[0:03] If you've ever thought about being a guest on someone else's podcast but weren't sure how to begin, or whether or not it was advantageous for you and your business, stick around. Today's guest, Angie Trueblood is spilling the beans about what it could mean for you to be a guest on someone else's podcast. Now this is a bit of a departure from our recent episodes because we've been diving deep into crafting your own podcast and all the spices and all the choices you as a podcaster get to make to ensure that what you're creating is the best it can be - for your audience as well as you as a podcaster.

[0:43] Today we are talking about being on the other side of the mic as a guest. Now before we get there I want to share a couple of quick stories because they're relevant to the episode I released last week number 245 all about nine strategies you can use when the tech Gremlins come and play, which they almost inevitably will from time to time at least. As soon as I released last week's episode, I had several of my own tech Gremlins to deal with. In fact, these Gremlins were the cause of my website being totally shut down during the middle of the launch of the League of Extraordinary Podcasters, my membership that's exclusive to graduates of Podcast in a Weekend, so I had to make a plan B and then a plan C, in order to make sure that these students knew this opportunity was available, and I had a special treat for them in that process.

1:47 And even when Angie and I sat down to record this episode several weeks back, we experienced our own set of Gremlins. We started off on one platform and realized about halfway through that Angie's audio and video weren't actually being recorded so we had to jump ship mid-interview and hop to another platform, which I'm happy to share worked incredibly well for us and resulted in today's amazing podcast interview.

2:18 If you're wondering why I'm sharing these stories with you about those Gremlins, it's this. No matter where you are on your podcasting and on your business building journey, you're bound to confront some obstacles along the way. When you hit that obstacle, you'll have a choice to make. You can either decide that the obstacle is too great, or maybe you're just going to wait a little bit longer to overcome it and go back to how things are, or you can choose to figure out a way and be a massive problem solver, and decide that obstacle is just there to test you. It means nothing about your value or your worth as a person, or the amazing things you have to offer the world. It's just a choice and you get to make it. That's a beautiful thing about having a business of your own, whether it's a full-time gig or whether it's a side hustle for you. It's all about the choices you get to make and the freedom to make those decisions as you choose. So there you have it my friends from obstacles and Gremlins that I had to overcome recently, in order to even bring this episode to you live and to be able to launch my membership to my Podcast in a Weekend graduates. By the way, if you are at all interested in launching your podcast in 2019, in this decade, please reach out to me on Facebook, and let me know how I can serve you because it is my mission to help as many female entrepreneurs, as possible, take their messages far and wide by crafting and launching their podcasts, in as little as weekend. Enjoy today's show.

4:10 Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I have someone special to share with you and I cannot wait to dive into my conversation with Angie Trueblood. Angie is a podcast visibility expert who fiercely believes in the power of women, stepping more fully into their gifts. Angie, I'm so glad you said yes to being here today.

Angie Trueblood 4:37
Well, I am so glad you asked. I'm very happy to be recording with you.

Yong Pratt 4:42
We have to laugh at this point. This is take two of the interview because we were using a different platform and things totally went a little haywire this afternoon so here we are. Just a note for when you get to recording your podcast in the future, or you're going to be on someone podcast, just be flexible and know that sometimes technology does not always work in your favor. But here we are again. It just means I get to spend more time with you.

Angie Trueblood 5:11
Exactly, exactly. I'm excited myself.

Yong Pratt 5:15
So let's talk about the word visibility. What does that word mean to you?

Unknown Speaker 5:21
So I probably take a more narrow approach to how I define that word than most people because there are a million different ways for you to become visible and to increase your visibility as a business owner. There are paid avenues that you can take. I really define visibility in the work that I do with my clients as positioning yourself in front of other people's audiences. So how do you find new audiences who are totally unaware of you and position yourself in front of them while making sure that audience is full of your ideal clients?

Yong Pratt 6:00
That's a really, really great concise definition because sometimes when we hear the word visibility, it's almost one of those words tossed around and they don't really refer to it in the same way. So thank you for defining it and explaining about how it's really an important asset for a business owner to gain some visibility, to get some traction, and some forward momentum in your business. So tell me about how you work with your clients, as a podcast visibility expert.

Angie Trueblood 6:32
Yes, so I have folks that come to me and they are typically looking to increase their visibility for a couple of reasons. Either they are scaling their business from more of a one-to-one model, and they're looking to go one too many, maybe they have a course or membership or some sort of program to where they really need to increase the size of their audience. So, marketing on a one-to-one basis no longer makes sense for them. The other type of folks that come to me is they're up-leveling their business and they need more clients, or they're looking to increase the number of folks that their businesses is exposed to so they can capture more of that higher-end client, so that the folks that work with me. They come to me, and there's a couple of different ways that I help them out. The goal at the end of the day is really for me to help them position themselves in front of audiences of their ideal client. And I can either do that with my team as a concierge level partnership where we handle the entire nuts and bolts of their podcast visibility strategy - we develop it. I develop the top topics that are going to both resonate with the audience as well as the podcast hosts. That's a super important piece of the puzzle is figuring out that perfect almost Venn diagram of what you're an expert at and what that audience needs to hear. And then we just handle all of that we handle the scheduling, I do interview audits. So that's one piece of it, and then the other is I work with folks who are interested in pitching themselves or keeping that piece of their business in-house with someone that can implement a strategy. So in that instance, we create the strategy, we create a pitch template that they'll be able to tweak personalized but be able to use to make their pitching more efficient.

Yong Pratt 8:35
So many good things I just need to hire you now to handle all these pitches because as a podcaster I forget because I get so wrapped up in being able to interview amazing people like you that I forget sometimes that I also need to talk to other people on their podcasts, in order to meet new people, and build some connections outside of my own circle.

Angie Trueblood 9:00
Yeah, and we both attended Podcast Movement and my biggest takeaway from that was almost validation of the business that I have created because in every session when we talked about growing a podcast audience, guesting on other podcasts was top of the docket honestly. It's what they were recommending was one of the best ways to grow that and so being able to do that and fit into your already busy schedule, it's a really tough thing to add especially if you have client work depending on what the model of your businesses is but it's something that does need to be done and because it's such a, I say it so low activation energy. So my background years ago was science, but when you have someone who's listening to you on someone else's podcast and you have your own, it doesn't require a lot of energy for them just to pop over and start listening to yours. So, there's so many great reasons to do that. And I want to see more people doing it for sure.

Yong Pratt 10:07
It's interesting to see the guesting process on other people's podcasts growing and more people are talking about it which is great because if I think back maybe 10 years or so in the blogosphere, that was really how people were filling their blogs before it was by guest posting. So this is taking it to a more human level because I really feel like a podcast is a much bigger connection piece than is a blog. Because I prefer either to watch something or to listen, that just kind of how I like to information, and reading a long blog post is definitely at the bottom of my list of those things. So with the podcast I love that now we're taking that model of the guest post or the podcast guest, and now that becomes a part of a bigger picture strategy - just kind of that one extra spoke on the wheel that we can kind of add, so we can get more visibility like you've been talking about.

Angie Trueblood 11:08
And the other interesting piece of the podcast guesting is the longevity of those episodes, compared to blogs. So the guest posts will always stay on the internet there's SEO you could search for them and find them, but if you just think of looking at someone's blog, maybe you find someone and you love them. And so you read their articles occasionally. Traditionally, I've never gone back and kind of binged all of their articles. But when you find someone that you love as a podcaster, Apple podcasts, most any platform for listening to podcasts, has a really easy to read dashboard to where you can scan past episodes and see if anything sticks out. And so I find it's also a much more convenient way for folks to go back and hear you and that was, that was one of the reasons I picked it too because, in my previous business, I had optimized a Facebook group. And so when I was guesting on shows I would drive people to that Facebook group too where I could ask them, Hey, how did you find me. And I started to see that there were one or two places that folks kept finding me over and over again, and it didn't slow down, months and months later, it kept the podcasts kept growing, and so the driver of traffic to my Facebook group also kept coming in.

Yong Pratt 12:35
Yes and with so there are so many different ways that people are finding podcasts these days and like you said the longevity It is so fascinating because know if you go find someone who's been podcasting for years and they have thousands of episodes, it is cool. It's like a smorgasbord you can still pick and choose the ones that are most relevant to you again. And you get to come back with them in a way that makes sense on your terms and not someone else's terms so I love that, too, about podcasting. So I'm curious to know why did you feel like especially for women, why is podcasting such a great tool to connect with others?

Angie Trueblood 13:15
I think it's the human component, especially if a part of the business is an online business. There are so many women transitioning from work corporate or traditional jobs and working from home, and we hear over and over again that the hardest part of doing that is you're so isolated. So I think the first part of it is women already are craving connection in business. And when you're able to have an interview that honestly just feels like a conversation, you feel like you're not alone in that game. And then when you take it over to the business side, you take it away from that relationship, you're able to connect with someone and understand fully what they do, get an idea of whether or not you would recommend them or refer them, and then that's a relationship that goes on far past when that podcast gets released. It's something a lot of women have Facebook groups, they have some sort of community where people are looking to them and having questions so the ability to refer after the interview is huge.

Yong Pratt 14:21
Absolutely and I love that you used the word crave because that really sums up what so many women are feeling that's missing in their lives. We start these online businesses so we can have a more global reach because we want to really be able to help and serve lots of people. But in the process, we missed that connecting piece - how we used to go into the office and talk around the water cooler or do office activities. Those things have now been removed, which makes the business very streamlined. However, it doesn't make our lives so streamlined because we are definitely not linear creatures at all.

Angie Trueblood 15:02
Not at all. And I think, depending on the season of life that women are in, I know for me when I was working around my kids' schedule when they were home, I didn't crave that connection so much because I almost had it from them. But then when they both went off to elementary school, that was when I really started craving it. You know you're in this house alone, doing work but so you want that relationship and you want to feel like you're doing this business with other people. For me it was the sense of being on a team that I missed and I feel like I have found that through masterminds, your interviews, your friends that I've made online, and it's a really important, I think, driver of the longevity of a business is to have that support group cheering you on.

Yong Pratt 15:51
I think we almost, think about the support group, as a second thought it's something that we don't actively seek out when we create our businesses, but at some point, we have to be able to cultivate that in a real way, and by hearing people's voices and people seeing you on video and having like you said the real human connection. Being able to pull that back into our lives, I know for me that is such a godsend that I just, it's something that lights me up and I look forward to those pieces of my weekly schedule the most, because I know that I get to really just be real and have some fun, and you know let down some other the barriers I often keep up when I'm constructing the business.

Angie Trueblood 16:35
Yes, absolutely. I agree with everything you just said.

Yong Pratt 16:39
So if people are listening and thinking, wait wait wait. I haven't even started a podcast, yet. Can it still be on someone else's podcast, without being a podcaster myself?

Angie Trueblood 16:50
Absolutely. I mean it really just takes you having some level of expertise, and I feel like again, as women sometimes we elevate that word "expert" into something that it will take years to, you know, to achieve. And that's just not the case. I mean, if you have a service-based business. Let's say you're a Pinterest strategist, well you're an expert at Pinterest and there are podcasts out there whose host want someone to come on and explain to their listeners the benefit of it but they themselves are not a Pinterest expert. So, as long as you have some level of expertise, you have a business that you're able to talk about what it is that you do and what you share with your own audience and your own clients and students, you can totally shift that into podcast interviews. I mean I would say right now my clients, half of them have podcasts and half of them don't. And so it's important and it still drives people back to their online communities to their email list. They book clients from it so I mean I don't have a podcast right now. By the time this goes live I will, I think. Yeah, I know so excited but yes that should not be a barrier to entry at all.

Yong Pratt 18:12
But so good to know and I think a lot of listeners are breathing a sigh of relief saying, 'whew. Now I don't have to stress and rush to get the podcast up before I can be a guest. You can do it in either order. Both of those pieces, though are important, to the strategy and especially in terms of growth of your podcast so be thinking about both sides of the mic, when you're thinking about how you're going to maximize your podcast for sure.

Angie Trueblood 18:41
Well, and guesting on podcasts before you have a podcast of your own is also a great way to nail some of the messaging and get a real sense for what people are going to resonate with before you launch your own because being interviewed and having conversations to a lot of people, myself included, is far easier than speaking into a microphone by yourself. And so getting some of those, what would be a topic that would resonate well and getting practice, having conversations around, it is a great way to prep you for your own podcast.

Yong Pratt 19:18
Just to add on to that too if you're listening, and you know you want to have a podcast down the road, being a guest and talking about your upcoming podcast before you even launch it can help start building momentum so when you release your podcast people already know about it. And people are getting referred to your podcast already because you were on someone else's podcast so just be thinking about all these little ideas too, because podcasting and the world of podcasting, whether you're a guest or host, there are so many facets to it. Angie, I've had such a wonderful conversation with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your wealth knowledge, and I have one last question for you. If people are listening and saying, okay, I'm in. I really want to get some more visibility for my business. I'm not sure if I want to be a guest first or start a podcast or maybe both. Where the heck do I start?

Angie Trueblood 20:21
So the place to start, and I know this isn't probably the sexiest answer for people. But I've had people that have said to me, oh, I have a friend, it was a couple of years ago who said I pitched 10 podcasts this morning and I thought, Oh my gosh, I mean I pitch often just 10 per client per month, because I'm tweaking them and making them so personal. So I really think the first step to start is to figure out, taking what you are an expert at and crafting that into a few messages into a few talk topics that would resonate with other people's audiences. So rather than start searching on Apple podcast for relevant podcasts, really figure out strategically: What is my messaging going to be? What do I want to get out and talk to people about that is going to resonate with my ideal client so that they can be drawn back to me? And then you can take those messages and think: Okay, well what type of podcasts would this message really serve? What type of podcast host would be interested in having this talk topic on? So it's taking almost, you start far earlier than you don't need to be in Apple podcasts to start prepping sort of your pitch strategy.

Yong Pratt 21:45
That's a really great place to start and like you said it's not one people want to talk about all the time because it's not the sexy stuff it's not about looking for the top podcasts or any player. It's about dialing it back a little bit and thinking: What do I want to talk about and what can I talk about and really serve people with my message?

Angie Trueblood 22:06
Yes, because if you are not serving the audience and you are not serving the podcast host. You are not going to connect and resonate and you won't be able to draw people back to you. You need to show up and provide value and really not hold any punches. I've heard of some people trying to figure out where do I draw the line and what information I share on podcasts, and I just feel like you need to put your whole self out there. And if people can go and make transformative changes in their life based on you being a guest on someone's podcast, then that's awesome. But if they can, those are going to be the people that get drawn back to you and want to end up working with you.

Yong Pratt 22:48
So good, so stop and do your work today. Take out a sheet of paper. Take out your phone and whatever app you use to keep notes on and just start jotting down some of these talking points about you just your wish list - 10 things you want to talk about eventually or 10 things you could talk about when someone calls you on the phone and ask you about something. What do you know a lot about that you can get excited about sharing with others? Write those down and I definitely want to hear more about that for sure from everyone, so come on over to the website, www.yongpratt.com, and drop us some comments and let us know because this is a big deal. To go out there into the world can feel kind of scary. It can feel almost intimidating because what happens often I know to me is that we start comparing where we are to where someone else is and where we want to be and think that we're not enough.

I'm here to tell you and I'm sure Angie will back me up I'm sure that you, my friends, are absolutely enough. You know enough. You are definitely worthy and you're just awesome for being you. So take the best parts of you, and put those together on your list and then go out there and start connecting with our podcasters and influencers, to go serve more.

Angie Trueblood 24:10
Yes, absolutely.

Yong Pratt 24:11
And now Angie I know that you have something to help everyone kind of track their visibility, so they can really kind of go step-by-step and really keep record of what went well and what doesn't work and kind of tweak the process along the way. What is it that you have for them?

Angie Trueblood 24:31
Yes, so podcast pitching does involve a workflow because you do all of the prep work. You have a pitch list. You pitch. You follow up. And that was one of the things I thought there were some entrepreneurs that kind of had the bones of a system, they just didn't know how to keep track of it and what that workflow looks like. So, I have actually shared the Trello workflow that I use with my own clients, and my team to pitch and to share my clients with the world. So it's a Trello workflow board, and it also has a training, it's a video training that goes along with it that kind of walks you through it. So folks can find that at AngieTrue Blood.com/Yong. So people can go there and grab it and hopefully by the time this podcast comes out, I will have my podcast, which is Go Pitch Yourself so there will be lots of also free information and free resources listed or shared on that podcast.

Yong Pratt 25:31
First of all, congratulations on this podcast because I think I've been silently waiting for this to come along, thinking when is Angie going to launch her podcast because she really needs one. So kudos to you for launching and thank you so much for being so generous, sharing this workflow. Being a systems gal myself, I when things are put into a process so we're not just throwing things out and doing things really hot and heavy one day, and then trying to come back in two months to try to resurrect that so thank you for sharing for Trello workflow with us.

Angie Trueblood 26:08
Oh, you're welcome, you're welcome. Thank you for having me on and sharing me with your audience.

Yong Pratt 26:12
So, before we wrap up, where can people connect with you if they want to know more about your podcast or about the services you offer as far as helping your clients?

Angie Trueblood 26:25
Yeah, so my website is Angietrueblood.com spelled just like it sounds. I'm also pretty active on Instagram. And so my handle there is @angietrueblood and I'm sure you'll have that in the show notes, but we also have a really fun Facebook group. It's called Go Pitch Yourself. And it's a really amazing group of folks who are stepping up and putting themselves out there and really supporting each other along the way. A lot of us are involved right now in a bit of a pitch sprint to where we are encouraging and sharing how we are pitching ourselves to be featured in different outlets so I would love for folks to come in there.

Yong Pratt 27:04
Absolutely! I'm in the group, too, so come up with both of us. We'd love to see you there. I will put all of the links in the show notes for today's episode, so you can link directly to her and see all the awesome stuff she is doing, plus keep track of her podcast launch, as well.

Angie Trueblood 27:22
Yes,

Yong Pratt 27:23
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. Thank you, Angie, for being here and being so generous with your time. I appreciate you all, I'll catch you next time.

So what did you think? Are you ready to go out and start booking podcast interviews on other people shows? If so, let me know. Come on over to www.yongpratt.com/246 and share with me your plans on how you want to be a guest on someone else's podcast, and what you're interested in sharing because I love connecting people who need each other in their lives. Again, head over to yongpratt.com/246, so we can continue this conversation about visibility and being on the other side of the mic.

Next week we're diving into your legacy. What legacy do you what to leave and what are you going to use to build your yours? Cheers.