Podcast Guesting: Build Influence & Grow

Speaker 1: mission what impact do you want to have on the world with your service and ask yourself if I share my story with more people is it going to have a positive impact on the world and if the answer is yes then move forward I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Shep podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the shilp podcast thank you for joining us Jessica you are the founder of interview connections what inspired you to start your business in 2013 especially since podcast booking agencies didn't exist at the time really what inspired me to start my business was I was a new Mom I wanted to be home like that was it that was my motivation is I wanted to be working from home with my baby who's now 11 almost 12 years old I started doing work for my dad who's a business coach and has had a newsletter marketing company for a long time and so when I talked to my parents about wanting to be home when the baby came my dad told me about being a virtual assistant and how being a virtual assistant is being a business owner it's having your own business and having your own clients and so he became my first client and he asked me to book him as a guest on podcasts and that's really what got me into it is he asked me to book him on podcast and so I started Googling and finding business podcasts to book him on and as I was reaching out to podcast hosts to pitch my dad as a guest they had never been pitched before which as a podcast host I'm sure you get lots of pitches all the time from people that want to be on your show but 11 years ago this was not really a thing people were not booking podcast interviews so I started getting interviewed on podcasts and I don't know if perfect storm is the correct metaphor but the stars were aligning I was getting on some shows I was booking my clients and I saw this opportunity and that's what inspired me to start interview connections I love that and I did not know that it started with your dad and booking him on shows that's so interesting yes and that is why I love doing podcast interviews because you and I have known each other for years stories come out that just would not have come out otherwise yes and I've had a lot of guests come from interview connection so thank you how did you navigate the early challenges of creating a business in a brand new industry yeah that is definitely the million-dollar question because there have been so many different challenges so my dad is a business coach and having him as my coach in those early days was everything because there was so much that I didn't know online business entrepreneurship and general was such an unknown landscape to me my background was working at a nonprofit so I had worked my way up at that nonprofit and was a great leader and knew how to lead a team but to have my own business where there was no existing HR department there were no systems in place like I had to create everything it was totally unknown so really in the early days I followed my coach my dad's advice to a team he would guide me I ended up investing in his business Mastermind group so I joined his business Mastermind group and then other business owners in that Community would give me advice give me guidance I listened to business podcasts I was a sponge that is ultimately how I navigated the challenges early on and then over time it was really about learning to trust my own intuition of how do I deal with these challenges I've never dealt with before and so that was really how I've navigated it's like having a coach and then learning to trust myself how lucky for you that your coach was your dad that's amazing and then when you think about email marketing that's still a main thing today and to have that advice on I'm sure was so helpful for sure there was so many things one of the first things that my dad advised me to do was to go to it wasn't called a podcast conference it was called the New Media Expo now there's podcast conferences but back then it was the New Media Expo and he said go ask a question in the breakout sessions because when you ask a question at a conference you typically get to inter hey I'm Jessica rhods founder of interview connections and then you ask your question to the speaker but that gets you visibility so he taught me how to find these opportunities for VIs ibility and so many people leave those opportunities on the table they don't step up and get uncomfortable to find that visibility and going to conferences going to breakout rooms asking questions building connections building relationships one of my clients said oh one of my friends is going to be at that conference I'll have him connect you with some people and then his friend introduced me to Mike stellner who's the founder of social media examiner and then Michael stellner became my client so it was leveraging connections and relationships and putting myself out there in any possible way that I could and asking a question of the speaker is good advice for today's podcasting conferences too oh yeah that is this little hack that I think everyone should leverage that not people leverage it enough they're like I want to be a speaker I'm like you can just go ask a question there's a microphone in the audience so true over the years your team has booked over 30,000 podcast interviews for clients what do you think makes podcast guesting such a powerful business tool for growth relationship ships visibility content when you're a guest on podcast you have this unique opportunity to share your story and Share value that may not come out if you're just creating your own content I make a lot of content on my own I recorded some videos today put them on social media but when I get on a podcast like this you ask me how did you start your business and then I share this story and you're like oh I didn't actually know that because I'm not making these short form videos on Instagram being like here's how I started my business like I might do it once on my own platform form but then not again but then when you guest on somebody else's podcast you introduce yourself again and again to audiences to listeners who don't know you yet and it's so important to remember there's so many people who don't yet know us there's so many people who know us that don't know our whole story so it puts yourself out there it raises your visibility and it really allows you to hone in on your message and this is where I think a lot of business owners who have been in business for 5 10 years plus they're like I've already made the content I know my message but then when you constantly get out there and you're being interviewed you find ways to explain what you do you find ways to explain the benefits of what you do in new ways that resonate with people differently and more effectively that's so true and it's so good to learn what someone does but you also say things in a podcast that make you relatable maybe you're a mom juggling a lot of things maybe you live in a certain part of the country maybe you work with a certain type of business owner that resonates with some someone and make someone say I want to work with you yes and just allowing people to hear your personality hear the way you speak hear what stories you share typically also in podcasts you're getting little tidbits about your personal backstory that might not be in your professional bio on LinkedIn or on your website and so I always think that's really great to share as well it just came out through my story that I I'm a mom and I have an 11 and a half-year-old son I'll drop also that I have a daughter there's aspects that a mom entrepreneur might be like oh cool like she also has kids just these little touch points that allow the listeners to find ways that they can connect with you you have entrepreneurs who feel like the best kept secret gain visibility what advice do you have for those who are hesitant about putting themselves out there this is such a great question because so many people are hesitant about putting themselves out there and so many people are hesitant that don't realize they're hesitant because the hesitancy is masked by things like oh my message isn't perfect or oh my lead magnet isn't ready there's all these excuses of just no I'm fine getting visible I just have all of these like real reasons right and then there's people that are like no I'm just actually really self-aware that I'm scared about getting visible so whatever it looks like so many people are resistant to that visibility and I find that there's a spectrum of things that

Speaker 1: just don't move my advice is to say connect with why you're doing what you're doing connect with your purpose and your mission what impact do you want to have on the world with your service with your business with your message and stay connected to that and ask yourself if I share my story with more people if I get visible is it going to have a positive imp on the world is it going to have a positive impact on the people that hear me such that they would find me in my business and ultimately help them and if the answer is yes then move forward if there's something that scares you your sales funnel needs to be improved you're not getting enough leads like all of that can be figured out once you're actually on the court play the game there's no crystal ball like you won't be able to know exactly how it's going to go if you want more visibility you just need to step forward in faith and then figure it out as you go people have all different kinds of reasons and even I'm sitting here listening to you I keep saying oh in 3 months I'll be on podcast in six months I've produced a weekly show for five years and talked to people all over the world all the time I have twins and they just turned 11 but I keep saying oh when they get a little older I'm going to go on podcasts you're inspiring me and it's interesting to Think Through the reasons why we don't necessarily yeah do it I yeah I was a guest on a show called trauma re wired and we talked about nervous system regulation because ultimately when you get visible it will create change and ultimately it should create good change there's more leads and more clients and more visibility but what I've learned from Elizabeth Christof who runs a company called brain-based Wellness that I'm a client of and she's worked with interview connections she's always talks about how change is inherently threatening to the nervous system because your nervous system isn't really thinking of the big picture your nervous system isn't really connect Ed with the future and the planning it's just like change scary it's really important to find ways to calm your nervous system to get grounded to remind your body and your brain that even though this is going to bring about change and there's going to bring about more people are going to learn about me that didn't know about me before some people might not like me a lot of people will it's okay it's safe I'm going to be able to handle it with so much experience in matching guests with podcasts what qualities make someone compelling guest yeah storytelling is a huge part of it I did a post about how podcasting is edutainment and I did not coin that term I don't know who did but I quote it because it's a perfect way to explain what makes a good podcast and what makes a good podcast guest is that you're both educating the listeners they're getting value they're learning they feel like their mind is enriched and they're feeling a little bit entertained and this is why people listen to podcasts and not just sit down and watch TV TV you just fedge out you zone out now you just disassociate from the world but when you listen to a podcast you're listening because you want to learn you want your mind to be engaged you want to get value from it you want to walk away feeling a little bit better than you did before you hit play when you hit play on Netflix you're just like zone out but when you hit play on a podcast you're like I want to learn something what can I learn how can I be entertained from this in a way that makes me feel connected with the people on the podcast so storytelling work on your tonality like how compelling can you be in the way that you deliver what you're saying because while there is a video portion to a lot of podcasts now most of the audience will listen on audio only most people are going to hit play on Spotify on Apple there's not a video element so think about how you're delivering your words think about the stories you're sharing and then know when to stop talking know when to put a period at the end of your sentence so the host can talk such good advice I was also going to ask if someone has a knowledge-based podcast how do you recommend that they bring in the story Elling too because as a mom I listen in the morning and I want that Quick Knowledge but it's interesting to think of weaving storytelling in with the knowledge that's a great question there's so many different types of podcasts and topics where not every show may be set up for stories but the whole point of stories is to show versus just tell facts tell and stories sell so giving the information but the stories are what create the emotional connection the emotion connection is what gets people to actually want to invest finding ways that you can create an emotional connection stories are a great way to do that but if there's not really a story to share like how else can you do that tell us about some of the most memorable success stories or Transformations you've witnessed from clients who embraced podcast guesting yeah in 11 years I've seen a lot and some of the highlights that spark when you ask that question is two people that we connected for a podcast interview many years ago maybe like 2015 ended up starting a whole business together so we booked the interview and then they hit it off so much they ended up launching like this huge company ended up GR into a seven figure business so that was like oh my gosh like we were the Matchmaker we brought them together so that is really great I've seen clients that we book the interview and then they just become best friends they become accountability buddies they meet on a weekly basis we're like we were the Matchmaker to that business besti friendship so those are some really fun stories and then there's the financial like success stories that are always very fun oh I got a six-figure client from this podcast or one of our clients the host booked him as a paid speaker at his conference the yeah the success stories that excite me range from people becoming best friends starting businesses together just getting clients speaking opportunities like it ranges but it's yeah I love it all and it must be really fun to hear those I love it when I get a text message a piece of positivity today it helps you to keep going yeah it makes me so happy and also I love the client success story they started with us and they were so new and so green in their message they were trying to figure out how to explain what they do and now like a year in they're just crushing it and there's all this stuff happening in their business and I don't take credit but I feel great knowing that we were a part of their story and that we supported them through that running a business being a parent and still finding time for personal Pursuits like sauna sessions and background chickens sounds like quite The Balancing Act how do you make it all work oh my goodness my Google Calendar is how I make it all work everything is scheduled in so specifically that's really it communicating with my husband about who's doing what we've had like a babysitter Nanny that's helped us out a lot over the last year your kids age like I'm sure they're doing like activities or sports or they have to it's like we need like uber I joke that I'm the Uber Sports driver starting at 4:30 but thank God for hot spots cuz I can sit outside the practice with my computer in a hot spot and still get things done and sometimes that's even better cuz I'm in the car and no one can bother me you have to get creative with like when stuff gets done okay I need to leave I need to shut my computer at 4 4:30 and go drive my kids around but then from 7 to 9: they're at their Sports and I have this quiet time and so getting creative and actively resting like finding those times where you can do the self-care I have a personal trainer so I know at least once a week I've got someone that's getting me to lift weights and tracking how heavy the weights are and okay I'm making progress so it's just a very busy season of life as you are in as well and just scheduling all of the essentials in finding ways to do self-care amidst a very chaotic season of life and I don't think scheduling in self-time we all have to do that and if we're busy we have to schedule it in so we make sure we do it but once it's scheduled then you can do whatever you want with that time for sure yeah absolutely thank you so much for joining us today please share with us how and where we can find you and for anyone interested in podcast guesting yeah absolutely our website is interview connections.com and I'm sure you'll put in the episode description or the show notes I know you have a link where people could get in touch with us we have a podcast interview prep checklist we do free master classes so I would say just go to the link in the episode description so your audience can reach out and that way I know that yall heard us heard about me on this podcast thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheed website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave