podcast, and reach out to them. Is there anything special you can do? The question that I always ask at the beginning of every interview or pre-call is, ‘What can I do to bring your audience value?’ Because if you make the hosts look like a genius for inviting you, you don’t have to promote it. They’ll promote you better than you ever could. But if you come in there just to use and abuse the audience, the recording will probably get lost and it will never see the light of day.

Tom (guest): 

So show up prepared, listen to a bunch of the interviews, do your homework on their social media, know their background. For heaven’s sake, get a decent microphone. It doesn’t have to be hundreds and hundreds of dollars, but if you want to sound like an expert, at least sound as good as the host. Nothing will kill your credibility more than calling in on your phone or using your internal microphone. It sounds like you’re calling in from the bathroom. So be professional with that.

Tom (guest): 

Those are the big things, right? Just focus on bringing value, sharing stories, and remember what this medium is. This isn’t, by and large, an audio-only medium. You can’t show graphs or do other things, so it really has to be through stories. The final tip I would mention is that 70% of podcast interviews are listened to sped up. Yeah, many people, including me, when we get excited, we’ll talk faster and faster. So if you’re talking faster and it’s sped up, or if you say something that you’re very familiar with, we tend to say it very quickly.

Tom (guest): 

I can remember a buddy of mine asking me, ‘Why did you call the company Interview the Outlay?’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s Interview Valley with a V.’ I said ‘Valley,’ that stupid. And he’s like, ‘I thought so too, but you said it so dang quickly that’s what I heard.’ So when you’re saying things like your name or your website, slow down. And remember that people are probably multitasking while they’re listening and it’s sped up. Make it easy for them.

Kathy (host):  

That’s a good point! Because I’m guilty of that myself, I have to remind myself to slow down. Because I do listen to the podcasts that we have and all the podcasts that I’ve guest on, and I listen to them at one and a half speed—sometimes I even listen to them at 1.75 speed because I’ve trained my brain to be okay with that. But it’s definitely interesting how you sound at one speed, at one and a half, and even at two speeds. There’s a difference there, you know?

Tom (guest):  

And you should listen to your own interviews. I know most people hate to do that. They’ll say, “Well, I hate the sound of my voice.” Other people don’t mind it, and it is what it is. So either change your voice or get used to it. But I think it’s very important. You look at any professional ballplayer, they’re always watching the game film afterwards. Any professional performer, they’re watching their videos because they want to get better. If you want to improve, you’ve got to listen to your interviews too. Because the way you remember the interview going is probably different than it actually went. And you can’t just rely on your friends and family to tell you how to do it better. Because your friends and family want you to be happy, not necessarily better.

Kathy (host):  

It’s going to be a lot of cringe moments for the first couple of interviews. But once you get used to it, I mean right now, the way how I’m thinking when I’m hearing myself, when I’m looking at myself, when I’m doing videos, there’s this sense of, “Yes, it’s me, but I’m okay with it.” I mean, it’s just like watching someone else. It’s just like watching someone else’s YouTube video or listening to them on the podcast. Yeah, you’re definitely going to see a lot of things that you can change for sure. But it’s just going to be a neutral feeling. It’s not going to be cringy anymore after a while. I promise you that.

Tom (guest):  

And I always tell our clients, especially when it’s their first interview, I always do the walkthrough interview, which is like a practice interview with them. And I said, “This will be your worst interview ever, right? But we’re gonna get better. And each one is going to be better and better.”

Kathy (host):  

So, Tom, you know, we talked a lot about how to prep for the interview and be a good guest. But let’s talk a little bit: how do you serve the audience in this non-salesy, self-serving way as well? Because there’s a fine line between, “Yes, I’m providing value,” but also I have seen on some other podcasts where the guest comes in and they immediately turn it into a sales pitch, which is very… makes you want to take a shower afterwards.

Tom (guest):  

Yes, this is a podcast, not an infomercial, right? And there’s a big, big difference. So offer value. But also remember that you can’t solve everybody’s problems in 30 or 45 minutes, so make sure you give them resources and things to do afterwards. Right?

Tom (guest): 

And I love Rand Fishkin wrote a book called ‘Lost and Founder,’ and I love how he says that the best way to sell something today is not to sell anything but to earn the respect, awareness, and trust of those who might buy. And that’s what we’re trying to do on podcast interviews, really, that’s what we’re trying to do in marketing. Right? As you’re growing your business, you’re trying to earn that respect, awareness, and trust of those who might buy. So focus on that.

Tom (guest): 

And then at the end, every digital marketer will tell you one call to action. I don’t disagree with them. But with nine years of testing, and even HubSpot has looked at this data. They agree that three calls to action after a podcast always work best. So give them a small ‘Yes,’ something that’s a quick win, right? Come back to your website for a checklist, an assessment, right? Then give them a medium ‘Yes,’ something that might take a little bit more time or money. It could be a face-to-camera video, it could be a book, it could be a download, it could be a free course. And then there’s that ‘heck, yes.’ Right?

Tom (guest): 

If someone has listened to you, and you were the answer to prayer, right? They come with credit card in hand wanting to talk to the wizard, don’t slow them down in a funnel, let them talk to the wizard. So if that’s a discovery call for you, if it’s buying the product right there, whatever it is, in your sales process, make sure that you have that.

Tom (guest): 

The other thing is, make it easy for them to find you. Right? If you’re listening to this right now, I’m guessing this probably sped up, you’re probably in the car working out doing something else. You don’t want to hear, ‘Oh, yeah, you can email me here. I’m here at Instagram, I’m here on LinkedIn.’ Here’s my phone number, all the rest of that. It’s like a kid, if you give them too many choices, they won’t do anything. Give them one place to go, make it easy for them. You’ve got to understand the medium here.

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Tom (guest): 

I’ve had clients before that I’ve listened to their podcast before they worked with us. And it’s like you kept talking about my book, in my book, in this book. And that book, I can’t remember what the name of the book is. Right? If you were on television, I would see it up over your shoulder. But this is a podcast. So make sure you make it easy for them to actually find you.

Kathy (host):  

On good points, Tom. And we give the audience a lot of tips and tricks on how to do this and how to do this better. But let’s say that someone is just starting to do podcast guesting, and they’re on the brink of “I really want to do this, but I have no idea how to start.” What would be a first good step to take in the next week or two that they can do?

Tom (guest):  

And this is not self-promotion because I’ll give you a copy of my book, right? Don’t try reinventing the wheel. Look at what other people have done, what processes they’ve followed. And I’ll have people say, “Well, do I have to follow all the steps?” I don’t know, you’re a grown person. You don’t have to do anything. But I just know that being able to do these will give you the results you need.

Tom (guest):  

I would start with definitely a system and a strategy, right? Because that way you can track what you’re doing and how it’s going to get better. And trust me, I mistype and have ADHD, as you will find out there. Right? Ready, Aim, Fire. I’m just like, can’t we just fire? We’ll just fire and we’ll walk it into the target. Right? But every time I do that, it doesn’t work out well. So have a plan, have a strategy with it.

Tom (guest):  

At times people will start with say, “Here’s my dream 100 list.” Well, why don’t you just spend the time on your dream Ted list? Because if you can get 10 podcasts that you think would be ideal for you, you listen to them, give them a rating and review, and reach out to the hosts. Introduce yourself. Maybe a few of those say yes. And you’re like, “I’ve only got three interviews.” Okay, do a good job on those interviews. And at the end of it, ask the host, “Hey, I really enjoyed this. I’d like to do more of these. Do you know any other hosts that you think I could bring value to?” Guess what? Podcast hosts know podcast hosts. So if you just got three, do a good job. They’re going to introduce you to six more. And my basket to get messed up after that is 12, and it keeps going on from there. But you can fill up your entire podcast guesting just by doing a good job with that. Don’t think that you’ve got to identify 100 or 1000 podcasts.

Kathy (host):  

Start slow, but start with a process is really this goal. Where can people find you?

Tom (guest):  

So Interview Valet with the V.com and I’ll show you exactly what a welcome page looks like and where I put my book. So always tell people where they can go and make a special page for every interview, right? This is evergreen traffic. We’re recording it in 2023. If you’re listening to this in 2026, I want to make sure that you get the right things. So just go to InterviewValet.com/growing. Everything Cathy and I talked about will be there. You can see what a welcome page looks like. There’s that small “Yes,” which for me is a podcast interview marketing assessment with 10 questions. Will it work for you? Also, a FREE copy of my book, “Podcast Guest Profits: How to Grow Your Business with the Targeted Interview Strategy.” That’s the middle “Yes.” And then the “Heck Yes” is if you’d like to talk with me or my team. I’ll put my calendar there for a discovery call. So all of that is back at InterviewValet.com/growing.

Kathy (host):  

Perfect! Tom, thank you so much, and I love the example that you’ve woven into this—what are the small “Yes,” medium “Yes,” and “Heck Yes.” And all of this is actually going to be in the show notes as well, so if you, by chance, didn’t catch that, it’s going to be in there. Go take a look at it. Thank you so much, Tom. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Tom (guest):  

Thank you, Kathy.

Kathy (host):  

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode, and I hope that we’ve inspired you to go out there and become a podcast guest. Yes, I know, I’m gonna be biased. But I think that it is one of the most fun ways to be out there and be visible for your business and tap into other people’s audiences that you might not have access to otherwise.

Kathy (host): 

Also, if you loved this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, and links on the website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast.

Kathy (host): 

And before I go, I do have a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on Apple Podcasts, you could please go to the show and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves. Because this gives us that much-needed algorithm love on Apple Podcasts so that other people can find it and benefit from it as well.

Kathy (host): 

Thanks so much. Until next time!