TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

 

We can’t deny the credibility factor that great guests bring to your podcast. However, with so many experts and gurus out there, it can be difficult to find the right guest for you. In this episode, Tracy Hazzard sits down with no less than Alex Sanfilippo of Podcasting Made Simple and the founder of Podmatch, a service that matches podcast guests and hosts together for interviews. Alex lets us in on the secrets to finding and connecting with the right podcast guest to impress listeners. Believing that no guest is created equal, he breaks down some criteria to help us narrow down the best people to invite to our show and create value not just for you but also for them and your listeners. What is more, Alex then talks about how you can achieve your goals faster through streamlining podcasting processes proven to take your business to the next level.

 

Watch the episode here

 

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The Fastest Way To Find And Connect With The Right Podcast Guest To Impress Listeners With Alex Sanfilippo Of Podcasting Made Simple Podcast

I decided that I was going to make this a crossover episode because Alex Sanfilippo is so amazing. Creating a Brand was the original podcast, and he moved into Podcasting Made Simple. This is all about podcasting. There were so many tips from this interview that I thought belonged in Feed Your Brand. We’re going to create a crossover between the two shows, so we’re repurposing it.

If you’ve read it on Feed Your Brand, you don’t have to read it on the Binge Factor, but go ahead and make sure you’re subscribing to both if you haven’t already, so check that out. That’s also a way in which you can create by creating crossovers between multiple shows if you have multiple shows. You can create audience overlaps because they’ll hear about the Binge Factor, and they’ll think, “I haven’t heard that yet.” On Feed Your Brand, that’s going to drive more subscribers, and hopefully, that’s going to happen the same thing for Alex and some future, too, because it’s going to help them subscribe to his show from two different places, so you’re driving more traffic to your great guests.

About Podcasting Made Simple Podcast Host Alex Sanfilippo

TBF 134 | Right Podcast GuestAlex Sanfilippo is the host of the top-rated podcast called Podcasting Made Simple. He is also the founder of PodPros.com, a software company focused specifically on the podcasting industry. Alex and his team have created popular services like PodMatch, a service that matches podcast guests and hosts together for interviews, and PodcastSOP, a project management tool that helps podcasters keep up with their episode releases.

 

Follow Alex Sanfilippo on Social: Instagram | LinkedInFacebook

 

That’s what I want to do here because Alex Sanfilippo is an amazing podcaster. He’s been in the podcast industry a while. I can’t believe our paths haven’t crossed. We finally met each other live at Outliers and I wanted to have a conversation with him. One of the reasons I didn’t invite him on the show earlier was I expected to have an in-person conversation prior to now, then it fell through the cracks that I didn’t invite him and I should have. We should have done this long before now.

I’m so glad this is finally happening. I want to give you a little bit of background on him, and then I’m going to go straight into the episode because he adds so much value. Alex Sanfilippo is the host of the top-rated podcast called Podcasting Made Simple. He’s also the Founder of PodPros, a community and software company focused specifically on the podcasting industry. Alex and his team have created popular services like PodMatch, a service that matches podcast guests and hosts together for interviews, and PodcastSOP, a project management tool that helps podcasters keep up with their episode releases.

I tried PodcastSOP before this call because I wanted to make sure that I talked about it knowledgeably. At the end of the post of the episode in my close, I’m going to talk about my experience using it and who I think should be the right fit user for it. You don’t want to miss that as well. Stick around after the interview for that. Everyone, Podcasting Made Simple and an inspiring conversation with Alex Sanfilippo.

Alex, I’m so glad we’re talking again. I can’t believe we haven’t met in person before. We have both been in the podcasting industry for quite some time. I’m going to say aligned visions for the industry. I’m so glad we’re talking.

I’m glad to be here. I have to say I didn’t tell you this before we started recording, but the Binge Factor is an amazing show. It’s so good. I’m glad that I found it. Technically, you invited me, and I was like, “I’m going to listen to the show,” because that’s what you got to do to have some integrity. I started going through episodes, and I’m like, “This has binge-worthy.” Obviously, you’re practicing what you preach. Great job. I’m honored to be here. Thank you.

Everyone doesn’t know yet because I’m going to announce that at the end, but I’m going to do it now because you said this. I’m going to make this a crossover event. We’re going to have a crossover episode between the Binge Factor and Feed Your Brand because I feel like we have different audiences there. Our audience here is podcasters who already have existing shows and are looking to up their game and be successful pros like you. On Feed Your Brand, it’s a lot of newbies. They need to know about you and your tool.

That’s exciting. Great to hear.

Tell me what got the podcasting bug for you. We got to start at the beginning a little bit. Where did you say, “Podcasts sound like a great idea?”

This happened a couple of times, sadly. Blogging years ago, someone said, “You should do a podcast.” I was like, “A what?” I didn’t even listen to one. I started recording audio. I was using my phone and I was brilliant back then. I decided that your car has no echo. A car would be the best place to talk straight into your phone and then post it somewhere. It’s not a good idea. I lasted a couple of weeks. I was like, “This is silly. No one is listening to it. I don’t want to do this.”

After the 5th fire truck went by, you were like, “Maybe not a great idea.”

I don’t like this. Parking lots are too loud. I was doing it randomly. My wife would go somewhere, and she’s like, “I can record a quick episode,” which isn’t a bad idea. Let’s fast forward to when I, for real, got into podcasting and when I decided I started listening to shows. I’m like, “I like this. I think I want to do a podcast.” What got me into it was wanting to become an entrepreneur. I was a senior executive at an aerospace company, and a quick disclaimer, I wasn’t an astronaut. I’m a fighter pilot or anything fun.

If people hear aerospace, it’s like, “Have you been to space?” I’m like, “No. I’ve been behind a computer for many years.” Anyway, we were a parts manufacturer. We focused below the atmosphere. It was a good job. I was there for many years, but I got this itch to be an entrepreneur. Here’s what I realized during that time of saying, “Let me see if I can get some side hustles going.”

What you learn in corporate doesn’t translate into entrepreneurship. Not very well, at least. My lightning fast-brain is here I am. I’m going to start a podcast where I talk to people who have successfully left a 9:00 to 5:00 job to be full-time entrepreneurs. I’m going to learn from them. That show did well, but that’s what got me into podcasting.

What show was that one?

It was called Creating a Brand. It has since been repurposed.

This is the precursor. You shifted Creating a Brand into Podcasting Made Simple at some point in the process here. What you did was so smart, and I love it. I tell my clients and everyone on the show, mostly on Feed Your Brand, not on the Binge Factor as much, to tip here and keep your feed and switch your show because you earn that audience. I’m so glad you did that.

TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

Right Podcast Guest: There are people who have successfully left a nine-to-five job to be full-time entrepreneurs, so you can learn from them.

 

I’d like to take credit for that, but I didn’t know what to do. The beginning of 2022 is when I made that decision. It was bittersweet. It was sad to let the old show go, but the first 158 episodes of my show are still the Creating a Brand episodes. It still has the same intro. They’re powerful and impactful. They still get a ton of listens, which is great. I wasn’t sure.

I’m like, “Do I start a new feed? Do I keep this one? What do I do?” I happen to be connected with Jordan Harbinger, who’s a friend of mine. He’s like a big podcaster. He’s got a lot of podcasts. I reached out to him, and I was like, “What do I do?” I expected something like an elaborate response. He said, “Keep your current feed. Don’t lose that.” That was all he said. I’m like, “Cool. Wisdom.”

You earned all those listens. You earned everything there.

I changed the name. I left a couple of weeks between it. I basically had the final episode of Creating a Brand. I did a post about it. It was holding up a little sign that said, “Farewell, Creating a Brand.” I don’t know what I did wrong because I wrote it well, but apparently, people don’t read. Everyone thought I was leaving podcasting completely. People were like, “He’s done.”

They only saw the farewell part.

Yes, and people still to this day will be like, “What do you do now? I know you got out of podcasting.” I’m like, “What? That’s what I do full time.” It was a bittersweet thing, but it was the right decision. The numbers reflected that. We obviously had an immediate dip when entrepreneurs left, but podcasters started showing up and listening and podcasts guests. Years later, whatever it is, the show had continuously grown at a faster pace than it was when it was Creating a Brand. The show was already, to me, a good size show.

What I think is smart in the shift for you. This is because I happen to follow you. I know you. I know what’s going on in the podcast industry and what’s been going on with your companies, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Your audience, the audience you’re gathering, is more suited to Podcasting Made Simple than they were to Creating a Brand. They weren’t adopting it at the rate at which they are now. Your access to your audience is much more interesting in talking about podcasting, obviously because they’re subscribed to PodMatch, PodSOP, and your PodPros community. All of that is driving the right type of listeners for your show.

I’m glad you said that because one of the things I realized in entrepreneurship that people get wrong is not looking at the friction points. There’s like, “I’ve got to do this.” It’s not aligned with that, but it’s all part of it. The truth is it should be more fluid than that. That podcast, as much I loved it, was not fluid with the rest of my brand, where I was heading, and taking people.

There was some friction involved. I’m like, “I got to stop brew. I got to go do Creating a Brand episode, and I got to get all that done and ready with the team.” It’s like a separate team and stuff. I’ve brought it all together and now it’s all aligned because people are not asking me, “How do I start a business?” They’re saying, “How do I grow my podcast?” I’m like, “We’ve got an episode for that. Here it is. Go check that out.”

Now I have a fluid running business. That’s an important thing for anyone getting into business and podcasting. Make sure that it all aligns with you. Ultimately, you are the brand of what you’re doing and make sure that it’s all following one path, “Here’s the ten different things I do and they’re all going in different directions.” That doesn’t work for people long-term, at least for me. Maybe there are some more talented multitaskers out there but I’ve got to have one main thing if I’m going to stay sane.

People always ask me the same thing. It’s like, “How do you fit in all the podcasts that you do?” Everything was like, “It’s a part of my job. It’s aligned with everything I do,” and I love it. It makes it even easier. I think you love your community, Alex. That’s my view from the outside looking in but you run masterclasses. You’ve got your PodcastPros community. You’ve got a rich social media engagement I see going on there. What is your mission for that community itself?

The whole idea behind this is, can I help podcast guests and hosts go further faster? There are so many people who get into this space that they don’t know what they don’t know. If we can help them make that next step, one that’s proper and one that’s right, we can save them a little money along the way, a little bit of time, or a lot of time. That’s what we want to do. I’ve found that the people podcasting on either side of the mic give up too soon.

There are a lot of reasons for that for a lot of podcasters. I’m going to use the ultimate example, which has probably been on every podcast episode you’ve ever done, but people referenced Joe Rogan. People get into podcasts and are like, “I’m going to be like Joe. We’re going to do that same thing.” It doesn’t happen in two weeks, then they quit. With the guests, the same thing. They’re like, “I’ve got this product. Someone said I should get on a podcast.”

What you learn in corporate doesn't really translate into entrepreneurship. Click To Tweet

They try being a guest on two shows and quit because they’re like, “I didn’t earn millions of dollars off those two shows.” Everyone has these wrong expectations. For me, I’ve realized, “I can’t necessarily fix the mindset.” When you get into a community, it can change some things. I will be like, “These guys have been trying this for two years. It’s starting to take effect and figure out how he stayed in it so long.”

People meet each other and they find ways to collaborate. It keeps people motivated. For me, I’m a community guy. If I look at my life, my entire history, anywhere I’ve ever done the best has been in some form of community. I know that I do a good job fostering that, making it healthy, and helping it to grow together. That’s why we have that community. It’s to bring everyone together, saying, “Here’s where the industry is going. Here’s how we can help. Let’s go there together. Let’s do this as a family, basically.”

What I found so interesting is I was skimming some of your topic episodes because I wanted to get more of your voice. I found that I listened to one, and I was like, “This is a masterclass. This is somebody else.” As I was listening to the podcast, I went to skim some of your topics. One of my favorite ones that you did was talking about discipline. Probably a theme that you touch on again and again because what I think has been so missing is the requirement that you do have to have some discipline about what you do, some process to what you do, and time commitment to what you do. I’m glad that you go there.

Podcasting Made Simple sounds like you’re going to go for the simple, easy, let me sell you stuff, and you don’t. You talk about how this stuff is hard, but it’s simple because it’s one thing to think about. “I’m going to put the time in and make it a routine. I’m going to do it every morning or once a week.” Whatever that is, that’s not the hard part. The hard part is committing to that.

It is. We call it Podcasting Made Simple because it is simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. I didn’t call it Podcasting Made Easy. It’s a simple process, but it’s not easy to do because the main thing being all of us, including myself, is our lack of self-discipline in this world. I know that’s a different topic but it is what I’m passionate about. Consistency seems to win time and time again. Tracy, I want to share. It was years ago. I met John Lee Dumas. We were hanging out together for a couple of days at like an event. A couple of months later, we got on a call. He’s like, “How are you? How are things?” I’m like, “Good.” He goes, “I want to let you know I listen to your podcast,” which I’m like, “John Lee Dumas listened to my show.”

He goes, “It’s good. Do you want to know the difference between my show and your show?” I was like scrambling to find a notepad. I’m like, “Please, go. Give me these words of wisdom.” He said one simple statement. He said, “Seven years.” That’s all he said. He got quiet. I didn’t say anything back. I looked at him. I was nodding like a yes and he went, “I have never missed a day that I told my audience I’d post something in seven years. If you do the same thing seven years from now, you’ll be where I am.” That lesson has always stuck with me because it is so true. It’s the power of being consistent and doing things when you don’t feel like it.

That’s discipline right there. That’s the definition of it, and we call it consistent and constant. The weird part is that humans don’t love it. Fortunately for us, the digital bots adore it. Those of us that can have a little discipline and be consistent and constant, but John’s right, seven years later, you’re going to have the killer show.

To that point, if you’re like, “This is too much.” If you’ve got the budget or you see the future budget coming into play, some of the stuff out keeps you staying consistent. For me, I loved editing. My team finally was like, “It’s time to stop.” I think it’s fun. I’m the guy who is, if I take out the trash, but it wasn’t on my to-do list to do that day, I’ll write it down so I can check it off.

This one has nothing on it but I have five of five little post-its around here, so I always have a to-do list, too, and I will do that.

When I’m done with this, I will check off that we had this conversation.

Now your PodcastSOP site is totally making sense to me.

Podcast editing, when I was doing that, it gave me a feeling of like, “I’m getting stuff done. I can knock it out. I can see that I’ve been through five minutes. I felt like I’m accomplishing something.” For me, the thing that I did enjoy was the social media side of things. I’d always end up skipping it, which is not being consistent. I hired it out. Now I have somebody who does all that, and someone does all the editing. My point here is that if you’re having trouble staying consistent, it’s probably because you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doing. If it is something that you’re saying, “It’s a requirement for what I’m doing,” find somebody to help, a team member, or get a partner. Get somebody who can help you do that thing so you can stay consistent with the stuff that matters most.

I think people have such a hard time understanding what’s going to matter most. That’s why I love the way you’ve set up Podcasting Made Simple because when you’re thinking about that, the simple things. What are the simple things that I could do and I can accomplish, and where is my time best spent? It is the next question that they will then ask yourself. What can I cut away? What could I hand out? What don’t I need to do anymore so that I can keep it as simple as possible?

TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

Right Podcast Guest: At the end of the day, we call it Podcasting Made Simple because it is simple, but it’s not necessarily easy.

 

I’m in full agreement with that. I’m glad you got that from it because that’s the point of it. Let’s give somebody one thing and that’s why we try not to. Some people come on and speak on it, they like to share like twenty points for X, but I’m like, “Give people one simple idea. One thing that they can go through and do.” Thank you for sharing that.

I want to do the three things that I do on every show because we use them for social media. That’s its purpose. It’s a repurpose ability. It also goes into our article that we write for Authority Magazine. Everyone who comes on my show gets an Authority Magazine article. This is the purpose of a feature that we do in our show. I always like to reveal behind the curtain what this looks like to our audience, but this is why I do this. Alex has some great tips that I’m going to prompt him to give you because I’ve heard him speak before, and I want to make sure.

We’re going to start with getting great guests. Founder of PodMatch, you should know what it takes to get great guests. What do you think the key is? When I search through PodMatch sometimes, I’m like, “I don’t know.” What criteria do you use do you recommend for someone to choose a great guest for your show?

First off, no guest is created equal. A great guest for me does not mean it’s a great guest for you. There are a lot of factors there. The most obvious being our personalities can be different. If you’re like super bubbly, super outgoing, and you’re going to interview somebody that I interviewed that’s like monotone and doesn’t laugh at all. That’s probably not going to be a good connection. If that’s an interview, you’re listening to and be like, “This is painful.” They’re going to get a little antsy listening to it.

Personality alone could be different, but if you’re like, “Alex, we’re the same personality so our guest should be the same.” Still, maybe not the case. How aligned are they with the vision of your show? Is it going to work? Is there going to be some they can use to add value that they can share? Will this add value to your audience? You always have to think. Not all guests are created equal. To me, it all begins with you knowing who’s listening to your show. The best thing to do, especially when you start off if you’re unsure early on, even when you’re more advanced, is to create some ideal listener or avatar, is what you can call it.

Your avatar is a fictitious listener, but it basically is an accumulation of who’s listening to your show. They can’t be general. I even gave my person a name. His name is Adam. Adam is who I always think about. When I’m getting a guest, I say, “Would Adam gain value from Tracy sharing on my podcast?” I’ll think through it like, “Adam is trying to launch a podcast now. Adam is thinking about how he’s going to grow audience afterwards. He wants to keep the conversations fairly brief.” I can say, “1) She knows podcasting. 2) She’s done a lot of audience growth stuff, and she can have a good conversation but not talk too much.”

Unless you let me, but yes. I can sound bite it.

Some people, if you might listen to them and they could be a total dominating conversation, a lot of big names in marketing can talk for an hour straight without you even looking at them. They feel like they can keep on going. That would be not a good fit for some audiences. The very first step again is to make sure that it’s a good guest for you based off who’s listening, so find that avatar.

It needs to be a good match. That’s the part I love about what you name there is. That’s the idea. If you’re thinking those things through, you’re going to make better choices. In the beginning, everyone is like, “Let me get as many guests as possible. I’m afraid I won’t have any.” It’s a starter thing but after that, be selective. I think you should be selected from the beginning because it’s going to make it better.

You might need to reevaluate. Maybe you’re sitting back and reevaluating your avatar. When I started my first podcast on 3D Printing, we thought it was going to be like geeky fourteen-year-old boys in the garage, and it turned out to be like women engineers in Chicago, educators in Ohio, and was reached out by our first audience. We changed all the names of our avatars and made new profiles. We would give them shout-outs on the air. We would be like, “Karen, I know you’re going to love this guest.” They would love it. It made them engage more.

When I launched even Creating a Brand, which did well, I thought that those who would be listening were people like me who were in a 9:00 to 5:00 job and had no clue what entrepreneurship was but wanted to learn and leave their job. Who was listening were people with successful side hustles. Almost successful enough, they quit their jobs. They were ten steps further than I was, but they still wanted to hear from these people because they were maybe looking for the motivation to finally say, “I’m leaving.”

I had to redo the avatar. From day one, it’s so important. If you can, if you’re reading this before you’ve launched, be picky with who’s on your show. I think that that’s the right move. I look back to especially my first season of Creating a Brand. There are 12 episodes in that first season but about 4 of them had no business being there. They weren’t a right fit. Now I know that, but if you could learn that from day one, be important.

The main question here is how the guest speaks. What I mean by that is not necessarily the cadence in their voice, how long they take pauses, or anything like that. More so, what I’m referring to is, are they always talking about themselves? Especially if a guest pitches and says, “I want to talk to your audience because I have a new product, and I want to grow my business. I think it’d be good for me.”

Find somebody to help you. You can find a team member or get a partner to stay consistent with the stuff that matters most. Click To Tweet

If you start hearing that stuff, then it’s not going to be someone who’s going to be driving with value. It’s going to be somebody who’s more so interested in selling to your audience. You’ve done some great episodes. I heard one on May 4th, 2022, with someone named Nikki. It was all about selling authentically through podcasts. It was a good episode. Nikki didn’t do it in a way that’s like, “By the way, if you want this, here’s my first four points. If you want the fifth point, you got to go to this website and download this thing inside of here.” It wasn’t like that. Some people will try to get on your show and you’ve seen it. They want to be that way because that’s the only thing they know how to do. That is a bad guest. That’s not a good guest at all.

I looked for that. The other thing that I listen for is if they say the same thing on more than one show. That’s why you can’t listen to one time. You got to pick a couple of shows. I’ll try to pick a couple of shows they’ve been on that are other people’s and go, “Did they say the exact same thing?” I don’t want duplicate content. It’s a no-no in the digital footprint that I’m creating, and it’s also a no-no to me because I don’t want to bore my audience so that they could listen to any show and get the same information.

True. A lot of big-name guests like celebrities and stuff have coaches that teach them, “Only share your soundbite. Find a way to turn it back to this.” I have nothing against them. If you go listen to Matthew McConaughey, nothing against him. If you listened to one of his podcast episodes when he did his tour when green lights came out, it’s super good and valuable. If you went and listened to another one, it was the same episode. If you went and listened to the other one, it was the same episode again. He shared the same exact thing almost 600 times. Apparently, it is what he did.

I’m nothing against the guy. That’s what his coach taught him to do. It’s all different audiences but you can’t follow that person around. I had a big guest on. There was a celebrity. Not quite at that level, but very close. I never posted the episode because I listened to him and he shared the same thing on every podcast. I’m like, “I’m going to be the one to break him. I’m going to get him to share something different.”

He did not share one word that was different than what he had done previously. I ended up never sharing the episode. I’m like, “I don’t want to repeat. Everyone has already heard this.” It’s important that you find somebody you feel can have an authentic conversation with who listened to you. Tracy, if you ask me anything, I’m not going to answer it the way I did previously. I’m going to listen and be like, “No, I’m going to respond authentically because I think that’s an important thing to do.”

That’s so true. That’s why when I prep people for my show here, I listen to your show. I also listened to you on another show on a couple of other shows to check that out and make sure because, again, I don’t want to have that. Normally, when people come on the Binge Factor, this isn’t something they got to talk about on a ton of shows before because they’re talking about their podcast. They’re usually talking about their business or something else in some other place. Lucky for me, the format of the show can force them to be original. Those are great tips. Let’s move on to the second thing, getting more listeners. Every podcaster I talk to wants more listeners, and this is always their weak point, but you’re finding a boost in listenership. What do you do actively to get new listeners?

This is what I’m going to want to hear from you on as well. I’m going to flip the question to you in a minute, but I’ll answer. It’s probably the most interesting way that I’ve recently been thinking about. Many of us in podcasting we’re saying, “We want to grow our listenership.” What we do is we start trying to think of how we can do a massive campaign. Can we partner with somebody? Is there a way we can make a viral post of some sort? Can we make more audiograms? Can we make more short videos and posts? How can we get this out there and blast out to as many people as possible?

I’ve been thinking, “What if we did the opposite of that?” It might be the opposite of that. It’s not necessarily doing less content but doing one-on-one outreach. Let’s say that Tracy looks like someone. She’s in podcasting. She might be interested in my show, so I’m going to reach out. It would be like, “I checked you out. I listen to you over here on this show. I would love to stay connected,” and they started an organic conversation. Eventually, Tracy is like, “I’d like to know about growing my audience.” You would be like, “Here’s an episode of my show about growing your audience. Check it out. I’d love to chat with you about it,” and leave it at that.

The next day, they reach out to somebody else and do something similar. I’m not talking about link spamming like, “Tracy, here’s my new podcast.” No, building a relationship. I’ve been thinking of this. I brought it up to a friend, and he goes, “That would take forever.” I’m like, “Yes, but let’s imagine you do this one new person a day and you have an authentic conversation. You send them to your actual podcast. They listened to it. After 365 days, that’s 365 listeners. Let’s say you commit to two years of podcasting. You’re looking at 700 people.”

That’s 365 new podcasters who some of them have listened to a year’s worth of episodes. You’re talking about thousands of listens at the end of the day.

Even if they only listen to one episode. They pick up where they’re at and once a week, listen. Podcast listenership, just so everyone knows, most new shows don’t have very many people listening at all. If you had 700 people listening every week, that would put you up toward the top end of podcasting. Not maybe the top 0% or anything like that, but it’s going to put you up toward the top. That is creating all this content and trying to push it out. Instead of doing that, just say, “Let me try some organic one-on-one relationship building with podcasting.” I think that might be an interesting approach that I’ve not heard many people talk about yet. It’s something different and I wanted to share that here.

It’s a great idea. Thinking about doing something that’s so simple that doesn’t take a lot of time. You’re already on your social media every day anyway. Take one minute to send a private message to someone that’s nice and short and say, “I thought of you. I wanted to share this and would love your thoughts.” People like to reciprocate and give their opinion. I think it’s an interesting model. I love to see you do it and refer back. I’d love to see how it worked.

The reason I even got the idea is I heard it from a friend one time who said that that’s how he’s grown. He doesn’t have a big show in. He’s like, “I’ve got hundreds of people listening. I keep on reaching out. I have had people start to reach out to me, so I started like building a relationship.” I said to him, “What you’re describing is this episode. Is this like describe it and people started listening?” It’s worked good for me. My show has grown faster by doing that than anything else.

TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

Right Podcast Guest: There’s a lack of self-discipline that we have in this world. Consistency seems to win time and time again.

 

The other thing is it has this effect of people are like, “I met this guy, Alex, and he’s the host of this. He sent me this episode.” They send it to their friend who’s interested as well, and they send it to their friend. It starts bouncing around because it came from a human. It wasn’t like, “Check out this audiogram post somebody made.” No, it was like, “This guy sent me a message. He’s the host of it and check it out. I’ll share that with people as well.” It’s going well so far. I’ll report back when I have more. Anyway, to flip the question, I’d love to hear what’s working for you. I’m going to try not to be typing up notes here, by the way.

I’m so glad you asked because I think it ties to what you’re doing over at PodMatch. What I tell my clients and what I see so often happen is that we forget to interview podcasters. When we interview guests, we forget that at least once a month, mine are four-month, obviously because of my type, but even on shows that aren’t like that. If we can attract a podcaster to be our guest, we’re more likely to get listeners from them than we are from another type of guest because they already have podcast listeners.

They’re going to talk about being on your show, on their show, or promote it within their platform of other podcast listeners. It’s going to have a better effect and impact on you in getting listeners driving back to you. I sometimes wonder why authors are talking about their books on podcasts instead of their Audible? It doesn’t make sense to me that the media type is different.

If you’ve got an audible book, you ought to be talking about the Audible version of it. Mention it. It’s worth it because that’s the first thing. I think a podcast listener goes like, “Is this available on Audible?” I’m not one of those. Even though I am a podcast listener, I’m still a reader, but I would check it out in whatever format I wanted anyway.

Why aren’t you talking about that more? That’s the biggest thing. It’s like, “If I can PodMatch and not only get guests but go get other hosts to be on my show, that is a match for me. I’m going to do better in the long run.” You don’t have to do every single person’s a podcaster, but you can do it so that once a month, you bring in a podcaster. That’s going to give you this mix and boost.

It’s so good. I’m glad you brought that up because it ties back to the very first thing we’re talking about. We’re talking about what makes a good guest. Usually, a podcast host is a good guest because they at least understand the basics. Their phone’s going to be on silent. Their dog’s not going to be in the background.

You can listen to their show. It makes you be like, “They’ll show up. There’ll be good.” That’s like a free little bonus or a way there. I’ll share. This is my biggest claim to fame in life. Jasmine Star came on my podcast, who’s also a podcaster. I consider her a celebrity podcaster. She liked the episode so much. Her team reposted it on her podcast feed. She has an episode on her podcast with Alex Sanfilippo. For me, I was like, “That’s the coolest thing ever. Being on Jasmine Star’s podcast with me interviewing her.” Still, nonetheless, that’s a bonus. It happens sometimes. It’s called feed swapping. Sometimes, people are now doing it.

It’s podcast swap.

It organically happened because I happened to interview somebody that was a podcaster. I love that tip. I think that’s such a great thing that all podcasters should be considering doing. They don’t necessarily need to talk about podcasting. They can talk about something that is unrelated to their show, but it will come up somehow organically.

This is the thing. If it’s the right match for you, anyway, you don’t need to ask for a swap. If I ask you on my show, you’re going to naturally enjoy the experience. If I’m a right fit for you, you’re going to invite me back. It happens every time. I always ask first and don’t worry about reciprocation. I think it’s going to come. If it doesn’t come, then it wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t the right fit, and I’m okay with that. I didn’t waste my time, and you’re getting the cross-link anyway because they’re not going to promote it. That’s my side of it. That would work for you.

Now let’s talk monetization. This is where we got to meet in person at Outliers. I enjoyed Outliers so much. Not because it was the first podcast event that I’ve been to post-COVID. I’ve been to lots of other events, but it was the first podcast community event I had done live. I loved it because of that, but I thought the caliber of the speaker and the topics on which they spoke about were so much higher than any other show I’d been to in the last few years of podcasting.

I was impressed by it and so sad that they didn’t have a bigger audience that could hear that. I want to bring my audience some of the tips. We’re going to talk about monetization. That’s my third thing. You had some great ideas that were a little bit guest related. I’d love for you to give me three of them. Give the audience three of those, your favorite ones out of that monetization group.

You mentioned them being more focused with the guests, right? I want to make sure that I covered the right ones because I might go on a total rant here.

No guest is created equal. Click To Tweet

Go in a total rant. My audience is going to be okay with that. If we do more than three, I’m okay. I didn’t want it to put you on the spot to make you do all of them or anything. Do what you want as long as you want.

The first one that I’ll share as it relates to you and your guests. If you’re a host and you’re interviewing guests, at some point, your show will grow if you stay consistent with it. When we talked about that a lot. A quick shout-out was that on June 1st, 2022, Tracy, you shared an episode with Chase Clymer, Diving Deeper into Your Podcast Audience.

What he was saying is you need to stay consistent and continuously offer value. That’s how he’s been able to grow time and time again. I encourage him to go back and read to that because we’re not going to dive into that. We’ve already talked about consistency a little bit but seriously. That was a powerful episode. The point is, if you’re doing that, staying consistent, and adding value, people will start coming to you, saying, “Can I please be a guest?” They might all be a good fit and, at some point, you’re going to hit the same thing that most podcasters are in these days that have been consistent for a long time. They have this crazy backlog of, “Sure, you can come on the podcast in 3 months, then we’ll post it 6 months after that.”

I got podcasters that are out nine months, which I think is way too long.

If I’m an author, I’m going to come on your show, it’s a great interview, and I loved it, I’m like, “My book comes out in 3 weeks and you’re not going to post it for 6 months. That’s too bad. I wish it could be out sooner.” Offer what I call a skip-the-line option.

I love this one, guys. Everyone out there, this is one of my favorite ones.

I call it skip-the-line option. You didn’t charge the guests to be on the podcast. I don’t believe in that. It should be an exchange but you can say, “I can post it the day your book is coming out in three weeks from now as a bonus episode. I’m going to have to move everything around,” because you will, you and your team. You can have some fixed fee saying, “Of all the production shifts and all the things I have to move, we’ll have a little fee and we’ll bring it there.” It’s a skip-the-line option. If I’m an author and I liked the interview. Obviously, you probably shouldn’t offer this if the interview was terrible.

If the interview is good and they feel like it was good, then they’re like, “I want that to come out the day my book comes out because I want to promote this episode,” which is a win for you and a win for them. They might be willing to pay a little bit for that. I think that’s a good tip. I don’t see people taking advantage of it. It serves you, the listener, and also your guests. It’s a great thing that you could do, trying to keep them somewhat brief. I could obviously expand on any of these if you want but I’ll keep them fairly brief.

The next one here is a turn your guest into customers. What I mean by that is, perhaps the best thing you can do if you have some coaching practice or some course or something like that, the best person you could be selling to, instead of even the listenership, they can be a bonus, is to sell to your guests who’s coming on the show. Bring on a guest that could be your ideal client.

Now, what you don’t want to do is have an episode where you’re selling them the whole time. You’d be like, “Tracy, that’s why you need my course. That’s why you’ve got to have this.” No, you want to be value-adding but so interesting to them that at the end of the recording, they would be like, “Tracy, that was amazing. Do you have something that does that?” You bring them on because you’re like, “This would be a great client.” That’s a great way to do high-ticket stuff.

Let’s do that. I’m going to take a little section. I’m going to take a piece now. I had something that I was going to suggest to you after the call and not because I think I want Alex as a client. I’d love to have Alex as a client but that’s not the purpose of it. When he said something about something he had done, it occurred to me we have a tool that would be amazing for him. Drop a share at the end and ask them if they’d like more information. About that is a great way to do that. Alex, here’s my one for you.

You said you had 158 or 160 episodes or so now when you switched your shift. The thing that we love is putting your feet on top of it and doing what you did was perfect. Jordan Harbinger is perfect. This is what I would have advised. If you had multiple feeds available to you because of your hosting subscription, be able to spin off those 158 episodes.

Weed them out and make them into different series that you could create landing pages for or create new feeds for. Basically, remove them from your feed as you go along the way. What if you could do that? Now you have multiple feeds. You have a second show. Were Creating a Brand is its own show. You could spin off anything in any order that you want automatically. It’s super simple to copy and move.

TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

Right Podcast Guest: If you’re having trouble staying consistent, it’s probably because you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doing.

 

You’re saying I wouldn’t be creating any new content necessarily, right?

No, you’d create Creating a Brand again in a brand new feed, and then you’d move the episodes that you wanted to preserve like the best of Creating a Brand. You create those over on one side. It could be the best ones that are the best tips for podcasters. It could be the best tips, the best episodes that are your personal favorites. You create a special place for them and you move them out of the regular feed because as you get over a hundred episodes, it’s overwhelming for someone to search through that.

Yes, and it’s not all aligned either. It’s crazy to bring this up because I have a certain time in my morning routine where I’m thinking about ideas. I was thinking like, “What the heck do I do with Creating a Brand? I still own the domain. I’ve got all these old episodes. Some of them are amazing. They’re so good.” I would be super interested in like seeing a written-out plan of what someone would recommend. I’m super interested.

I’m suggesting creating a feed for Creating a Brand. That’s super simple for you, so you don’t lose its content as an attractor because its content as an attractor might still be great because people want to brand themselves as podcasters. That’s something that they think about as well.

We have to talk more about this, but you did my point. That is what I’m talking about, like perfectly aligned.

We didn’t sell here but I was like, “This is a tool that we happen to have on our Podetize platform,” and I can generate a further conversation without selling. That’s a perfect idea.

This is the only time anyone’s ever given a real example. That was perfect. That’s what I’m talking about because I mentioned that in the episode. You probably knew that but it wasn’t something that you had the agenda of like, “I’m going to mention this.” I talked about it, and now you said, “By the way, you mentioned this. How about that to go with it?” I’m now super interested. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to focus for the rest of the episode because I want you to know about that. I’m going to bring it back.

Let’s bring it back. You’ve got some other ideas for monetization, but I love the strategy of having your guests, whether it’s a refer or the moneymaker itself, of becoming clients.

I love that one. That one is, I think, a good one. The last thing I’ll mention is doing a marketing boost for your guests. This simply means you might need some help with this, like work with somebody who knows this stuff. If you don’t know Facebook ads, Instagram, or LinkedIn, all those things, you might want to sub out the work a little bit, which would make the cost go up a little bit. Basically, the episode, imagine it’s good. You finished recording. You know that the guest has something they want to get out there.

Again, maybe an author, some coach, somebody has some new business or something like that. They want to get out there. Offer them saying, “I will run some ads against this specific episode. I will get this blasted out there to people.” You can say, “Here’s the cost. There are three options. We can run it for $1 a day for the rest of our lives as long as we want. We can run it for a year and see how it goes.”

You might have a guest who goes, “I’ve got a marketing budget. Let’s do that.” Here’s the win for you. Keep a little bit because it’s your time or someone else’s time. Depending on how you do that, it’s going to be used to create that. It needs to be a little bit margin in there for you but additionally, what are you bringing people to that you’re not paying for to your podcast? It’s a total win-win because they have to come to your show to hear that guest. It’s going to help the guests, but also, it’s going to drive up those download numbers. That’s another way you can monetize with a guest that brings you great business.

If the ads are running from you about somebody else, it’s better for them. They get more power than if they were promoting themselves in their own ad system.

This is something that I believe in and I’ve used this as a strategy. People are like, “You never sell.” I’m like, “I don’t,” but if I’m like speaking in event, people are like, “Tell us about yourself.” I’m like, “My name is Alex and I run a company,” then I start talking. What happens is, which is powerful, the host is like, “Alex is being so humble. Let me tell you what Alex does.” Them saying what I do versus me saying what I do is 10X more valuable because that person is the one that owns the stage. It has all the clout with these people.

It's important that you find somebody you feel you can have an authentic conversation with. Click To Tweet

I’m a big fan of strategically holding back what I do and letting someone else sing my praises. It’s a lot better to do that. I follow Jesus. That’s what I do. In the book of Proverbs, there’s a verse. It says something about, “Never be the one to call yourself up to the King’s level. Wait to be called to that level so you’ll be honored and respected.” That’s why I lived my life. Let’s put it that way.

It comes across in your community so well because your community is not about affiliate pitching people. It’s about serving people. I think that’s a big difference. Tell us a little bit about the kinds of classes you run, but the masterclasses you run with your events in-depth have useful topics. Are they creating them custom for you? How do you make that content so valuable?

The idea behind it is we want it to feel more like a TED Talk. I want to use the name PodTalks, but I realized that the TED organization sues anyone that uses any three letters followed by the word talks. I’m like, “We’re going to call it PodPros Quarterly.” I wanted to bring something in. It’s like a short 12 to 16-minute talk. These people are creating this content specifically for what we’re doing and maybe they reuse it somewhere else and that’s perfectly fine. Basically, what’s the one thing that you know about being a podcast guest or host that could add value to other people? What’s that magic thing that you do? It’s always something unique that what we look for.

The way we build up the topics and I figure out who to reach out to invite. We have a question when you join the PodPros community that says, “What’s one that you’re struggling with right now in your podcast or podcast guesting?”As people answer that, we not only respond and help right there, but we also build it into a spreadsheet and see what people are consistently asking about.

Sometimes we get these weird trends that come through, like, “People want to know about talking in soundbites.” We had someone talk about last quarter. People want to understand how to get better at that. I found somebody on PodMatch, who’s an expert at soundbites. That’s what they train and teach them. I’m like, “Would you come speak about that and do a Q&A with us?” Again, it goes back to looking for the problem and offering a solution.

That’s what we’ve done with these events. That’s how we’ve gotten real unique content. The thing is, it’s not me going out there and learning it and sharing it. It’s me finding someone who’s already an expert in it, saying, “Will you come share with the audience? We’ll then push all your stuff if they want to enroll in a program you have. Let’s do that.” In the day, it’s like, “Can we add value to people answering the questions they’re asking us?”

That’s so interesting. I’m a personal fan of, I pretty much try everything that might be suggested to my platforms. If somebody wants to come in and teach something, I need to try it first. I need to check it out myself because I consider myself the gatekeeper for what the podcasters will find overwhelming or not. I have a high tolerance for overwhelming myself. My threshold is probably not like my clients. I do that in case. I decided to check out your PodcastSOP site, and I’m going to share in my post comments about my experience doing it. It’s not for everyone. I know that. It’s a certain personality that wants this, but I loved it personally.

I love the way that PodcastSOP is thinking about the things people are missing and trying to make it simple. When I look at your binge factor overall, I’m going to say that I’m not going to give them a binge factor for your show. Alex Sanfilippo and PodPros overall have their own binge factor. Why you might binge in their community, why you might binge on their products, and why you’ll binge on his podcast, Podcasting Made Simple? Thinking about what that is, it’s because you’re dialing into the simplest value. That simplest value is my takeaway already. You’ve done the work for finding the takeaway for me.

I so often have to go into a platform, into a course, find these people who want to be experts on my system to go in and figure out where the value lies. They’re not good at communicating it, but Alex, you are great at communicating the simple value of something. That translates into a whole lot less time I have to spend as a listener and a podcast are figuring out.

I so appreciate you saying that. It means a lot. You got it right. I am looking to solve the simplest problem I can to offer the simplest solution to what people have going on. In PodcastSOP, the SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedures, in case somebody is wondering.

I was skipping that because I was like, “If they didn’t know what it was, they probably don’t want to check it out.”

That’s why we named it that. Going back to the problem, we kept on seeing people who are leaving podcasting. As soon as they started, one of the reasons was the stress involved. I was like, “Use Trello. Try Asana. Try these apps.” If they weren’t familiar with them, I gave him something that does 20,000 things. Although it’s great, I told them, “Are you struggling? Here, struggle even more with this.” We built it as a simple solution for someone saying, “I want to be organized. Can you help me be organized?” It’s more than this. I’m going to oversimplify it. It’s a glorified checklist for your podcast. When you’re releasing episodes, you can check through everything, you set it up yourself, and add your team members.

I have seven people who run it in there. Out of the 39 tasks we have on our SOP for our podcast, I’m only assigned to 4 of them. There are 39 and 7 people who handle the rest of it. It’s a great thing. I love it. I appreciate the fact that you checked out. That shows so much integrity on your part, and I appreciate the fact that you figured out my binge factor.

TBF 134 | Right Podcast Guest

Right Podcast Guest: As people answer that, we not only respond and help there, but we also build it into a spreadsheet and see what people are asking about.

 

I wanted to test myself and see if I could simplify the process even more. I have the benefit of having Podetize behind me. I got to have to list out our production chat. It’s like, “Turn it over to the portal, record, upload, done.” That’s our motto over there. I had that. How many tasks? Probably half of the tasks in there are my tasks only because that’s the way I built it. When I built in my template in your SOP, I ended up with ten tasks, and I was proud of myself. That looks doable.

If I looked at that, I was five of them. I probably was one that I almost never do, but I’m there in case they need to tag me on it. It’s four of them, but I thought, “I have gotten it to a simple level,” and that was a good a-ha for me. Doing that and working through it to realize that the rest of my systems and process worked for me to automate things.

I love that. It takes all podcasters so long to get to that point. When I first started and I had somebody tell me this as well, I was like, “I have over 100 things I do.” Someone smart like you was like, “No, you don’t. Are you building this and this? You could do that at the same time. It’s one thing.” I’ve heard her podcast and be like, “Nothing like that could ever work for me because I have over 100 tasks I do every time I release an episode. There’s no way.” I know what podcasting is. You’re not releasing a movie. That’s too many. I love that you got it down to a simpler formality. You challenge me. I’m at 39. I need some work.

Everybody is different. Everybody’s process is different, and their team is different. Lucky for me, I have a dialed-in, and that works for me.

You are the best in the biz so it makes sense. You’ve got it down to, “I’m going to get there.” Maybe some consulting is in order.

It doesn’t require consulting. It just requires a little bit of running through Feed Your Brand or something like that. We’ll get those episodes connected to everybody so that they know how to do that. That’ll be a lot of fun. Are you going to do podcasts for the SOP side because I think it might be a different audience?

It’s funny you mentioned that. We have four of them that are done that are not released, but basically, they are podcasters. I’m looking at small independent podcasters of what they’re doing to release an episode and find them in different spaces. That’s what we’re going to do. I don’t know if there’ll be a podcast feed. Maybe it should. I’m not sure yet. Again, maybe I should ask your advice on that. What we are going to do is help them build out their templates so people can assign them as their own templates if they want to see how somebody built them.

They’re going step-by-step with everything that they do. We’ve got four of those ready to go, which I’m excited about. As an independent podcast myself, hearing from another independent podcaster is great. I’m not interested in how NPR releases a podcast episode. Not because they’re not great, but because I don’t care about the 3,000 tasks and $10,000 it goes into a single episode. I’m like, “That’s not me. Never will be, I hope.” The person is like, “I started podcasts. I had this great hack. Here are the 30 things I do.” I would like to hear that and see if I can pick up anything and learn from it.

I think that that helps people find the fit for them. It would be useful if it were publicly available. If you sign into the SOP site, you can get to that, so PodcastSOP. You can get to it because they give you examples of the templates. I’ve seen those four episodes, essentially.

We have four new ones. We’re adding more.

You have 4 new ones from that 4 that are already there, so you’ve got 8.

We’re working on eight. We have 78 people in addition that have signed up to do one. It’s similar. It’s not me interviewing them. It’s them talking to a camera, walking step-by-step and maybe having a presentation if they want to show people. We have a bunch of them. I’m not sure what to do with the content past just sharing it there. Again, you and I are going to talk about that.

We’re going to have to have a strategy about that. That’ll be a lot of fun. Brilliant over there, but a different audience. This is where I can’t imagine your Podcasting Made Simple. It doesn’t go hand in hand with that. They’re not the same audience. That’s when you need a new feed, a new show, and that makes sense for me there as a future for you. Podcasts Made Simple and you switched it up in 2022. Where do you want to see it in a year?

Strategically hold back what you do and let someone else sing your praises. Click To Tweet

I believe we’re going to build in a catalog of helpful tips for people so that when I meet people, they’re coming in and saying, for example, the soundbites. “I’m struggling to speak in soundbites,” which, by the way, I’m struggling with. I’m able to say, “Here’s an episode about that,” or somebody is like, “I don’t understand how to monetize my show.” I can be like, “Here are three options.” I probably would never send the option. I’d dive in a little further on what they like to do and then send them the direct thing. We want to build a good directory of education. I think that’s the big vision for PodPros. Pass the software is we can help educate this industry in a big way. For us, it’s going to build that catalog out for the next year.

I hope that you take a dent out of the pod fade in the industry as well.

If I have one big mission, it’s that. I want to take a little chunk out of there. If we can make it 1% better, I’m happy with that.

PodPros is an amazing community. You all have to check it out and Podcasting Made Simple. The podcast must listen for those of you aspiring and existing podcasters out there who want to get to a much more simple process and focus on the things that matter in the impact. Alex Sanfilippo, thank you for being here. I appreciate you.

It’s an honor to be here. Thanks so much, Tracy.

We could have talked for hours here. Alex and I are very aligned in our visions for where things would go. I still wanted to share with you some of the great things that I have taken away from PodMatch and PodcastSOP, the two sites that are part of PodPros. You can go to PodPros itself. What I wanted to share with you about PodMatch is that what I found to be the most useful part was for me to look through it from a podcaster’s perspective and look at guests and go through there and find some people who would fill out their profiles who done a good job. When they fill out their profile there, I find them to be better guests. If they are casual in it or basically put their name, the link to something like their bio or one sheet, and that’s it, I find them to not be as good a guest. There are two reasons for it.

One, I find that the case because sometimes they have an agent that is working for them and the agent is lazy in how they’re doing that. The agent is the one using PodMatch. Not the actual guest. You’re not going to have an actual conversation with them. I find that that happens sometimes. Watching out for a completely filled-out profile is one of my keys to making sure that the guest is a good match for me because I can see it in there without having to have a conversation, getting them excited about it, and having to reject them.

It’s one of those things. I don’t like to reject, so I’d rather wait to invite them if they’re the right fit. The other part is when I find less value in people reaching out to me. They often are blanket doing it, which they’re not supposed to on PodMatch, but they do it. They go and pick a bunch of people, and they haven’t listened to my show. That’s because I have a couple of shows registered there. I know that the Binge Factor, for instance, when it’s registered there. I only take other podcasters as guests. I get lots of authors that apply. They didn’t even read the first sentence in my bio over there.

That says, “Unless you’re a podcaster, please don’t apply.” They don’t follow those directions. If they can’t follow those directions, then I feel that they’re going to be too pushy on my show, so I reject them outright. I probably reject 99% of the people that apply because they aren’t even reading that. That’s not a good ratio for it. It should be better. If you’re out there and you’re trying to match yourself to someone, read their profile, little blurb about their show, and about them. It gives you an insight into what they’re looking for.

Either when you send the message, you can be a better match for them, or you can make sure that you’re not wasting your time applying to a show or trying to match yourself to a show that’s not going to happen up there. It’s some tips for how I use PodMatch, but I do love it. It’s a rich environment. There are lot of shows on there. If you’ve heard Mark Hirschberg on my show, he’s got an upcoming episode that’s going to come up again.

He mentions using PodMatch exclusively. When he was on my show originally, I was his 99th interview. A lot of those he had gotten through PodMatch. He told me in the new episode that’s going to air that he has mashed himself 300 times on PodMatch. I know he can do a great job, and he’s great at figuring that out and reading everything. I know you can find the right match if you’re looking for it. You’re just not screening through that. Make sure you take the time to do that. It’s going to be worth it in the end.

You’re going to get a lot more valuable placements and valuable shows. I know Mark has sold a ton of books from his shows, from the episodes he’s guesting on. You can do this too. Use PodMatch. PodcastSOP is for those green-blue people because we use the Herrmann brain dominance model of it. You’ve heard of all those mind-mapping or psychological profiling, those kinds of things. We use Herrmann brain dominance here, and that’s blue-green.

If you are a to-do list person, PodcastSOP is for you. If you’re a completionist and you like to feel like, “I completed that and checked it off my list.” PodcastSOP is for you. If you are the person who needs to see this all mapped out for yourself, PodcastSOP is for you. Here’s the one person that I think is going to discount and not go to PodcastSOP but should. You should go to PodcastSOP if you are managing a team of people and need to give them directions or ensure that the team is always updated on what you want and how to do it. It’s a very easy way to lay it out.

You lay it out like a to-do list. You write some descriptions but more importantly, you can put instructions in there, which could be a tutorial video for how you like to do it. I have a specific process for how I title episodes. If I’m not going to do the titling, but I’ve decided to hire an assistant or copywriter to help me with this, I can lay out a tutorial video for how I use the CoSchedule headline tool, which is what I use. How I use it, and how I judge whether or not a headline is good enough. I can use that as part of the instructions.

If my assistant gets replaced at any point or I lose them, and I hire a new one, I’ve got it all in one place, all easy to go. You can use this for training and tutorial in addition to being a map of your process. If you have to do that and handle a bunch of different assistants and juggle this, this is a great place to do it. Hopefully, you can sub out to your assistant to create the template and do it if that’s not in your vision. You can oversee it, check it off, and say, “It’s not missing any pieces,” and you didn’t even have to do the work either.

There’s a great process for how to add people and users to it. It’s an interesting tool. I’ve invited my entire team to it. They haven’t gotten on to try it out yet, but I have expected to go, “This is interesting. I’m finally seeing how the process works. I’m seeing now what Tracy does on the front of the show and now I know why she’s asked me to do these things.” I think it’s all working, and you’re starting to see a full process in how your podcast is being processed. As I mentioned on the show too, Alex, mine’s only ten, and that’s because I use the Podetize system.

Our Podetize system is taking on and doing the 29 other tests that have to do with editing and processing and doing that. Instead, mine’s one light on the room saying, “Wait for it.” I’ve simplified it because of that. You don’t have to do that. You can add-in your own tasks there as well. Check out PodPros community, PodcastSOP, and PodMatch. If you haven’t already, those are things. I’m so glad Alex Sanfilippo came on the show, Podcasting Made Simple.

He gave you some great tips. Take them to heart, use them, and utilize some of these ideas. The brilliant thing about Alex is he’s always got some great idea that he’s pursuing, but it is in the spirit of making your life simpler as a podcast and the spirit of making the world better for all of us, podcasters. Podcasting Made Simple is focused on making sure that we stop pod fading and we can dedicate ourselves to our podcast and process.

This is where like I said before, Alex and I are completely aligned with our vision for the podcasting industry. I hope by bringing you to Alex and bringing Alex to you, we are able to move this podcasting industry forward and keep you podcasters motivated, moving, inspired, and keep it simple. Thanks, everyone, for reading. I’ll be back next time with another interesting podcaster and their binge factor.

 

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