How to Get Booked on Podcasts with Dustin Riechmann

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
podcast, people, pitch, business, audience, virtual assistant, episode, shows, target market, host, accelerator program, guest, listening, purpose, interview, strategy, alastair, guesting, find, review

SPEAKERS
Alastair McDermott, Voiceover, Dustin Riechmann

Dustin Riechmann  00:00

My favorite authority builder is podcasting and things like it types of marketing partnerships that are Win win when you serve you give first and you show your value first. And then from that you can receive sales but also authority. Because you’re you’re being featured as an expert on all these shows.

Voiceover  00:17

Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

Alastair McDermott  00:33

Before we get into today’s episode, I just want to briefly let you know about a free email course that is available at TheRecognizedAuthority.com. It’s a free seven day email course on how to become a recognized authority. You can subscribe to that just by visiting TheRecognizedAuthority.com/homepage.  So today, my guest is Dustin riechmann. And Dustin is a really interesting guy who I was introduced to by my publisher, Melissa, and she was talking to Dustin about podcast guesting and that’s what she, she suggested to me is a really interesting topic for the podcast. And it’s something that I like to do myself. And so I’m really, really interested in talking to Dustin about that today. And Dustin helps mission driven solopreneurs to rapidly increase profits without paid ads. And he has a really interesting background as well. So Dustin, welcome to the show.

Dustin Riechmann  01:26

Alastair, I’m really excited to be here. I’m glad the introduction was made. And we’re kindred spirits. This will be a great conversation.

Alastair McDermott  01:33

Yeah, I think so. Okay, so the first thing like we were talking about, like we’re both big into podcasting, and obviously, you’re on my podcast as a guest here. And so we’re clearly you know, that’s that’s a thing, but podcast guesting as a as a strategy, I think it’s really interesting. I also think there’s some tricky bits to it. So I’d love to dig into that. Can you tell me a little bit about how you think about podcasting and why it’s important?

Dustin Riechmann  02:00

Yeah, so I’ll open with I love podcasting. And I don’t have a podcast. And my, it’s not that not that I’m against it. And I very well may at some point. But my take on this, this from a marketing perspective is why you know, have to build up my own audience and go through all the production and all that if one of the main thing I want out of it is, you know, exposure to a target market and be able to serve a certain target market.  The beautiful thing about podcasts guesting is I can go see very visibly my target market and where they’re hanging out and which shows they’re listening to. And then I can just show up there, share, share what I know, share my stories, and for the people that resonate, then it becomes a great marketing channel. So I just see podcasts guessing is really an underutilized resource for people that aren’t podcasters. So I think when you have a podcast, there’s natural inclination, and it’s really smart. The best way to grow your show is to go guest because the people are already in that medium. They obviously like podcasts if they’re listening to them. So it’s a lot easier to bring them over to your show. But I think that’s what we’re talking about a lot today. There’s other strategies, even if you don’t have a podcast that you can really benefit your business as a guest.

Alastair McDermott  03:08

Yeah. So the way I think about it, I think that first off if you’re thinking about starting a podcast, going and guesting on a few shows is a great way to figure out if you would like to do it, if you’d like to actually have a podcast. And so I recommend that people who don’t want to start a podcast and for the reasons that you talked about, they don’t want the hassle of doing it. They don’t want to go through the building of the audience and things like that. Actually doing guesting I think it’s a really good idea. But then on the flip side, I think that one of the most important things you can do to grow your own podcast is to actually go out and guest and live. So I recommend that people who do have a podcast, go and guest. So actually I think that no matter what scenario you’re in podcast guesting is probably a good idea, particularly for reaching new audience and growing your own network and things like that. Right?

Dustin Riechmann  03:55

For sure. And I get to find an online business now if you if you’re like a local dentist, this might not make a lot of sense. But if you have an online business people can access you on the internet. I really can’t haven’t found a scenario where podcasts guesting does not make sense. As long as the individual is obviously comfortable with it. You have to like to be interviewed and have stories to share and have something compelling to teach. Checking those boxes. Absolutely. I think it’s kind of a universal channel that, again, is largely untapped in my experience.

Alastair McDermott  04:25

Yeah. So So let’s dig into it a little bit, because it’s not easy to do. And, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been doing my own podcast, I think we’re at episode 95 Or maybe even towards 100 when this comes out, but at the same time I’ve only guests on maybe 20-25 podcasts. So that ratio for me is I feels like it’s quite low. It feels like I could have been on more and I probably should be doing a bit more. But I find that difficult as well to do so. Can you talk about like how you think about actually getting onto other podcasts as a guest?

Dustin Riechmann  05:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think of like a marketing system. So my, my distant back backer has an engineering. So I tend to kind of systematize things and put them in steps. And then I try to see ways that we can scale it right. So, and maybe this would be helpful for everyone listening to start with thinking like a five step framework. And the, and I can go through those real quickly and kind of give people context. So number one is purpose number two is plan number three is pitch. Number four is perform, and number five is profit. So they’re in a specific order. And I think where a lot of people get tripped up is in the middle in steps two and three.  But real quickly, step one is purpose. So that’s really being very clear on why would I want to be on a podcast, maybe that goal is to grow my own show, maybe that goal is simply to refine my message, maybe that goal is to grow my network, maybe that goal is to sell high ticket service, but you need to be able to specifically say why? Because then you can identify your target market. And once you know that, you know, which shows to approach.  So step two is plan. So that’s like, now I know what kind of shows I want to be on. So how do I actually research find them, prioritize them, because once you go down this rabbit hole, you quickly find there are many thousands of options, and you need to prioritize them and pick the right shows first. Step three is pitch. That’s like, how do you get on the show? So now I found the shows, these would be great. Like, how do I actually get on there. And this is kind of art and science. And this is something I help a lot of people with is effective pitching, we’ve got to the point where I get about an 80% acceptance rate with the single outreach, which is pretty good. And I know you get pitched a lot. People mess this up constantly. Work perform. So that’s like, how do you prepare for this show? What are you going to talk about? What stories do you have? What’s your call to action? Because that call to action at the end goes all the way back to number one the purpose? Like what’s the first step I want someone to take after they hear me if they liked my message.  And then step five is profit. So that gets pretty, pretty deep and strategic, but various ways that hey, I’ve went through the effort, I’ve taken the time and I’ve got yeses. And I showed up and I did a good job. How do I leverage every one of those podcast appearances to grow my business or meet, meet whatever my goals were in step one. So that’s that’s the framework. That’s how I think through this. And I’m a big advocate of, again, doing it in a systematic way to where the first time through is a lot of work. But it’s very repeatable. Like, I’m really big on having a virtual assistant that kind of runs step two, and three, once it’s dialed in. So they’re the one researching, they’re the one drafting the pitches for me to review. And that’s 80% of the legwork. Right? So my role is the business business owner is to set the purpose, and is to show up and do the interviews, the PerforM part, they’re doing most of the legwork in between, and then depending on what what strategies you want to deploy, in that profit, that ultimate step, you know, we kind of share roles there, myself and my virtual assistant.

Alastair McDermott  07:51

Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that for most businesses, particularly where it’s not keen on the word solopreneur, but it describes it describes a certain type of business quite well. For most people who are solopreneurs are these independent experts, I actually think that having a virtual assistant or whatever you want to call them, EA, VA, PA, I think that’s really important and really useful, because there’s so much of that kind of time consuming work that you could get them to do. And that makes life much easier. And including, like, I would not be at 95 or 100 episodes of this podcast, if I didn’t have that support, because it would just have driven me insane by now. And just having having somebody to do all of those repeated steps and, and you know, the other thing to bear in mind is that there are people out there who love doing that kind of work. And, you know, sometimes as business owners, we think, Oh, geez, you know, like, I’m just gonna be like, I’m going to be dumping the work like my assistants, Aiko, she loves doing bookkeeping, for example, which drives me nuts. I like I really hate bookkeeping, of all things in the business. And she actually likes that she likes the kind of the the detective work and figuring things out. And so there are people who love all of this type of work and are really happy to take it off your hands and to do that repetitive stuff. And I think that when you’ve got something like this, where there are where there’s a lot of data to go through, there’s a lot of like volume of work. I think it’s really important. I think if there’s less volume of work, then it’s not so important. But in this case, when like you’re talking about thousands of podcasts and absolutely there are having to try and you know, sift through that and figure things out. It really does help to have help.

Dustin Riechmann  09:44

Yeah, and I to your point when virtual I actually had this discussion on a podcast I was on last week and I said VA just in common parlance and virtual assistant and the host actually, he almost like thought that was a demeaning thing to say. And I’m like, No, I love my virtual assistant. She’s She speaks English. She lives in the US I pay her quite well. And to your point, Aleister, she loves this work like she’s a behind the scenes type person. She likes the repetitiveness of it. She likes. She likes finding cool stuff to bring me and be like, check out this show she got this opportunity. And yeah, it’s like part of what we do. We have like this accelerator program. It’s a part of what we do. And we work with entrepreneurs, if they, if they have a virtual assistant, we train them in this process. If they don’t, we help them hire them. And then that job description, you really can’t attract people who like love this. So this is not meant to be like demeaning work. This is like really cool work for some people. It’s not the type of work that typically a business owner should be doing, because it’s not the highest and best use of our time. And I also don’t like the word solopreneur. But it’s in my bio, because there’s not like, people get it. And it’s not like there’s not like a great word to replace it.

Alastair McDermott  10:46

Yeah

Dustin Riechmann  10:47

Come up with one I would rather I’d love to update my

Alastair McDermott  10:51

Yeah, no, no, I agree with you there. And sometimes we have to use and this is a different topic altogether. But sometimes we need to use words, even when they’re not our favorite words, but but they’re the most appropriate word in a certain context. And, and sometimes, yeah, I’m not crazy about solopreneur. But it does really identify a particular particular type of business. Okay, so I want to get into your, your five step, your five step process, or your framework a little bit. So its purpose, plan, pitch, perform and profit. And so I want to dig into the purpose then how do you think about the purpose when you’re thinking about setting up a podcast guesting strategy?

Dustin Riechmann  11:34

Yeah, so again, the approach here, what we’re really ultimately trying to use is making this a marketing channel, marketing and sales channel. So it’s the purpose is defining like, what, its kind of business 101. And when I when I work with people, either in accelerator program or in coaching, I joke, but it’s true, like this piece can take 30 minutes, or it can take 30 days. Because what we start with with everyone is like, what’s your three year vision for your business? Right? What do you want your business to look like? Well, how many clients what kind of clients what kind of team? And then what’s your one year revenue goal, and we come up with a 90 day marketing plan, which is centered on podcast guessing, obviously. But I think that’s super important because the shows I choose to be on what I’m going to do after I’m a guest, like all that totally depends on what my business model that has, right like what if I’m, if I’m, if I’m a high five, do high ticket coaching, and I need five clients a year, I’m going to choose different podcasts, I’m going to choose different topics, to find that target market versus if I sell meat sticks, which is one of my businesses, I’m selling a $2, you know, online product, like physical product, I’m going to have a different approach to podcasting because of that.  So that’s what I mean by purpose like it, can you is thinking about that vision and those goals for your business and what you want your lifestyle to look like, etc, it all boils down to what’s my call to action. So we talked about, like, what’s the transformation you provide? What’s the before and after, when someone like works with you and the stuff that you do in your business? Because that gives you the right words to use in the podcast and describe your own journey. But it all boils down in the call to action, right? So if I have this big transformation I provide people say I’m a marriage coach. And they go from, you know, feeling like roommates and fighting to like, have a really happy marriage.  In the podcast, I’m not going to create that transformation. But I can lay a framework or I can lay client stories, I can show them examples and give them the hope. And then my call to action is going to be that very first mini step. Hey, when we when you leave this podcast, go download these five communication principles or these five tips, you know, that sort of thing, something you can use today, to like get your spouse to open up and have a real conversation and maybe for the first time in years. So like, that’s the purpose is like, I can boil it down to what’s my call to action. And I know that that isn’t full alignment with what I ultimately want customers to do to grow my business. Does that helpful?

Alastair McDermott  14:00

Yeah, that’s super helpful. I was really fascinated by this specific example, like, like, what is the difference between when you’re trying to sell a $2 meat stick? Or high high ticket coaching? Like, like, what’s the actual difference you’re looking for there? Because I think it’ll be interesting to kind of dig into a little bit.

Dustin Riechmann  14:20

Yeah, and actually, maybe, maybe an easier way for me to answer that would be same company, but a different vision for that same company. So for so Fire Creek snacks, that’s one of my companies, and I’m a partner in that. And that’s actually how I got into podcasting was my very first podcast was summer 2020 As an alternative to brick and mortar retail, because it was COVID times and everything shut down. So I tried podcasting for the very first time as a guest and it really worked. And who I was targeting in those on that podcast was the listeners and I might offer my call to action was a coupon code, go to our website and buy a bundle of snack sticks. They’re great because you’re stuck at home anyway. And you know, we made a lot of sales. And that that was so that was the purpose. And that purpose evolved though.  So, in a later podcast, after our purpose evolved, I said, you know, I can sell to the mass market, and we can get a very small percentage of people to actually spend a few 100 bucks in total, for that, is there like a higher leverage opportunity here. So I started targeting podcasts that could actually be my customer. So a perfect example, there’s a company called Snack Nation in the United States. And they do better for you snack boxes, they sell to like Google, Facebook, Apple. So they’re all business models, they ship better for you snacks in boxes every month to break rooms, and even to people’s homes when they started working from home. So I actually ended up targeting that podcast to develop relationships with that company, which got us a good relationship. And then we got a test. On the heels of the podcast, I said, Hey, I know we’re a small brand and the scheme of things here, we’d love to like, if you give us a shot, we donated snack sticks to them, 8000 of them, they put them in boxes and went out. And then they collected a lot of customer feedback data. Well, the feedback data was really good.  So that was the purpose, though, was to get access to their customers. Ultimately, it’s a whole different story, but a year later this year, because that was in 2021. A year later, we got a $550,000 purchase order from Snack Nation As a follow up to that test. So you can see that that’s a hopefully that’s a good distinction. I mean, if my purpose was simply to sell to the consumer, that’s fine. And I probably need to be on quite a few podcasts, I’m probably going to be on like a ketogenic diet type of podcast. Yeah, my target market is in consumer versus more of a b2b play is like, I want to be on shows that either have guests that would ultimately be great customers for us, or host, but I’m thinking about it in like, I need, like, 10 of these people this year, not like 10,000. And so it’s just neither one’s right or wrong. It’s just a different purpose. So that I think that’s super important. When you’re thinking about what kind of approach you want to take your podcasts marketing.  Yeah, I think that’s, that’s really interesting. Like with with that products, like I know, and I’ve seen, so my partner, Emery, she’s, she’s big into trail running. And she’s doing an ultra marathon in Portland in the new year. And I know that like some of the trail tout trail running podcast that she listens to. I know that they have, that they have advertising for these types of products, kind of healthy snack type stuff. And so that’s your direct to consumer play. So yeah, that’s really interesting. So thanks for digging into that. I think it’s interesting just to get get a little bit specific sometimes and look at those.  Yeah, that’s a great question. People, people usually gloss over the purpose part, because it’s like, yeah, whatever, like, tell me how to pitch, you know, like they want to get. So it was fun to unpack. That was an example.

Alastair McDermott  17:43

Yeah. And and I think it’s also really interesting. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you on the podcast was because you have that b2c business to consumer experience that a lot of people who come on this podcast are just purely in the b2b world, and they don’t really have that consumer experience. And I think it’s really interesting that you’re bringing that because I think it is a very, very different world. And the way that you market in b2c is so different. So I think having that perspective, I think, is really fascinating.

Dustin Riechmann  18:14

Thanks. Yeah, I have a pretty, pretty unique background. So and it does feed well into leading diverse groups of entrepreneurs that maybe are very different types of businesses. But you know, there’s a lot of case studies, tactics, tools and stuff that I’ve encountered over the years, in doing the I was a, I was an engineering consultant. And I have a digital digital products business called Engaged Marriage, which is like courses a membership site. And then I have the physical product business with fire Creek, and then in marketing, fire Creek and the public and basically being on podcast and sharing that story. And people were intrigued by it. And they reached out, I grew a very organically, this coaching business, simple success coaching, and then that’s become, you know, really focused on group coaching for the most part. So yeah, it’s definitely been an evolution, but I don’t think I could be as effective at helping people in in the end, you know, without all these kind of odd dots that only connect into rearview mirror.

Alastair McDermott  19:09

Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s, it just shows like how this that like, that is a pretty diverse experience. And I know that like we were joking, I was saying that you’re a real engineer. Because my background is in software engineering. You know, we don’t tend to have the same kind of stringent requirements on the usage of the term engineer and software software world. So yeah, so okay, let’s get into the other the other part. So so we talked about the purpose part a bit there. So let’s talk about actually actually doing the planning. So this is finding the podcast so like, there’s about 4 million podcasts give or take out there. And now I know a lot of those podcasts aren’t live there’s a lot of them have gone into hiatus or on a break or permanently finished which is, which is fine. Like, I think that that’s okay to start a podcast and to finish it, you know, it’s like a it’s like a TV show in a way, you know, you can have seasons and it comes to a natural ebb and natural land. But so you’re looking at active podcasts, right, obviously, how do you start to narrow with them?

Dustin Riechmann  20:17

Yeah. So I mean, looking at pointing back to step one, and we say, what’s a target market we want to focus on. And that’s really key. It’s not the only ever it’s like people feel it’s very limiting. So to continue on the example we are on, let’s say it is ketogenic diet, like low carb diet. So then I can go find podcast about low carb dieting, ketogenic, you know, fitness, bodybuilding, whatever. And so like, that’s, that’s one thing is to pick a target market. And then kind of the, the really quick check that we start with is, like, to your point, Are they active. So if we say we find 10, we might we find a post, that’s the best 10, ketogenic diet podcasts are 2022, we go open them up and look at them. And we see, number one, Are they active. And number two, do they do interviews, because if they almost never do interviews, there’s no point in even having them on your list, because this is an interview based approach.  And then number three is relative size. So this will vary depending on the size of your business and your own influence in your own reach. For most people, though, when they get started, they’re gonna want to be on smaller shows, and get their reps in, refine their story, etc. And then typically, they graduate up to what I would call a medium sized show. And then occasionally, we’ll get on large shows. But I don’t like to put the pressure of saying this only works if you’re going to large shows, not many people are getting on Joe Rogan, you probably don’t have like that kind of reach unless you’re a celebrity. But everyone at the medium level is approachable with the right approach, which we’ll talk about what to pitch.  So if you kind of think small to medium, there are different tools, that really simple way the freeway for everyone listening is to simply open up that podcast and Apple iTunes, and look at the number of ratings. Now to give you some metric, right. And this is not a perfect science, there are people who buy ratings, and they have way higher ratings than they do than they should. And there are people who just don’t stress that on their show. They don’t ask people to do it. So they actually get more downloads, and less ratings. But it gives you a relative sense, right? So I’d say like a medium sized show, a lot of times we have like 50 to 300, you know, are probably 100 to 300, less than 100, I’d say is on the smaller end, but one is way different than 99. You know, so it’s definitely an imperfect science. But that gives people a sense of like, you know, if it’s a brand new show, it has no ratings, maybe it’s still worth doing because that show may grow into something in well, going back again to the this actually gets more into the the profit side of things.  There are also reasons to be on shows that have nothing to do with the size of their audience. Maybe you just want a really good relationship with that host. Maybe there’s an influencer that you really want to know, maybe they’re a referral source for you. Maybe they’re a potential client. And then you’re talking to them on an interview. They’re asking all these questions. And it’s ultimately like a 45 minute sales call, you know, if they’re like your perfect client. So now we’ll talk about we can talk about other more advanced reasons to be on podcast, but in US innocence, that’s like, how we do the plan the research. So we do some immediate screening, we find some shows that are good candidates, you know, we basically prioritize them based on their relative size. And that’s all assuming they’re all cold relationships. Before we do that, what we typically do is look at warmer relationships, like do I actually know the host? Do I listen to the show on a regular basis? Do I know some really unique things about the host, that’s going to make my pitch more effective. So we start with the low hanging fruit? And then once you run out of that, then you get to more of the cold? Like, I don’t know anything about any of these shows, they don’t have to be able to prioritize them to be able to take some action with them.

Alastair McDermott  23:40

Yeah, yeah, it’s really interesting. And I certainly don’t ask for ratings and reviews enough. So if you’re listening, dear listener, please do open up Apple podcasts and leave a rating and review there. I would appreciate it. But no, I certainly don’t ask enough for those. So it’s something I should do more of.

Dustin Riechmann  24:00

Yeah. And I think something that’s just kind of gets more to the PErforM part of things. But since we’re on the topic, if you’re ever a guest on so much, so leave a review after you’re done, you know, after you’re done recording, like it’s the least you can do, but almost no one does it. So you’re gonna stand out to the host be like, Wow, that sounds really cool. You left me a nice review. And you know, and it makes a difference. And it also it only helps you because it helps more people find the show. I think that’s like, yeah, it really helps, you know, get that people can take away that. And if you another another way to use that. If you want to be on a show and they don’t have a lot of ratings, leave a review, and then let them know hey, I’m loving the show. I just wanted to let you know I left you a review on iTunes. They’re gonna respond back say thanks so much. And then that can also be another way to kind of enter into the the pitch in a warm in a warmer way.

Alastair McDermott  24:45

That’s a great tip. And certainly like, if somebody sends me a cold pitch, we can talk about the actual pitches in a moment. When somebody sends me a cold pitch. They’re usually terrible. On the few occasions that that I’ve gotten a pitch where somebody has mentioned, Hey, I just left you a review. And it has happened a couple of times, I’ve certainly been much more open to considering it. So yeah, now we can, we can talk about the pitching. But I just want to talk a little bit more about actually finding the shows like, like picking the right shows to pitch because even even just like when you do your searches, and you, you come up with list, like you can still end up with hundreds of shows, which is really too much to to pitch all at once. So how do you filter it down? Like how do you decide?

Dustin Riechmann  25:36

Yeah, I mean, I think if I’m, if I’m getting to find out a list of 100, then I’m probably going to narrow it down on the target market side. So maybe, okay, I got I found 500 ketogenic diet, podcasts that say something about the ketogenic diet, right. So that might have my virtual assistant or, you know, if it’s me the first time through, I might say, you know, what, look at look at their last 10 episodes, if they’re almost all doctors at the interview, take them off the drop them in priority, they’re probably not going to listen to me. And maybe it’s, you know, if it’s a, if the host is like, family oriented, then yeah, put them give them a higher priority, right, because I have a family, I have three kids, like I can talk about what it’s like to do keto with a family. And so, you know, I mean, so it’s kind of whittling it down in, I’m using one example. But depending on your target market, what you’re likely find is, it has an example, if you find 100, you’re probably gonna find that like 50 of them are either inactive, or don’t do interviews, and then you’re gonna have 50, and then you pull up the ones that you have some relationship with, even if it’s only that, hey, I listened to three of these episodes in the past, I’ve kind of know what they do, or I read this guy’s book, or, Hey, look, I found in the first five episodes, there’s a guest on their previous guest and actually know, so they can make an introduction. So that’s that low hanging fruit, like pull up, which can, and if you’re left with 45, completely cold ones, then I usually rank them based on size.  And again, bigger is better, unless you’re not ready for that. Or if it’s an unapproachable number, if they’re 5000, reviews, probably not getting on there, unless you really know somebody, because they have so much inbound interest, and you’re probably getting paid to let people on their show and stuff at that level. But you know, so there’s kind of those outliers. And then yeah, then I’m left with 35, then I’m probably saying, let’s pick some reason to prioritize them. Because we can’t pitch 35 at once, we may eventually pitch all 35, you know, over the course of six months, or something like that, depending on what flow you want to go on. And again, how many is a reasonable amount to keep on a list. I don’t know, my list is ridiculously long at this point. But I have I feed different businesses with it, I’d get on them for different reasons, I get a lot of like more warm referrals now, because I’ve been on so many. So I think that’s hopefully that’s an encouragement for the audience, like the first time through this may sound a little like, laborious. And even if you have a virtual assistant doing it, maybe they’re spending several hours a week on this. Once you kind of hit a critical mass, you’ve been on enough shows, there’s other strategies to use to get really warm introductions that don’t require you to like go just out into the ether and try to find random shows, it was what it might feel like when people were first doing this. So that kind of chipped away at that, like, there’s still going to be a lot of opportunity, which is a good thing. And ultimately, like, these 50 are all tie then just pick one and start with that one. Like there’s, you know, it’s

Alastair McDermott  28:23

Yeah, I mean, at some point, you can, you know, sort by alphabet, alphabetical, or something like that.

Dustin Riechmann  28:28

There you go.

Alastair McDermott  28:29

Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah. So no, it’s just trying to wonder like how you whittled it down, because because there can be huge numbers. And, like, relative to, you know, the number of blogs out there, the number of YouTube channels, things like that the number of podcasts is actually relatively small. But it’s still quite big when you’re doing this kind of research and actually trying to try to try to, like plant it to send out these pitches. There’s one other thing that I just want to ask you a little bit about, before we talk about the actual pitches, which is, you mentioned before, you know, putting your reps in, and it’s good to start on small podcast sometimes. And it’s something I had Chris Do on this podcast, a few episodes back. And it’s something that he talks about, you know, when you’re when you’re starting out, you don’t want to get on the big podcasts, you don’t want to go viral, because you haven’t really figured out they haven’t really figured out your messaging the way you speak your offer. You don’t have much experience. So like, do you like actively encourage your clients to go on small podcast to start with for that reason?

Dustin Riechmann  29:33

Yeah, if they’ve never been on it, or if they’re unsure exactly what they want to talk about, to Chris’s point, if they don’t really know what they’re going to do to leverage these podcasts then. And I don’t want to make this sound like you don’t care about the host or audience. You’re still there to serve and you’re doing it because you want to serve their audience, see if it’s a smaller audience, but it just doesn’t create as much pressure. Right? So yeah, is it bad if some went viral? And you’re like, Oh, I didn’t really talk about exactly what I wanted. Well, if it went viral You probably did a good job and you, you’ll figure out something to do with all that traffic. But that’s very unlikely to happen anyway. So, yeah, so I definitely do practically say, yeah, once you go get three under your belt, go do them, you know, and like in my accelerator, like, I’ll review them and like, Hey, let me listen, your interview, and then I’ll give him some pointers. And if it’s even before that I’ve had some people are like, I really want to do this, but I’m really nervous, I say, we’ll do a mock interview, like, give me an example your target market, who the host might be, I’ll put on that hat and I’ll, and I’ll interview them as if on that person. And we can videotape it, you know, we can record it on on Zoom.  And that can also help people kind of coach them through a mock interview. Ask them some realistic questions that might come up. And almost always, because there’s subject matter experts are actually gonna have really good answers. They just don’t, there’s a feeling of, of the fear of the unknown, actually have a client right now who she speaks on stages, she posts workshops. She’s a nonprofit, executive strategic planning coach. So like she’s with really high powered people that sit on these boards, and she’s directing them on strategy and stuff. But she’s terrified to be on a podcast. And it’s, she’s like, well, they’re like, I’m controlling it and like, and I’m also it’s all collaborative, whereas on a podcast, I feel like there’s all these people listening, and one of the hosts asked me something I look stupid. And so for her, you can break the mold with this, too. I said, you know, what, once you when you pitch these, these hosts, if they work for nonprofits, or with nonprofits, like don’t, don’t subject yourself to the random questions, say, Hey, I would love to do a coaching session, where you get a free coaching session, and then I’ll kind of control the conversation. I think your audience would love seeing this unpack for you. And I think it’s worth like, she’s getting yeses, like, really quickly. And she feels super comfortable that approach because he feels like she gets to kind of control the direction of the conversation. And it’s unique for the audience, I think. So there’s different ways to, you know, approach the interview, depending on what your goals are, and what you’re comfortable with.

Alastair McDermott  32:04

Yeah, and at what you mentioned there doing mock interviews, that’s actually something I’ve done with, with the people in my, in my group coaching program Authority Labs. And we’ve done we did two interviews, actually. So we did the first one recorded, then reviewed it, and then did a second interview. And you could see the massive improvement in those. And actually, I’m going to be releasing those those I did those for my other podcast, which is called Accelerating Your Authority, which is brand new podcast just out. And so yes, so they were actually for real podcasts that were actually going to be published. But I said, look at the first, we’ll pick the best of the two, which is obviously going to be the second one. But,

Dustin Riechmann  32:43

I love it.

Alastair McDermott  32:44

You know. And yeah,

Dustin Riechmann  32:46

I think it’s really useful to actually, honestly, we, we all have, like a voyeuristic side, right? Like, the audience will love seeing that, like, oh, I want to see what it’s like. And even if you did a clip, and like, here’s the first five minutes or the first interview, and then we coach them, and here’s the five minutes of the second interview. And like people can see the results in action. I think that that’s really good for the audience. It’s good for that student. And it’s good for you. Because then people get a peek behind the curtain on what it’s like to work with you. So it’s something I love in general. But for her it was like, let’s overcome this fear by just changing the format of the interview. And it’s a win win win. Right? It’s good for everybody.

Alastair McDermott  33:20

Yeah.

Dustin Riechmann  33:20

And I think it’s pretty, it’s a pretty cool approach.

Alastair McDermott  33:24

Yeah, I think that, like, there’s no better way to like, like, the best way to practice doing podcasts is to practice doing podcasts, you know. So, yeah, I think it’s I think that’s a good idea. Okay, let me let me go back to, to the, to the framework. So we talked about purpose, and we talked about planning, which is like finding and doing the research. Let’s talk about the actual pitches, because this is what, like anybody who has a podcast receives tons of inbound pitches, the longer you’ve been out there, the more of them we’ll be getting, like I get several times a week, sometimes several times a day, I get these terrible, terrible guest pitches in my inbox. So let’s talk about

Dustin Riechmann  34:01

let’s have a podcast and I get these crazy, three different brands online. So you can imagine the pitches I get and LinkedIn and email are, they’re horrible. So yeah, so the pitch, and we’ll have a free resource at the end here. So people can just like go do this. And they don’t have to get all the details here in audio format, maybe they’re out running or driving their car.  So the way I think of the pitch, it’s typically in an email format, it doesn’t have to be, but I always start with kind of a master email template that we create for a given, you know, business owner and targeted at a certain audience, right. So there’s three pieces. So if you want to think about it like that, and the first piece is the most important and it’s the part that’s always custom. And that’s the very opening of the email. When there’s a subject line getting an email address. There’s other aspects of this, but in the body of the message, three chunks.  The first is what I call relational anchors. So there’s a couple of purposes of this first couple sentences. The first is like to let them know you’re not a random weirdo from the internet like everyone like the 90% of the email that we get that is clear that they have no idea who I am. It’s all about them. Like, it’s like, there’s no reason for me to read past the first line, I can smell it a mile away that it’s a it’s a cold pitch templated email. So we’re not going to do that.  So relational anchors, and then we’re going to go from relational anchors into basically, flattery slash feedback. So the way this would look is, let’s say, oh, say it’s pitching you. So it’s Hey, Alastair, I really love. I’m probably gonna start like that, I would say, like, hope the weather in Ireland is great, you know? So it’s like, you immediately know I know something about you. Or maybe it’s like we talked about earlier, hey, I’m, I just want to let you drop me a note, let you know, I just left you an iTunes review. Like something is it or you know, sometimes I’m like, I’ve been on a pitch shows that have a couple as the hosts like a husband, wife. So I’ll use love what you’re doing with your, if I’m talking to the husband, I love what you and your wife are doing with the show, I actually started my first business with my wife, and we really value marriage and you guys are a great duo. So something that again, that’s like personal. And then second sentence basically is going to be some flattery like it but very specific. So it’d be Hey, Alastair I, in Episode 134, when Alice shared this XYZ tip, like it really resonated, resonated with me. And I immediately went and tried it. And here’s what happened.  So, again, like, you know, I’ve taken time I understand what you do, I’ve referenced specific stuff that I can only reference I’ve actually spent a little time getting to know you. So this is, the good news is the bad news is this isn’t super scalable, because you’re not sending out 10,000 requests. The good news is it doesn’t need to be because you don’t need that many appearances. And if you do it, well, you get really good acceptance rates. And a virtual assistant can absolutely be trained to pull this kind of information out. But that’s really the first piece is relational anchors. It’s critical.  The second piece is what’s in it, what’s the win for the person reading this? So it’s not about me, it’s about them. And for podcast guest guesting it’s about the audience. So hey, you know, you and you know, I know you, I’ve pivoted to be like I have a company called Fire Creek snacks. We got some pretty interesting stuff that’s happened in the past few years that I think your audience would love hearing about. And then it’s like, usually four bullet points. The bullet points are, you know, it’s kind of copywriting. Right? There’s a little curiosity there. There’s, if you can use numbers, use numbers, things that are going to draw their eye to be like, this is really interesting. And if you’re a podcast host, if someone does this, well, the reaction we’re seeking is them saying, Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Dustin wrote my show notes already, like I know exactly what we’re going to talk about, you know, if I said, Hey, I got this five p framework that’s going to really make it clear for people how to use podcast guests to grow their business. And now we’re talking about it, you know. So that’s, that’s the middle piece bullet points outlining exactly how you’re going to benefit their audiences and guests like filling in a gap in the content of that of that podcast.  And then the closing is a very simple call to action. I usually use are you interested? It’s like, yeah, I said, I know you. And I flattered you. I said, I want to help your audience in this way. Are you interested? It’s not so overt, that it’s like, here’s a scheduling link. So we can you know, like our let me know when I can be on it’s not presumptive. It’s just are you interested in the response? Let me know. But it’s usually Yes. Or maybe tell me more or Yeah, we have a pre call process, please go over here and fill out some more information. But it leaves the door open for them to have an easy yes. Yes, I’m interested. I haven’t committed yet. But yeah, that’s, that’s the kind of three chunks that we use in what we call a perfect pitch email.

Alastair McDermott  38:24

Right. And there’s another question want to ask you about this is what do you put in the subject line? If you’re sending that as an email?

Dustin Riechmann  38:31

Yeah, so I’ve used a lot of stuff. The easiest thing for a virtual assistant to replicate, if you want to systematize this. And this will work most of the time is like an episode number. So if my, the when that I want to, or the relational anchor I want to use has to do with citing a specific episode, which almost always works. And it’ll be like episode two or three. And then that second line in the emails like, hey, when you spoke with Alison, episode two or three, I got this great takeaway, because if you can answer this as the host, if someone says episode two or three, and you actually have, you know, more than two or three episodes, like your mind is gonna go to do they have a question? Did I mess up something? Do they want to sponsor like this? You’re going to open the email because you’re curious, like, episode two, three is curiosity inducing. So I think that’s a good one.  Other ones I’ve used are things like number like a fire Creek. I did a spiel where I did quite a few business podcast telling the business story of fire Creek. And so I used bootstrapping. 1 million is actually like the dot dollar sign one and the big M. It’s a bootstrapping one. And that really affect it for those types of shows, because it’s kind of just kind of like cooking them a little bit with bit of intrigue.

Alastair McDermott  39:44

Yeah.

Dustin Riechmann  39:45

And so who’s this bootstrapping? Yeah, but this episode number usually works really well. And when I’m looking at if what I trained my VA to do or what I’m doing it, I’m looking for episodes that are similar to my story, but something that I still have a unique spin on right? So for me if it’s fire crit, for example, it’s kind of a bootstrap story. It’s like so I may be actually talking to a podcast that mostly talks to like big corporate type of businesses. But I want to have, I want to remind them that they do talk to people like me, or that they should like, and so I’ll be like that. So the episode I’m gonna reference there’s gonna be some other rags to riches bootstrap story, man, I totally related to Chris’s story. What he did with cross net is exactly what we’re working on with Fire Creek. And that kind of lets them be like, Yeah, you know, the audience did like that episode. So

Alastair McDermott  40:32

Yeah. And so that, so that’s giving them a reminder that they do have people like you on there as well. So yeah, I like I like that strategy. That’s, that’s cool. Yeah, so So there’s like, there’s a couple of things just want to say like, what like, for me as a podcaster, when I get these pitches in, I ignore most of them, because they don’t have the relation relational anchor that you mentioned. And then the other thing that they almost never mentioned, even even if I get a cold pitch that has, has nothing custom in there, I do want, like, the number one thing for me as a podcaster, is in serving my audience. And so if they can mention something in there, that’s actually relevant to the audience or how, how they want to help the audience. But they don’t even do that. Like, that’s, that’s the part that kills me is like, you didn’t even say how you have something that’s interesting for the audience listen to, and that that for me is the the, the nail in the coffin, but So okay, so I like I like that as a pitch, like the way you approach that. I want to talk about the other aspects, because we’re, we’re running on time, and we’ve got about 10 minutes left. So the the next two steps are perform and profit. And so perform is about like turning up. And then like, what kind of call to action that you’re going to have? And then then profit is like, what’s your what’s your offer? Ultimately, I guess, is that right?

Dustin Riechmann  41:57

Yeah, it’s like, really, it’s more of a strategic side of how do you leverage these opportunities, and to give you perspective, so there’s five P’s. So the accelerator program I teach is our lead is 12 weeks, we spent five weeks on that the first four, and then we spent seven weeks on number five. So it’s a very, it can be very in depth. But it’s, it’s a really quick example of one strategy, this will kind of get people’s wheels turning, I think.  So let’s say I’m a Facebook ads agency, and I like to work with like E commerce, food companies, just as a random example. So I my purpose might be I want to get clients and every client I get might be worth $35,000 a year because I charge 3000 a month or whatever, you know, and so like that’s a very reasonable realistic, that’s a member of my accelerator program right now is this person, that’s why it’s in the top of my mind. So they don’t need to go out and talk to masses of people, they need to find like a few clients. And so our strategy and what podcasts are choosing what they’re talking about on the podcast, etc, is about finding clients. So a great strategy for this would be leveraging the guest list. So I in this case, we are going out and finding e commerce type of shows that talk to founders, especially food founders, if it can be that specific.  And my goal is to get on there and serve that audience. Talk about my secret sauce. Well how case studies for food companies for Facebook ads, you know, like teaching, and I may in the ether have some people raise their hand and be like, Hey, I listened to the show. I love your free lead magnet. I wonder how to do this, I want to book a call. That’s great. But the more targeted way that we focus on what the strategy is. Look at all the previous guests. And if there’s been 100 shows, maybe there’s 20 that are ecommerce food founders, and you or your assistant can go look at them. They’ve done a whole episode, there’s show notes, there’s LinkedIn profiles, you can go in this case, go look at their Facebook, and see if they’re running ads, and if the ads are any good. And now you’ve got a very warm reason to reach out to them and a ton of credibility. Hey, Jim, I saw your previous guest on Joe’s podcast, I actually was just featured there talking about Facebook ads, I’d love to connect. So I’m usually doing this like on LinkedIn.  So now I’m connected with you on LinkedIn, you respond back, we have a little conversation. And then I say, you know, I couldn’t help myself. I was looking at your facebook ads account. And this ad, I really think you should change this and like this would be a much better headline. And you’re leading with some when you’re giving them value. But you can see how the podcast guesting is important. But it’s not just about the audience. It’s about leveraging that guest list. And a guest list is one of my favorite strategies also because it’s evergreen, because every week they’re having a new expert on there. And there could be more ecommerce food founders. And you just have your virtual assistant once a month checking to see that the last four episodes see if there’s someone that you kind of pull over in your prospecting bucket, if you will. So that gives you kind of a it’s it’s one of many, but that’s like a really effective strategy.

Alastair McDermott  44:47

So you can do that even if you never go in that podcast?

Dustin Riechmann  44:50

100% but you get a lot more credibility and a lot more higher response rate if you’ve been on the podcast because yeah,

Alastair McDermott  44:56

that makes sense.

Dustin Riechmann  44:58

Yep, Just reach out and be like, Hey, I heard your episode, I have some quick tips for you. That’s good. And it’s obviously you can do that in more volume. But if you really like a high touch service, I really think there’s a ton of value in also being on the show.

Alastair McDermott  45:13

Yeah. Okay. And just really quick in terms of a call to action, when people go go and actually guest on the podcast, and so they’re directly guesting on the podcast, what do you recommend as a call to action there?

Dustin Riechmann  45:26

Yeah, obviously, that specific call to action depends on the purpose. But you generally something free, quickly, actionable, quick win. That’s why I still like a call to action here. We’ll be giving away this podcast pitch playbook. So people can leave this episode, they’re interested in podcasting, they can go do this and actually pitch a show in like, less than an hour like they will. So that’s a really good call to action. So, you know, you can do things like coupon code, you can say we do free strategy calls, they’re not gonna be nearly a sticky mean, you’re not gonna get as many people to come over because it sounds like work, but you’ll get some. And so yeah, I think you know, it’s really it’s that classic, what we call lead magnets or client magnets, that’s really typically a great call to action.

Alastair McDermott  46:07

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So we got four minutes, I want to ask you for questions. So let’s see if we can get that quick, quick fire be quick. What’s the number one tip that you would give to somebody who wants to build their authority?

Dustin Riechmann  46:19

I mean, my favorite. Obviously, today, I’m speaking a lot about it. My favorite authority builder is podcasting. And things like it types of marketing partnerships that are Win win when when you serve, you give first and you show your value first. And then from that you can receive sales but also authority, because you’re you’re being featured as an expert on all these shows.

Alastair McDermott  46:41

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can you tell us about a business mistake or failure that you’ve experienced and what you learned from it?

Dustin Riechmann  46:46

Yeah, see, those that have heard the full show here. And I’ve been involved in a lot of things, there was one that was a failed partnership that comes to mind. So I had, I had my marriage brand. And I was really into fitness, I knew a guy that was really into fitness. So we created a whole brand called Fit Marriage. And we’re actually still good friends. But it was a good reminder that just because you’re good friends, and because you have common goals, doesn’t mean you’re gonna make good business partners.  And I think business partnerships should be viewed a lot more like marriages, there should be a long courtship, there should be a lot of dating and testing and serving each other, making sure you’re actually compatible before you actually form a full on partnership, which is what we did out of the gate.  And that was a very good mistake to make early in my career. And now I have a partnership with Fire Creek snacks that we did the right way. And we took our time and we built up. I built up equity over time. And it was a much better result. And a much better experience along the way.

Alastair McDermott  47:39

That sounds really interesting. I’d love to dig into that with the more some time we have have done to talk about it. And I think that those kinds of mistakes particularly early on, I think they’re invaluable, you know, they really do teach us so much. Is there a business book or resource that’s been important for you or that you would recommend?

Dustin Riechmann  47:55

Yeah, one of my favorites and on the video, it’s, it’s on the desk behind me because I’m going through it again right now. So it’s definitely top of mind is “$100 Million Offers” by Alex Hormozi. So I don’t know if anyone’s familiar with him. He’s grown a lot in popularity this year with his own content and social media. He has his own podcast, but I feel like I knew him before. He was super cool. Like I found this book last year. And it’s just a book. It just helps you create what he calls a Grand Slam offer. Like kind of the subtitle is offers so good people feel stupid for saying no, it’s a great book.

Alastair McDermott  48:27

That’s such a great, great subtitle too.

Dustin Riechmann  48:31

Yeah.

Alastair McDermott  48:32

Okay, and what about fiction? Do you read fiction at all?

Dustin Riechmann  48:34

I don’t read a lot of fiction I find 95% of my reading is definitely a nonfiction. And you kind of told me I could talk about non book forms. One of my favorite things I’ve experienced recently is the show Ozark. I love Jason Bateman. And Jason Bateman, you know, American Actor Arrested Development. He’s got an awesome podcast called Smartlace. It’s I’m a big fan boy of his Ozark I live in Illinois, which is not too far. It’s about three hours away from the Lake of the Ozarks, where that’s supposed to be based. So I found it very intriguing. Having spent a lot of time down there.

Alastair McDermott  49:07

Okay, that’s really cool. And funny enough, you’re not the first person to who have mentioned that on this show. I think Joe Jacobi, who was on he’s an Olympic gold medalist in kayaking, and he was on and I think that’s his favorite show as well. I think I hope I got that right.

Dustin Riechmann  49:25

company with the gold medal.

Alastair McDermott  49:26

Yeah, there you go. There you go. It really interesting. Okay, so first thing I want to mention is that you mentioned Podcast Pitch Playbook. And I will be linking to that in the show notes link directly to the page where people can download that. And so where can people go to find find out more if they’re interested in learning more about you, Dustin?

Dustin Riechmann  49:43

Yeah, well, you’re gonna link to that. I actually own the domain. So it’s really simple. If people are listening, it’s podcastpitchplaybook.com that will redirect you to get that free resource via my homebase is simplesuccess.coaching.com you’re going to find what we offer there a lot of free resources. As you learn more about this accelerator program if this is something you kind of want to take serious and get really quick results with but yeah, simplesuccesscoaching.com is a great place to find me. I love transparency, open book, so if you get there send me an email. I will definitely respond.

Alastair McDermott  50:14

Love it. Well Dustin Riechmann thank you so much for coming on the show.

Dustin Riechmann  50:18

Yeah, let’s do this has been a blast. Thanks for letting me unpack the mystery around podcast guesting hopefully we made a little less mysterious for your listeners.

Alastair McDermott  50:25

Hopefully so thank you.  Thanks for listening. If you gained any insights or tips from this episode, please leave a review. It would really help us out. And it’s very easy to do. Just click on the review link in the show notes on your device and it will bring you straight to a page with options for the device that you’re listening on. Thanks. It really helps. It’s much appreciated.

Voiceover  50:51

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