Growing Your Business with Podcasting... Without Having a Podcast with Ray Blakney: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Light that spark fire nation GLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by high level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to grow your business with podcasting without having a podcast. To drop these value bombs, I brought Ray Blakeney into EO Fire Studios. Ray is a serial entrepreneur who has bootstrapped multiple six and seven figure businesses ranging from online language schools and SaaS products to chocolate factories in Asia. And today, Fire Nation will talk about how to keep it short, but give enough so they want to find out more about you and give them a way to do so and how podcasts are great for SEO and oh so much more.

0:40And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ray and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Ray, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, John, thanks for having me on. So what I'm gonna say on the surface, I think almost every entrepreneur and most people will disagree with.

1:25In order to be successful at business, you have to have the lazy man's mindset. So I'll elaborate a little bit on what that means. So maybe it won't be quite as crazy later. So what I mean by lazy man's mindset is this. If you're trying to find the most efficient people in the world, I challenge you to find a more efficient person than somebody who's lazy. Why is that? Because lazy people don't want to do anything more than necessary for their day-to-day survival. If a lazy person wants to have dinner tonight, they're going to go on Uber Eats or they're going to order a microwave dinner and put in the microwave for 30 seconds and eat it.

2:00Is it healthy? Nah. But it gets them fed. it gets the job done. So my background is I bootstrapped six and seven figure businesses. And when you're bootstrapping that, having that lazy man's mindset is key because I need to figure out the stuff that needs to be done, minimum necessary, maybe not even ideal in order to get the business going and survive from today until tomorrow. Money is short. Time is short. So if you take on this lazy person's mindset of just doing what's necessary to survive and keep on doing that, you will eventually be successful because you're surviving longer than anybody else is.

2:36So take on the lazy person's mindset and you can be successful in business. Longtime listeners of this podcast might be a little surprised to hear that I actually consider myself kind of lazy. And what I mean by that is I want to be sitting by my pool with nothing on my calendar. That's a goal for me. Like I want that to be most of my days. so to do that I'm actually willing to work my booty off certain days of the week or certain days of the month so that I can have that complete lazy time I don't want to just be in an office sitting there twirling my thumbs or just having like one or two things on the calendar that's keeping me in the office all day no I want either a ton of things like today for instance I'm doing eight interviews for entrepreneurs on fire or I want nothing which is essentially the rest of my week.

3:23I want one of the two. So I love that kind of mentality. I've adopted that myself and may surprise a lot of people because I can work hard and really hard when I need to, but I can also be really lazy when I need to as well. Like ask Kate, I can be really lazy. You're efficient. That's the key to having a lazy man's mindset. You do the work that needs to be done, but you figure out exactly what that work is first and don't do anything extra that doesn't need to be done. It's so true. Now, being on both sides of the mic, I can say there are both surprising and unsurprising benefits of being a podcast guest.

3:58And today's episode is all about growing your business with podcasting without having a podcast. So let's talk about your experience, Ray, of this. Just like you, John, I've had experience on both sides of the mic. So I have been a failed podcaster in the past. I've luckily had a successful podcast as well in the past, but I will admit I hacked the iTunes system to do that. I recorded 365 episodes in two weeks. And every year I just launched the same episodes every single day. And then I just re-release them every January 1st. And it's worked. We get about half a million downloads a year by using that system.

4:30And I haven't had to record a new episode in a few years. But I don't have to tell you this, John. Having your own podcast, which is what most people think of when trying to grow a business with a podcast, is I want to have my own podcast. It's a lot of work. I know there are courses out there that say just buy yourself a nice mic and you're a podcaster. But I don't think I have to tell you that there's a lot more to podcasting than just that, right? I mean it's not just kind of getting on there and talking on the mic. You have to find great guests. You have to prep for the interviews. Once the guests are interviewed, you need to edit it.

5:01You need to put it up on social media. You need to promote it. You need to get listeners. It is a ton of work to have a podcast. And again, my failed podcasts were all exactly like that. so let's go back actually to the beginning of COVID which is where this new idea that I had came up and it's what I figured out was look you know what's not hard to do getting on a you know having my own podcast is not is a lot of work but going on somebody else's podcast that's a whole lot easier right I get on there I get to talk about what I'm passionate about you know I get to have a great time get to meet somebody interesting and at the end they do the editing They do the social media.

5:37They do the show notes. They, you know, put it out on social, on all the different things. That is actually a lot easier. So that's why I have been pushing in the last year or so. I've been on 200 shows. My goal is to get on 1000 shows. And just to show everybody the power of being a guest on a podcast. And there's some things that are pretty obvious about being on podcasts. Some of the benefits that, you know, when I say them, everybody's going to like, of course, you know, you have it there. There were some surprising ones that I've had with going on 200 shows in the last year that I didn't expect.

6:11So whenever you're ready, I can kind of go through my list, and you can stop me at any time, ask me a question. Let's get going, buddy. Let's do it. So I already alluded to the first one, right? So if you're getting on somebody else's podcast, you don't have to build the audience. They have an audience built in for you. If you can get on the right shows, you can get in front of the people that are your target market, but whether you're an author trying to publish, you know, get your book out there, whether you're a coach, whether you're just somebody working in a charity trying to get the message out about the great work that you're doing, getting in a podcast, getting in front of the right audience will do that for you.

6:44If you're a regular guest on podcasts, one of the things I found from my personal brand is that I don't really have to worry much about social media anymore. Most podcasters have their own social media accounts. Most podcasters will tag you whenever your episode goes out. So if you can be on one or two shows a week, that's generally the minimum necessary for facebook twitter all the rest of it you don't have to post somebody else is posting tagging you can show up on yours you share it on your own social media you're done your social media is taken care of so the first one you get in front of audiences second one social media is taken care of third one my background is i'm a programmer and an seo what a lot of people don't think about about getting on podcasts it is great for seo because most podcasters have websites.

7:27Most podcasters do show notes. And in the show notes, what do they do? They give you a link back to your website, your product, whatever you're doing, right? You just got a backlink. Your homepage, your website just went up in the ranking by appearing on people's podcasts. So it's an SEO play as well. So those are the obvious ones. The SEO one is not actually as obvious, apparently. To me, it was as an SEO, but to other people, I've been telling them about it. And they're like, I never thought of that. So those are the top three. There are two other ones that are a little less known. I'll leave the last one, the one that was a surprise to me for last.

8:02Number four is if you're building your own personal brand, of course, podcasts can help you get fame by association, right? If you get on great shows, if you're lucky enough to get on the show with John here, you can get fame by association. You put that on your own personal page. You can say, hey, I chatted with John the other day and they're like, oh my God, how did you do that? And then they get all flustered. and you can do that. You can use that to build your personal brand if that's a direction you want to go on. And the final one, the most profound one for me, it is a great journey of self-discovery.

8:33This was not part of my plan when I got on the shows, but now that I've been on close to 200, a lot of podcasters I find ask you the same questions. So if they ask you, you know, John, tell me about yourself. I'm sure you've done it a lot of times, but when I started out, I hadn't really answered that question too many times. And listening back to some of my first podcast episodes, my answers were all over the place. I was like, oh, well, kind of. I was born here and I kind of did that. And then, oh, I forgot. I did this as well. And that's how it sounds in the beginning. I guarantee to you, the hundredth time somebody asks you that, you will know who you are.

9:09In 30 seconds or less, you will be able to tell somebody exactly who you are. If they ask you a hundred times what drives you, by the end of the hundredth time, you will know what drives you. It'll be an honest answer that you really feel. because sometimes you give answers and after you say them, they don't feel right. But by the hundredth time, I guarantee you that answer will feel right. So being a guest on podcast is a great way of self-discovery. And that was a total surprise to me. I did not see that coming. So those were the five. Getting in front of audience, social media, SEO, fame by association, and self-discovery.

9:41There are a lot of ways to go about and pitch podcasts. And the thing is, is that you can pitch your face off and get zero responses because frankly, you're doing it wrong. So what are two things, Ray, that we need to figure out before we start pitching podcasts to be a guest? John, great question. So the two things that I tell everybody that are coming into the system, which we'll talk about later that I'm building right now, and also that I use when I'm pitching is you have to figure out two things, the what and the who. The what is what is your goal for being on the podcast? I know I'm guilty of this myself, but you need to be really clear about it.

10:21If you're trying to get on a podcast to promote your books, don't get distracted by telling stories about what your dog did last week. I can tell you that I have fallen into this trap. I still do fall into this trap because I get distracted. I go off topic, but it's really important that you kind of figure out why and what you're doing on that podcast and stick to that mission, stick to that goal. Number two is simple. It's the who you're trying to reach. Define that first. So don't just go on every podcast you can get on because you're going to be wasting a lot of time. There are millions of podcasts out there, a little over two million right now.

10:58Yes, not all of them are active, but there are tons of them. So if you get on the wrong podcast, you've just wasted 30 minutes, an hour. Some podcasts can go really long. The longest interview I've done so far has been three hours, and I got crickets from that one. Like no leads, nothing coming into any of my businesses or my services for that one. So be very clear about who you're trying to reach for the podcast and make sure that this podcast you're getting on reaches that audience, the audience that kind of going to resonate with your message and what you're trying to say to them. So those are the two things, the what and the who.

11:30Now, one of the top questions that I get, because a lot of people want to get on shows, but like you said, they don't want to waste 30 minutes. They want to be on the right shows. So how the heck do we find the right podcast to pitch? How do we qualify them? How do we know that they are the right use of our time? I'm going to use a quote from a mutual friend of ours, Pat Flynn. There is the freeway and the pain freeway of getting on podcasts. And I recommend everybody start with a freeway. Again, I have the bootstrap mentality. That's how I built all my businesses. So I'm going to assume you don't have that much money to put into this and you have the time.

12:06So if you have the time, there are multiple ways you can start getting on podcasts. Step one is build yourself a media kit. either a one sheet or something like that with all of your information on it. Try to keep it concise to the point that you want to share. Again, going back to the what, your media kit should coincide with the what you're trying to share on the podcast. You can have multiple media kits. I do for different types of shows you have on there. You just make sure you include that one, the correct one when you're pitching them. So if you're looking for podcasts, the number one thing you can do, of course, is go to Google.

12:39Try to Google podcasts that you want to be on in your niche. So podcasts in the marketing niche. Go and look for it. I'll tell you from personal experience, that can be really, really time-consuming. Google's not built for this kind of search. Half the podcasts you find are inactive. But if you stick to it long enough, you will find podcasts. But we're talking a few days maybe of work here to get maybe 100, 150 podcasts that are in your niche. We're talking about getting their contact information and everything else. That doesn't even include the actual email pitching. So if you have a lot of time, you can go and do that.

13:13Step number two is you can go into Facebook groups. There are actually Facebook groups out there where they are looking for podcast guests. The caveat there, a lot of those podcasts who are on the Facebook groups looking for guests are probably not that well-established podcasts. Once you reach a certain level in podcasting, and again, John, you know this, you get more pitches than you know what to do with, right? You don't go there looking for guests. Guests come to you looking for you. So if you're going to use the Facebook groups, it's a great way to get started, get your feet wet as a guest, but it won't get the impact that you want.

13:43Step number three that you can do, this one takes money. You can hire a podcast booking agency and the cost here can range from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand dollars a month. And the thing I don't really like about the podcast booking agencies is that most of them can't guarantee the number of listeners that you're going to get for appearing on the shows they get you on. And it's not really their fault because podcast download numbers are not public. So you don't really know whether somebody is actually going to hear you on this show or if it's just some kid in their basement who's recording this podcast and the only person who listens to it is their mom, right?

14:17So you might be paying hundreds of dollars on this show that very few people listen to. So those are the three, what I would call free-ish ways of getting on podcasts. Again, the first two are entirely free. The third one is a little more expensive, but the returns may vary. Now, the pain-free way is obviously is the system that we just built. So my background is I am a software engineer by training. I have built multiple six - and seven-figure online businesses, none of them in the podcasting field. when COVID happened last March one of my businesses which is an online language school livelingua.com exploded and I was trying to get in front of a bigger audience so I tried to get on more podcasts so I did all those free ways that we're talking about here but after spending all this time I spent about 20 hours trying to find podcasts and another 10 setting up the email pitches and all the rest of it I thought to myself wow there's got to be a better way to do this so that's what we built and I think we're going to talk about it a little bit later how we can to save you a whole ton of money for very, very little cost.

15:22Yeah, and there's a couple of things I want to add to this Fire Nation. Number one, like Ray said, I mean, it is true. Once you do get to a certain level with your podcast, I mean, you're going to get more pitches than you can even handle on any given month. Like right now, and this has been the case for years, I'm getting over 400 pitches every single month of guests wanting to be on Entrepreneurs on Fire. So you will get to that point with your podcast if you have one, if you keep putting in the work and have the type of success that I know you're hoping to get. but realize that those bigger shows, when you're trying to pitch yourself to them, are probably getting a ton of pitches.

15:55So that's why you really need to be doing things right and strategic. And one thing I love saying over and over again is, you do need to put in the reps. Put in the reps. Because if and when you are able to come on a big show that has a big following and a big audience, you better be able to deliver. And the best way to get good at podcasting, at being a podcast guest, at delivering content, at delivering value is to do those things, is to put in the rap. So, hey, like you may say, I don't want to waste 30 minutes of my time getting on a podcast that doesn't have that much of an audience. Well, right now you may need those 30 minutes to practice your craft, to get good so that when you are on a bigger show, you're able to deliver in a major way.

16:37And we are going to talk about some really important things all around podcasting Fire Nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay. Let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business. And they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or a course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution.

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17:42Seriously, every question that pops up, they will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial. So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. Ray, we're back and I want to talk about podcast pitches. What makes a successful podcast pitch and what doesn't? Another great question, John. So I'll actually build on what you alluded to in the last one. You get hundreds of pitches a month as a successful podcasters.

18:24And if you want to get on the big shows, they will be the same. So the number one tip I have to anybody who's pitching podcasts, and I've pitched, yeah, almost 1 ,000 by now, it's keep it short. The first email you send should not be your life story. These people who are receiving the pitches do not have time to read what you did in your childhood and everything that build up to where you were now. A few lines that resonate with the host and with the show that you want to be on is enough to get the interest built. My hack for those kind of things is, so you keep it punchy. I actually start my pitches with a kind of a fun line that gets them to want to read more.

19:02In my case, I'm a semi-professional sword fighter. And I say, if you want to find out more about that, I'll have that at the end. And then I go into my five or six lines of my pitch. But that has a great open and read rate Because people read that and they're like, what, what? And then they kind of just read the rest of it, which is my pitch. And then I explain that at the end of it. Another hack you can have is include a link either to your LinkedIn profile or to your media kit. I host my media kit online so people can find out more about you. So the goal of that first email is keep it short, but enough so that they want to find out more about you and give them a way to find out more about you.

19:35So that's tip number one. Tip number two, you've heard it before, is personalize the emails a little bit. So again, you might not have the time to spend hours finding all the websites and social media, following people for weeks and weeks, especially if you're doing this on a larger scale where you want to pitch 100 people every month. But at least put one or two lines to show you've made the effort to maybe just listen to one of their episodes, even if it's on double speed. When you're sitting out there and pitching, they will know. They know the difference, especially people who get tons of these.

20:04They can read through like a generic one and an authentic pitch in milliseconds, right? They'll just open it like, no, this is another one of those. So do that. And tip number three, follow up. I get about 50 or 60 percent of my responses on the first one. But the other 40 percent come from my second, third or fourth follow up emails. Sometimes people are busy. They're not going to get back to you. Maybe they're just checking if you're serious. So make sure you don't bug them all the time, but send a follow up maybe a few days later, a week later, and then maybe two weeks later. That's usually enough to catch anybody who either missed your first email or didn't answer right away.

20:38A lot of good stuff here. One thing I do want to follow up on and kind of double up on actually more so is make it personal. Make it personal. I mean, Ray talked about this, but the host should know immediately that you know their show. Like if you know their show, mention an episode by name, talk about the title, talk about two or three of your favorite takeaways from that episode so that this host is like, wow, this person's listened to my show. They actually understand why they'd be a great guest because they know me, they know my guests, they know my show. That makes a big, big difference.

21:13And this does sound like, Ray, it's going to take up a lot of time. And that's frankly, one thing a lot of people don't have a lot of is time. So how could we automate this podcast searching and pitching process? Absolutely. And that's what I'm here to share with everybody. So So I'm really excited about this new, I've built a lot of products over the last few years. This is probably the one I'm the most excited about. So what I've built over the last year, year and a half now, is a service called Podcasthawk.com. We've put together two really, really useful tools for you guys. So you can save all this time.

21:49I talked about 20 or 30 hours to do it. We can do it now in about 15, 20 minutes. And we can set it up. So you just set it up once. And for the rest of the year, you're getting on one to two shows a week at our highest plan. without even logging back into our system. The emails just kind of appear in your inbox when somebody replies. So this is what we do for you. We have a database of every podcast in the world with all the contact emails in the world. And we've made it, we've built this like simple but powerful search, which allows you to go in there. Let's just say, John, you want to get on podcasts about Puerto Rico where you're living, right?

22:23You just want to talk about Puerto Rico. So you can go in there and say, give me every podcast in the world that has the word Puerto Rico in the description. I want it to be established. I want it to make sure they have at least 50 episodes. They may have at least 4.5 star reviews. And they've published an episode in the last two weeks. I challenge anybody. I'm like, go to Google and find all of those. And while you're doing that, go into podcast talk. One click in less than a second will give you every podcast in the world that matches that criteria. We've even ranked them. We have our own internal score of a podcast score of 0 to 100.

22:52And we use things like their social media. Again, nobody knows download numbers, so we can't use that. But we know how many episodes they have. the reviews, the average reviews, their social media following, all of that. And we've come up with the score zero to a hundred to tell you what are the chances that this show actually has people listening to it. Right. So you can actually now pick the range of podcasts you want. You talked about this earlier, right? Get in the reps. If you're trying to get in the reps, I recommend the range of podcast score 30 to 40. Right. So you start those. They probably don't have too many listeners, but you can actually make mistakes on those shows and it won't have a huge impact on you.

23:22Then you can move up to 40 and 50 and you go from there to 50 and above 50 and above generally are more legitimate shows, kind of the ones that will have listeners. But by then, you're a practice pro at getting on podcasts. So that's the first thing. We built the search engine. In seconds, you can find it. I like to say I onboarded our first 100 customers. And one of the people I onboarded, she was a burlesque dancer. And I remember when she came on the onboarding column, like, yeah, I don't really know if there's going to be any podcast for you. There are podcasts about everything. We found almost 200 podcasts about burlesque dancing in the world.