Transcript
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends Show. What's up,
my Bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here,
and I just want to welcome you to the Bloggy
Friends Show. We're so excited to have you join
us on this journey of sharing our knowledge and
experiences with you. Whether you're a blogger,
a content creator, or just someone who's interested
in learning more about the digital world, we've
got something for you. So grab your notebook
and a pen to take some notes, or just sit back
and take in all the amazing information and ideas
we're about to share with you. Let's get into
it. I'm excited to have you here. So let's just
kind of dive right in. We're talking about how
bloggers cannot just be bloggers anymore. And
so the Reader's Digest version is they got to
be on podcasts so that they can promote their
blogs. You are the genius that comes up with
all the media stuff. So tell me all you have
to share. Gosh, well, where do we begin? Let's
open up the encyclopedia. Oh, man, when you do
something for so long, you develop a lot of...
and some of it useless knowledge, some of it
fun facts and stuff. I'm with Ashley. Thank you,
first of all, for having me. By way of quick
introduction, well, hello, friend who's listening
to our conversation right now. I'm Josh Elledge.
And so I've been in the media about 3 ,000 times.
I've done probably close to 3 ,000 podcasts on
top of that. As a host, I've been a guest on
maybe close to 500 shows. We have launched over
300 podcasts through. my company, upmyinfluence
.com. And so if you want to go spy on me, the
website is upmyinfluence .com, or you could just
Google my name too, and you'll see all the stuff
I've been doing over the years. And as a consultant,
both as a media consultant and over the past
six years in particular, my primary work is that
of a fractional chief revenue officer. So I work
with higher level coaches, consultants. B2B service
providers, agency owners primarily. And all I
simply do is I drive sales and revenue. And we
do that through a very relationship oriented
approach. So if... my friend who's listening
right now, if you do what's called account -based
sales, meaning you're going to have conversations
before somebody buys something, right? It's not
an automated sales and marketing process, right?
So coaches and consultants, I mean, you know
for sure, like you're going to have probably
a series of conversations before somebody agrees
to sign a contract and give you $30 ,000, $40
,000, $80 ,000 for your coaching package. And
we have clients that... you know, at a minimum,
you know, I say minimum, it has to be five figures,
but it goes all the way up to multi -seven figures.
So generally we're working with people that have
some pretty decent domain expertise. And collectively
we have generated that we can track a minimum.
We have no idea what the upside is, but it's
at least about $40 million in sales that we've
helped create. So Ashley, before we talk about
PodVerified and all that, how I do that is that
With the podcast that we create, if you're familiar
with, and by the way, Ashley, have you read,
or if you're familiar with The Go -Giver by Bob
Berg? Yes, you actually introduced me to that
last time we chatted. Oh, yeah, yeah. So listen,
if you get nothing else from this conversation
to my friend that's listening to our conversation
right now, go read The Go -Giver. This is one
of the follow -up books I'm holding for video,
but it's Go -Givers Sell More. But Bob Bird teaches
what I think, for those of us who are in account
-based sales, probably the best strategy that
we can do. And that is that if you take all of
that... nonsense sales and marketing advice that
are sold by the hustle bros and the, you know,
the bro -y energy that's out there and, you know,
you got to try to, you know, do all this fake
scarcity and all this other nonsense. Listen,
you're not fooling anybody. Like, well, I should
say... You could probably fool newer people.
Like if you sell to newer entrepreneurs, that
stuff might work on them. But if you sell to
sophisticated leaders who have been in business
for any length of time, that stuff is not going
to work on them. They've seen it all. They've
been around. And so the best thing that you can
do, and this is what Bob Berg would advocate,
is that you lead with noble intent. And what
I mean by that is you need to change your energy.
If you're showing up to a conversation with someone
and you're all about what you want and what you
can get, I don't care how great of a poker face
you think you have. We know. We can tell. And
some of us tend to be pretty highly empathic.
Some of us are pretty savvy, right? We know.
We can tell. Like, you cannot fake it, right?
So this goes for content creators, okay? Your
content creators know what you want as well based
upon your tone, your language, you know, kind
of your urgency, like what you do. Like, you're
not fooling anybody. Now, again, I can go back
into my background as a journalist, and I learned
from Adrian Kronauer, who was... featured his
story was portrayed by robin williams in the
movie good morning vietnam we talked about that
another time but his whole thing is again you
got to be honest with people and you have to
be honest with audiences at all time okay so
Back to the go -giver, okay? Noble intent means
that you're always there to do good for somebody
else. You're there to just be a friend. You're
not there to desperately try to get your own
sales. That's new behavior. That's newbie behavior,
okay? And again, you go to any mixer and generally
the leaders can tell who the newbies are based
upon kind of how they come across in their desperation,
that sort of thing. Okay, so noble intent, you're
there to do good things for good people. The
second part of that is you're always leading
in generosity. So if there is something that
you are hoping for, like you're in business,
right? You have something that you need to do
in order for you to keep doing what you're doing.
Like you got to make the wheels of economics
continue to turn. So you would lead in generosity
because generally leaders and A -listers and
decision makers and people that manage big budgets
generally, They have no mandate to jump on discovery
calls, sales calls, coffee chats, sitting through
webinars, white papers. That's not their job.
That's your job to try and shove that stuff in
front of people's faces. Hey, that's not their
job. If it's not their job to do it, you're kind
of banking on their curiosity or I don't know,
you're going to try and talk them into something.
But unless that's in their job description where
they have to evaluate stuff like that on a regular
basis or they get fired, then it's really hard
to do that. And it is such an uphill battle.
So what Bob Berg would tell you to do is why
don't you figure out what they actually really
do want truly. And again, it can't be something
that everybody else is giving away as part of
some sales funnel or whatever, right? And give
that away. Give generously. And most importantly,
Ashley, is you need to divorce the outcome that
you hope, right? In sales, we call this a two
-step approach, right? So initially, you have
to be okay with a 100 % give with absolutely
no return from the other person. If you can't
get there, sales is going to be very hard for
you. It's always going to feel like an uphill
challenge. And sometimes you're probably going
to feel a little slimy and it's going to feel
a little bit out of your value system. And it's
not your fault. The only reason you're doing
it that way is because someone told you that
that's what you're supposed to do. That is a
lie. I have got good data. I work with only high
level leaders. And what we know is that if you
can just show up and just serve other people
and give other people, serve your industry and
do nice things for other people and be okay with
that being the completion of the relationship,
that's where you want to get it. Now, if you
can get there, yeah, Ashley, I'm sure you can
imagine. What do you imagine the outcomes are
going to end up being? You'll have more authentic
relationships and actually make sales. You just
said it right there. That is what happens. It
is such an important distinction, and it doesn't
seem like it would be that huge. It is. And again,
I've got the data to prove this in having done
this for, again, as long as I've done it. You
have to be able to give away generously. And
then it's imagine this, right? So let's say,
and again, I can get nitty gritty on this. And
again, we'll get to pod verified because right
now I'm going to talk about how we implement
and grow sales and by hosting podcasts. And again,
what I want to say this before we continue. And
if there's any headline for this conversation,
I want it to be this or something akin to this,
right? Whatever the SEO gods tell you to do.
And that is, there is no better ecosystem on
the planet for sales and business development
and networking with high -level leaders than
podcasting. Nothing comes close. Show it to me.
And I will absolutely eat my hat or whatever
the expression is, right? And the reason is this,
podcast guesting and hosting is generally the
domain of leaders who are willing to give generously,
which generally attracts a pretty high caliber
type of person. They're not afraid. They're not
desperately, you know, just trying to funnel
someone into their sales thing or whatever, right?
So they've got some courage and generally they
have a little bit of experience. They've given
for some time. They know that giving is the path
to, you know, getting everything that you want.
Again, this goes back to, you know, ages and
ages, these principles. So yeah, so that's what
it, you know, that's, you know, again, it's podcasting,
either hosting or guesting. And I'm talking about
hosting right now. We'll talk about guesting
in just a second. So we can make sure to give
a lot of value and make sure we give lots of
great tips so that you can profit from your work
rather than just, you know, be out there hoping
to serve, but we got to help you make some money.
Okay. So think about this. leaders get opportunities
to speak. And I have to tell you that in all
my speaking opportunities that I've had, I've
spoken for the Tony Robbins organization. I've
spoken for social media marketing world several
years, you know, podcasting conferences, marketing
conferences, keynotes, all that stuff, right?
And so I'll tell you that. I don't necessarily
do a lot of business from the crowd, right? That's
not real. I am there to just give, give, give,
give, give, give, give, give, right? But here's
where I end up doing all my business, in the
green rooms afterwards, in the VIP mixers, you
know, just quiet conversations. afterwards where
people kind of pull me aside and like, you know,
I really appreciate it. And, you know, and then
that's, that's where we just kind of figure out
if there's business for us to do. Here's a great
illustration of this for, you know, to my friends
has ever been on a panel at a conference. Let's
say that you show up to a panel and you get to
meet your other panelists or whatever, and you
know, the behind the scenes stuff before and
afterwards, right? So you're there in service,
serving an audience with other leaders because
you're on a panel, right? And so Now, in that
process, you get to experience what the other
leaders on the panel are saying. So let's say
that there's someone on the panel and you're
like, oh, that's actually, you know, Ashley is
exactly the kind of person that I generally love
working with. And it sounds like, you know, she's
kind of at that caliber. I don't know. Maybe
she would be a good partner or maybe she could
be a client. I don't know. Right. We don't presuppose
anything, but. Let's say that, Ashley, you and
I are on this panel. We're serving an audience.
I hear you. You hear me. So we're getting to
feel one another. And you're like, okay, Josh
knows his stuff. And then afterwards, I say,
Ashley, I loved what you had to share. It sounds
like we have some things in common. Hey, let's
grab 30 minutes sometime on Zoom next week. I'd
love to see if there's something we should be
doing together. 100 % of the time, Ashley, I
got to tell you, people say yes. It would be
so weird to say no to an invitation like that.
So my question is, if that works so consistently,
why are we doing all this other stuff? Why are
we hitting people over the head in the DMs and
email and TikTok dances, you know, to try to
drum up business? That's hard. And everybody
does that. Instead, what I find is that most
successful leaders do most of their business
in what I like to call the whisper network. And
that's just the quiet conversations. It's not
showy. It's not flashy. It's just two leaders
figuring out if there's some opportunity to do
business together in some way or collaborate
in some way. And I'm telling you what, it is
so much fun to do business that way. I'm biased,
but there's no way. You could not get me. to
go into some environment where I'm supposed to
do this scarcity, urgency, nonsense. Like, ick,
ick, ick, ick. It's not for me anyway. Anyway,
that's kind of upped my influence historically
in a nutshell. And again, I teach all of this
stuff. I give it all away for free. And if it
gives you great ideas and I can free you from,
you know, maybe sales and marketing that doesn't
feel values aligned, man, I hope that I've inspired
you to get free of that. But of course, yeah.
Yeah, you're certainly welcome to connect with
me there. Ashley, I don't even remember that
question you asked me. I just started. I think
you pulled the Josh string and Josh just started
talking. And now the three fully back to my back
now. It's always fun whenever I pull the Josh
string because you never know what you're going
to say. It's always valuable. But basically,
I just wanted to talk to you about why bloggers
who are trying to get people on their websites
should be podcast guesting. Because, I mean,
I started the podcast for myself because I wanted
to talk to people and I wanted to learn more
about blogging. But now I'm seeing that guest
posting is dead. Guest podcasting is where it's
at. Yeah, and I'll share an observation. This
is really interesting. I'll be very frank. I've
not ever been like, well, I shouldn't say this.
In the past 10 years, blogging has been kind
of a secondary thing for us. And, you know, we've
not really gotten a lot of good SEO stuff, I
would say, if I'm being frank. But I'll tell
you this. I get now. And I'll explain what my
SEO person actually told me. We get a lot of
inbound, I think they call it GEO, right? It
was basically just... referrals from ChatGPT
and other AI tools. We've actually gotten a lot
of inbound calls and traffic from ChatGPT and
other AI tools. And so AI tends to value all
of this other content that may have not been
as easy historically for Google to rank you with.
So they see that you've got all of these impressions
everywhere. So if you want to kind of go where
the future is, just be out there creating. Another
thing I'll say for bloggers is that, for me,
if you know your stuff and you have a lot of
knowledge up here, now, I tend to be a verbal
processor, if you haven't guessed. I tend to,
you know, I have a lot of junk up here, so it's
pretty easy for me to just blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, now, with
today's amazing tools, right, today's amazing
writing assistance and, of course, AI -enabled
tools, now, I can take... all of these words
that I've created, and now I can dump this into
my AI tools of choice and say, okay, here's a
transcript of all this stuff that I blah, blah,
blah about. Help me create some blog ideas based
upon, and then I give it all the other criteria,
what people are searching for, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Okay, so now I've started it off.
you know, with a lot of raw content. So now I
can go into my AI tools and, uh, you know, I
can create a lot. So Ashley, you know, I, I,
I'm not necessarily a blogger, but you and I
are connected on social media and Facebook and
we engage quite a bit there. So that's really
what I do for my, sometimes I, I write way too
long for Facebook, but some of my, some of my
longer posts or whatever, here's all I do, um,
is I, I open up my tool and I just start talking,
talking, talking, talking, dump out, I do a brain
dump in there and I say, help me synthesize this
into maybe more of a well thought out structure
for a post, right? And then I get all of that.
I don't want it writing in my voice. And I'm
really adamant about, do not let AI try to replicate
your voice. I think that's just so fake. And
I'm just like, give me basic language. That's
not your job. It's my job to write in my voice.
That said, I love using tools like AI to help
construct thought and also fact check and check
my own biases and all that other stuff, which
I've got a prompt that I go through all of that
stuff. And then like, okay, this is a really
great outline. Okay. And then. I take it in and
I'm the one who writes it in my voice because
that to me is part of that sacred relationship
I always have with an audience that they are
not hearing just some fake AI nonsense. I need
to make sure that if I'm saying this is me, it
better be me. Understand? There's another reason
why bloggers should, a couple of few reasons
why bloggers should be podcasting. Because again,
think of like how many words Josh has talked
about, has used, you know, in the past 20 minutes.
There's a lot of words. There's a lot of content
to work with potentially. So I'm going to give
this to my team. And I'm like, hey, dump this
through and come up with some blog ideas now.
And repurpose it for social media. Obviously,
we can create vertical videos. We can create
reels, you know, all that other kind of stuff.
You could repurpose it so many. ways, you know,
with this pillar content now that we've created.
That's true. And what's really cool to me is
that if I guest on someone else's podcast, that's
still more content I can play with. And in a
lot of cases, you get a backlink. Oh, for sure.
And it's great. What I like to say, so as a media
consultant, I would say that is third -party
validation, right? So you get to say things because
you got asked the question. So you now get to
give all of your stuff in a way that maybe you
wouldn't normally do with your own audience,
right? You might be a little bit more bold in
the way that you're communicating. And again,
you're being seen and being requested because
of your expertise. you know, to be seen all over
the internet. Not just talking, you know, kind
of one -to -one with your own people, but they
get to see you making the rounds everywhere.
That is validation. And third -party validation
beats conversation all the time. That's absolutely
true. And so now that we've established that
bloggers definitely do need to be on people's
podcasts, how the heck do they make it happen?
Okay, well, so let me give you a glimpse behind
that whole world. So I started podcasting in
2007 when I was taking my radio segments for
my other company, Savings Angel. And I converted,
I record them off the radio, convert it into
MP3, upload it to my own server, hand code my
own RSS feed. And somehow, I didn't even submit
it, but somehow Apple... or iTunes founded and
started putting my show on. And the cover was
just, it was so janky back then. It was just,
but hey, so I've been doing this for a long,
long, long time, right? And I feel like I've
got some pretty good objective data around the
guesting world, right? Because what I said is
there's no better ecosystem on the planet for
networking, business and sales development. because
of who you can meet and the relationships that
you can build and the opportunities that can
be had. So your question is, how do I guest on
more podcasts? So I'll share this, is that right
now where you are, you are going to have a perceived
value as a guest, right? And that's based on
a lot of criteria. Now, if you want to do a simple
free test, Got a great website that you can go
to. It's free and it will give you a score on
how valuable you are in the eyes of podcast hosts.
You need to know this score because what unfortunately
a lot of people do is they say, well, I'm an
expert in this. I wrote a book on this. I'm an
expert speaker, whatever, right? Author, speaker,
coach on whatever, right? And so what they do
is they start sending spam to Mel Robbins or
Joe Rogan or whatever, right? Good luck. with
that, I can tell you that your chances of getting
booked on those shows is 0 .000001. Yes, there
is a chance, but it's such a bad use of your
time, and most importantly, it's a bad use of
your hope. What you should be doing is get clarity
on what caliber of stages you belong, and you
should be playing at that caliber. Now, I share
the inverse of the example of kind of pitching
way too high is that what I see most guests doing
is they're spending way... too much time on shows
that are way early stage for them because it's
easy to get on brand new podcasts. So we kind
of feel good that we got accepted to some show.
Now, it might be a little amateur hour, right?
Your experience of that. But even worse, you're
not going to make any money doing it. It was
kind of it's good for getting your reps in. And
there are some. you know, find ecosystems out
there that will help you get connected with newer
podcasts. But if you want to be on stages that
are appropriate for your level of professional
success, get clarity. And then what you want
to do is try to identify who your peers are.
Again, at Podverified, it's free. Now, the matching,
that part is, you know, that's the paid part
of it. If, you know, we'll give you some ideas
of where you belong. We'll show you some examples
of like, you know, kind of where you could expect
to be. And then, you know, the paid part is,
of course, you know, we'll... match that for
you and only charge you, you know, when we land
you a great spot. But we got to get that clarity
so that we can make sure that you're actually
on stages that are going to move the dial. Okay.
Now, but let me tell you what the process is.
And I'm just going to reveal, this is exactly
what we do, right? Or you could do it yourself,
right? So once you know that it's an appropriate
size stage for your caliber, that's number one.
Number two is your You have to understand that
this podcast host, they don't work for you, okay?
It's not, they, most podcasters, especially if
they've been podcasting for any length of time,
usually they're not hurting for guests, which
means if your approach is to just pitch them
with some email pitch or whatever. That's usually
going to come across as a little crass. It's
the way, unfortunately, that I'll say that probably
about 90 % of the guesting agencies operate.
They buy themselves a big email list of podcaster
email addresses, and then they just send out
spam, which is why, unfortunately, a lot of people
who have invested money to guest on podcasts
haven't really gotten much return on investment.
It feels good. It feels productive. It feels
validating to have somebody... accept you. But
at the end of the day, I think, you know, for
making investments of our time and money, like
we were running businesses here. Like we, we
have to see, you know, opportunity. So I've been
on. You know, I've been on some really small
amateur stages. Then I've also been on some pretty
big shows. Social Media Examiner was a huge opportunity
for me. You know, back in the day, you know,
Entrepreneur on Fire, you know, Don Lee Dumas.
You know, I got a lot of business from that.
The bigger show, Mixergy was another one that
I ended up getting some really great business
out of it. And it's a night and day difference.
You know, depending, you know, that caliber of
stage. So, you know, if you show up to an event
and you... the keynote speaker, people just treat
you way different than if you show up on, you
know, some little podunk mixer, you know, which
is nothing wrong with podunk mixers. But you
just have to, you know, it's not a keynote opportunity
in front of thousands of people. You know what
I'm saying? So, again, you have to decide where
you want to spend your time. And if your goal
is to stay in business, get consistent revenue,
grow your business, make your life a lot easier,
not have to stress about the ups and downs financially,
you just got to keep on getting out there. And
the bigger stages are just going to pay you so
much better. Okay, let's get back to how you
reach out. I keep, I gotta say this. I gotta
tell you this. Okay. So here's, here's what you
do. So don't, don't spray and pray. Do not do
that. You are going to get blacklisted. You're
going to get marked as spam. You are going to
get, you're going to sustain reputational damage.
And I don't think any of us listening or in this
participating in this conversation right now
want to be known as a spammer. I just don't believe
that. Right. So. Because this is our legacy that
we're talking about. What do you want to be known
for? How do you want to be seen in your industry?
So here's what you do. It's called the three
-week warm -up. Okay, and this is all part of
like what we do over at PodVerified. And they
teach you this stuff for free, by the way. So
you don't have to pay for any of this stuff.
And all the education at PodVerified is always
free. And I'm going to teach you how to make
money. I'll teach you all that other stuff, right?
So I'll teach you about, you know, calls to action,
how to do all that. And again, it's free, free,
free, free. I don't charge for anything education
-wise. I am very much open source from my philosophy
when it comes to knowledge and education. But
here's the process. So let's say that there's
a show that you want to be on and you qualify.
You know that you qualify because the caliber
of guests match your caliber. You know that,
right? So here's what you do. Three weeks. Three
-week warm -up. Week one. Okay, again, the idea
here is you're not going to spray and pray. You're
going to spend more time with fewer people. But
if you do this well, you should have a conversion
rate somewhere between 30 % and 60%. And again,
sorry to give you such a wide range, but there
are a lot of other factors that we don't have
time to get into. But generally... Probably about
a third or better of these people are going to
say yes if you do it this way. Now, think about
what we've been talking about. Money. Impact.
Growth. You know, why did you get into business
in the first place? It's to make an impact in
the world, probably, right? And get paid to do
so and keep doing it and not be stressed out
month to month. Okay. So this is how you do this.
Spend more time with fewer people. These are
leaders. These are A -listers. These are pros.
Okay. So you need to treat them as such. They
don't work for you. It's not their job to promote
your business. What they have their own goals.
Podcasters are always looking for the highest
caliber guests that they can. And they're trying
to grow their audience. Most of them. That's
their primary mission, right? So can you help
them accomplish that goal? So think about it
from their side of the table, generally what
they want. And they may have lots of other business
goals. And again, that's going to vary depending
on who it is and what their business plan is.
But generally, almost all content creators want
to grow their audience. So you know that going
into it. So here's what you do. Number one is
you're going to have to get familiar. Don't start
with 100 shows. I want you to pick two. Two shows.
That's it. Just start two shows each week. And
what I want you to do is I just want you to sample
their content. That's it. Sample. You don't even
have to listen to the entire shows or episodes
or whatever, but I want you to spend some time
trying to get to know them. Now you're looking
for some things, okay? I also want you to follow
them on their social media. Look at their repurposed
content. What you're trying to look for are values.
biases uh what are they most passionate about
and and really take note of that stuff what do
they like to talk about what is their mission
like why are they doing this if you can learn
that oh mama like that is some valuable intel
and it's not that hard all right so just do a
little bit of homework listen all of this said
you're in maybe 30 45 minutes in a week's time
Honestly, it doesn't take, and the ROI from your
time is worth many, many hundreds, if not thousands
of dollars, potentially depending on what your
business model is. Okay, so first week is research
and start to learn about them. Week two, now
you're going to start to engage with the podcast
host on social media, right? You are not, you
are going to engage with them as a fan, as a
peer. right? So you're not going to be total
like, oh my gosh, you're so big and I'm so tiny.
Like, it's not that energy. It's just like, hey,
listen, I'm an executive or I'm a leader. I'm
a founder and I'm doing this or whatever. I really
appreciated the insights that you share. That
was really valuable. Thank you so much. It's
just stuff like that. And so if you spend a week
and do not be fake, do. Not delegate this to
a VA or AI or you will be so hated. Not hated,
but it's just like, oh, get out of here with
the fake stuff, right? Don't be fake. So there
are things that you can outsource and delegate
and you should, right? And then there are things
that you should not delegate or outsource. And
so systems, organization, project management,
task management, You know, stuff like that, like
the minutiae, that should all be delegated. Don't
do that work, right? You can delegate that very
easily, right? What you would never delegate
is relationship. If you delegate relationship,
I'll tell you what, I would feel so ripped off.
If I felt like that you were reaching out to
me, but you're being fake about it and you're
delegate, like I'm really not worth that amount
to you that you're not even willing to just say
hi and thank you to me. Instead, you got to have
your AI bot do it. That's not a good look. And
guess what? We can all tell. You're not fooling
anybody, right? So don't do that. So just, again,
we're talking maybe 30, 45 minutes because we're
only talking about two shows. We're only talking
about two people. You can build a relationship
or start to begin a relationship with two people
by investing 30, 45 minutes in a week. And again,
remember the ROI. Hundreds, if not thousands
of dollars per hour. This is the work. This is
what you get paid for. Listen. In my work as
a fractional chief revenue officer, I'll tell
you this. You have an obligation, and your obligation,
if you're the founder and you're involved, it's
your responsibility to grow the company. You
have one job, and you have a moral obligation
to grow your company. And the most important
thing that I would argue that you should be doing
from an e -myth perspective is not all the minutia,
not cleaning your desk, not all the stuff that
you can delegate. It should be high -level relationships
with high -level leaders. That's your number
one job. You do that and the rest of everything
will kind of take care of itself. I promise you
that. Okay, so week two, you're building a relationship,
just engaging professionally and supporting their
work. It's amazing. And Ashley, listen, I've
done over 2 ,400 episodes for my show, The Thoughtful
Entrepreneur. If I were to say that the fan feedback
is modest, I think that I would be using hyperbole.
It is meager. And that is just the reality because
you know what? Everybody's busy. A lot of people
are creating content. And so if somebody engages
with me. legitimately, genuinely on social media,
I'm going to remember them. I really will. I
will appreciate it. I know, you know, you can
also leave reviews and all that other stuff.
And sure, that's cool. You know, you could definitely
throw that into the mix. But honestly, I just
think that genuine conversation is just the best
tool for relationship building. Just, again,
go give her. Take what you want. Set it aside,
okay, for now, right? Again, we're just going
to focus on the relationship first and give,
give, give, give, give, give, okay? So finally,
week three, okay? Now, you only engage in week
three activity after you have received some acknowledgement
back from the host that they see you and they
appreciate you. So again, be genuine. Don't rat
-a -tat -tat them. I mean, but just, you know.
Meet them on LinkedIn, you know, engage with
their content, find out where they're posting,
right? Just comment, leave, you know, if you
can comment within, you know, apps or whatever.
I mean, just wherever you can see them, their
content showing up and there's an opportunity
to engage, just engage and don't go over the
top, but just be genuine, right? Good point.
I love it. Share their stuff with your audience.
Now you're really talking because now that's
where the rubber hits the road and hosts really
love that stuff. Okay. Finally, week three. Hey,
Josh. And again, what I would do is I would start
off by doing this publicly. And I would respond
to a comment, you know, some of their podcast
content. And you say, you know, I've actually
been following you for a little while now. I
really love what you're doing. It feels like
we have some values aligned here. Again, I always
love pointing out when we share values or there's
like, I really, I appreciate that you support
this, right? Because everyone's got their biases.
Everyone's got their thing, right? And go ahead
and lean into that, right? So I'm a military
veteran owned business. So you know what? Obviously
I support. you know, I support some of those
causes associated with that. So that's, it's
going to be pretty easy to figure out what I
believe in if you follow my stuff. And so, and
if, by the way, if you're not aligned, that's
okay. Maybe it's not a fit for you. And I'm not,
don't ever lie. Like, you know, it's like if
you share very distinct differences in political
views, it's okay if you don't engage with that
person because there are people that will. Okay.
So third week. I would start off by commenting.
Don't hit their DMs. Don't hit their emails.
But I would say something to the effect of, hey,
Josh, I've been listening a little while. I really
appreciate the stuff, you know, you know, and
I'll recognize you because I saw you earlier.
And if you just said, listen, what is your guest?
process. So obviously you interview guests. I
think I'm at the caliber that you, that you normally
enter. You know, I, I kind of took a look at,
you know, who you interview and, you know, I,
I think I, you know, might be aligned there,
but do you, do you have an assistant or do you
have an application that, um, that, that I could,
uh, you know, potentially throw my hat in the
ring. And by the way, you absolutely can say
no. Right. If you send me that message, I'm going
to be like, Oh my gosh, that is so super cool
of you. Yes, if I can, right, if I can accept
you, then I'll tell you what that process is.
And I might, you know, the host might say, sure,
why don't you DM me? That's great. If they don't
want to talk about that publicly or whatever.
But that's all you're looking for is don't try
to force them into how you want to get booked
on their show. Ask them how they like to engage
with guests because they all have a process.
Now, some of the newer shows may not have that
process buttoned down entirely. Like it might
be still a little scattershot for them. But most
of the established shows, like they've got a
process or they've got a person, right? And so
then in the DMs, they'll just give you the, you
know. They'll give, they'll share it to you.
Now, if they don't respond immediately and, you
know, maybe you add like a little emoji or whatever
to your, you know, you just add like a, like
your, like your own comment or something like
that, or, you know, so it gives them another
ping. So they see, cause they might just, just
miss it. Right. And, and, and if they miss it,
that doesn't mean a no. So I don't want you to
think just because you asked and they didn't
respond, they may have been too busy. They didn't
see it or whatever. Right. So that's what you
do. Now, if they don't see it. Then I'd say,
but you've already been engaging with them. Then
I would say it might be appropriate to send them
a DM and LinkedIn or whatever, you know, a connection
request. Or again, if their email is visible
on their website or if there's any other like
a contact form or something like that, go to
their website, do a little digging. I just spend
a little bit of time here and reach out to them
in the way that they are offering, you know,
inviting people to reach out with them. Yeah.
So, so, so if you just do that and then again,
I would just send that same note. Hey, Ashley,
listen, I really appreciate the content. You
have really great guests. I think I might be
of the caliber that you normally interview. What
is your process for, you know, accepting guest
applications? I'd be honored to throw my hat
in the ring and you can always say no. Right.
And so it lets them off the hook there. And listen,
you just simply do that. And again, I think you
should do about a 30 % or better acceptance rate.
And now we're talking because if you can do two
of these a week, and let's say, you know, out
of every four. or every, you know, every five
you get, I'm messing up my math now. But out
of every 10, you know, over the course of, you
know, over five weeks, you know, you land three
decent sized podcasts. Let me tell you, that
can really move the needle because you're not
looking for everybody. You're looking for the
right people, right? To engage with typically.
So there you go, Ashley. That is, by the way,
what I've just shared with you is based upon
conversations with hundreds of podcasters. When
I've talked to them about this topic, They all
agree that is a very, very safe. That is what
they want. That's what they're hoping for. And
that is what the podcast guesting industry refuses
to do because they're too damn lazy and they
need to get their act together or they're going
to get their clock clean and they're going to
start losing business because they realize that
spamming is not the future of the way podcasting
works. Podcasting is based upon relationships.
It's the way public relations traditionally has
always been. There's just way too many. bro -y
marketers that are trying to cheapen the system.
But I'll tell you, don't spend money to spammers.
Instead, just take the time, build a relationship
yourself, and you'll have far better results.
And by the way, I love all of my podcast guesting
agencies. I know you're doing the best you can.
You'll keep getting better. Well, I know you
like the podcast guesting agencies, but you also
are just trying to put the people that are cheapening
it on blast. I want to celebrate the good ones
who has the time. That's all I'm saying. Yeah.
I understand. It makes complete sense to me.
And if someone's getting offended by what you're
saying, they're probably doing it wrong. Well,
and you'll know that based on how, you know,
how many clients you keep losing. You know, what
their results are. Because clients need to get
ROI. And if you're not delivering ROI, you're
going to keep in this, you're going to keep going
through this churn, churn, churn, churn, churn.
And it's going to be so frustrating for you.
And you're going to think it's everybody's problem.
No, it's not everybody's problem. We have clients
that are public relations professionals that
have clients for years. Yeah. You know, it's
just, they are not afraid to do the hard work
that, you know, it's human centric. It's, you
know, that's how I got my 3000 media appearances.
I never once sent a press release. It was reaching
out just like I've described. And, you know,
800 and some TV appearances, you know, writing
my syndicated column. I got all of that stuff
because I reached out human to human, offered
to be helpful, you know, even agreed to do stuff
that really didn't benefit me much. But as a
result, now I started a collaborative relationship
with that producer, journalist or booking agent
or whatever, really make them look good at their
job. And then that led to a lot of other invitations
and introductions. Well, it definitely sounds
like that's the best way to begin. But once people
are ready to go to the next level, I know we're
wrapping up on time here, but when they're ready
to go to the next level, how does PodVerified
work so that they can kind of... get in there
and get stuff done yeah so listen it's it's it's
basically like i said it's basically credit karma
for podcast guesting so now you know you've got
clarity over where you are and then part two
is you know kind of the match component of that
right so then what we do is um and currently
Our pricing is, you know, we're in beta. So right
now our pricing is you only pay when we land
you a position. Now we ask for credits up front.
And so it's $297 or $397 if he wants to do a
bunch of other stuff for you, whatever. But,
you know, $297. You have to buy four of them,
four credits. And that will give my team the
bandwidth so that we can start introducing you
to folks both within our network and then other
people, again, that are, again, most importantly,
they're pod verified aligned. Like they're the
right size stages. for you. And again, these
should be the stages that are going to be the
most profitable for you. They're the highest
quality stages that you can qualify for. And
those are going to be the ones that we're going
to follow this same exact process. And it's going
to be friend to friend to friend. And that's
how we're going to do it. No spam. But yeah,
so you could just go get your free score at podverified
.com. And then once you're in there, I'm going
to teach you a bunch of other stuff for free,
like how to make money, how to give great closing,
you know, calls to action, that sort of thing.
And that's all free. And I would be honored to
help improve the world of podcast guesting. Because
as I mentioned... Ashley, there's no better ecosystem
on the planet for business sales development
and networking. And by the way, if I could put
one more plug into my podcast, The Thoughtful
Entrepreneur, I'm always looking for guests.
If you are B2B, you're pretty good at what you
do. You've been around for a little while, especially
if you're a coach, consultant, agency owner,
or B2B service provider. You just simply go to
my website. It's www .upmyinfluence .com. And
when you go there, just click on podcast and
you'll see guest application. You don't have
to DM me. I just gave you exactly, that's how
you do it. So you're welcome to, but you don't
have to do that. So we make it real easy for
you. And then on the guest application page,
we've got a whole system. We've done this over
2 ,400 times. We really love rolling out the
red carpet for our guests and we've got over
100 ,000 in social. So it's a really good audience.
It's an audience of what I like to call business
adults. Generally folks that have been in business
for five or more years, they're founders and
generally pretty sophisticated people. They're
really great audience to do business with. Well,
that's fantastic. And I have to say, you know,
I have been sheepish and not wanted to apply
myself to be on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur.
But I think I'm finally at the top. It's a mistake.
Actually, you've already been given the invitation.
Go take care of that. Go do what I just said.
And, you know, again, the team will take care
of you. If you're afraid of rejection, please
don't. It has nothing to do with your value.
Like anyone in particular. I'm not talking to
you, Ashley, but anyone. Please don't be afraid
of rejection. If they say no, it's genuinely
just it. It's usually just a logistical thing.
It has really not a whole lot to do with your
value or your worth. So don't worry about being
hurt or offended. But thank you for having me.
Our time is over. Yes, it is. It's over. It went
fast, but you gave a lot of amazing knowledge
bombs. And I can't wait to share all of this
stuff with our listeners. And I'll leave all
of the links in the show notes. And Josh, thank
you again for your time. I appreciate it. Ashley
Grant, you are amazing. Thanks for having me.
Thank you. All right. I'll talk to you real soon.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.