093: Enhance Your Growth Strategy with Podcast Guesting with Angie Trueblood
Are you feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by your growth strategy (formerly known as PR strategy)? Do you even have a concrete plan to reach more listeners? And it’s not just about finding as many listeners as you can, but also about attracting the right ones to your show, who want to hear your expertise and are receptive to your messaging.
Today, I’m chatting with Angie Trueblood of The Podwize Group about how podcast guesting can help you grow your network and build authority in your niche or industry.
She’s sharing why you might be feeling hesitant about creating a growth strategy and how to reframe the way you think about it, why podcast guesting is so valuable for growing and building connections with new listeners, and a couple of simple steps to get you started.
At the end of the day, growing your podcast audience is about forming real, human relationships, both with listeners and other hosts. This episode is full of inspiration, tips, and advice to get you out of your head, into those opportunities to form new connections, and land that interview that can take you to the next level.
What’s in this episode of Podcast Your Business:
[02:31] How Angie got into PR, how she discovered podcasting five years ago, and why she made podcasts her focus
[07:34] The importance of honing your message and your voice
[10:14] Why people commonly put up a block against creating a PR strategy for their podcast, and why you should reframe it as growth strategy
[14:03] Angie’s advice for anyone who feels like they don’t have the time to set up interviews on other people’s podcasts, and expectations she sets for her own clients
[19:24] First steps you should take to dip your toe into podcast guesting
If you’re looking for even more podcast information and inspiration, join my CLOSE FRIENDS list on instagram. Click on my CLOSE FRIENDS highlight to learn more.
Links:
Connect with Angie and The Podwize Group
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
093: Enhance Your Growth Strategy with Podcast Guesting with Angie Trueblood
[00:00:00] Angie Trueblood And I actually recommend that for a lot of people that before you really put your toe in the water and start hosting, that you experience what an interview feels like by being a guest on someone else's show. I think it helps you to find your voice and to also recognize what people want to hear from you. Because when the hosts ask questions, sometimes they ask questions you never thought to answer because you're so close to your expertize.
[00:00:28] Caroline Hull Ready to start a podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week we share how to start a podcast and make sure it's working for you and your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager and consultant, and I've seen the power a podcast can have ready to share your voice. Let's get started.
[00:00:54] Caroline Hull Welcome back to Podcast Your Business. Today. I am so excited to introduce you to a friend of mine and someone that I just admire in the podcasting space and love to chat all things podcasting with. And that is my friend Angie Trueblood. Andy is the founder of The Podwize Group and host of the Go Pitch Yourself Podcast. She uses her entrepreneurial spirit, innovative thinking and superconductor powers to deeply support business owners who are using podcast as a core tenant of their business growth. I have learned so much from Angie simply by listening to her podcast, following her, just being in her space. She shares a lot about pitching yourself to be on other podcasts, the value of being on other podcasts, and why it is so important to have this as part of your growth strategy. This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time because this is something that I am constantly talking about with my clients and anyone who will listen when they say, How do I grow my podcast? And I say, Well, you need to go be on other podcasts. And so that's exactly what we talk about in this episode, why it's important, the value that you will find guesting on other shows, and how you can start incorporating that into your growth strategy. So enjoy.
[00:02:13] Caroline Hull Hi, Angie. Thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about PR. I'm so excited.
[00:02:19] Angie Trueblood Yeah, I'm so excited to chat with you, Caroline.
[00:02:21] Caroline Hull So I want to just start out. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got into this realm of PR and podcasting and all that stuff?
[00:02:31] Angie Trueblood Yeah. So I run a business called The Podwize Group and we are just celebrating five years in business, which is bananas. It didn't always look like a team, right? It started with me being a freelancer five years ago and I had had a previous business where I was actually helping other mothers meal plan, which the current state of my meal planning makes that hilarious. However, what I had done in that business to grow my audience and to grow revenue, people buying the course that I created was I guested on Other People's Podcasts. I even pitched myself to local media, so I really had an outreach strategy in that business that started to work. And as people started to see me showing up in different places, they always asked, Well, how did you land that interview? How did you, you know, get the local news channel to do an interview with you? And my answer was always that I just asked, and I recognize that not everyone enjoys asking. Not everyone feels compelled to do that. And so I really started to lean into this part of me that kind of combines this super connector skill that I have also with a little bit of a messaging skill set and started taking on a couple of clients as a freelancer to pitch them for different opportunities. And very quickly, I realized podcasting is the space that I wanted to niche into, not media. Online publications. I just loved the human nature of podcasting and the interviews. And so, yeah, we've just grown pretty slowly. I'm a mom as well. So, you know, there's been a couple of things over the past few years that we've had to tend to. But yeah, it's just kind of grown in a really great organic way over the years.
[00:04:27] Caroline Hull That's awesome. Now, did you have a podcast before you started going on podcasts? I mean, how did you if this was five years ago, I'm thinking about five years ago and the state of podcasting. How did you even know to go on a podcast?
[00:04:40] Angie Trueblood So I was in a couple of Facebook groups of other women growing businesses, and a couple of them were launching shows and a couple of them were guesting on the shows of the leader and some other people in the space, and it kind of evolved. I remember guest posting, remember that when you write a blog that was for someone else. And so I had pitched myself to a couple of shows back then, and I had seen the growth that I had gotten from that, and a couple of friends in my business circle were starting podcasts of their own. And so we just kind of tested it and it grew from there.
[00:05:15] Caroline Hull That's amazing. Yeah, I remember when we started our podcast, Creative Biz Rebellion. It's just how like, but I mean, this is like seven years ago now that I'm thinking about it and I mean, it was like interviews was the thing. I mean, that was all we did was interviews. And it was really neat because after a while we were so well known that we were getting pitches. And I remember we were like, We've made it. People are pitching to us. Like, Yeah, it's so funny. So why do you think podcasts are so valuable? Or What was it about them that made you gravitate toward them and say, Okay, this is where I want to put my focus?
[00:05:53] Angie Trueblood Well, I didn't have a show of my own. I didn't launch Go Pitch Yourself until 2019. And I actually recommend that for a lot of people that before you really put your toe in the water and start hosting, that you experience what an interview feels like by being a guest on someone else's show. I think it helps you to find your voice and to also recognize what people want to hear from you. Because when the hosts ask questions, sometimes they ask questions you never thought to answer because you're so close to your expertize. Yeah, I think it's a great way for people to kind of warm up to the idea of hosting their own show. That's the piece of it that I love, too, is the ability to find your voice. But then also from a business perspective, especially five years ago, I mean, it it's shifted over the years. Like we definitely don't see the bump in email list growth that we did five years ago. But I think that's also across the board no matter what medium we're talking about.
[00:06:48] Caroline Hull Yes, I agree. Yeah.
[00:06:51] Angie Trueblood I love that it's able you're having a conversation with someone so you can expand your network by getting to know that host you're getting in front of new audiences that likely don't know you. And it's content that stays fairly evergreen because unless the host really shuts down the show and pulls it off of all of their hosting platforms, then it's there and new listeners will find it, discover it, and hopefully come back to you. That's like the business piece of it. But for me as a human, I would much rather spend time having a conversation with someone than writing a blog post or writing a social media post. So for me, it's just a more human type of connection, which is why, it's kind of how we've built our business, really.
[00:07:34] Caroline Hull Yeah. I love what you said, too, about helping you hone your message, because I talk about that all the time with even having your own podcast. I feel like when you sit down and talk about what you do, it really starts to solidify and clarify everything that you're thinking about as far as like your industry and your business. And so I love that you brought that up because I think that's often something that people don't think about. They're like, Oh, I just want to go on podcasts so people will hear me. But it's, it's what they're going to hear that is so important. And I feel like the confidence that you, you gain from sitting with someone and sharing and like you said, them asking questions that you may not have thought of is just so valuable. So I love that you brought that up. I just don't think people think about that.
[00:08:23] Angie Trueblood Well, and you made a really good point about how five, seven years ago, people that hosted shows, it was all about interviews, right? Having other people come up on the show and really highlighting their expertize.
[00:08:35] Caroline Hull Right.
[00:08:36] Angie Trueblood And that has shifted. Also, you and I both know that that gone are the days where you can just publish an interview show. You know, if you're in the business space highlighting entrepreneurs and expect that show to kind of take off. So that is where your voice as a host is so important. And if you're launching a show and you don't have a clear differentiator or a clear angle of why people would listen to your show, it's really hard to get it off the ground. So guesting first sometimes helps you develop that.
[00:09:08] Caroline Hull Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, that's you know, one of the things that I've talked about recently on my own podcast is how important it is to have guests on your show that make sense for your audience in relation to what you do, you know, and not just having guests on for the sake of having guests. And that's why I think too, as you start to develop your PR strategy, you have to be very clear about what you want to share and what you want to talk about, because that's going to help you find the right podcast, where it's going to make sense for you to be there, and it's going to make sense for them to have you on, and it's going to create connections. I mean, that's the beauty of it.
[00:09:46] Angie Trueblood Yeah. I mean, when done right, guesting serves many different purposes and functions inside of our business for sure. But a lot of times we see people that have come to us and they've guested on a few shows. A lot of times it's people. All that have reached out to them to ask for interviews, which is great. I totally get that's your first step, but it's really when you approach it strategically that you're going to see the return on your time or your money investment, depending on how you're doing it.
[00:10:14] Caroline Hull Right. So let's talk about that a little bit for a minute. I cannot tell you the number of times I sit down with somebody who has a podcast, who wants to grow their podcast, and I say to them, You really need a PR strategy. You need to be on other podcasts, and they go, okay, and they don't ever do it. I would like to say as a disclaimer, while I am talking about this and wagging my finger at my clients and listeners, that I also suffer from this issue of not having a solid PR strategy in place. But why do you think that is, Angie, why do you think there's such a what's the word? I'm looking for it. Like, why do you think people come up against the block? Yeah, that there's like a block there. Like, why don't people just do it?
[00:10:56] Angie Trueblood Okay. So as you were saying this, calling it a PR strategy, part of me wants to change the language on that a little bit because.
[00:11:05] Caroline Hull Okay.
[00:11:05] Angie Trueblood Let's call it a growth strategy. And I think that will actually help people accept the idea a little bit more, because the PR strategy to me sounds like something like a business that's been around for ten years and is right.
[00:11:22] Caroline Hull You know.
[00:11:23] Angie Trueblood A million. Yeah. Like they have a PR strategy. But if you say to a client, what is your growth strategy for this show? If they say nothing, then they can't really expect it to be growing if there is no strategy. So I think first off, growth strategy is the language and that's really what we do with guesting. So we position clients on shows that are ultimately going to help them grow. I think their hesitancy is it's twofold. One is people don't really know that it's going to work. If you knew it was going to work, you would invest the time, the money, the bandwidth to actually do it. But if you've never seen the impact it can have, then they're already busy. So they're not going to carve out more time to do something that they're not convinced is going to work. The other piece of it is, I think folks overcomplicate it. You know, it's really you're reaching out to another human with the idea of the two of you recording an episode on a specific topic that's really relevant to that audience. So at the simplest form, that's what pitching to be a guest on a podcast is. Coming up with an idea for a show topic that positions you as an expert or either the storyteller and going in front of a relevant audience to share that. There's a lot of nuances and, you know, there's a lot of steps leading up to that. But I think people in their heads overcomplicate it.
[00:12:49] Caroline Hull Hey, podcaster, if you feel like you're getting a lot out of this podcast, but you want even more. I have the perfect thing for you. The WHP Insider podcast is a private podcast for Members Only, which features two episodes per month, plus a monthly newsletter that takes a deeper dive into strategies and tips, specifically for podcasters who are using their podcast to help grow their business. This is something that up until now has only been available for clients of Wild Home Podcasting, but for a small monthly fee you can join and be part of the club. So just head to WildHomePodcasting.com/Insider for more information. And I can't wait to see you there.
[00:13:35] Caroline Hull Yeah, totally. I think they overcomplicate it. And I think the idea of the time time is always an issue. And I feel like that's been a huge issue for me is like, oh, my gosh, I just do not have time to do the research and to send these out and to follow up. Like, I know the steps. I've been following you for a long time. I know. So do you have any advice for someone like me who's like, I just do not have time for this, but I want to do it?
[00:14:03] Angie Trueblood I mean, I think it's, first of all, being realistic with do you actually have the time to do this? And if the answer is no, then let's stop putting that on your shoulders. And I mean, honestly, like it's something to scratch off of Caroline's to do list and figure out who can to do this right. We have different offerings inside of our company. The first is definitely one that the business owner is very hands off. We do all of it. They show up for the interview. But there's a medium package, too, where you get strategic support. We develop the pitch topic. We do the research. That's something we hear a lot. People think, I don't have the time to be lost in Apple Podcasts, finding the right shows. And so we offer that and we will support businesses who have a team if you have a VA or you've probably got someone on your team right now who is strategic enough with messaging and strategy that they could put together pitches if they had the foundational parts of it. So I think it's being realistic and then just taking a little bit of time to find who that person is and then getting support and training them if you need it. That's what we have right now. It one of our it's a jumpstart intensive and I just got four pitches that the assistant sent to me on behalf of the business owner that we're reviewing before her teammate sends it out. Just be realistic, like if it's not going to be your thing.
[00:15:29] Caroline Hull Yeah.
[00:15:30] Angie Trueblood You gotta figure out whose thing it's going to be.
[00:15:32] Caroline Hull Yeah, it. Which is just like podcast management. I talk about that all the time. I'm like, you know, the the biggest reason people pod fade is because they don't have the time to stay consistent. And what is the solution to that? Usually it's getting help in some form. So I completely agree with you. Help is needed. I have looked at your services.
[00:15:53] Angie Trueblood I know you have.
[00:15:56] Caroline Hull So when you're coming up with a growth strategy for a client. I love that. Yeah. So one of the big things I do is set realistic expectations, making sure people understand, like, hey, we're not chasing download numbers, we're actually chasing leads with our content and our strategy to grow our podcast in our business. What are kind of the expectations that you set for your clients as you're working on their growth strategy?
[00:16:19] Angie Trueblood Yeah, I mean, it's definitely podcast guesting. We have seen it sort of grow and expand as a longer sort of turnaround to where it takes longer for us to see the impact of our strategy. That said, we identify what it is they are looking for, like, why is this something that's appealing to you? What are you looking to grow inside of your business? And for us, a lot of times it's the same. It's revenue and lead gen. And so we like to track discovery calls that get booked. We like to track actual revenue that comes from someone that heard them on a podcast or an incoming request to be a guest because they heard our client on someone else's show. So we just get really specific. And then there's also the piece of it, too, where you can't quantify all of it, right? Because if part of it is establishing authority and thought leadership in a space that's a little bit harder to track and measure, but you can over time, you can look at, you know, how many people are coming to your website, how many invitations are you getting for outside opportunities? So it kind of just depends on what the client is coming to us from. But the people that we're best able to serve and get an ROI on are people who have a professional service based business like yours, because you can know exactly where people found you and then you can know exactly how much revenue is attributed to that person that found you on a podcast. And I like that. It's hard for me to do more of like the nuanced authority.
[00:17:52] Caroline Hull Yeah, yeah. I love this so much because I literally recorded a podcast on Monday, we're recording this on a third on a Wednesday. What day is it? Literally everything you said, but from the viewpoint of having a podcast for your business. And so I love how related and how many parallels there are here to not only having a podcast, but being on podcast. And so as we're talking about that and I'm thinking about, okay, my goal is to get more ears on my podcast, do you see that as being a benefit as well?
[00:18:25] Angie Trueblood Oh, for sure. I mean, the clients and that's something we're looking at in 2023. Do we niche a little bit further and really push working with people that hosts their own show because there's more things that you can do to play around in that space, right? You could do a promo swap if my client hosts a primarily solo show and we're pitching to a show that's primarily solo, which we would never pitch for a guest interview on a solo show without acknowledging. But you could do a promo swap so that you could still get in front of each other's audience without sacrificing the integrity of your own show. I like the idea of just the different ways that we can kind of play with that relationship. There have been times it was a year and a half ago, summer of 2021, we saw a real dip in acceptances. And so we had a client who hosted her own show and we started leading our pitches with the idea of a swap.
[00:19:22] Caroline Hull Interesting.
[00:19:24] Angie Trueblood Yeah. Like, normally we'll save interview swaps. It's kind of like a plan B if the other person hesitates or suggests it. But in this one, we were like, okay, well, balls to the wall. We got to get acceptances for her. So we're going to lead with this. Yeah. And then, yeah, for sure. It's much easier to get a podcast listener when you're a guest on someone else's show to pop back over to your own podcast because they're already on a listening platform. It's like the activation energy required is much smaller.
[00:19:55] Caroline Hull Well, and I think, too, you know, there are people who listen to podcasts. There are people who watch YouTube videos, there are people who read blog posts and sometimes they cross over and sometimes they don't. And so it's a lot easier. Like, I feel like sometimes this idea of chasing listeners on social media is hard and it makes a lot more sense to go and be on other podcasts where people are already listening. They've already decided they like podcasts. They're listening. And so if they like what you have to say and they find out you have a podcast, it's going to make a lot more sense for them to come over and listen than it is for me, like putting posts on social media and going, I need you to leave this platform and come over to this platform and click it. So I think I see the value there. It's very much because you're capturing people who are already ready to listen. Right.
[00:20:41] Angie Trueblood Well, and we've even shifted. I struggle with this. I actually hired people earlier this year to do our Instagram. You can go and look at it, The Podwize Group. You can see exactly when they were managing our Instagram because it is beautiful. But what I didn't see was a real impact. And it took a lot of like for me to have done it right, I would have needed to be in the DMs and like really aware and I just don't have time to do that. Like at the level of business that we're at, we're at this, you know, it's a weird in-between where I'm doing business development, but I'm not in all of the DMs. And so what we have shifted because when I guest on shows like this, I do want to give back to the host, I really do want to share the episode with my people, but I didn't always want to be posting it on Instagram. And also I don't really know what the impact is, so I now share the guest interviews on my podcast. So in the beginning of every episode, I have a segment called Podcast Love, and it's where I share either a show that I'm loving or typically it's one where I've guested on someone else's show and I feel like I don't have the data on it, but that people are more willing if they're listening to my podcast, to go over and listen to this other one. Because I'm not just blanketing it on Instagram or LinkedIn.
[00:22:07] Caroline Hull Oh my gosh, I love this so much. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, Why haven't I done this with my clients podcasts? Yeah, I should be like highlighting them in my episodes. Taking notes.
[00:22:16] Angie Trueblood Taking notes, totally. Yeah.
[00:22:19] Caroline Hull That's so awesome. So somebody is listening to this. Maybe they're one of my clients. Maybe they're a listener who hasn't signed on yet. That's fine. But they're listening to this and they're saying, okay, I hear the value. I understand this is something I want to do. What would be like the very first step, maybe even before they come to you for help? What would be the very first step that they would need to do?
[00:22:42] Angie Trueblood Yeah, I would say, first of all, listen to my podcast. Go pitch yourself. It is totally niched into podcast guesting, growing your visibility through pitching. So there is a ton of DIY how to advice there. The first thing to do is decide what is it that you are aiming to get from guesting? Is it more downloads to your podcast? If so, the next question, no matter what that first answer is, is where can I connect with people who will do that? So if you know your podcast listener, which you should. What other shows are they listening to? What other shows are they listening to to where it would make sense that they would also hear from you? Right. And I had a client one time and she was in the body work space. So she helped massage therapists, cranial sacral therapists, and she polled her audience. And a couple of them were listening to Dolly Parton's America. I'm like, awesome. But we are not like, that is not where they would expect to hear you. So that's kind of the caveat is where would your where else is your listener listening, where it would make sense for you to kind of show up as a guest and then you just sort of go down the rabbit hole from there, finding just a couple of shows. People get lost in the research. So I always say like limit it, find five shows that you feel like you would be a good fit on and then make personal contact with the host.
[00:24:09] Caroline Hull Love that. And then you also have a free downloadable podcast pitches that convert. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:24:16] Angie Trueblood Yeah, we've actually changed. This is like behind the scenes, but we've changed our Call to action page. When I guest on shows and it's also something we're coaching clients to do, they have one landing page with all of the different options. So we.
[00:24:31] Caroline Hull Love that.
[00:24:32] Angie Trueblood Yeah. So you can check it out. The new landing page and you guys can all use this as kind of a template is thepodwizegroup.com and podwize is with a z backslash. Hi there. H i t h e r e. It has a list of our services. It has links to my podcast. It has places where I am active on LinkedIn and then it also has our opt in. And so that's like in the bottom right hand corner. Where people can get a list of pitches that we've sent that have been accepted. And I also give a little bit of context around what a great pitch needs to include. But we've started doing this. I feel like old school and some people who are still in the podcast guesting space, pitching their clients, they say give one call to action at the end of every interview. Tell them one place you want them to go. And I think, well, the listeners are human, just like I am. And so you don't know why they're listening. You don't know where they are in business, in life, so they can make up their own mind. Like, I trust other humans to pick the path that makes the best sense for them. Yeah. So if you can organize that in a way so that they know what's best for them, then that's. That's how I like to take the next step with people that hear me on other people's shows.
[00:25:49] Caroline Hull I love that. I do that for Instagram, so that makes a lot of sense to do that for other things as well. So it's a great tip. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom and knowledge. And I hope everyone took notes and we will include all of the links in the show notes so you can go and connect with Angie and find out more about what she does. And I highly recommend her podcast, so definitely add that to your subscription list and yeah, thank you so much.
[00:26:17] Angie Trueblood Thank you. It was so good to see you.
[00:26:18] Caroline Hull Good to see you, too. Oh, that was such a good episode. I pretty sure that we turned off the recording and kept talking. And that's why I love Angie so much, because we can literally sit and chat about podcast strategy forever. And I hope that you learned so much from this episode and that it really solidified for you why you need to have this as part of your growth strategy for your podcast in your business. And I am definitely going to work on this in the New Year. This is something that is huge on my to do and goal list. I love being on other podcasts and like many of you, time has become a huge constraint. But she's absolutely right. It's time to take it off of my to do and put it on somebody else's to do. So I'm excited to start implementing that and I will definitely share some of that journey with you here on the podcast and of course on Instagram.
[00:27:09] Caroline Hull If you would like to chat more about this episode, please come join my close friends list on Instagram. We will be talking a little bit more about this and having a discussion around pitching and being on other podcasts and how we can start doing that. So we'd love to have you come continue the conversation over on Instagram. You will find all of Angie's links in the show notes. And again, I highly recommend you go listen to her podcast if you are even thinking about incorporating this into your growth strategy. And we will be back next week with a new episode. Thank you.
[00:27:47] Caroline Hull Thank you for listening to Podcast Your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting. If you are ready to launch, up,level or grow your podcast, head to WildHomePodcasting.com to get started today.
