Podcast Guesting Power Moves

Speaker 1: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in interview connections founder and president Jessica rhods invented the podcast guest booking industry when she started booking podcast interviews for private clients in 2013 there were no other services like it in the market While most other podcast companies just focused on getting you booked interview connections team of In-House booking agents and strategists get you booked on highly targeted shows and provide the training and coaching to help you monetize your visibility thank you so much for joining me today Jessica oh I'm so excited to be here please tell us who you are and what gave you the idea and the courage to make your leap to launch interview connections I am the founder of interview connections I have been an entrepreneur for eight years and what gave me the courage to start my business and become a self-employed entrepreneur was being a mom I worked for a nonprofit or organization and when I got pregnant I was like I'm going to be home and I really didn't know what other job I would take cuz I knew I wanted to be home my dad is an entrepreneur he has a business coaching company and he said why don't you be a virtual assistant I've just been working at this nonprofit for six years became director of of the office that I was in so it was nonprofit but essentially kind of climbing that ladder and then the idea of being a virtual assistant I was like ah but when you become a mom you're like well this is not really about me anymore right so you do what is going to allow your motherhood dreams to come true so I said sure I'll do that and it it took me not very much time to realize I'm an entrepreneur I read Carrie wilkerson's book The Bare I think it's called the Barefoot executive um but that just opened my eyes to the business possibilities and potential of having my own business and being a mom and being home and not missing out so it was really my motivation to be the best mom that I could be that said okay I can do this I think that's a time in a lot of women's lives where they stop and think okay what do I really want in my life and what do I want to do and what do I want to build and what do I want to create I had that moment where all of a sudden having kids and having a baby slowed me down it made me stop and sit because you're sitting with this being and the being is not talking to you and you love it but there's no conversation happening so it for me it gave you know gives you a lot of time to really think and put things into perspective I love it I don't know what it's like to be an entrepreneur without kids because having kids is what got me to start my business it's always been with little ones my kids are six and eight years old now but I'm so thankful for that because I am a high achiever I set really high goals I go for them I don't stop but they force me to stop they really keep me grounded and allow me to be present I'm not always good at it but they do remind me just by being here that okay there's more to life than this business yes and they also bring in the humor too my kids are my twins are about to turn eight so around the same age and they just say the funniest things and kind of Pop you out of your day yeah and I love it I love you know trying to share with them what I'm doing I love asking them what they think I do they're like you podcast I love it right do they ever grab your microphone mine grab my microphone sometimes and you know their own show I was about to record our podcast yesterday and I'm sitting down and I'm like oh wait a second my microphone was over on the couch because Lucy will take it and she'll play with it and then she'll start unscrewing it I'm like no no no I need that to work next time I go to do something exactly what are the services that you offer and if you could turn back time what is one thing that you wish you would have known when you started your business and why we offer a service where we book entrepreneurs as guests on podcasts and we provide all the strategy and support they need to monetize the mic we saw that there was a big need in the podcast booking space that wasn't just podcast booking but also how to monetize how to make sure that the interviews people are doing are leading to revenue leading to leads and worth the entrepreneurs time so we've crafted our services to fill that Gap we also do business coachings we launched a business coaching and Mastermind program as well my business partner Margie and I have scaled our business to multi- figures with over 20 employees so we like to take all of our lessons learned and help other entrepreneurs who are scaling their service based businesses learn from us and if I could go back in time I think to pinpoint it I wish I knew way early on that having in-house full-time employees is the key key to achieving freedom in your business I did switch over I built a team of contractors and virtual assistants for many years and then switched over to having employees in 2017 and as most entrepreneurs can probably relate to there was that fear of like can I afford payroll do I need benefits do I understand the world of being an employer I know I'm a I'm a good business owner I'm good at sales and marketing and doing this service but can I be an employer and and if I could go back in time and knowing what I know now it's actually not that scary there's plenty of people and experts and service providers from accountants to HR Consultants payroll services that are there to help you with all the things you don't know how to do and having full-time employees has been the greatest thing for our business that's such good advice because you can think oh I should probably be doing some of these things myself but you should get out from underneath them so that you can do the things in your business that bring you Joy and that drive revenue and that drive profit but you're right it can be scary to make that leap as far as payroll yeah and moving forward yeah and what I found because with contractors they're typically charging a much higher hourly rate than an employee because you're not covering any of their taxes you're not giving them any benefits so I mean a virtual assistant could be 5080 $100 an hour because they're specialized and so I had you know I think at our Peak we had 12 1099 contractors that were all sending their hour their invoices at the end of each month so what we found was it was actually more expensive than having a full-time employee who I could control the hours they worked I was in control of the results that they were producing and we were able to improve the quality of the service because I could be in control of how they were delivering their service versus just sending me an invoice for getting a certain number of bookings which is what it looked like before we had employees you mentioned that you have an in-house team that doesn't just book guests on any podcast but they specifically Target for the right fit tell us about your strategy for managing your team and why is that important to you yeah so our strategy for managing our team is we really develop our team to be experts in this strategy and and that's part of why we wanted to have employees is we want to make sure our team and our booking agents and our show researchers and our client care reps really understand the whole approach that they're not just people just kind of delivering one thing they can talk intelligently about the whole strategy and the program so when we hire a booking agent they go into a 30-day boot camp where they're learning all the ins and outs of the business the strategy how we do what we do why we do what we do who are the clients we work with um what are their goals what are their needs what are their pain points how do we solve all that so before a booking agent that we hire really does any of the work they're going through a lot of training in that first month and then we are meeting with our team you know every team has a daily meeting they're doing pce checkins with their leads they're doing one-on ones and trainings with their team leads so there's a lot of effort and work that goes into developing our team members so then they can deliver an amazing service to our clients you have sent me some guests and I get so many emails every day about potential guests for the podcast and I know when I open up interview connections 99% of the time it's someone that I want to have on the show I'm so happy to hear that so what you're saying is really it's really happening yeah we have a lot of systems on the back end that allow us to pitch the right guest to the right host we probably asked you you know what types of guests are you looking for and that's something that we do regularly of course we'll find shows and look at who they're interviewing and the topic of the show and Pitch people but we also are every single day reaching out to host just asking who are you looking for and then host say I'm looking for these type of guests and then all of our booking agents come together okay I have this person I have this person and we like hand select and send a customized list of people that we think are a good fit rather than saying here's all of our clients and then you have to do all that work to figure out who's the right fit right that's really smart it makes it so much easier on the host and then when the host sees your emails they think oh who are they sending our way today which makes it it's so much easier for for the guest and the host yes exactly yeah to you how does being a podcast guest or host amplify someone's business message and story so the biggest way that being a podcast guest and host amplifies their message is people are able to feel a sense of connection with the person that they're hearing um when you follow someone on social media I like to say it's sort of two-dimensional you're seeing their their pictures you're seeing what they're writing maybe you can even see like a little 15-second clip if they're doing an Instagram story and and videos are great you know not bashing videos that's an amazing way to establish that connection but there's nothing quite like listening to a full 45 minute 30 minute conversation between a host and a guest for the listener if they subscribe to that show for your listeners that are listening to all of your episodes they have very high trust in you they know that you're not going to bring someone on the podcast that you don't believe in that you don't think is a trusted resource for that person's EXP expertise my exposure here to all of your listeners is that much more effective as opposed to just them finding me on Google and being like let me evaluate this person so you have that tcid endorsement from the host you have that trust already built in and people are listening in their earbuds in their car they're really consuming the content long form which they get so much more information than just something that's in a a really short form it's so great that um you can get to know someone's story and you want to buy from someone honestly once you know who they are and you trust them and you know more about them yeah I like that too that with podcasts you really get to share your story and share your background and just like in this interview being able to share that you know I worked for a nonprofit and and I'm a mom and and all of that that's not information that's necessarily in my marketing collateral but for someone to hear me on a podcast and hear that aspect of my story if it's a mom or a dad like they'll feel more a sense of connection knowing that I value being with my kids like it's those little things that people want to do business with people that they align with value wise and so podcasts are the perfect place to share that what is one thing that your business has done for your clients that you didn't realize would happen the first story that popped into my mind we have a client named jatna and after about six to nine months into her contract with us we were asking her like how's it been going what type of results are you seeing and she goes she has an agency style business and she goes I'm actually learning so much being your client and I've had multiple clients say this they're like oh I love your onboarding what form and what automation are you using that brings me to the contract that gets me the welcome email so that's been really cool because we have spent so much time and money and effort with the systems of actually how to deliver a done for you service and improve the client experience and so I love when clients say oh I'm actually learning from you just by being your client going through the experience of how you schedule the calls with like all of that so that's been really fun because yes we have a business coaching program they can invest in our business coaching but just by being a client of our agency they're learning about how we run the business which is cool so I love that story and I love that you mentioned her because I am actually now a client of hers oh my God I love that so it's it's it's really working so I will I am just starting the process and I can let you know how how it goes oh my God amazing I'm so happy to hear that yeah happy self-publishing plug what are a few tips that you can give us for having a good podcast interview as a guest or being an incredible host if you have a podcast yes so okay so let's talk I'll

Speaker 1: host jump in So speaking of getting to know you you mentioned you have chickens I do oh my gosh M okay so I moved here to North Smithfield Rhode Island in June we lived in the city in Providence and we just totally turned our life around left the city life to essentially have a little far met we have three cats we have five chickens I Hade a foster dog for about a month and I love it I love it so much we want to get goats we're thinking about where are we gonna put more livestock so I love it it's so meditative to just have chickens and we get their eggs every day and they're they're so fun and yeah yeah fresh eggs would be amazing and the space right we so busy in your business and we're also connected virtually that having the space when you're done with all that has to be amazing yeah it's very grounding and it's it's helped me so much just mentally and emotionally and physically it's it's great so highly recommend chickens I love it our family fell in love with Heartland um it's a story of a horse whisper through uh Co because it was something we could watch as a family my seven-year-old twins could watch it too and so horses and just so much nature and I think it was a happy positive story we needed something happy and positive cuz so much was not happy and positive and there was a little you know too much togetherness at times I know people either went one way where they didn't see anyone but we had a little too much togetherness at time but but seeing the the show and the horses just really helped us through that time so I see how being where you are is probably so nice yeah yeah defin defitely I'm so grateful magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy my tip is to do the thing that you have been thinking about doing but haven't done because you don't feel like it's important enough or you don't have time for it and I'm going to give you an example because I have done this so I have been thinking for years I should take a dance class I did musical theater when I was a kid took dance class when I was in high school because I was doing musical theater and I I thought I wanted to go to college for theater but I just I loved learning how to dance and I'm 33 so for the last you know 10 15 years I'm like I should get back I should say dance less I I've been thinking about it forever and finally the dance studio that my daughter goes to now posted that they are doing an adult tap dance class and I was like I'm going to do it I need to stop like thinking because I never would prioritize my own Hobbies right I'm a mom I'm a business owner like who's I don't have time for hobbies no so I stopped it I signed up and I got to tell you I've only had two classes I'm having the most fun I having so much fun find your inner child that's where you're gonna find the most Joy yes I have fallen in love with pelaton and Cody rsby has the Mickey Mouse tattoo he said It reminds him of his inner child and to not be so serious all the time so I love what you're saying and I love that you just made that leap to take that dance class cuz it's probably so freeing so like nothing else you do during the day it totally like yesterday my day was so packed just like a million things and then I had my dance class at 7 last night and then but when I stopped working around five or whatever I put on my tap shoes and I just practiced the 25 second routine it took me so long to figure to practice it but then actually getting it down I felt so good and I have to say I don't do pelaton but I've gotten to know Cody RGS because I watch dancing with a stars and he's on it right now I don't know if you're watching it but we're super into it here in the roads house so yes yes and he's my favorite he's so good yeah and she has a podcast his Pro Cheryl she has a podcast where she debriefs it so I've been loving listening to that too I'll have to check that out I like I love Cody he makes the workouts not boring at all he's so fun I like see his little videos on Tik Tok and and stuff like that people post like little clips of it I think there's an account called like pelaton Mom and they all they always post his clips and they're so funny yeah I really want to get a rower because I'm super into that I'll use the concept to rower at the Y so that that's another tip like find your workout thing and do it yes as a mom I struggled for so long I couldn't get consistent and then finally with pelaton I'm like okay I can do anything for 20 minutes I scroll on my phone for 20 minutes so I started with that cuz I ran marathons before having the kids and then after the kids I couldn't get consistent and now I'm up to doing 45 minutes a day and feel great yeah I'm like that with the rower every day I'm like okay I'm going to add a minute every time I do it I add a minute and even if it's a bad day and I'm like I do five it's such a good full body workout in that short amount of time that I still feel good about it yeah I was just going to say that's a total that's a full body I see why the RO would be good yeah yeah thank you so much for joining me today Jessica this has been such a fun and inspiring conversation love the business that you have built and are continuing to build and grow can you please tell our listeners how and where they can find you yeah so we have if you're interested in podcast guesting we have a free training on our monetize the mic three-part framework and that is at monetize theik trining tocom so monetize theic tr.com and you can apply to get that free training out so it's for you know entrepreneurs that want to learn how to monetize their podcast interviews so would love to see you over there at interview connections and you can find me Jessica RADS on any of the social platforms I'm LinkedIn Facebook Instagram if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our she built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer she built it business Consulting and the she built it blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave