#34 | Why Having High Profile Guests On Your Podcast Won’t Get You Clients Or Listeners In 2026 (What To Do Instead)

0:00You're chasing high-profile guests for your podcast, but it's actually slowing down your growth. Welcome to How to Grow a Podcast that attracts high-ticket online coaching clients. The show helping coaches, consultants, and experts turn your slow-growth podcast into a profitable client attraction system. At the end of this episode, I'll share a little more about who I am and what we do at my company, GetMoreListeners.com. It might even shock you. But for now, let's dive into the episode. In today's episode, you'll discover why solely relying on guest appearances is holding you back from your podcast's true growth potential, how to avoid the one-hit-wonder syndrome, and finally, how shifting focus from the guest to your own content builds a loyal listener base.

0:49Let's dive in. This episode is all about guesting, and really why that's actually not the best way to grow your show. But let's be honest, this is a main method a lot of podcasters use to try to gain more exposure. And it's clear to see why. Getting guests on your show is an amazing way to provide fresh perspective, build some credibility for your podcast, a bit more status, but also there's that potential there to reach their audience. I think that's the main thing. When you target high-profile guests, big names, we naturally assume we're going to tap into that audience. However, there's a lot of pitfalls that comes with this.

1:26And it's painful because there's nothing worse than being excited, being super pumped about landing a massive guest. For you, obviously, it's great speaking to this individual. But from the podcast and marketing perspective, the possibility of getting that further exposure. One common issue we see is it's like inviting someone to a party and expecting them to bring all their friends, only to find out they've completely forgot to even spread the word at all. And that's the thing that happens with a lot of these guests. They come on your show, you have an incredible interview. However, they never promote to their audience.

2:01And that, of course, hurts your growth potential and hurts the amount of exposure you're actually getting for the show. So yes, you host an amazing interview, but you don't get to leverage their audience as much as you wish you could. As hosts, it's important that we actively collaborate with our guests to ensure there's mutual promotion. There are certain things you can start doing to make sure your guest is actually promoting your content. That's your responsibility, not necessarily theirs. A couple things you could do. Number one, give them promotional content. Do the hard work for them. Make clips, make social media posts, create an email to go out to their email list.

2:39And what we've found to work really well is focusing on guests who have an email list because that's so much more intimate. They're meeting their audience in a place where it's very intimate, very private. Whereas on social media, the likelihood is that guests are posting tons of content already. So another piece of promotional content being seen on their audience's feed can easily go ignored. Whereas if it's an email blast, this helps you dramatically. So the biggest issue we see is the guest not promoting at all. But you can communicate and collaborate with the guest beforehand to make sure you have a mutual agreement.

3:15The other issue we tend to find, let's say the guest was amazing. They did so much promotion. They promoted every single day leading up to the podcast being launched. They promoted to their email list, told their family, friends, everyone. That can happen, absolutely. But the second thing we've seen that tends to happen from this is they do promote. The audience do come for that particular episode. You have a massive spike in terms of that particular episode taking off, being that one-hit wonder. But then the listenership doesn't retain. The episodes that come for weeks, for months, that growth is only for that particular episode.

3:52You don't see that growth for that particular episode translating to the rest of your podcast. And I don't know which one's more frustrating. Is it more frustrating having a guest not promote at all or having a guest promote the episode tremendously well, but the listeners don't stick around? The podcast struggles to maintain that high level of engagement. Here's the reason why this tends to happen. If you have, let's say, a celebrity guest come onto your podcast and talk about a specific topic, The celebrity guest brings in all of their audience who are interested in that topic. They absolutely loved the episode.

4:26They loved you, they loved your energy, they loved the value you're providing, and they genuinely enjoyed the show. They then look at the rest of the podcast, the rest of the content you have put out, and because it doesn't align with their interest, they don't stick around. And it's not their fault at the end of the day. I've had podcasts where I've discovered an episode, loved an episode, but the podcast itself just wasn't for me. And I wanted to support a guest or a celebrity that I knew. I wanted to support a close friend. And that's what happens with a lot of listeners out there. So it's really important to focus on building your content strategy to attract, engage, and retain new listeners.

5:05It's vital if you're going to do all this hard work up front, produce amazing content, host incredible interviews, that we get the most out of your time and energy being invested into the show. We need to be converting the audience that a guest brings on into long-term subscribers. If not, you're left with temporary spikes in listenership that quickly decline. Frustrating, annoying, no one wants that. So to address this, we need to focus on creating better content. What do I mean by this? Your content is good. Your content is incredible. Your content's awesome. That's genuinely not the issue. The issue is mainly the topics you cover.

5:46So it's really important to build out a content strategy that resonates with your core audience, regardless of the guest appearances. Asking yourself the important question, what specific topic am I covering on my podcast? Who am I trying to serve? And what specific problem am I trying to solve? What topic am I covering? Who am I trying to serve? What problem am I solving? Then you build your content strategy based on those three points. If you realize, okay, my podcast, the topic I'm covering, is all about scaling coaching businesses. Awesome. I want to serve coaches making 50 to 500K. Brilliant.

6:26You're trying to help them scale to seven figures. Perfect. That's so specific. And when you start creating your content based around that topic to serve a particular person, to help them solve a particular problem, that means your content is highly sticky. No one person is going to discover your show if it's for them and then the rest of it not be related to them. They discover your show and think, holy crap, this podcast is incredible. This feels like it's made for me. So they stick around and keep coming back for more. How does this relate to your guests? Well, here's what's been working exceptionally well.

7:02Instead of having guests come on and talk about a whole range of topics, instead of diving deep into the guest's story and backstory and essentially allowing the guest to guide the interview, you take the responsibility as the host and you steer the conversations focused on the topic you cover on the podcast. By adding constraints to the guests who appear on your show, this is an incredible solution to make sure you're consistently delivering the highest possible value to the audience you're trying to reach. It also completely eradicates the issue of you inviting a guest on, their audience comes, they fall in love with the episode, but don't fall in love with the entire show because the content strategy isn't strong enough to keep them coming back for more.

7:46So when you have this constraint, when you have this clear, specific focus on the topic you're covering, when you have a guest on and you know that the rest of your podcast is in alignment with that topic, serving that particular audience with a particular problem they're trying to solve, your content is now sticky. Your content now retains the listeners that you're attracting. Each guest is harmonizing with the overall theme and the direction of your podcast. That's your responsibility as a host. So it's about adding more depth to your content without diverting from the content strategy. I don't want you to hear that and get scared and get worried thinking, oh, you're telling me I've got to sit down and talk about the exact same topic a billion times?

8:29Trust me, you can get creative. Clients have been talking about specific topics for a while now, and they're still finding new ways to add in new angles, to add in variety, to add in different depths just by how they approach the topic. So it's being creative in terms of how deep can I go into this topic? How can I establish my expertise, my authority? How can I make sure every guest I have coming onto the show, I can extract the highest amount of value from them because I have a clear intention of the topic I'm going to be covering. Think of it this way. You're hosting a party, and you kindly ask your guests to stay in a designated area.

9:08Otherwise, chaos will break loose. Your party turns into a wild zoo, and you lose control. Whereas when you have that control, when you put them in a specific place, when you're intentionally going in knowing that they're going to serve this particular purpose because you know your audience better than anyone else, you're able to serve them at the highest level. So how do you strike that right balance? Work on your content strategy. Identify the core topic you want to cover, who you want to serve, and the problem you're solving. And then ensure that the format and the content you're producing resonates with that target audience.

9:45That is essential. This way, your content becomes the guiding force, ensuring that the guest enhances and supports the topic rather than overshadowing it. The focus needs to be on your podcast, the value proposition. That's you separating yourself from all these other shows. That's you understanding your positioning in the market. That's you standing out massively. That's you allowing your content, the topic you cover on your podcast, to be the thing that's attracting, engaging, and retaining listeners long-term. That's you no longer relying and depending on targeting high-profile guests, but knowing and having conviction that the topic you're going to cover is in high demand by your listeners.

10:29What we spoke about so far. Number one, the issue of relying on guests to bring in a new audience and listener base. It often doesn't work as well as most people think. They either just don't promote so the audience never even comes, or the audience do come but they don't stick around. To solve this, we need to make sure, number one, we give the guests everything they need in terms of promotion-wise so it's easy for them to take action. Focusing on their email list because that's a much more private and intimate area where if they promote to their list, it's far more likely to convert at a higher rate.

11:04The other thing we spoke about is the importance of focusing on building out a content strategy. Figuring out what specific topic am I covering on my podcast? Who am I trying to serve? What problems am I trying to solve? Having this become the guiding principle of everything you do. Having constraints on the guests you have on based on the topics you're covering. Gaining clarity on the direction you want to move in, you've established a guideline for the podcast. This way, you're no longer relying on guests to bring in a new audience. You're relying on the content itself. This is how you fast-track your growth.

11:39Stop relying on big names. You can still get the big names, but you get the most out of them using this method. The last thing I'll say, you're getting these guests on to give them a platform to help them share a ton of value to your listeners. A byproduct of that is your guest is positioned as the authority. The guest is establishing their expertise. The guest is gaining more exposure because you're giving them your audience. But that's a trade-off, and it's fair. How can you start leveraging this dynamic? What we encourage is we really focus on having you as the host, having you as the expert, having you build your authority by leveraging other podcasts who've already done the hard work, who've already built up the audience, who already have the listeners, and guesting on their podcast to establish your expertise, to build your network, and to give you more exposure.

12:30That is an exceptionally powerful way to grow your audience. Scaling with guesting by you guesting on other people's podcasts is an incredible way to grow the show. And that's the strategy that can truly transform your coaching podcast into a client-generating machine. In this episode, we covered why solely relying on guest appearances is holding you back from your podcast's true growth potential, how to avoid the one-hit-wonder syndrome, and finally, how shifting focus from the guest to your own content builds a loyal listener base. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. At the start of this episode, I said I'd tell you a little bit about me.

13:10So I'm about to share a secret with you. One that might mean you hate me. Completely quit listening to this podcast and think I'm a total scam. However, I want to be transparent. Are you ready? Well, my name is Tony. No, of course that's not the secret. The secret is that I'm actually a robot. My creators are Tig and Anthony, hence my name, Tony. The sick bastards. Anyway, they are the founders of GetMoreListeners.com. In the last five years, they've coached and interviewed over 400 podcasters and generated multiple six figures from their own show. They gave me access to everything they know, and I'm here to share it with you.

13:57So while I don't understand why you humans are so obsessed with coffee, I do understand how to grow a podcast that actually brings you new clients regularly. So here's my offer to you. If you want to finally understand why your podcast isn't growing and get a personalized roadmap to fix it, in less than 30 seconds, you can go to getmorelisteners.com slash onlinecoachaudit. Enter your show name, and we'll send you back a free mini-podcast audit. It's completely customized to you and your show. That's getmorelisteners.com slash onlinecoachaudit. The link is also in the show notes of this episode.