If you’ve followed the journey of my business, you MIGHT think that the idea of a podcast pitching specialist telling you to “do it messy” and pitch a podcast quickly goes against the grain. But the whole point of this concept is for you to get you started, get pitches out of your inbox, and give you some quick wins.
You see, trying to send out the perfect pitch can stop you from taking action at all. And the parts of a ‘messy’ pitch are similar to those of a more finessed podcast pitch, just without all the bells and whistles that you can create when you have more time on your hands. The whole point of wanting to pitch a podcast quickly and do it messy is to inject a shot of energy into your marketing.
See, you can pretty-up your website, opt-ins, and promotional offers later. The important part of ‘getting visible’ is that you have something valuable to share with an audience of ideal listeners. So, let’s not let getting it perfect keep us from getting it done.
Heads up: I’m running a ‘5-in-5’ Pitching Challenge (launching on Monday, March 21st, 2022) to give you motivation and support as you jump-start your pitching game.
How to Pitch a Podcast Quickly (Do it Messy!)
Topics covered include:
- Details of the ‘5-in-5’ Pitching Challenge that launches on Monday, March 21st, 2022
- How the idea of ‘Pitching Messy’ in wanting to pitch a podcast quickly came about
- What are the minimum steps needed to get a targeted pitch out of your inbox?
- The different parts of this method, including clarifying what you want to achieve, identifying your ideal listener, and crafting a one-topic pitch
- How ‘Pitching Messy’ can help motivate you to keep going for the long haul
So what do you think? Have you been putting off sending a pitch until you have everything tied up with a bow? And do you think that doing it messy could help you to get a pitch out of the door?
Let me know on IG @thepodwizegroup, record a short message at speakpipe.com/GPY, and join us for the ‘5-in-5’ Pitching Challenge.
The Podwize Group’s resources mentioned in this episode:
- Follow The Podwize Group on Instagram
- Learn more about The Podwize Group’s services
- Join the Podwize Group email list and get your copy of Podcast Pitches That Convert at thepodwizegroup.com/pitches
Podcasts mentioned in this episode:
- Listen to the Grow The Show podcast
Other resources mentioned in this episode:
- Sign up for the ‘5-in-5’ Pitching Challenge
Now it’s time for you to get out there and Go Pitch Yourself! Can’t wait to connect again!
Interested in connecting with other entrepreneurs who are using podcasts to grow their business?
>>> Check out the Podwize Co-Op
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Transcript for Auditing Your Podcast Interviews
Please Note: This transcript was computer-generated so please be mindful of errors. Thank you.
0:00
Hey there pitches. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of go pitch yourself. I’m your host, Angie Trueblood. And in this episode, we are talking about pitching messy, basically getting it done getting podcast pitches sent without having all your ducks in a row. Why on earth would I advocate for this approach, because some of us need a few quick wins in order to really dig in and integrate new marketing strategies, or consistent marketing strategies into our already busy work lives. So today, I’m going to share with you exactly how to do it. Let’s roll Hello there. So if you are new to go pitch yourself, welcome. I am so excited to have you here. Like I mentioned, I’m Angie, a podcast visibility strategist, the founder of the pod wise group. And I am really pumped to be sharing a little bit of an inside perspective with you today on how to approach pitching, when you’re not able, willing, motivated to do the whole kit and caboodle before you send your first pitch. Now, if you’re an OG listener, hello, my friend, it is so nice to have you back again. And I hope this episode actually motivates you and inspires you to take some action right now . If you are that OG listener, you know some of my more methodical longer term approaches to pitching. And they are great, and they work really well. But today, we’re really gonna hopefully spark a little bit of life and energy into your own podcast pitching workflow. So before we get started, I really wanted to share a bit with you about how I came up with the idea of this whole pitching messy approach to what we do podcast pitching and guessing. Now, if you are new here, you may not know that I am a mother, but I am a mother to two kiddos. And candidly, we are navigating math right now with one of our kiddos. I’m actually going to name this child Casey. It’s a pretty unisex name. And I always like to protect my kiddos from telling stories that are too specific to them in podcasting and social media. So this child has been gifted with a pretty mathematical brain, very intuitive in terms of how numbers work, the value that they have, etc. Casey also struggles a bit with handwriting, and I mean, the actual physical process of writing things down. So can you imagine where this is going as we get into higher levels of math. So when Casey is asked to show their work, there is this really noticeable level of resistance that immediately starts to creep up. And it’s not because the math is particularly hard. It’s because Casey knows that there is more to getting the problem, right? Then just offering up the correct answer. Now, what I’m about to say is probably going to make me sound like a total asshole. Especially since I used to be a teacher myself. But I’ve often wondered what if Casey and other kiddos like them didn’t need to show their work? What if they could simply supply the correct answer, especially in math, because I feel like that’s something that we always get asked to do. So I had a conversation with Casey’s teacher after noticing that they were struggling a little bit more with math than I would have expected, given their more natural inclination to be successful at it. And candidly, both teacher and I agreed that one, showing their work would be helpful, right, there is sort of a method to the madness of showing your work in math, because it’s helpful to diagnose wrong answers as they come up, it’s helpful to figure out what went wrong in order to teach. Fair enough, I totally acknowledge that. And we also agreed that there would come a time when the math would get so complex, that the process of writing it down would no longer be because there was a show your work directive, but instead it would really be a matter of,
4:56
I mean, the only way I can keep this problem straight is by writing it down and organizing the process, right? So that’s what we’re gonna do with Casey. The beauty is that they will get some really quick wins, right? Because Casey has this intuitive mind for math, they will get some boost to their confidence. And they may even learn that showing their work is helpful to figuring out when things go wrong. But until then, Casey is going to do their work messy. So what does this have to do with podcast pitching, and thank you for allowing me to sort of speak about my child in more anonymous ways. I do appreciate that. It’s super awkward. But again, it’s not my story to share specifically. So I try to make it as indistinguishable as possible. So this story has everything to do with podcast pitching or really anything that we are feeling resistance against. Doing it messy means getting it done, and making it as painless as possible. And for me, and also seeing this in my kiddos, it also means eliminating all of the excuses for why you can’t do it. Right in showing your work in math. If writing things down is a struggle, and you say, Well, you don’t need to show your work, then there’s no real excuse for not being able to get the math part of it done. What I know is that so many people end up putting off podcast pitching until they have all of their ducks in a row. And mind you a lot of these ducks are imagined, hypothetical ducks, if you will, they imagine these ducks to be super hard to put in a row. And they put it all off completely, because they don’t have a long term system, they don’t have a lot of the assets that they think they have to have, in order to pitch effectively.
6:58
But what if you decided to pitch messy, and then make it pretty? After you gain some quick wins, similar to showing your work and math? What if you do your math messy, and then later when you need to make it pretty and you need to write it down? Then you take the plunge and do it. So what if you just did the bare minimum to get pitches out the door? How does that feel when you hear that, that you don’t have to do all of these things? You don’t have to set up a workflow. You don’t have to fully optimize your social media profiles. You don’t have to have a kick ass opt-in already established and proven in order to pitch yourself to be a guest on a podcast. Does it feel like you’re taking a big sigh of relief? I know even for me because I pitch myself and there are things that I want to do in my business to optimize the impact that my guesting has. But I am not letting that stop me from continuing to guest on podcasts, right. So if hearing that makes you actually take that big sigh of relief, then you are exactly who this episode is for. It’s for the business owner who wants to grow your visibility, who wants to guest on podcasts but also who needs quotation marks, you need to create your one sheet, you need a pitch List of 50 shows and you need five different topics before you take a step forward and hit send from your inbox. So I’m excited to dig in and share what it looks like exactly to pitch messy. Before we officially dig in, though, I want to invite you to join me in my all new five in five pitching challenge that kicks off next Monday, March 21. myself along with fellow Challenge participants will be walking right alongside you as you send five podcast pitches in five days. You will have access to training question and answer sessions and community throughout the five days and it’s structured in a way that takes one hour a day. And that is because we are doing it messy. We are not making one sheets. We are not crafting a pitch template that has five different topics. In fact, you will have access to some of our best pitch templates so that you can start very quickly. You will have us there helping source contact info for some of the shows that you decide to pitch and I’m going to share insider secrets to help you move this party along a little bit faster than normal. In short, we are doing this messy and you are invited to come along. If this sounds intriguing to you, go over and register for it right now, at thepodwizegroup.com/5in5., I cannot wait to see who signs up with this and to walk alongside you as you likely end up even surprising yourself at how quickly you can get pitches out the door, when you’re not focused on perfection and getting everything structured in a way that would be maybe needed in a long term way. Okay. But today, we are chatting through what it actually looks like to pitch messy, right? And the challenge we’re going to be doing now I’m giving you a bit of an overview. So really, what are the actual steps that it takes to get a pitch out the door, when you set aside all of your excuses, all of your I don’t have a one sheet reasons aside. So the big theme that you’re going to notice in these steps, is focusing on one, rather than creating assets that are going to be useful in a long term fashion, we want to focus on getting some pitches out the door quickly. So let’s go over step one. The first thing that you want to do before you actually start sending pitches is to really clarify what your goals are. And because this isn’t something that we’re creating this long term strategic approach to podcast pitching, you can just say, I want to connect with audiences who might be interested for me as an example, for growing the Co Op, like I want to get in front of audiences who might be interested in joining this program. Right? So that’s a great goal.
Speaker 1
11:50
Not so great a goal would be to grow my visibility. Okay, we need to get more specific than that. When we have clients as an example, we’ll ask them, What are you hoping to achieve as a result of being on a podcast? What product? What program? Are you looking to really guide people towards? And that’s what you need to get clear on? So for the purposes of pitching messy, pick one goal, do you want to get people to sign up for your opt in? Perfect? Do you want to get people to learn about your membership program and possibly join? Wonderful, but that goal is super important. I’ve even noticed it over the last couple of weeks inside of the co-op community. We have a monthly sort of networking swap post. And a lot of times I’ll see people share their topics. And they don’t really go deeply into who they’re looking to connect with. It is more just a high level. Here are some of the topics I can talk about. And I always end up asking them, what’s your goal? Like? Who are you looking to get in front of? And what are you looking to drive them back to? So think about that, as you’re sort of contemplating what your goals are for pitching messy. Second, come up with your ideal podcast listener? Who is the person that you’re looking to get in front of? And if you have a very clear goal, then you know exactly who that might be. Right? If you know that you are looking for people who might be interested in joining your membership program, you will likely know exactly who that is. There’s probably several different types of people that could be right. So if I’m talking about my membership program, the pod wise Co Op, some of the ideal podcast listeners who would be podcast hosts who are looking to grow their downloads, right, because podcast guesting is a great way to do that. Others might be online course creators who are looking to grow their audience and their email list. Others could be professionals who are looking to grow their authority and their specific niche and to connect with other influencers. Those are all examples of ideal podcast listeners that I like to connect with when I guest on someone else’s show. But guess what, we can’t connect with all of them at one time, right? We got to pick one. So pick one ideal podcast listener that for the purposes of pitching messy you would like to connect with. Now number three is actually a bit of a riff on a conversation that I recently had with Kevin Schmidlin, who is the host of the grow the show podcast. It’s a great podcast for podcasters teaching them how to grow their show and increase their own downloads. So I interviewed Kevin. He’ll be a guest coming up on go pitch yourself and I in turn will be a guest on grow the show. But he talks about this idea and sort of this framework for defining who your audience is as a host. His framework is the idea of describing your audience to the people that you want to show up in front of as a podcast host, this is on your own show, right? So the people that you are speaking to, and he describes it as blanks, who blank, and blank. And those are all very specific descriptors of the listeners that you are speaking to, as you host your own show. And as he and I were talking, it really actually brought clarity to me in the way that I coach people to figure out who their ideal listener is, that’s always something we talk about when we are pitching. We’re crafting pitches for clients, like Who are we trying to get in front of? And then if you take it a step further, we can actually create a one liner for one of those pitch double podcasts, which means how can we describe the type of podcast that we want to pitch. And for this one, I’m not telling you to come up with names, so don’t come at me with I want to be a guest on the gold digger. Right, I want you to come up with a descriptor of the type of podcast that it would make sense for you to pitch and be a guest on.
16:06
So to give you a framework for a one liner that describes your pitch bubble podcast, I would recommend using, I want to be a guest on a podcast that talks to blank, about blank. An example for me if we’re sticking with that whole growth, the co-op talking to podcast hosts would be I want to be a guest on podcasts that talk to podcast hosts, right not people that are dreaming of starting a podcast, but that talk to podcast hosts about growing their podcast. So that is a very descriptive way to explain and a very quick way very efficient to know exactly who you’re looking to get in front of and what type of show that listener would likely be listening to. So just to recap, so far, you’ve established your goal for pitching Messi, you’ve come up with your ideal podcast listener. You’ve got your one liner for the pinchable podcast, a podcast that talks to blank about blank, perfect. So you’ve got clarity on the strategy, that’s a really short way to kind of nail down your strategy. But it works because you’re just doing it messy. Alright, step number four, craft one topic, come up with one topic that that ideal podcast listener would want to hear on that pinchable podcast with one topic that would be relevant. So for me, just to kind of illuminate what that might sound like. My topic could be how to pitch yourself to be a guest on other people’s podcasts, right? I mean, that’s sort of like run of the mill, I would make it a little sexier, more exciting, and unique than what I’ve shared on. At this point. Now, probably close to 40 different podcasts. But in general, come up with one topic, what is the one topic that those listeners are going to want to hear you talk about on that podcast that we just described. From there, you take number four, you craft your topic, and you turn it into a pitch template. Now, when we talk about templates, usually we are talking about a very long form Google Doc that has several different topics, typically three to five, fully fleshed out with bullet points. In this instance, I just want you to create a pitch template that has one topic fully fleshed out. So your pitch template could look very simply like a connection and a greeting, right? Hello, host love your show love what you’re doing with it, I noticed you haven’t covered this topic, which is why I would love to offer myself up as a guest quick one liner about yourself, introduce the topic, why it would be relevant to their audience what their listener might take away from it, and then do some sort of closing as to experience that you’ve had podcasting, your willingness to share, etc. Just do that for that one topic. You don’t need to curate it for five different topics. Okay, so now you have a template to start your pitching with. Okay, number six, you’re going to find shows to pitch, you’re not going to find 50 shows, and you’re not going to find 10 shows in various niches, you’re going to find three to five shows that are described by that one liner that you came up with. So find three to five shows that are that pinchable podcast. So for me, I would find a couple of shows that are speaking to podcast hosts about growing their podcast, I would go out, find it and put that down on a piece of paper in a Google Sheet, whatever is easiest. And then step number seven, pluck those shows off one by one and send the pitch. That’s it. That’s pitching messy. I didn’t mention one sheet. I didn’t mention making sure your website is optimized, make sure you have a Facebook pixel. On your opt in page, make sure you have a welcome sequence, none of that. Because honestly, the people that I know who are interested in being a guest on podcasts, they know it is probably one of the best marketing avenues and strategies for them. But they have not taken that step forward. Because they feel like they need to get all of these other things done. And they haven’t had the quick win of getting a yes, and having an interview recorded and having it go live. So the purpose, again, of pitching messy is to get a quick win, so that you will have the motivation, the momentum to keep going for the long haul. And that’s when you can go back and do all of those things that are present in sort of an ideal scenario. But until then, let’s get some pitches out the door. So I want to know from you what you think of this, is it too messy? Does it feel overly complicated? It shouldn’t. I really pared it down to the bare minimum of what it would take to get the pitch out. Now, if it’s appealing to you, and you think this is great, this is a really high level doable framework for getting a pitch out the door, but I’m going to want more support, maybe and this is where I do see people get stuck sometimes is finding the shows to pitch. And really finding some of that background information, finding the contact information that gets people really hung up because they envision oh my gosh, I’m gonna have to binge listen to five shows. I’m going to get lost in Apple podcasts for hours, then I would highly encourage you to give the five and five challenge a shot because this is going to be a different approach. It’s going to get you pitching so that you can have those quick wins. Remember though, it starts next week so we actually are going to have a kickoff beforehand but on March 21 content starts dropping so you can register for free at the pod wise group.com That’s the pod wise group with a Z slash five in five. The number five spell out the word in ai n and then the number five again so the pod wise group comm slash five in five I cannot wait to see you there and to support you. That’s all for today, friend. Definitely send me a DM tagging me on this bad boy if breaking it down like this allowed you to take a big deep breath and actually get a pitch out the door. I want to celebrate your successes with you. So let me know. Until next time, be well and be visible.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai