MBA2492 Q&A Wednesday: How do I get great guests on my podcast?

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, helping you succeed in business with every single episode. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenhom. Today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar, O-M-A-R, at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Colin, and Colin asks, Hey, Omar, I just started a podcast about four months ago. The show interviews interesting people in the e-commerce space, business owners, suppliers, even some customers. My question is, how do I get great guests to come on my podcast?

0:50Thanks for your help, Colin. This is a great question because getting great guests is not some sort of formula that you just implement and that's it. Great guests coming on your show. It's a few strategies working together, a few practices or habits that you need to instill in your life in order for you to know people that are worthy enough to be a great guest. I've been podcasting for nearly 10 years now. And in those 10 years, I've met some incredible podcasters. They get some of the biggest and most interesting guests out there. I met Stephen Barlow from Diary of the CEO. I'm very close friends with Jordan Harbinger, who is the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show, one of the biggest interview shows on any podcasting platform.

1:36I've become friends with Ramit Sethi, who is the author and host of the podcast called I'll Teach You To Be Rich, and many, many more. So I have some insights to help you land those amazing guests to be on your podcast. I'm going to give you a practical exercise to do so that you have something to work on, something to work towards, so that you can get those guests and even some other guests you're not even thinking about. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. One of the most interesting pieces of advice I've heard before was from Robert Greene, who's the author of The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, a whole bunch of amazing books that we've talked about here on the show.

2:17But his advice was, if you want to have interesting stories, if you want to meet interesting people, if you want to talk about interesting things, you need to have an interesting life. You need to go out there and do interesting things, things that most people don't do. If you backpack for six months across Southeast Asia, I guarantee you're going to have some stories to tell. You're doing something interesting every day. And the same goes for meeting interesting people. You need to get out there. The more people you know, the more likelihood you're going to meet somebody interesting. But you can't just sit at home and expect to meet interesting people that could be on your podcast.

2:58This means actively getting yourself to industry conferences, meetups, excursions, weekend events, whatever it might be. This has got to be like a daily habit. One of my priorities is to meet interesting people. I have to have it on my calendar. I literally am doing this tomorrow. I'm meeting and having a walk and talk and a lunch with an interesting author who I've kind of known for a few years but want to get to know deeper. So you got to get out there and make it a priority to meet people. But it's good to have a strategy before you start implementing. So this is a strategy I recommend. I learned this from Jordan Harbinger, who is the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

3:40I mentioned to him he's one of the best interviewers I know who has some incredible, crazy, interesting guests. But he encouraged me to create a list of people I want to get to know, people I want to meet. and this could be applied to who do you want to have on the podcast? Who would you love to have a chat with and have as a guest? This is probably the same person that you want to get to know on a personal level and be a part of your network. So make a list. Do not hold back. Don't say, oh, I can never meet this person or this person's too famous or this person. Just write the names. Force yourself to write a hundred names.

4:18So if you want to get Tobias, the founder of Shopify, put his name down. He's one of the biggest leaders in e-commerce. If you want to get Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, because e-commerce is a big part of their business, put down Tim Cook, but also put down some bigger names in niche businesses. Who's the Tim Cook of knitting or skateboarding or whatever it might be? In their world, they're a big deal. So force yourself to write 100 people that would be kind of your top 100 people you would love to have on the podcast. It's just a good exercise to know what you want, to actually go after it, to understand who is a good guest.

4:57You know, just go through the exercise. Oh, I would ask this person this question and this kind of guest would be great. Sometimes we don't even know what we want. So it's good to kind of just define it. Also, you may not believe this and I was kind of skeptical of this before, but there's something about writing something down that makes it real. Maybe subconsciously we tell ourselves this is our goal and we subconsciously go after it by writing it down. By stating, I want to have this person on the podcast and putting it down in a spreadsheet, there's something powerful about that. Because I've done this exercise and I've met the vast majority of the people that are on that list and had the chance to have them on this podcast.

5:39The next exercise you're going to do is you're going to look at your list here and you're going to ask yourself. You can make another column next to these names. Who knows this person or knows somebody who knows this person? The vast majority of people that I've met that are interesting, that are fascinating, that were kind of my dream to meet one day, they came through an introduction. They came through a mutual friend. I know this person that they know. And that mutual friend introduced me to them, either via email or at a conference or even over text message. This is incredibly powerful because when you come in with a warm introduction, it's almost like you're already vouched for.

6:20It's so much easier for you to hit it off. You feel like equals. And this is how people meet people is through introductions. And guess what? As this starts happening to you, you're going to start doing the same. You're going to start introducing your network to other people as well. I try to make a habit of trying to introduce somebody to somebody else at least a couple times a month because what goes around comes around. And you never know how it comes around. You never know when it's going to come around. For example, I met a guy named John Corcoran through a community that was started back in the day called Fizzle.

6:55And they got bought out recently a couple of years ago. They got acquired by a company. But I met John, this is back in 2012. And we just knew each other online. And then we met each other at a conference in 2014. We became friends. And over the years, we've kept touch. He's introduced me to people. I've introduced him to people. And recently, he introduced me to an amazing person, Matt Fidesz. If you don't know Matt Fidesz, Matt Fidesz is one of the most successful people in the martial arts space. His martial arts schools are around the world, over 1 ,800 schools. And he's one of the most highly successful franchise businesses out there.

7:34He was a millionaire at the age of 20. He also happened to be one of Michael Jackson's closest friends and bodyguard. Talk about an interesting person to know. So my buddy John Corcoran introduced me to him, and he's going to be on the podcast. So we're working on that episode as we speak, or as I speak right now. It's in the works. This is how it happens. The more people you know, the more people you're going to get introduced to, the more chances that you're going to just create magic and get great guests. This is a long-term type of thing. You've been doing this podcast for four months, Colin.

8:08You mentioned this in your question. This is early days. You got to invest now so that you can get that network later and get those great guests. So with that exercise, you're writing down who would know this person? How can I get an introduction? If they don't know them, who knows that person that knows them? The next great strategy is to literally pay your way. There's going to be an opportunity to meet people by just paying for it. A good example of this is a conference where this person is speaking at, or maybe they're doing a speaking tour, or maybe they got a book signing, or whatever it might be.

8:42The point here is that there's always a VIP ticket that you could buy where you can spend some time with this person. Even if it's just five minutes, a meet and greet, shake hands, take a picture. In that five minutes, you could say, Hey, I've been an admirer of your work. I'd love to share your knowledge with my audience on my podcast. I'm willing to work around your schedule. I'm willing to do anything you'd like to make this easy for you. Would it be cool if you were on my podcast? You might get a yes. You might get a no. But you know what guarantees a no? Not asking. Okay? So you got to put yourself out there.

9:14And by the way, people that have done things in life, significant things, they were in your place before. They know how it feels. And if they have some decency, they will empathize with you and find a way to make it happen, if not in the short term, but in the long term. I've met so many people and I've gotten to get to know them as well as get them on my podcast simply by doing this, paying for a VIP ticket somewhere and getting to know them, paying for their event, participating in something that they're doing. One of my good friends, Michael Port, who is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author, so many amazing books, Steal the Show, Book Yourself Solid, the referable speaker.

9:54I literally just attended his live training workshop that he was doing in San Francisco at the time. I spent two days of my time, invested the time and the money to do it. That's how I got to know him. We had a dinner later. We hit it off and it was a great kind of relationship that built out of mutual respect. I remember it vividly because it was during the first few weeks we launched this podcast in 2014. And Michael was just this huge deal for me. But I got to be his friend by just being around him. And ever since, we've been very good friends. We vacationed together. I got to spend time on his yacht for a weekend.

10:32We've collaborated. We've worked together. And it's all because I was willing to take the time and money to learn more about him and just to consume his information at a higher level. Now, when it comes to podcasting, you need to see your podcast or your podcast journey as levels. So let's say level one is the first level and this is you just getting started. This is where you're at the first few months. Then you have level two where your show is starting to improve and starting to get traction and the listeners are starting to trend upwards. You can get to this point by just being great at what you do, being a great host, being a great provider of knowledge, being professional, having great audio and a great presentation, being a great communicator.

11:16You can get to this level just by doing the things you need to do to be professional and to present yourself in a valuable way to your audience. In this level, this is where you get guests that are interesting and that are not well-known. People don't know who they are, but they've done incredible things. And they're not being asked to be on podcasts every day. You know these people because you probably follow them on Twitter. You probably see their reels on TikTok or Instagram, I should say. The point here is that these are great guests because you're going to get great content out of it. It's going to increase the value of your podcast.

11:48Your podcasts are going to start to grow. What's going to happen is that now your show is going to start ranking higher. You're going to start to be more visible. And it's going to be easier for you to get a yes from the bigger guests because they're going to see that you've been doing this for a while. This is not a hobby project. And number two, you have an audience that they can speak to and it's worth their time. You got to remember, these people that are doing incredible things, they're busy, okay? And they don't want to waste their time on a podcast that's going to fizzle out or not be in existence in a couple weeks or months.

12:22They want somebody who's committed, that's been doing this for a while, and has an audience that they feel like, hey, at least I'll impact some people with my message. So that's level three. Level three is where you are getting enough traction, enough listenership that you can approach somebody and say, hey, we've done 100 episodes. This is our audience size. This is what some of our previous guests have said, asking for testimonials from your previous guests about the experience of being on the show. This is really powerful. People are gonna want to say yes to that. So when you approach the people on your list, it's an easy yes.

12:54Level four is when the people on your list start approaching you. And that's really a very rare group of people. This is where every author, every innovator, every new venture that's being launched by an established entrepreneur, this is when they come to these well-known podcasts and say, hey, I got a new book. I got a new thing. I'd love to be on your show and help promote it. We literally get dozens of requests and emails every single week from people just like that trying to get on our show. And this is a good problem to have, but you got to weed through a lot of poor guests that are not going to make a great impression or not a good fit for your audience.

13:35But that's where you want to be because your life gets a whole lot easier. But as you can see, this takes time and there's levels to it. And you just got to be patient. But in the meantime, get out there, meet people, make that list, meet the people that know the people that you want to meet because eventually you can get an introduction, put it in your calendar. What are you doing this week to network, to meet interesting people, to have interesting experiences. And lastly, one of the strategies I've seen people do, I'm not a big fan of it, but it works for some people. So I'm going to throw it out there.

14:07And that's asking previous guests to introduce you to other people that might be a good fit. So this means, let's say you have somebody on your podcast. It's a great interview. At the end of the interview, when you're offline or when you're not recording, you could say, hey, thanks so much for being on my show. Can I ask you to maybe recommend or introduce me to somebody you think would be great for the show. I get asked to do this as a guest on other shows all the time. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, I know one or two people and I do that. But sometimes I feel like it's a little bit of a burden on the guest me.

14:39I have to figure out a time to, you know, put the email together, make the introduction. Hopefully they're, you know, good fit for their audience. So that's why I kind of don't do it too much. I I don't actually ask people to do that, but that's just a me thing. Maybe I should stop worrying about that. And I've heard from other podcasters, this strategy really helps them get a steady flow of great guests. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 NBA Show. If you love what you hear, if you think the show rocks, if you think that you've gotten something out of today's episode, any episode, and you want to say thanks, the easiest way to do that is just to click the follow button, to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever app you use.

15:19This is the most powerful thing you can do to support the show because by doing so, you send the signal to the algorithm that this show's all right, that you love it, and then the platform will give us more reach and expose us to new audiences so that we can grow and reinvest into this show for you. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. The best thing about a podcast is the network you build. I love this show. I love the audience. I love doing this and giving back. but the best thing is the people you meet along the way because that network you build is like gold, okay? If you go out of business, if you sell a business, if you have to start all over, and by the way, this is a story of a lot of podcasters, by the way, that I know firsthand.

16:04No matter what happens, you still have your network that you can lean on that can help you get through that tough time to give you introductions, to get you back on your feet. It's one of the best investments you can ever make. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.