53. Podcast Guesting: How to create a Win-Win-Win

00:00:00

I'm going to be completely honest here, and I feel a little ashamed sharing this because, well, this is a podcast for podcasters. And what I'm going to confess to you kind of goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom that you hear about growing a podcast. Yikes. Okay, so deep breath. What I'm going to share with you is that I never actually thought about getting my podcast guests to help me grow my show.

00:00:26

Okay? Don't shoot me. Don't shoot me. This was just never a thing for me. It was never a strategy that I really relied on.

00:00:33

My first podcast was a completely solo show, and it never occurred to me that getting guests on was a way to grow that show. But with this podcast, with the Grow My Podcast Show, I've seen the benefits when a guest promotes their episode. But if I'm going to be totally honest, it was by accident that I stumbled upon that. Not at all by design, because my whole reason behind getting those guests on in the first place was because they have something valuable that they can share with you. You the person listening to this show right now.

00:01:03

It was almost a bonus if they promoted the show. And it was only recently when a couple of things happened that made me rethink this approach. It made me rethink how I can lean into this strategy more intentionally to grow my show. Don't get me wrong. My first reason will always be to serve you to ensuring I have the best guests on to help you grow your show.

00:01:26

But, well, it doesn't hurt if I can kill a couple of birds with 1 st, does it? So if you've been struggling with having your guests promote their episode on your podcast, then this episode is exactly the conversation I want you to be involved in, because I'm going to be talking through some of my own. Experiences and what seemed to work, as well as share some insights into some conversations that I've been having that is helping me better understand what makes a guest want to promote a podcast that they guested on. My name is Deirdre Tshien, I'm the CEO and co-founder of Capsho, the fastest way to market and grow your podcast.

00:02:02

This is the Grow My podcast show. Yay.

00:02:16

How are you doing on this fine, fine day? I am so pumped because we have quite a bit to cover today and this episode is going to be a little bit different. I'm not going to profess to be the expert on how you have your guests share the episode. Instead, I'm going to give you an insight into some of the things that I've done and some of the things that I'm going to be doing based on some hypotheses that I've formed from my own experiences, but also from many conversations that I've been having. Because this is all a journey for me, just as it is for you, too.

00:02:46

And my whole aim with this podcast is to share what's working for me, but also more importantly, to share things that I strongly believe will work too. I mean, to be fair, that's how we're also building Capsho. We always start with some kind of hypothesis, put it out there and test and iterate until it works or it doesn't, and we have to iterate again. That's also how we approach our podcast growth. But that starting point, that hypothesis, it's always rooted in something.

00:03:11

Something that I've done, something that I've seen others do, or something that comes up through conversations with a variety of people. And this topic is actually an example of all of those things for me. I'll tell you what prompted me to really start thinking about it. I was getting a debrief from Bona on an office hour session she just had with our captiovians, which FYI, if you're a paying member of Capsho, you also have free access to. So you can ask Bona all of your Capsho questions or give us feedback on how you're finding it. You can mastermind with other captiovians in these office hours.

00:03:42

Okay, so if you are currently subscribed to Capsho, then you have full access to that. Okay, so Bona was giving me a debrief, and she mentioned a couple of times this same question being asked, which was a variation of how can I use the social media captions and emails that Capsho creates for me to give to my guests so that they have more content to use to promote their episode. Oh man. Great question. Great question.

00:04:06

Shout out to Una Doyle and Diann Wingert who are both Capsho Collective members, for asking this. And on these calls, there was a really good, healthy discussion about what people are currently doing to entice a guest to promote their episode, what was working and what wasn't. And that started giving me some really good insight into perhaps why it is that guests aren't promoting their episode. I started also thinking about my own experience as a guest and what would prompt me to share about an episode. I also started thinking about times a guest on my podcast promoted an episode.

00:04:38

Why did they versus others who didn't? And to be fair, you will always get the odd one here and there who might perhaps think that they were doing you a favor by being on your podcast, for example, or they're just never going to promote your episode, like they just don't do that at all. But by and large, if it is a strategy of yours to grow your show by leveraging your guests promotion power as long as we get the right guests on who have the right mindset towards helping share the stages that they were on, then there are a few things that we can personally do ourselves that will make it way more compelling for our guests to promote your podcast. And I'm so excited to start to explore those with you. If you have a guest based podcast and you've been a little bit underwhelmed by the amount of traffic that your guests have been able to drive to your podcast, that is very little, then I'm glad we're here having this conversation.

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And by the way, we get to have it between you, dear listener, me and my co founder and COO, Bona Rai. Hello. Hello. It's good to be back. Yes.

00:05:41

And I wanted to take this opportunity to share some things on this particular topic. I've had some of my own experiences which you have also been very involved in. We've had quite a few conversations about this as well. And really the conversations, we've kind of come up with some hypotheses and some solutions maybe as to how we might be able to help our community with this particular power problem, how to unlock almost the power of getting their guests to share their episode on their podcast. Yes.

00:06:13

Right. Yes. And I think importantly, what it comes down to when we've been having these conversations is how do we make it a win win for everyone involved? And this is actually the key when it comes down to it, right? Like, if we take a step back and we think about what it is that we want to achieve here, we want it very importantly, first, for it to be a win for our audience, that has to be almost the number one thing, give our audience content that they actually want to listen to.

00:06:38

So we definitely want to get the right guests on to help us do that. We obviously want it to be a win for you. That is, as the podcast, as the host, you want to create a kick ass episode and we also want to lean on our guests to promote it so that it gets even more reach. And finally, we want it to be a win for our guests. And I think this is the crux of what we're going to be talking about today.

00:07:01

Because if we can make it a win for them to have a really awesome episode and to want it and to share it, we want to make it really valuable for them to the point that they will want to share about it. So they're almost good about it. Yeah, they're almost compelled to do that. Right. Because then they will.

00:07:18

Yes, if that's the case. Okay, so let's get into how we do that, maybe, right, okay. So you can guess it into it. I think the first thing is with the actual interview and now I'm I'm a bit ashamed to admit the professional it is, but I'm gonna I'm going to anyway. I'm gonna because I'm very, very open and transparent about all of the things, but I have been a little bit guilty, very guilty about being a bit of a lazy host.

00:07:45

This happened before. Not so much now, but in a previous podcast, you know, I would have my booking link just open. I'd share it around. I didn't I barely knew what guests I was interviewing that day. I was like, okay, I'll just shop on the Zoom Call and I asked the same questions all the time to all of my guests, right?

00:08:04

It was like, tell me your story and what did you learn from that journey? And what's something you would tell your younger self? You know, those kind of questions that's like an apologies if yes, I was going to say awkward. It's so awkward. I'm sorry, but it is if we're going to tell you what you need to hear exactly, if we're going to be really brutal about it, it is the same questions because I have been a guest on a lot of podcasts that you just get asked day in, day out, and it's kind of a lazy way to do it.

00:08:34

Okay? And by the way, I say this, having been there, I've fallen into that, right? I had become lazy. I didn't take the time and honestly, the care to want to create something amazing for my audience, something that they actually wanted to listen to. So in a way, I was like, no wonder I didn't want to keep that podcast.

00:08:54

As you were saying that the laziness, I think actually comes from almost this treadmill. I think a lot of us are on as hosts to do as many of these as possible. So it becomes more about very quickly when you start quantity becomes the goals, which is far from lazy because you were doing so many interviews some days were back to back. So it's not that kind of laziness by way of the pursuit, but really, because you're doing quantity, the quality starts slip and then to your point, you can't actually handle that. So it's really taking a step back and thinking about the quality of the questions you're asking and how you're planning these guest appearances.

00:09:26

Yes, exactly. And I found it like with this podcast, for example, I've taken a completely different approach, right? The guests I have on are strictly invite only. Yes, some people ask to want to be on here and I'm like, I'm sorry, unless we can come up with a really cool talk, like something that's super valuable and punchy for you to listen to and that you will actually learn from, it just doesn't make sense to have everyone on. Just anyone and everyone on this podcast.

00:09:56

And honestly, even to the point I take this so seriously that I don't even particularly care if the guest is going to promote the episode because it's all like the way that I approach this podcast is it's completely value. First, if they have something really great to share with the audience with you guys, then whether they promote it or not is kind of secondary. It's not even really a factor in my kind of process. So what I do care about is that they provide value. So I do meet with them before the interview.

00:10:32

So we come up with the topic and we make it a little bit different. Something that makes it away, like almost something that they've never hopefully never really done before. It's the type of episode they've never really done before. Like unique angle. Yeah, exactly.

00:10:47

So, for example, episode 44, I had Dan Meisner on from Bumper, and I invited him on because we were catching up. It was a zoom call, and we started having this really nerdy philosophical conversation about podcasting and podcast marketing. And that doesn't sound like you at all. No, and I could tell from the questions that even what he was asking me was that we just had a lot to talk about. And so because of some of the things that he was saying, I was like, hey, Dan, do you want to come on my podcast?

00:11:17

And what would be really cool is instead of doing the traditional the things that you normally hear on this podcast, which is like the three things to do, something, let's actually talk about what not to do instead. So take a little bit of a different approach, something he's probably not used to talking about, honestly, on other podcasts or other guest spots that he's had. And when we told him, hey, your episode's gone live, he promoted the heck out of it. And we saw just from that episode something like a 48% increase just in the listens on that. I remember being at Podfest after that episode went live, and I ran to someone in the lift and got talking to her.

00:11:54

She realized it from Capsho the Grow my podcast show. And she mentioned that episode seeing Dan promoted on LinkedIn. Exactly. Wow. Okay.

00:12:01

Because it was so genuine the way that he promoted it. It wasn't just a blast. He was very seemingly had a good time on the episode and could tell. And lucky to your point, it's a unique perspective that he maybe doesn't get to share normally, and he got to share it. Yes.

00:12:13

And this is important that we talk about this particular experience. Because what I learned from that is if you can actually have a different perspective that the guest has never really even taken before, because you can imagine because I've done this. As I said, I've been a guest on multiple podcasts where it's kind of been the same thing over and I get asked the same thing. I share the same stories, I share the same strategies. And after a while, I can't keep promoting the episodes because they're all the same.

00:12:45

Even my audience will be like, what the heck? Did you're just trying to get me to listen to the same thing over and over again? Same content? Yes. So I think this is key, right, that when you do get guests on, put a little bit of care, that preparatory care around.

00:13:04

What is it that you can have your guests talk about that they've never actually really spoken about before? What's a different angle that you can have them take that they've never because then it's like they'll have so much fun because it's like, that's cool. You've got me thinking about things that I never really thought about before. And I think that I was pretty good. As you were saying, it's going to come through in the recording because I think when the host is lazy and I'm doing the air quotes to a point on that treadmill, then the guest also gets on the treadmill to say, well, I'm going to reciprocate.

00:13:34

But if the host is clearly putting in an effort to ask something different, bring a different side out to them. I think you can tell that in the interview when the guest is like stumped or taking their time or really clearly enjoying themselves, like you said, because they get to talk about something different. So I think it's really clear to the listener as well and can't help but be more engaging as content. Yes. So I think that's almost like the first step that we would say is like, how do you take a different angle to what they used to talking about?

00:14:01

Either that or a really quick win. I would say either if you're stumped as to which you shouldn't be, to be honest. Like, if you put the prep work in, you would probably know you'd be able to tease out a different angle that they can take. But if that's not the case, then really the more powerful way is if you've been able to catch your guest at the point when they're trying to promote something. I think we all know this, right?

00:14:26

Like, yeah, there are people out there that's trying to promote a book or something else or something new. Now, if someone is on a book tour by the time that you get them, if you're like maybe the fourth, 5th or 50th, yeah, fifty th podcast, they're not going to promote you. You have to literally be probably one of the top the first three, honestly too, if you want them to promote you if they're on some kind of book tour or other tour. So for example, the episode I did with Kevin, the first episode I did with Kevin, Kevin Schmidland, he wanted to get the word out about his new framework, the TPP framework, and probably because I was one of the first to actually interview him on it, he happily promoted it. Honestly, I would do the same thing.

00:15:06

Like right now I'm on a bit of a tour about Capsho 2.0. I'm going to keep promoting the people that do get me on to talk about 2.0 just because I like to reciprocate that way. But not everyone's going to be like that, right? Because I'm in the podcasting space. So I understand how I want to be able to give back to people who, out of kindness, took the time to interview me.

00:15:27

But I would say the majority of people are not going to be like that. Yeah, I agree. So it's almost one of two things. Either you'd be one of the first, literally one of the first to actually have interviewed them and published if they're on some kind of promotional tour about something. But if not, you've got to find a different angle to what they're used to talking about.

00:15:47

That's really the only way that they're going to want to be like, oh, this was a really cool episode, let me definitely share about it. Yes, awesome. Okay, so let's go into step number two and I'll just introduce it and then I do want you to because you probably do a lot more of the operationally how this kind of works, but this is kind of like so the first step is find a different angle to what they used to talking about. The second step really is to make it stupidly simple for them to talk about your episode. Yeah, this one is so overlooked, I think, because we know it in principle that we really need, like with everything.

00:16:26

Whenever you want anyone to do anything, you have to make it really simple for them. And what's simple for you might not be simple for them because they have so many other things to think about. So this is something again, I'm not going to pretend we've cracked it, but these are just some of the questions that we've started asking ourselves to say, okay, again, like you just said for the Grandma podcast show, that is not our primary leader when we choose guests. But because you've put so much thought into choosing and cultivating the right guests, we're like, well, how do we follow through? Because this is also about taking care of the relationship after you've recorded.

00:16:56

And it's not just going, okay, cool, that was amazing. Now I've got what I needed for want of a better term, and now it's whatever. So how do you continue the care? And one thing that we've started thinking about is to say, okay, I think back in the day, especially when you were doing how many of the episodes on multiple podcasts, we just had this one blast that we would do again. It's just kind of like going, oh, here, just promote it everywhere.

00:17:18

And here's some wording, maybe a graphic, but please tell everyone about it. Right? And then really what the steps you want to think about is. Okay, well, firstly, if they are going to promote because not everyone's going to do it, where are they most active? Which platforms are they most active?

00:17:34

Are they a social media? Instagram, twitter? Facebook person? Are they an email person? Because that's the other thing too.

00:17:40

Sometimes we want to give them really what they're actually going to use and they're so used to working on those platforms that the cognitive load is lower on them. But it's like, oh, I might as well just quickly promote this. The other thing that you want to think about as well is how far out do they promote. So for us, I would say we don't plan too far in advance because we have so many things going on. So generally someone lets us know kind of like this is going live or it's live now we can find a way to promote it.

00:18:09

But some people, some of your guests will have a really, really packed content calendar that they map out weeks and months in advance. So again, it's just getting to know them and say, okay, when do you want these assets? Because some people, if you get too early, they'll forget about it. So I think it's just taking that extra care to understand what kind of platforms they're promoting on when they want it and then that can really help you plan the assets you're creating both from a creative perspective, but also from a copy perspective. That all they need to do is just tweak it here and there and then they're ready to go.

00:18:40

One final thing that I will say about that is just giving them a level of customizability. So the number of times obviously when you're on a guest episode that we are looking to promote, a lot of people will give us sort of pre done things that we can't really edit in any way. So I still edit some of it because we need to sound it like us, but also even the visuals. So I think it's just really giving them a level of customizability where they're still going to be. You've done the bulk of the work for them to say these were the key points and you've taken the care to really help them promote, but it gives them that customizability. So they're actually going to be more likely to promote it to say, okay, well it's not going to hurt my brand.

00:19:17

Yes. Want of a better term, yes. And I think definitely, again, having been the lazy host and this will sound very familiar, I think to a lot of you, is let's just put the headshot on a picture thing, like an audiogram looking thing and my headshots on there and send it to them. It's in my brand color and I think that's what Bona’s talking about around the customizability. It's like our feeds just we want to be able to promote something that's like that fits with our brand.

00:19:50

So it's really actually important to go that one step further and make it valuable for their audience. I think this is the thing it's like we think about. I was so intentional when I opened this episode to talk about how we create value for our audience, right? Like we want to get the right guests on because at the end of the day, your audience is what matters. It's going to be the same thing for your guest, right?

00:20:13

They're thinking, what's valuable for my audience? And so when you give them assets as well, think about what they will want to share with the audience. Things like quotes, I think work really well. Like if you can clip particular really great bits, that would work really well. I think the old school, like, let's just put two headshots on there, or one headshot is just kind of dated, I would say.

00:20:39

If you can move away from that and think of ways which by the way, Capsho helps with pulling out really great quotes, that is just a no brainer, easy thing to do. Just send them a quote card that, again, they can customize. Just put on canva and be like, hey, here's a starting point, but super happy for you to put in your brand colors and et cetera. Right. So that's just a really easy way for them to be able to share something that's actually going to be valuable for their audience.

00:21:06

Absolutely. And I think because you always want to be promoting your own episodes and even when you're promoting your episodes, it's really making the guest the star of the show. And I know we have this feedback sometimes on Capsho, just say, hey, there's a lot of emphasis on the guests in your guest episodes. That's just our ethos, I guess, in terms of how we do podcasting, obviously people do it differently. But to your point, aside from the other thing that came to mind was aside from making sure that you're giving them all of the promotional assets that they need to promote in an authentic way, that's true to them.

00:21:34

When we promote our podcasts every week, especially with the guest, we really take a little bit of maybe an extra five minutes to really think about how can we make that promotional piece from our end something. Because they're going to be tagged in it, that's for sure. And if they're on Instagram, we'll do a collab post with them. They may or may not accept it, but that's going to really make them not just about making them look good, but it actually has a personal touch to it. So, for example, using that episode with Dan that we mentioned, obviously we know he's big on LinkedIn, so we took a little bit of extra care in the post that we shared on LinkedIn.

00:22:07

It's more personable rather than that headshot. We just took a zoom of you guys laughing sorry, a screenshot of you guys laughing on Zoom just to remind people of that dynamic that we were just talking about on the podcast. It was just warm and we just took a little bit of extra care, I think just editing what came out of Capsho a little bit. Just to add that personal touch that you guys had in the conversation when you interviewed John, obviously, John's a close friend of yours. We shared a funny photo that you and him had a podfest, just really alluding to the personal relationship.

00:22:37

And he was very happy to share that as well. Aside from, obviously, the promotional assets we gave him, he was tagged on this piece from you. He's engaging. When he's engaging, his audience is engaging. So I think it's just taking that little bit of extra care even in your own promotional assets for the even if they don't promote on their own what you tagged them on, just make it something, just take that extra minute to really think about what was special about that interview and highlight that in that promotional asset.

00:23:01

Yes. Okay. So that's step number two is to make it stupidly simple for them to talk about your episode, right? So we gave you a few tips, things to think about, to implement in your own flow. So step number three is this is a little bit of a different way of thinking about things, right?

00:23:17

But how do we make the evergreen sharing content about them, about them and not you? And let me just step back and I'll tell you a little bit about what I mean. I'll tell you a little bit of bit of a story about how this all came up and then what we actually mean by it because it's a little bit of a different way of thinking about it. Okay? So last year's podcast movement, Christine McAllister, who has been a guest on this show as well.

00:23:43

So she kind of got in touch and we caught up and she was telling me about this new thing that she's doing now for context, Christine is an expert in Guesting, I guess, so she helps experts be guests on other podcasts. And she was like, working on this idea about how she can help her clients essentially create 30 days worth of content from the episodes that they've guested on. So that was kind of like what we were talking about. And so it was like that conversation. And then very quickly, it's like, things happen in threes.

00:24:17

They seem to happen all at the same time anyway. So, yes, I just had that conversation. I'm actually also in this Mastermind and as part of that Mastermind on this call, and someone mentioned that because I was like, my name is Deirdre. This is what I do. This is what Capsho is.

00:24:34

And they're like, oh my gosh, this is so great. I'm on so many virtual summits and I guess on so many podcasts. Can I use it? And I was like, oh, that's not really this is really geared towards host, but that sort of started seed. And then I had a conversation with a friend and actually a user of Capsho.

00:24:53

So he uses it from the host side, but he was like, you know, it would be great if as. Because I guess on so many podcasts, if, you know, will you ever have a version for guests? And I was like, oh my gosh, this is a sign, right? There's so many of these conversations that I'm having where people are going like, I'm not only a host, but from a guesting perspective, I want to be able to use the content that granted it's on someone else's stage, but it's still me, my voice, my message. I want your time and your time.

00:25:26

Yeah. I want to be able to use that in a way that I can provide value to my audience. And so I was like so the more that I thought about this, the more I was like, wow, there's actually something here around the fact of because the power as well is if we can actually help guests do this, they are going to be so open to just referring back to the podcast that they were on or the virtual summit or the whatever that they were on. Right. And so in a way, this is like evergreen content that they're sharing about you and your podcast.

00:25:57

Yes, exactly. And when they come onto it knowing with that in mind, they're going to be so much more intentional about what they're sharing. It's not just another thing that they're like, let me just get this off my calendar now. But they're coming with a level of intention for your podcast as well. So it truly starts to hit the win win.

00:26:12

And of course the audience wins from you. Yes, exactly. So this is actually something that we're really excited to be building into Capsho. So it is gosh, by the time this episode goes live, I think we'll probably still be in beta, but close to launching it. But we are building a Capsho guest module to Capsho for people who guest.

00:26:33

And the great thing is, from a host perspective, in a way, I'm kind of saying this, it'll sound selfish, but I swear it's not. But what you really want to be thinking about is okay. As a host, if I can share Capsho to my guests, then yeah. Apart from them being able to get promotional assets that are already included in the host version, the guest can actually create so much more content. So much more engagement and educational content from my episode.

00:27:04

That again, because it's a win for them, they're going to want to post it, which then links back to your episode. Right. It mentions the fact that they had this conversation with you on your podcast. That is so powerful. Yeah, it was so funny because after you had a conversation with Christine and these other conversations and we start mulling around on guests, I remember we were hosting office Hours, and it's usually for those of you who aren't aware, with Capsho.

00:27:32

Every two weeks we host office hours for our community to come on and obviously ask questions, mastermind with each other and talk about how to maximize the use of Capsho. And we kind of threw it out, got to the point where we were talking about open questions and it was so funny because as we were just having this conversation, a lot of our users were like you know what? I'm finding that I've just been guesting who's just been like guests, just doing lots and lots and lots of guest interviews and really just really tired from it. But really I wish I could just take that transcript or that audio file and create content that's going to help me. And I just said, well, wait till you see what we have in stored, because I think that's the thing, it's a real pain point for people, especially for people who are taking the effort to guest, I think.

00:28:12

And it's not just about being on the stage. Visibility is fantastic, but how do you build that ongoing credibility as well? Yes. Love that. Okay, so that's the three steps, I guess, to how you can start to have your compel your guests to share about your episode.

00:28:29

The first is try to think of a different angle. How can you get them talking about something that they've never shared before, a different perspective, something that makes them want to be like, man, I was really cool on this podcast. I need to share about this. My audience needs to hear this, right? Like, think about that.

00:28:48

What take can you create on did I say that right? What? What take can you have on creating an episode like that? The second is make it stupidly simple for them to talk about your episode. And I know Bonnie gave some really, really great tips about things that we're doing as well and more to get our guests to share about an episode that they were on for this podcast.

00:29:08

And number three is how do you make the evergreen that they're going to share about them? Right? Like, how do you put them at the center of it and really give them the opportunity to be like, hey, there is so much gold in what you shared on this podcast again, because if you did step one, it's going to be very different. Yes, they can promote it initially at the same time that you do, but really you want them to keep promoting it in a way, in a non promo way. So how we're building Capsho guests is exactly how they can do that.

00:29:40

How can they lift the value, the engagement content, the educational content and keep referring it back to the fact that it was on your podcast that they shared about this? So it's going to be so good. This is it. This is going to be killer. Okay, so thanks for hanging out with us.

00:29:57

This is fun. This is fun, right? If you have any questions at all, I think there is a link in the show notes to be like, leave me a comment or message. Send me a message. Send me a message.

00:30:08

Yes. And I will be better at answering them on this podcast as well. I do want to start to get into that. So thank you so much for hanging with us. If you do want to hear more about Capsho guest, we're also going to have a link in the show notes for you to get on the waitlist for Capsho Guests.

00:30:27

So let's get in on that, too. All right, you guys have fun and stay awesome.