Listen Now:

You know you should be a guest on other people’s podcasts… but you don’t really know how to make it happen OR how to make it work.

In this episode, we’re going to give you our step by step plan that has led to a whole LOT of money generated for our individual businesses (and yes, you’ll get to listen to Alyson tell “the story” AGAIN)…

And we’ll also give you options on how you can make it happen for yourself.

Pitch kit – send an email to hello@systemtothrive.com

Listennotes (for podcast research)

Podmatch – to connect with podcasters seeking guests

Matchmaker.fm – to connect with podcasters seeking guests

Want to hear more from the Sales Series?
Episode 174 – Leverage LinkedIn like a Pro with Dr. Angela Mulrooney
Episode 175 – Ditch The Sales Script & Sell With Authenticity with Nikki Rausch
Episode 176 – Creating and Filling Your High-Ticket Mastermind with Chris Williams
Episode 177 – The Best Salespeople Are the Best Listeners with Katie Bambrick

Or check out the other sales episodes we’ve done…

Alyson Lex 0:04
It's really easy to think, Oh, I'm gonna go get on a podcast and then just go hog wild and not actually have a plan. And so what you do is, you go find a podcast that you think might be kind of fun and you appear on it, and then you wonder why it didn't make any difference for you. Or you find a podcast and you decide you want to be on it, and you pester the host, and you don't land, the space the spot. And so today, what Jenny and I want to talk to you about is, how we find them, how we pitch them, to land them, and then how we make them matter. Because if there's one thing I've learned from Jennie Wright, is that you have to have a plan when you go into things, if you want them to be successful, who knew?

Jennie Wright 0:55
I can laughing over here, because this is like the basis of our relationship.

Alyson Lex 1:00
It really, I'm like, Oh, who knew? And Jenny's? Like, I, I admitted.

Jennie Wright 1:06
I knew, I knew, that's okay. That's why we have her. This is why we have the friendship that we do, you pull me away from my over planning, and I pull you down from the ethos of not planning. And together, we make magic of some sort. So there's basically six steps. And we're gonna go through each one of them. Alison, tell us a little bit about the first step.

Alyson Lex 1:29
The first step was surprisingly, for somebody who doesn't like to plan is like my favorite. I can hyper fixate on this all day long. It is the research. It is the understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. And whether or not this particular show will help you do that. Now, you could have a bunch of different reasons for wanting to get on to podcasts, or doing a podcast tour, which is something that Jennie and I talk about a lot.

Jennie Wright 2:02
Yeah. And you can find out the information on the like on different episodes, we'll try to find them and stick them in there. You know,

Alyson Lex 2:07
yeah, we'll link them in the show notes. For sure. Yeah, you could have a bunch of different reasons. But is this show going to help you achieve those goals, you have to look at the audience, you have to look at the host, you have to look at the topics like listening to a couple of episodes, or an episode at least

Jennie Wright 2:27
super k.

Alyson Lex 2:29
Checking. Right, like visiting the website, these are some really basic levels of research that people just don't do.

Jennie Wright 2:41
Now, they don't know they don't so and I mean, we won't, we're not we're here. We are not here to chastise you on the way that you do things in your business. But we will tell you that you'll have a better result. If you take the time to try and figure out the right course of action versus just like I just want to be on everything in the willy nilly approach. It doesn't really doesn't work in the long run.

Alyson Lex 3:03
You're right it doesn't it. And what the reason it doesn't work is not that you're not going to get on podcasts you absolutely well. You're just going to spend more time, effort and energy to get there.

Jennie Wright 3:13
You know, I know somebody that we've interviewed in our past would completely disagree with us. And that's okay, I know, I think you might know who I'm talking about. So there's a person that we interviewed not too long ago, they are a content machine. They also appear many places on many things doing many topics. That is their content strategy, it is about proliferation and being everywhere. totally get it. It is in our experience, better use of time, effort, energy, all that kind of stuff. Because I also know you're really busy and we don't have the time, effort and energy to spend on this constantly to be able to be really super hyper focused on making sure that the parents is that we make our specific that's all So research is key Allison can go down. I mean, honestly, I'm good at research. Allison's good at research, but she's the rabbit hole girl. And I love when she does the research.

Alyson Lex 4:10
My brain just made a connection. I wanted to make a joke. I have to flush it out more but about rabbit holes and Alison Wonderland and following the rabbit and I really feel like there's something there. But okay, so you have found a podcast. Let's just you've got one, you've done your research, you know that they're their styles for you. Backup one second, though. Why am I backing

Jennie Wright 4:39
up? Because we research people may not know where to go. So there is a couple places you can go real quick. If you don't know how to do the research, we're not going to give you like exactly how but there's something I wanted to mention. It is where you can go and I don't want you to spend money on pocket As to research services or podcast platforms that you don't have to spend money on. So you can there's like places out there where you can spend money 599 A month, $20 a month or even more so that you can find podcasts and stuff like that. But you don't need to do that. I mean, you, you have such a powerful tool at your fingertips literally even just on your phone, or on your computer by going to things like listen notes, Google pod match those types of sites where you can find decent podcasts. I mean, I go to I use the apple podcast app two, I look at Spotify, right? I just start searching stuff. Do it that way first, instead of like spending money, you don't have to spend money on this stuff. Anyways, I just wanted to say you can do is completely free.

Alyson Lex 5:48
No, and I love that you said that. So yes, we're gonna back up. Um, okay, so how do you research, you found a podcast, wherever you have found that podcast, whether you saw somebody else appear on it, which is a great way to find potential podcasts. You found them in Apple podcasts or your podcast player search. You saw them on pod match are another kind of matchmaking for hosts and guests site. That's when I take to Google and I practice my Google Fu skills. And you just start searching for the host for the the podcast itself for the business name for anything that you see mentioned. Unless, of course, you find a direct link, and that makes things easier. And you just start looking for them. Where are they? Where are they hanging out? Is that where your people are hanging out? What are they talking about? Is that what your people are talking about? You want to make sure that there's an audience match?

Jennie Wright 6:45
Absolutely. And the audience match is key. And making sure that you do that is like so, so good. I want to talk about the outreach. That's step number two.

Alyson Lex 6:53
Yeah. Step number two, tell me about that.

Jennie Wright 6:55
Reach is super key. I actually learned this from you. I remember back in the day, you would already been appearing on podcasts I hadn't as of yet. This is like way back in the early days of our friendship. And you'd already been starting to appear. And I'm like, how we're How the heck are you doing this? So you gave me a template and you're like, hey, use something like this to reach out to people. And it was like insert name, blah, blah, blah. It had a whole Hey, you know, this is what I talked about. This is both, like, I'm not even gonna go into the template cuz I don't have the brain to pull it up in my memory. But one of the things that really stood out to me that you taught me back then was about personalization. Now, as a host, I get it, I totally get it. As somebody who was pitching your idea might be copy, paste, copy, paste, hit send, and like, it could be like a volume play. You know, if I send out 75 requests, I will get 40 replies and I might book 25 podcasts. I mean, that could be your math in your head. The thing is, is that if you send out personalized reach super bet, like so much better, you're gonna get a much better result. Because people love hearing their name. People love that you've taken a second to say, Hey, I listened to your episode on how to make the best like the the ultimate hamburger. I think I have something to contribute to the conversation, I noticed that you didn't have an episode about pickles for your like ultimate hamburgers. And I happen to be the best pickle maker on the Eastern Seaboard. And I would like to contribute information about the best pickles for the best burgers could be a cool episode. What do you think? Like that's personalization, you show that you listen to the show, you show that you have something to contribute because they haven't covered that topic yet. Or maybe they haven't gone from that angle yet. And you've probably listened to a couple it shows that you've listened to a couple episodes and stuff that is going to get the hosts or the team whoever's looking at these things. It's going to get their eyes so much quicker. And Allison was giggling at my hamburger like podcast idea. But

Alyson Lex 8:58
I just love how when we come up with these examples, we try to come up with like the weirdest thing. Right?

Jennie Wright 9:05
Well, it's better than saying basket weaving. I mean, underwater basket weaving has been done.

Alyson Lex 9:09
It has put I mean, it's just anyway. And you know, there is a space for the numbers play if you are that aforementioned content creation machine that Jennie talked about a couple minutes ago. Yeah, no disrespect to that person, by the way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, that's like, I cannot do what that person does. No, I am a little jealous that that person can focus like that and have the energy to maintain that. That's not me. And so that's why Jenny and I do this way.

Jennie Wright 9:40
I'm also honestly in my 40s I'm not doing that crap anymore. I don't have the time energy or the desire to do whatsoever in my 20s Maybe, maybe my 30s possibly my 40s apps a frickin Loli not

Alyson Lex 9:55
not someone as someone in her 30s Not in my 20s It is definitely not in my 40s Don't even talk to me in my 50s. Like, no. But so here's the thing, you're already doing the research, right? If you're not going for the volume play, you're doing the research. So you're already doing that. So the personalization is actually not that hard. It does not need to be, hey, I'm gonna reference your life story in 35 points of a long form sales letter, it's, I'm going to start a relationship with you. I'm gonna start. And that's actually our next point, but I'm gonna start a connection with you. I'm gonna be real. Hey, I am so excited about the ultimate hamburger. I did not know that information that you shared about girl temperatures. And it changed my my cooking. Thank you. Pickles. Right? Like, it's that kind of thing. But here's the thing. I said the same thing Jenny just said. But I said it. Allison stop. Yeah, you're not only personalizing it to them, you're giving them a bit of you, your personality. That's how you're going to begin to build that relationship. Because that's where the value for your business can really take off.

Jennie Wright 11:21
I'm just going to say that there are podcasts out there. There's a podcast called a hamburger.

Alyson Lex 11:28
You know, I was wondering if you were looking something up because

Jennie Wright 11:30
yeah, you know, I was and then there's another one called hamburger studio. I mean, honestly, there's one called a hot dog is a sandwich. I mean, that's interesting. But I mean, if you search I had to we were talking about hamburgers now. So okay, let's get back to it. Let's talk about relationships. What's that look like? Yeah, that's step number three,

Alyson Lex 11:48
that is our step number three. So step number one is the research. Step number two is personalized outreach. And step number three is relationship. And that's really the focus on building that relationship. Because it's now not just a transaction. Again, if you're going for just straight volume play, awesome. You may have figured out by now, this is probably not the episode for you to listen to. So

Jennie Wright 12:20
and we are not the people to listen to about it. Just saying,

Alyson Lex 12:23
right? That's because that's not what we do. That's not how we, how we know. That's not what we know. That's not how we grow. But, um, so our feelings wouldn't be heard if you turned us off. But you're welcome to stay. The relationship, it's not a transactional thing, when you appear on a podcast anymore. It's a relationship building tool, it's an opportunity for you to get to know someone to share a stage with them to build a public facing rapport. And then also behind the scenes follow up.

Jennie Wright 12:56
We want to be with humans, like people want to connect with other people. Humans want to connect with humans, they don't want to connect with a robotic, whatever. And on I mean, Alison, and I do pre calls for our podcast all the time. And on our pre calls, if we feel like you're just showing up. So you get exposure, because you got your next book coming out. This is an example no shade. But if that's your only thing, and you have no idea who we are, we've had people come on, and they have no idea who we are. They've never listened to our podcast, they don't give a crap about us. We are just a pitch opportunity. And in our early days, we may not have recognized that as much, but now we're really, really wise to it. Those people don't appear on the podcast, like you will not see them on our podcast. Because that is not the way that you know, we value relationships over transaction like transactional relationships don't work for Allison and I, and they don't work for your business. In the long run. This is our opinion. But building a relationship isn't hard. Right?

Alyson Lex 13:51
Right. So not everybody, not every podcast has that boundary. But Jenny and I have set that boundary for ourselves for our guests, because it matters to us. Yeah. So, you know, again, we just really want to highlight that this is this is how we do things, and how we have found the value for ourselves. So our clients, yeah, for sure. I've told this story before. I will tell it again. I was a guest on an episode. It was actually the very first episode of that particular podcast. And the host and I began, we had a rapport we had a we developed a friendship a business relationship. We Yeah. And I can directly attribute hundreds of 1000s of dollars in my business to that podcast appearance. And I never got a lead from one of his listeners.

Jennie Wright 14:50
Yeah, it's all here. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I mean, you've told that story many times, it resonates and makes sense. It's it's it's worth the retelling because it shows was just the foundation of being able to create a relationship? Absolutely. I want to talk about value. That's step number four, value. And Allison, this should be Allison's point. But I'm gonna take it for a little bit because I can also talk to this. But the piece about value is so important. If you're appearing on somebody's podcast, and I think I kind of mentioned, it's just like, you know, people who've come on podcast and then they don't provide value, it's like they think it's a pitch fest or whatever. Providing value on a podcast is essential one, it's going to endear the host to you, too, it's actually going to get your your episode listened to like people are going to be wanting to engage with it. We've had people appear on our podcast and just give so much value that it has turned into a whole thing. I'll give you an example. We had a person Chris Williams appeared on our podcast months and months and months and months and months ago. I'm talking like spring, I think right earlier than that. I think it was like January, February, we'll check. And he appeared on a podcast and he he provided a ton of value. He checked us out beforehand, all these kinds of things. He built a relationship, etc. on the podcast itself, he provided a ton of value. After the podcast was over, we were still talking and he was literally asking us questions about ourselves and things like that. And we were like, hey, you know Jennie is going to be hosting a summit coming up in July. Would you like to be on that? He was like, Yeah, I'm in. He didn't even like question. He's like, Yeah, whatever you're doing, I'm in. I'm good for it. So that you did that, which was great. On my podcast on my son that when he appeared, He made sure that he was Oh, that's really funny. So Chris, Chris had talked to us early, but apparently it doesn't come out till November. Allison just checked. That's hilarious.

Alyson Lex 16:45
I'm your die. And she's like, Oh, it was in the spring. Yeah, he recorded in the spring because of schedules. And but because of production schedules that will come out

Jennie Wright 16:53
in November. So literally comes out after this, like later after this episode, but that's all good. But Chris made sure to appear in the panels that I had on my Summit, which meant that he was in the green room with all the other speakers, which meant he had FaceTime with all the other speakers, which then turned into joint venture opportunities with those speakers, which ended up turning into business for him. We know it like directly he got business as a result of being on the podcast, hence the summit. Then this thing, right, which was really, really great. Bree Williams, another great example. She appears on the podcast, she provides a ton a ton of value, which means that when we think about when we have clients who want to know how to do really good online speaking, we refer them to Bree. Last example, Katie Brinkley, somebody that Allison and I know super well. Katie provides a boatload of value every time she comes on the podcast, hence we have her back over and over and over again because she has so much value to bring. And we're we've referred clients to Katie out the wazoo because we know she knows her stuff. And she's super helpful to clients. Like we just, we just think that she's a great person to be able to do that too. And so on and so on. And we could talk about all of our pod like so many of our podcast guests as a result of right, Aurora Gregory, another really great value provider who has helped us in the backend now getting us really great speakers, like just a ton of people do this kind of stuff. The value that you bring on the podcast can translate into relationships, JV partnerships, money, all this kind of stuff. Value is key.

Alyson Lex 18:29
Well, and friends, right, like we genuinely care for these people. And we have friendships because they showed up to give value. And aside from what it does on the host side, yeah. On the listener side, the audience now here's your best stuff.

Jennie Wright 18:52
I agree. And just a hint to breathe. If you're listening to this, we're friends now. So you live in France, the South of France, I really want to get back there. Let's make that friendship a thing. Right? That's that would be really cool. So let's talk about step number five. That is Follow up. Follow up is so so important. I think for follow up. The thing that you've got to think about with follow up is, once you've done the podcast, once you've spoken to that host, how are you going to keep that relationship alive? Simply because if you do this, you're going to actually end up with a better result, right? You're going to get to keep that friendship going. Right? You're going to keep that relationship going, you're going to stay front of mind with that person. And that's going to help your results in the long run. Right?

Alyson Lex 19:35
It will and you know, admittedly, this part is tough because we're busy. We've got a lot going on. And frankly, we want more podcasts, we want more stages. So but to schedule it in and that's the thing. There is no harm in scheduling this follow up. It doesn't reduce the quality of the relationship that you're building. Okay, If there is, not, every single one of my friends birthdays is in my Google calendar. And then for many of them, I have a reminder a week before, so and so's birthday on X date, and it's set up annually. Does that reduce the impact of the happy birthday? Or the gift? or the whatever? No.

Jennie Wright 20:28
Because at All

Alyson Lex 20:29
right, so if I just pre schedule an email to go out for days after a week, after whatever, does that reduce the quality of that outreach? No, the intention was still there. It just wasn't there at that moment. Because that's who I am.

Jennie Wright 20:55
With the follow up with podcasting, it's, you know, it's super simple, you can schedule it, there, the you have the technology to do it. It's so easy to do. So the follow up is making sure that you keep that relationship alive. And hey, you know what I was like, Hey, I think it'd be great to just jump on a 20 minute coffee chat, and just connect, like, how are things going for you what's new, what's exciting instead, like, I do that with a lot of people quarterly, or actually, every other quarter, I don't do a quarter every other was like twice a year, I'll jump on a call with people that I want to maintain relationships with, because I actually care about them or whatnot. And, and staying in touch with them, because it's fruitful for all of us. Right? The summer. I mean, luckily, a couple of our couple of our podcast guests have been in Toronto. And this summer, I actually got to go and have lunch with Natalie Amani, who was on the podcast, or will be if it comes out later, I can't remember now. And and D Boswell buck, another person that lives in just outside of Toronto, but is phenomenal. And I got to have lunch with these two ladies. And it just built more relationship, right? We stay in touch and stuff like that. We're not like besties or anything, but we stay in touch. And that is the value that you know, the follow up brings just great love that.

Alyson Lex 22:13
And you know, there's a really great opportunity for follow up that feels completely organic. And that is when the episode drops. They're going to email you and say, Hey, your episode is live, you're gonna say, Oh, my goodness, thank you so much. I had so much fun with you. I really loved our conversation about XYZ. And I'd love to know if there's a way I can support you. Do you have 10 minutes for chat?

Jennie Wright 22:44
You don't Absolutely. See it. It's so easy to do. It's just so easy to do.

Alyson Lex 22:52
You just plan it. Yeah, see, we're coming full circle to the back. If you know what to do, and you have the plan in place, and you just do it. I'm gonna stop talking because that's a struggle for me there is that just doing it part, but that's an ADHD thing. So, but have the plan in place and then figure out how to get it done. You may have a VA that needs to send your emails. That's okay. If you if you can't do it, for whatever reason, that's okay. All right. Syndication.

Jennie Wright 23:29
Let's talk about syndication. So this is the last step in all of this, it is the perfect last thing to talk about. So if you've done the you know, if you've done the research, you found the ultimate podcast Congrats, you did your outreach, and you personalized it, which is awesome. You developed relationships, you created value, you did the follow up. Now let's use the content that's been created to your advantage. Syndication. So this is taking the podcasts that you've been on the you know, all that kind of stuff, and making sure that you use that content as a value add in your business. This can be as simple as taking that conversation maybe getting your side even what do you call it? I can't remember the name right tribe. Thank you for the words. This is why Allison is in my brain transcribed. And using that to create an article or driving social driving your social media to that interview at a future time. Allison and I are both working on newsletters right now and how we're going to create really good syndicated content in our newsletters. And there's nothing wrong and I actually encourage driving to a previous podcast episode if it relates to the subject matter in the episode and also making sure that you take those podcast episodes and put them somewhere where people can find them on your website. You know Allison has this really cool trick with Josh is it with just gonna say Shopify

Alyson Lex 24:55
Spotify Yankee a lot actually use which spot and I used to as well but I've heard you say it before. It's fun. Yeah, I make a Spotify playlist. Yeah. And it's my podcast appearances. And then the cool thing about that is it's embeddable, you can embed it on your website, you can share a link to it, you can make this Hey, these are all my podcast appearances. You want to binge, X number of hours, just hearing me talk, here you go. And, you know, we could probably do an entire episode just on content syndication. And, frankly, it would be overwhelming. Okay, so here's what I do. I take the transcript of the episode, and I send it to a writer that I found on Upwork. And she turns the content that I deliver into a blog post, then I send that blog post, I, you know, I take a look at it real quick. And I send it over to my VA. And he posts it on my WordPress, along with an embedded Spotify, almost Shopify and modify player of the original episode. So it's like social proof here, I was on this episode, listen to it. There, then we post about that on social and it goes into my newsletter. So the reason I have it written by somebody that I found on Upwork, is because I won't do it. And the reason that I have my VA posted on my website is because I won't do it, if you will do it. Awesome. You don't have to hire anybody if you won't. Awesome. You can hire somebody. Yeah, but those four things. It's all I do.

Jennie Wright 26:43
Absolutely. So we've talked about research, outreach, relationship, value, follow up and syndication. Even if you can't do all six of these perfectly do at least the outreach, the relationship and the value, you can get better at follow up and you can get better at syndication. But get really good at Outreach, relationship and value, those are going to be the ones that are going to create the most amount of impact. So obviously, build those up first. Having said that, Alison, do you have anything else you want to add to this before we wrap up the episode?

Alyson Lex 27:16
This may be something that you're jazzed about. Cool, it may not awesome. But I would encourage you to try it. Because I think you're gonna find the value to you and your business beyond what Jenny and I have talked about. You're gonna be surprised at how much there is.

Jennie Wright 27:37
Podcasting has provided just as me being on podcast has provided such a huge resource of joint venture opportunities, business people who refer me now like because they didn't know what I did. I was on their podcast. Now. They know what I do. Now. I mean, now they just go like I was on somebody's podcast. 18 months ago, I got an email from them yesterday, hey, I haven't talked to you in a long time. Just thinking about you. I have a client who needs somebody who does exactly what you do. Can I refer you home? Like yes, please, no problem. They set up a referral, like booked a call. So this is, I mean, 18 months later, after appearing on their podcast, I'm still getting I'm getting business from this person, which is fabulous. This is there's like a, it's, it creates compounding all over the place totally worth doing it. That being said, if you're not doing it now, get into the process of actually doing this, Allison and I don't spend a boatload of time doing this. So I spend probably, you know, a couple hours a month just on this process, it's worth it, it pays you back in dividends do it. Having said that, if you want to get all the resources that we talked about today, so we're gonna, we know we mentioned pod match, and a couple other things as well as previous episodes, head on over to system to thrive.com Ford slash 173. That's this episode. And you can find out everything you need to know about what we talked about. We'll include the transcript, and a couple other things in there. So you can see exactly what we're talking about. And if you haven't already, make sure you're following us on your favorite podcast platform so that you know where to find us. And before you go, yeah, let's talk about something.

Alyson Lex 29:12
All right, so I just had this idea, and it's something that we have previously just created for clients. But if you want our pitch kit, which is a little guide on how to do the research, a couple pitch templates to help you get started. You can send us an email. I know there's no form it because literally I just thought of it. You're gonna send us an email to Hello at system to thrive.com and we will send it over to you.

Jennie Wright 29:43
That's pretty generous. Alright. Thanks so much for listening. Everybody. Grab your pitch kit, get get pitch and get podcasting. And we'll see you all soon. Take care