Molly: What up? Whatever coming in hot is camp content. And I am come in fresh off the tennis courts. Given the lessons for all the children out there. Actually, they were schooling me. We are. We are excited about today’s episode, aren’t we, guys?
Matt: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we are.
Anthony: As long as it’s not tennis.
Molly: Oh. The most.
Anthony: Boring episode.
Matt: Ever.
Molly: Actually.
Anthony: Well, tennis tournament going on recently.
Matt: Yeah, The Australian Open. I just got in tennis because I watched that Netflix. It just came out.
Molly: Oh, really? I thought about stopping Point break.
Matt: It’s like a behind the scenes thing about tennis and it’s actually pretty sick. No, I highly enjoyed it.
Anthony: Incredible athletes. Boring as hell.
Matt: Good to know. Yeah. Yeah. And the matches are, like, 4 hours long and. My God, 5 hours. How do you do that?
Molly: That’s some rich people shit right there. They only have that much time to sit around.
Matt: Oh.
Molly: Now we’re going to have to put it explicit. Thanks, Matt. All right. Sorry. So, speaking of this podcast, we are coming in hot today with the top five things that you need to know to leverage podcast guessing for your life, your business, or just everything in general. So I think we should start with number one, who wants to who wants to start it off? Don’t just hear.
Matt: Me. Be prepared. Speak and be prepared. Yes, we can go through everything because I see it firsthand. Mostly. You’re like, Hmm. The obvious. How’s the lighting right now? Mine. Poor. So do you.
Molly: Look, it’s a blind.
Matt: Oh, and that’ll have a big glare on the side of my face. As much of a claire, but it’s more like.
Anthony: Village number one to remember. We can’t edit in light, or we can edit out light. So you have to be well lit. Your podcast host is not going to be able to blur your background or make your house less cluttered.
Molly: So this isn’t Pixar people and let’s keep our expectations realistic, but mostly, yeah.
Matt: So we can start there.
Molly: But mostly staying consistent. Lighting is important, but really like we’ll get into the technical difficulties in number two, right? But number one, being prepared for me, being prepared means does the research right? So you listen to the podcast that you’re going on, look at the connect with the number one, connect with the host in advance. Do a 15 minute call with them. Man. It’s like game. Just go on a date with you wouldn’t match with somebody on Tinder and Bumble and not communicate at all and just meet at a bar. You would at least text a little bit. You would have some phone calls, you would warm things up a little bit. You want to do the same thing. You don’t want to be meeting the podcast host for the first time on the show because you’re going to waste a bunch of time getting to know each other when you could have done that in advance and jumped right into some juicy bits, right?
Anthony: You don’t want that awkward. How do you how you do in conversation to be first 10 minutes of the week.
Matt: We’ve even had we even have some clients and one was really good at it. They would book say in a recording from 1 to 2 p.m. and they would get into that riverside link at 1230 and they would do a 30 minute dry run of it. And then I would hop in like 5 minutes before the recording started. They’re just in there chopping it up and she’s like, Right, this is going to be good then.
Molly: And, and it makes such a difference, right? Like one of the biggest inspirations between behind Heartcast media Like when I first formed, it was watching Tom Blue of Impact Theory, and he is one of the best interviewers of all time. And he does a weekly show and every week he reads every book that his guest has written. He reads every article, he listens to every podcast. I mean, he anything that that guest has done, he is going to check it out and watch it and listen to it. And then he asks those people questions that nobody else is asking. And every single time they go, Man, man, Tom, now, you know, everybody says it and the intro, he does this spectacular intro, people, Hey, this is my rule. And she was born here and did this and did that. But most people know this. But what she’s really, you know, and blows people’s minds with the amount of information so when they sit down. Right. So you hope that your podcast get your host you know that’s having you on their show is going to be as thorough. Most likely they will not. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be that thorough and know about that host and ask appropriate questions, you know, back to that host to really guide the conversation. The other thing is this a good journalist always knows how to lead the conversation. And so you you should prepare ten questions in advance that you want to be asked. Right. And Anthony can speak on this probably better than I.
Anthony: Yeah. One of the most important things you need to do to prepare for your appearance on other people’s podcasts is to know what you’re going to talk about so you can kind of direct the conversation so it’s most effective for you. We like you to prepare ten questions that you’re always prepared to answer. Give them a bunch of topics that you’re always prepared to talk about. It gives them an idea of where you want to go with the conversation in the story you want to tell, right? Because if we can tell the story as we go along in the conversation, it’s just more engaging and more likely people are going to get some benefit out of it and to really understand where you’re going with it. And as Mollie can attest to, she’s been on a number of podcasts where they tried to take the conversation maybe in different directions, which is not a bad thing because it’s the host show and you never know where they want to go. A lot of the hosts want to tell your story. Tell us where you were born and grew up and maybe that’s going to lead into your first couple of jobs, which are not really relevant to what you’re trying to sell and may even work against it. Because if I’m tuning in with my short attention span and I’m now going to have to listen to 5 minutes about something that has no relevance to the information I want to get to, I’m likely to check the hell out of there. So preparing your host is your responsibility. Showing up, prepared is your responsibility, and then understanding when the host may be drifting a little, which is fine. Let them drift, allow them to, you know, feel like they’re in control of the conversation, but always be able to rein them back into what you want to talk about without being snippy about it. Don’t be like I’m not talking about my first job. Give a little Oh, yeah, I work that job. And you know what I learned in that job? That’s effective too. My thing I’m trying to sell now is this. And then you just kind of go on where you want to go on.
Matt: Mm hmm. Just keep taking it down that path in a rocket way.
Anthony: You’re the one who gets to kind of keep bringing it back.
Molly: Like a good journalist. Like Teri Schultz. Man, I got never seen any. But he can show a conversation the way she does, man.
Matt: Absolutely. Come with her.
Molly: I know. It was. She was awesome.
Matt: She was legit.
Molly: Super legit. Shout out to Teri Schultz, wherever you’re at. Mm hmm. Number two is Belgium. Actually, Belgium. Yeah. So, number two, this is. This is the biggest one ever. Right. Number two, buy microphone. By a microphone, by my client, by the shower. And by seven, as a matter of fact. Make sure the link is in the show notes, but we don’t get any kind of. That’s good. Don’t get your hopes up.
Anthony: It’s just that awesome.
Molly: It’s just that awesome. And you know what? We even had a client last week say that because there have been using their podcast microphone and I always we always tell clients use it on all calls don’t just use it on podcast. I’m acting like it’s a big deal. It’s not a big deal. Put it on a boom arm, put it in front of your face to do it right. She said unequivocally that her sales calls have improved because she’s using the microphone all the time. So if you need more reason to to buy a microphone three years into the pandemic. Yeah. Heathens, you know, it’s not sounding like you live in a trash can. Isn’t enough motivation if not coming in to an interview especially you want to go on good podcast. Those people are spending a lot of money on their production. They have really good microphones. They’re in studios and you come in on your laptop microphone and you bring down the quality of their production that they’re paying for, number one. And you’re going to sound like a rookie. You’re going to sound like you didn’t prepare yourself, because when you’re listening to a podcast on an audio first platform and this is what I don’t think people remember, everybody’s gotten so used to videos being on LinkedIn and YouTube and stuff where it’s like, you know, it’s not as important. But when you’re on an audio first platform like iTunes or Spotify and you’re wearing earbuds and somebody comes in and, hey, welcome to the camp content, we are serving up excellence. Somebody else is like, Oh, my name is Molly. Like, No, you. That is not a good look for you or your business whatsoever. And so by a microphone, by a microphone, it’ll make people want to listen to you more. It’ll make you sound smarter. It will help close more deals. It will get you booked on better podcast. If there was anything you want to it, don’t go join another mastermind or buy another course or hire another coach before you go buy a microphone, because literally that is 90% of of all of this is sounding good and being prepared.
Matt: And if you’re going on another podcast and that podcast host is a dummy and doesn’t have a good microphone and you’re going on their podcast and outperforming them with your quality, even better.
Molly: Even better.
Matt: Even better, even better.
Anthony: And it’s like you say, No, I’m sorry again.
Molly: No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Anthony: No, it’s like they say in a lot of businesses, Right. It’s not that hard to be better than average because so many people think they want to do something, but they’re not really putting in the effort. They’re not doing the research and simply showing up prepared with a good microphone, a set of headphones, good wi fi connection, good lighting, boom, you’re way better than average already. And you did the bare minimum and now you’re going to get booked on more podcasts. Even if people aren’t even listening to what you’re saying. They can see he’s prepared. She’s prepared, a microphone, get a headphone, they’re ready to go. And it just makes it makes a humongous difference. Before even getting into the horror stories about where we’ve seen people show up for failure, you see interviews.
Matt: On a room where you’re not going to get bothered like it’s a mansion. You live in a house or an apartment, go in a room, not a closet. I’ve had people in closets with their clothes draped over their head because they think that’s going to be a sound barrier. That’s not how that works, right? I mean, your laptop doesn’t work. Your phone doesn’t work. Sitting in a dentist’s chair, getting your teeth fixed during a recording doesn’t work and telling us to hang on for 5 minutes while it finishes, which is insane to me that actually.
Anthony: I don’t believe your dentist.
Molly: Yeah, Yeah. Don’t be at Whole Foods. Yeah, don’t be at the dentist.
Matt: Lady was on her back deck. She was on her back deck. Was like my wife was not working great. I was like, Because you’re 20 yards from the house. How in the woods? What do you expect?
Anthony: Wind blowing. Oh, yeah.
Matt: So, like, is your router in the shed?
Molly: Yeah, with the new outhouse. Why are those routers? You’re not familiar with those. Oh.
Matt: Well, the crowd loves and the kids. Yeah, I.
Molly: Know. It’s believable inside. It’s. It’s comedy night.
Matt: But it’s just. It’s common sense. It is. That’s what it boils down.
Molly: To all the time. Common sense in common, though, right? And my mom always said you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. And because you can you this one chance to confirm a bad first impression, you can lie me all the way in, but you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. And I think that’s.
Anthony: That’s why that first 15 minute call we talked about at the beginning is also so important because you get to see what they’re about, what you are about, talk about how the flow of the show is going to go, and hopefully they’re going to tell you, hey, don’t be outside or whatever, and just really, you know, be a professional, show up early and and show up prepared. It’s the bare minimum.
Molly: All right. Coming in. Hot number three. Number three, that is leverage your leverage your appearances with short form video. What does that mean? It means take the video content that you have from being on somebody else’s podcast and chop it up into smaller videos that you can put on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, you, Facebook stories wherever you want. But the whole point of the short form video is to reach bigger audiences with smaller content, because that’s what’s trending right now from a completion rate standpoint. And so if you can take this long interview, find the bits that are really good, chop them up into smaller videos, put them on social and tag all those people. So instead of just saying one time, Hey, thanks Molly-mae and Anthony for having me on camp content, now you can have six little videos and six opportunities to tag Heartcast media To tag me, to tag Anthony to tag Matt on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on YouTube, on Instagram. It creates all this social proof, it connects, creates all this connectivity, It creates a ton of leverage for you with that relationship with that podcast by putting it out on other networks. And so it is absolutely a cheat code to tagging. It’s like it’s like gremlins. You know, you put water on them and they expand. Well, that’s what short form content does to long form content. It takes us, you know, conversation. That’s not going to be all gems, right? Unless you’re Teri Schultz. We got the tag harness. Unless you’re Teri Schultz, you’re not going to have a podcast full of gems. So you’re going to have to go through there and find the ones that really represent what you’re trying to sell, what you’re trying to say, what you’re trying to represent, and make sure that you’re putting that on your podcast. And if you go on a really big podcast and make 17 of those videos, right, but make them 15 seconds, 20 seconds, not 45, not a minute long, not super long, because people just aren’t watching. So short form videos is another ultimate hack. So, you know.
Anthony: And it goes.
Matt: Into one of camp content to learn more about YouTube shorts and what they do.
Molly: Bang, bang.
Anthony: It goes into being prepared as well, though, right? Because if you’re going to show up with the questions you know you want to answer in the things you want to talk about, you’re creating that social media content intentionally. You know, you want to talk about this. That will make a great video, that will make a great video. And then all of this content. You did the work, you spent the money and you spent the time already, why not leverage it? That’s why we like the word leverage. You’re not repurposing it. It’s not like it’s this old thing that what else can I do with it before I throw it away? It has value. Now you can apply it how it’s best applied to the various social media channels. On LinkedIn, you got a network with people right on Tik Tok, you’re hosting the video and then people stare at it for 6 hours. But whatever it is, do it. You already spent the time and the money and we felt like people are leaving a lot on the table by not taking those videos. And you need new content every day. Everybody needs they they know they need new content. Why not create it intentionally?
Molly: And it’s so hard to be consistent. So if you can go in to Vegas in a month and then make six videos from each, now you have 12 videos, there’s only 20 business days, so you’ve damn near got a month’s worth of content if you do it right, you know, giving people little bits at a time. So yeah, short form video leverage, leverage, leverage. All right. Number four, this is another big leveraging tip. Who you want to who wants to take this one? Don’t fight.
Matt: The built in Audiences.
Anthony: Network is.
Molly: Number four, leveraging the built in audiences. What does that mean? So listen, people come to us all the time and they know that they want to have a podcast because they understand that it can be very valuable. But sometimes we say to people, We don’t think you should have a podcast. We actually think you should go on other people’s podcast. Why? Because if you need audiences now, if you need visibility now, then going on other people’s podcast and leveraging their built in already existing audience is also a cheap code to doing that because you can build an audience with a podcast, but it is a long haul. My friends, it is a long haul.
Anthony: It is much easier.
Matt: If you’re relying on starting a brand new features, like I want to hit this target audience, I’m going to start a podcast, you know, I’m just going to take you to build an audience to even start your podcast. It takes people months at times to even get it off and running in the pilot publish and everything. It’s like, you go on this guy show who’s got who’s average, let’s just say 300 downloads an episode. There’s an audience that’s an audience. Target audience level.
Molly: Lessons we listen to. You never bet you on a couple this value of a small audience man, because that’s.
Matt: Just picking a picking and pulling. Yeah.
Anthony: Easiest way to get into other people’s networks. But then we find that also people stop short. Okay, you’re in the network now, but you’re not engaging with them. You’re not commenting with them. The comments have so much value on these social media sites, you should be tagging every single person that was involved in the podcast and is in the sphere of the podcast and then actually engage with them. You got to respond to every single comment. If somebody likes your appearance and you respond to it, you have a follower for that show forever. The comments are so engaging. You have the ability to get into these networks. You have to know when the episode is coming out, promote your podcast appearance before it’s out. After it’s out, tag everybody engage with the networks. That’s where the value is. Okay, You went on the show. The show got you in front of these people. Great. Now what are you going to do with it? There’s more action required and it’s up to you if you’re building a brand or creating a sales funnel, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You still have to engage with the social media post. LinkedIn is obviously going to be best for that for most businesses, and that’s the best way to comment and really kind of, hey, follow me and I’ll follow you and all that kind of stuff. With all the social media sites obviously have that value YouTube channel with the tags and just doing everything you can to possibly make it work because you never know where you’re going to get the most benefit from it, right? We’ve had clients that you would think LinkedIn would be most effective and they’ve had success on TikTok. And then we’ve had clients where you think they may be Instagram reels and Tik Tok would be most effective in their networking with hundreds of people on LinkedIn. So until you have data that says it doesn’t work, you need to be everywhere.
Matt: Yeah, and we go in and check all of our clients like YouTubes and everything and look at the comments like, we’re doing that for one of our clients the other week. And that episode had like what, 20,000 views on it? It’s like if you go on there and you’re a guest on a podcast and you see a bunch of people comment about you in a good way or a bad way, doesn’t matter and you use that to your advantage. It had 20,000.
Molly: Views. Right, Right.
Anthony: Absolutely.
Molly: Absolutely. And then, you know, one.
Matt: YouTube episode.
Molly: And then this kind of ties into the number one. Be prepared, of course, but also like your kids. Right. And we we see this a lot where people don’t have a CTA at all. No CTA at all. Or they have to.
Matt: Tell some people what that even means.
Molly: Well, okay, you’re right. So CTA means call to action. So what is it, the bottom of all that text? What is the whole point in this podcast? Right. For us? We want you to book a discovery car. You want to hang out with us, you want to spread your content book at Discovery. Come in. That’s really what we want. You know, we want to hang out with you, want to work with you, right? Really simple. So a lot of people don’t have a CTA at all or they have too many CTAs. They have links to your their Instagram, their Tik-tok, their LinkedIn, their website. Join this, join that, and here’s this upcoming form. Here’s us. Do you? That’s too many link trees.
Anthony: Lazy. Right.
Molly: Right. Do That’s too even link tree. People are saying that and I love me some link tree but even they’re saying sometimes there’s too many options on there and people don’t do anything. And I think that’s relevant. So if you have a podcast and you’re nonprofit and you’re trying to raise money, then you should have a donate to our cause here. And that should be the only thing. Because quite frankly, if they want to talk to you, they can go to your website, they can find you. What do you really want? You want a donation? What do you really want? Sign this petition. What do you really want? Book a discovery call. I don’t want you to buy my book, visit my website and go to all my social media that doesn’t really do anything for me. I want to continue the conversation with you in a very specific way. And so being very clear about what your CTA is is really important. And don’t put 17,000 links on your on the on your outro. And when you’re on a podcast and they always say, tell people how they can find you one thing.
Anthony: One thing, I think people get confused because there’s kind of two kinds of podcasts. If you have an entertainment style podcast, the goal of that podcast is to simply grow an audience. Those are the people who were saying, Smash that subscribe button and follow me on this and follow me on that, because that’s literally the goal. That’s the CTA of that content. But if you have something to sell or you want to get a discovery call, right, that it’s a different goal. And I think a lot of people see the super popular podcasters with the smash the subscribe button and they think, Hey, that’s a good idea. I do want followers too, but you’re going to get your followers kind of the other way by directing them to the your website, the link to buy something, to discover more information about your product. They know you have social media like they’re going to find it.
Molly: Exactly. I mean, what’s the first thing? And if you’ve done what we’ve suggested, you’ve already gone onto their social media and you’ve already commented, right. And everybody knows, right? Like the whole like you don’t even have to ask like follow my page. Like if I open my Instagram and somebody commented, I’m going to immediately read the comment it hard it and open up their page. And if they’re not Looney Tunes, I’m going to follow them back. So you don’t need to tell me to do that. All you have to do is engage with me a little bit and we’re all that way. I manage large social media accounts. I see every comment that comes through. So of course somebody else is going to as well. So if you’ve already engaged, then they already have your social media, they’ve already seen you engaging. It’s their favorite podcast and they said you’ve already commented on things they don’t, you don’t need to give them their Instagram only is this thing we can all do is find each other’s Instagram. You don’t really even need to tell each other that, right? LinkedIn might be a little harder, but not really. You know.
Matt: More times than not, if you are a guest on a show and they post that stuff about you and you comment on it a few times, are probably going to pin your comments at the top like an Instagram. You can pen in various platforms, you can pin a common to the top YouTube and everything. Go read something intelligent, right? Comment on the show and how great the host is, even like anything from their tires.
Molly: A little. Thanks for having me write like you. I mean, just the simplest thing. Oh, I really appreciate this. Such a great anything. You know what I mean?
Anthony: Any interview. Everybody should go on this show, baby, you know, promoter for their show and they’re going to promote your appearance on the show. It’s a give and take. We see so many people go on shows. They never think about it again. They never promote their upcoming appearance. And there’s so much of that left on the table. And it’s all about engagement, right? So like any opportunity, you really have to take advantage of it. Yeah.
Molly: I agree. So and we’re running a little late here, so we’re going to roll right into number five people. And this one is really, really important to understand the timeline. So it takes a while, man. If you want to get booked on podcasts now, you’re late. You should have started in November, frankly. So if you want to get some.
Anthony: Podcasts.
Molly: Or going on podcasts in Q2 and you start in Q1, you want to do it, Q3 need to start in Q2. If you want to promote your book that’s coming out next week, touch it and get to work because nobody’s booking in a week, nobody’s booking within the month. And if they do record you in, then the month is probably still not going to be edited and produced and released for another three months after that. So this idea that something is going to happen fast is not realistic. So if this is something you want to do right, which we really suggest you do a three months sprint because you can’t go on podcast in perpetuity forever, right? You do want to do it for an entire year. You’re going to start going on stuff that doesn’t even make sense. You’re going to be checking boxes, you’re going to lose your steam when we talk to the wrong audiences, Right? That’s not that’s not the look you want to do three months targeted with a specific person. Your ten questions, your specific goal, your specific CTA, do it for three months, blow it all the way up, and then look at the data and see what’s what.
Matt: You don’t see what’s what.
Molly: But understand that it’s not going to happen fast. And so if you’re looking to do this, you need to start now. You need to start be prepared.
Anthony: You got a book coming out in the summer. You got to start now because if you start in the summer, the by the time the episodes come out, your book is going to be full, full dust on the shelves, right? So it takes about ten days, 14 days for us to even start getting bookings going. And we have a huge network of people that we work with, other companies that we work with, and I still don’t see results for about ten days. And then once they start coming in, like Molly said, they’re often, if you’re lucky, only a month out. And if you’re lucky, they’ll posted a couple of weeks after that. So figure a six week timeline right there.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, like myself, we’re kind of short here, but if you really want more info on that, if we want to give another shameless plug, all those, all that short form content we just made for Alex, he went in the depth. What’s all of this like the timelines, like how to get on this show. Like you have to start months and months and months in advance, like a lot of it was to deal with like a book coming out. Those were like the prime examples he used, but it was like if you got a book coming out in November, you start getting on shows in like February and of course reaching out because you can’t hit up a post or like a host and be like, Hey, my book just came out. Can I get on your show next week? It’s like, No, the front of the Good Show is booked out and they have episodes scheduled out months in advance. So you’re like, You can get on this show, I can get you on it maybe a month, but an episode come out four months later. But five months after your book releases, what’s the point? You know.
Anthony: And of course, we’re talking about the great Alex Sanfilippo. We have to.
Matt: Mention.
Molly: We’re going to play the links in Our favorite guy is one of the worst guys for engaging this guy podcasting. So yeah, man, well, this is a, this is a long episode, but I think it was packed with some value. We gave some very actionable tips, and I think a lot of people right now are like New Year, new me. Let me go get some visibility in there. We’re getting a lot of calls about podcast booking, so hopefully this information was valuable to you guys and you’ll level up your podcast guessing appearances and we’re going to put the link to the mic bundle on the bottom. We’re going to put a link to Teri Schultz in the bottom. You can see what badass she is. She’s also a professional journalist of like 40 years. So don’t beat yourself.
Matt: Up to a tornado and everything. Yeah, Like.
Molly: And we will make sure to link you to Alex to see his content. And also there’s some resources. There are definitely programs you can join to get booked on other podcasts. You can manage it yourself or you can hire a company to do it and they can manage it for you so you have options. We’ll give you some resources in the links below and until next time and stay safe and, you know, make sure to put on something. Rapidly changing.
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