27: How to Find Guests for Your Podcast
So, you've decided you want to have guests on your podcast? That's great!
But, where are you going to find all these amazing guests?
That's where this week's episode comes in. I'll be giving you my top tips and resources for finding guests for your podcast week after week.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 27. As promised, last week, we are going to talk about how to find guests for your podcast. If you've decided to do an interview show you obviously need people to interview. So today I'm going to provide you with a few ideas on where to find these people. So to start off with the most obvious option is to reach out to the people you already know, if you're a coach or consultant, which I would imagine that you are, if you're listening to this show, you probably already know other coaches and consultants or experts in your field. If you've done any kind of networking, if you've attended any kind of events, if you are in any Facebook groups or communities or organizations where you connect with other people in your industry, those are the people you want to reach out to. And one thing I want to mention here is to not be afraid to have your competition in air quotes on the show. Just because somebody else is a coach or consultant who is in the same field you are offering the same types of services doesn't mean that they don't still have value to provide to your audience. And it also doesn't mean that your audience is going to abandon you to start following them. Is it possible that that's going to happen? Is it possible they're going to resonate more with your guests and they are with you, and maybe they start listening to their show or getting on their newsletter or following their social media posts instead? Yes, that is possible. But in all likelihood, they're going to see you as this amazing person who isn't afraid of providing them with resources, no matter what it may cost them, it's actually going to cause your audience to trust you even more. So I want you to take a list of everyone that you know, think about anyone who might possibly be a good guest. And even the people who aren't necessarily in your industry are your niche, but can talk about a topic that's still going to provide related value to your audience. For me, I actually have an upcoming guest that I'm going to interview who is not a coach or consultant, and he's not a podcast consultant by any means. But he actually provides social media services, specifically for podcasters. So he is going to be someone who is great for me to bring on because he can talk about an area that I'm not quite so experienced or skilled at. I know just about nothing when it comes to social media, which is why I don't have a huge social media preference. It just doesn't interest me. I know that it's its own beast. And it comes with its own crazy set of rules and strategies and tactics, and all of these different kinds of things that honestly just exhaust me to even think about. So I don't want to put the time and energy into learning about it so that I can coach my people on it. Instead, I'm just going to bring someone who's already an expert in that onto my show. And you can do the exact same thing for your show and your audience. So not only do I want you to think about the people, you know, but I want you to think about the people they may know there are a few people that I'm connected with in my network, who I know are connected to some pretty higher ups in the entrepreneurial realm, who could probably provide some pretty great insights for you, my audience here. And maybe in the future, I will reach out to them to see if they can do an introduction to that person on my behalf. Never underestimate the value of your network. And if you really take time to build those relationships, what those people are willing to do for you. Now, of course, I don't want it to always be take take take provide value to these people as well build genuine relationships, don't connect with someone just to try to get to somebody else they know. So moving on to my next idea is to reach out to other podcasters in your niche. Maybe you're not connected with a certain person, but you know that they have a podcast that talks about basically the same topics as you and you think it would be great to have them on your show. Again, don't see them as competition. Yes, they're in your niche. Yes, they're providing the same topics and information. And yes, they even have a podcast, but they are not your competition. You were two completely different people. You have different personalities, different styles, certain people are going to resonate with you and certain people are going to resonate with them. And you may even have a little bit of crossover, which is why I recommend when you reach out to this podcaster and approach them about maybe being on your show, suggested interview swap. If they're open to it, maybe they need guests as well. And this is a win win for you both. You both get an interview and you both get to be on another show and be in front of more people who could become you potential audience so next i want you to think about possibly having your clients on your show even could you interview people who have worked with you in the past or are currently working with you and discuss the way that you work together what that process is like what they have gained from it what changes they've seen in their business or their weight loss journey or their relationship or just their general life because of working with you and what would they want other people to know and what kind of encouragement could they offer or consider having live coaching calls if you have clients who are open to it earlier this year i actually sold my original podcast and the gentleman who took it over is doing this he's offering free live coaching calls to his audience now he doesn't do it every episode but every now and then he'll have somebody who reached out to him that's already in his community that wants more information to connect with him and he coaches them on how to maybe think about transitioning into a lifestyle that allows for more freedom and travel because that's the topic of that podcast so think about those kinds of things that you can do can you get people from your audience on your show or can you get your already existing clients on your show to do a live coaching session next i want you to think about facebook groups facebook networking is fantastic for so many aspects of podcasting and it's also great for connecting with people who could be potential guests now i want to state right off the bat that most groups have a rule against any type of self promotion or putting posts out there asking for guests so please please please please please absolutely read the rules anytime you join a facebook group before you start posting anything like this make sure that you are not violating the rules one of my favorites is a group called she podcasts and it is of course for female podcasters and they actually do a thread one day every week where you get to pitch yourself to be a guest or to have guests on your show so something like this is a great resource because you can put down in the comments hey i'm looking for guests that can talk about these topics comment if you're interested and then you can also go through those comments because people will say hey i'm an expert in this this this this this and i'm looking to be on more shows and you can reach out to those people directly but again i want to caution you to make sure that you are always following the rules of the group and the rules of the post so next we have something called radio guest list this is a free email service that allows podcasters and radio hosts to list of their show is looking for guests they can say what their dinner audiences what the name of their show is what topics are looking to discuss there's a form that you fill out and it's good for 30 days at a time then individuals and pr agencies receive these daily emails with all of the shows that are looking for guests and then they can reach out to the shows directly that they feel they will be a good fit for i personally use this service when i had my original podcast where i did actually conduct interviews and i can tell you that some of my favorite and most interesting interviews actually came from using the service it's because of radio guestlist that i was able to interview the woman who was the very first woman to summit mount everest from both the north and south sides and she was also on mount everest during the infamous 1996 storm that saw multiple deaths and inspire the 2015 movie everest and of course jon krakauer is into thin air that interview is a hands down my favorite to date i've always been fascinated with everest and to get to talk to somebody who was there during that storm and who has summited everest not once but twice was honestly kind of a bucket list item for me like it's one that i didn't even know that i had and it was an amazing amazing experience and it never would have happened if i hadn't randomly submitted my show to radio guestlist the next one that i want to talk about is called help a reporter out or herro for short and it's kind of a similar service to radio guestlist it's mostly meant for journalists but it works for podcasters as well and you can submit your show to their editorial team and they take a look at it and review it and then they try to find people who have submitted to them that they want to be interviewed they try to find those people that are a good fit and then they'll email you any that they feel you know is worth looking into further and you can take it over from there so the next one is one that is honestly very surprising to me that most podcasters don't really think to do this but that is to go to your current guest when you wrap up an interview but before you hang up the phone call just say hey if you know anybody who might be a great fit for this show i would really love an email introduction to them you know is there anybody that you can think of that you wouldn't mind introducing us and most of the time they'll say yeah or they may say let me think about it and i'll get back to you and then if you don't hear from him in a few days follow up with them maybe a week later and just say hey i'm just reaching out to see if you've had a chance to think of anybody who might be a good fit for the show and if they had a great experience on your show they're usually more than happy to introduce you to someone else so just make that a part of your standard operating procedure anytime you conduct interviews and these last two that i'm going to talk about our options they're not necessarily your best options i think you're going to have more success with all of the ones that i've talked about previously in this episode but there are actually agencies that you can sign up with who will find guests for your show you pay them a certain amount of money per month and they promise you a certain number of guests per month now i would do your research on this speak to other people in those facebook groups i've mentioned ask if there's anybody who works with a service like that make sure that you have final say and who is on your show make sure that they don't just book people without consulting with you because you really want to keep your audience in mind all the time they should always be the number one thing when you decide on anything in your podcast including who your guests are so if you don't get a say in who's on your show if they just booked people without reaching out to you or sending you any information or confirming with you i would be very hesitant about that and these services are also not cheap so i would start off maybe trying to get guests on your own if you have the time and the resources to do that before you start shelling out several $100 every month in order to have people find guests for you and the last approach is kind of the same i think that you won't necessarily need to get to this point but if you do you can always cold pitch guests that you want to have on the show if there's somebody who's huge in your niche that you just have this dream of interviewing them reach out to them see if they have a media page or contact page on their website and just see what it would take see if they would be interested in being a guest on your show if they have an upcoming book or course launch or something like that usually they're looking for these kinds of opportunities their pr person is wanting to get them all over the place to promote this upcoming thing that they're releasing now one thing to keep in mind is if you wait too long to do this then they may already be completely booked up and i had this experience actually on my original podcast if you don't know there's a gentleman by the name of chris guillebeau who kind of changed my life he is like the number one guy in the space of lifestyle freedom entrepreneur freedom travel freedom all of those kinds of things and it's because of one of his books that i became super serious about making a change with my own life that eventually led to me finally having my own business and finally having some freedom and on my travel podcast he was like my number one go to gas like he was my dream and i tweeted to him actually was how it started and i just responded to one of his tweets and he responded back to me and thought it was really funny and that kind of opened that door just enough so i followed that up the next day with an email and said hey thanks for responding to my tweet last night i really appreciated it and kind of launched into a quick little summary of how his book changed my life and i have a podcast that i would love to interview him for if he is open to it and i knew that he was having a book come out and i would love to help promote that well he actually responded to me directly he remembered the tweet and he said yes absolutely let's do that unfortunately i thought everything had to be perfect i was interviewing my idol basically so i hesitated i wanted to make sure that i had the right recording conditions and i wanted to have a scheduling system in place and i wanted to have these fancy things and i could send him and all of these bells and whistles for him because this was like the guy it had to be perfect and by the time i did all of those things and got it to where i thought it was fantastic and he was going to love his experience of being a guest on my show i went to go schedule it and he was completely booked his agent wouldn't even entertain the idea because he had overcommitted himself already so i lost out on my shot because i hesitated and because i just waited too too long and thought i had to be perfect so please don't do what i did learn from my mistake and if there's somebody you want to interview just reach out just start that conversation get on their radar be in their social media you know facebook groups or you know comment on instagram tweet to them you know get on their radar so that they kind of recognize your name a little bit and then do the follow up with the email and see if they want to be a guest you never know if you don't ask and they can't say yes if you don't ask them so those are my top ways for finding guests for your podcast and i know that a lot of them seem pretty common sense but most people just don't do these things and it kind of drives me crazy because they can be incredibly incredibly effective so i do want to invite you to check out the show notes where i'm going to have some links to radio guest lists and herro and i'm also going to have this information in a handy pdf download for you so that you don't have to remember this episode or listen to it multiple times you can just download the pdf whenever you're ready to start looking for guests and run through the list and start contacting people to be a guest on your podcast you can find the show notes and that download by going to podcasting for coaches.com clicking on the podcast tab in the main menu and going to episode number 27 that wraps it up for today thank you so much for joining me this week and i want to invite you back here Next week, where we're going to talk about utilizing an online scheduling program to help streamline your interview process. Have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you're wondering if now is the right time to start a podcast for your coaching or consulting business, head on over to podcasting for coaches.com where you can either take a free quiz or schedule a one on one consultation with yours truly, thank you so much for joining me today. And I will see you back here for the next episode.