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Episode 245: Leverage Podcast Guesting to Make an Impact on Business Growth with Angie Trueblood

In episode 245, we talk with Angie Trueblood, a podcast visibility expert, about this under utilized strategy to grow your blog by guesting on a podcast.

We cover information about how you need to pinpoint a topic you love to talk about, learn about Angie’s pitch template to help you get organized and learn the shortcuts to see if a podcast is a good fit for you to follow up with and get on the schedule for.

Listen on the player below or on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

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Guest Details

Connect with Angie Trueblood
Website | Facebook | Instagram

Bio As a podcast visibility expert and host of the Go Pitch Yourself podcast, Angie Trueblood knows that the only ‘perfect pitch’ is the one that leads with value and focuses on building a genuine connection. Whether she is teaching entrepreneurs how to pitch themselves or working behind the scenes to secure opportunities for others, Angie leverages her super-connector powers to grow businesses and build long-lasting relationships.

Takeaways

  • When you pitch yourself to be a guest on someone else’s podcast, you are looking for folks who serve a very similar audience that you do, but in a way that’s complimentary.
  • Don’t look to compete with a host and their audience.
  • You can build authority by being invited to guest on a podcast as well as being seen as an authority by the new audience.
  • You can grow your authority with your current audience as well because you can share your visit to the podcast and let come along for a listen.
  • A primary benefit of podcast guesting is you also end up establishing a network of influencers.
  • To determine a pain point to help solve for your audience, read their questions/comments to you online and find a solution you’re passionate about addressing.
  • Try and narrow down 4 topics you could speak on and then start checking out podcasts that would align.
  • As a guest on a podcast, you should be sure to share the episode and sending a follow up email afterwards to the host, thanking them and even suggesting future guest ideas, is welcome and a great way to keep the door of opportunity open between you.

Transcript

Click for full text.

245 Angie Trueblood

Angie: HI, this is Angie Trueblood from angietrueblood.com. And you are listening to the Eat Blog Talk podcast.

Megan: Food bloggers, you are going to absolutely love this conversation that Angie and I had. I know it’s not typical to think of food blogging and podcasting to go together, but it does not have to be that way. Listen to the value Angie brings to the table she has In this area in podcasting and in food blogging.

She makes a really great case for why you need to get your voice out into the world. Your audience needs to hear you in a new way. So we’re going to dig into the conversation. Enjoy and thank you so much for being here today.

Hey, Angie, it’s so good to have you and Hey, food bloggers. Welcome to another episode of Eat Blog Talk. Today, Angie and I are going to have a conversation about how to leverage podcast guesting and the impact interviews can have on your growth. As a podcast visibility expert, and host of the Go Pitch Yourself podcast, Angie Trueblood knows that the only perfect pitch is the one that leads with value and focuses on building a genuine connection. Whether she is teaching entrepreneurs how to pitch themselves or working behind the scenes to secure opportunities for others, Angie leverages her super connector powers to grow businesses and build long lasting relationships. Angie, super excited for this chat today. I would love to prompt you first though, because we all want to hear your fun fact. 

Angie: So it’s actually very relevant to this interview. I actually had a different business years ago that was in the food blogging space. I started a business called Meal Planning Mama way back when. I guess it was 2014, maybe. I basically transitioned home from more of a corporate sales job with a direct sales company that taught typically busy moms how to meal plan and meal prep. From that I created a blog and of course all around meal planning. So I have a little bit of actual experience in the blogging space. 

Megan: That’s really cool. So how long did you do that? 

Angie: I think it was 2014 when I started it. Then I transitioned out of that in 2017, early 2018, when I pivoted to the visibility.

Megan: So cool. So once a food blogger, always a food blogger. So really you can claim that you’re still a food blogger in my opinion.

Angie: Perfect. I will put it on my website. 

Megan: Absolutely. It’s like riding a bike, right? Once you do it, you know it, and you can do it forever. So claim it.

Angie: It’s so funny because a recent launch that I did, it was a webinar launch. I shared that when I was in that space, one of the ways that I grew my visibility was by guesting on other podcasts. I just showed a screenshot of the name of the course that literally has not sold in years because I don’t promote it. During that launch of a visibility program, two people went and bought the meal planning course. 

Megan: Oh my gosh. That is pretty cool. 

Angie: I promptly emailed them and said, there is literally no support for this course. So if you want a refund, I totally understand. 

Megan: Oh my gosh. I love that. That’s great. We talked a little bit before we started recording. I’m really excited to talk about this because I am on a mission myself to get on other people’s platforms. I haven’t really started yet. I’m doing the preliminary work, but I saw six months ago, I just saw the power of this whole act of getting onto other people’s platforms and using that as a way to share your voice and to connect and network and learn and grow, and become a better speaker and become more fluent. There’s so many things. There’s so much power that lies in this simple act of just putting your voice on someone else’s podcast. So I am excited to dig into this, and I guess I would just love to start by asking you, how do you feel the best way is to build your authority and network using podcast guesting? 

Angie: It’s interesting because you can do both by targeting different folks that you get exposure to. So if you’re envisioning that you are pitching yourself to be a guest on someone else’s podcast, ideally, you are looking for folks who serve a very similar audience that you do, but in a way that’s complimentary. So it’s less competitive and that host is not necessarily serving their audience in the exact same way that you would.

So the beauty of that is that you ultimately build authority, both by connecting with that new audience. So that host’s podcast audience, they see you as being ushered in by someone they already respect because they listen to that podcast. So they already see you as an authority and an expert in whatever it is that you’re talking about.

You can also take that opportunity back to your already established audience. So if you’re a blogger, the folks that are reading your blog, then see that you have been a guest on a podcast. So, almost subconsciously they think wow, someone saw her or him as an expert and invited them on to talk about this topic. That just really grows your authority in that space.

But then that networking component that you mentioned is also really great, I don’t even know if it’s something I would call a side effect anymore, because it is such a primary benefit. You end up establishing a network of influencers. We always think about influencers as being like the Kardashians and all of these folks doing reels and TikTok. But if someone has a podcast host, they influence the audience that is listening to them. So you are expanding your network by connecting with folks who already have audiences that love and respect them. So that’s the level set of what you can gain from it. I’m happy to answer any more questions around that. Because they’re really two of the most important factors in choosing to, like you said, get in front of someone else’s audience. 

Megan: I loved everything you said. I feel like once you get onto someone’s podcast you’re adding something complimentary, like you said. It’s not just you and that person, you are also now a part of their network. So down the road, maybe. Podcast host would say, oh, I remember Angie. She talks about this topic and it was really unique, her perspective. Then they can connect you to another host who’s looking for guests. So it’s not just one connection you’re making, it’s so many valuable connections just by being on a single podcast. It can trickle down into so many different areas. So I love that you called it a primary benefit. It’s not just a sideline benefit. It’s actually one of the best things. So how do we find topics though? Because we’re talking to food bloggers and I know food bloggers can hear this conversation and say what would I have to offer on a podcast? I am a photographer. I offer things visually most of the time. How do we land on those compelling topics? 

Angie: So a lot of it is really looking at, when people have come to you before and you’ve interacted with your blog audience, what are the comments that they’re posting? What are the questions that they are asking? What are the challenges that you are already tackling in the work that you do every day and formulating those into topics that could be appealing to a podcast audience? So I always like to first envision who are the types of audiences I should be getting in front of? Who are these complimentary business owners? In the blogging space, maybe you have a vegan food blog for busy families. So maybe it’s really niche, but it’s still talking to busy families. You could find some complimentary business owners in that space who may be serving families in a different way. Maybe they don’t teach them about meal planning or cooking or any of those topics, but maybe they teach them about productivity or parenting.

How can you take what you’re an expert at and really angle it to serve that podcast audience. As an example, if it’s someone in more of the productivity organization space for busy families, maybe it’s how to cook vegan and I’m not vegan. So forgive me for probably totally mangling this. But maybe it would be how to implement vegan cooking three nights a week or how to do it without feeling like you have to totally overhaul all of the systems that you already have in place. So it’s really taking a couple of things. First, what are people continuously asking you? You then totally turn those into conversation topics. But then also the people that you want to connect with, some of these other complimentary influencers, how can you angle what you are an expert at to really serve their audience. It’s almost taking your expertise and putting it under the umbrella with which they already serve their audience.

Megan: So how many topics do you recommend being fluent in. Do you have one topic that you’re just really good at? You can say anything on the topic without any notes, or do you recommend having a handful, maybe three that you could pull out of your hat?

Angie: Yeah. So we always recommend both with the clients that we serve. So in our business, we pitch clients. So we have people come to us and they hire us to do all of the pitching and scheduling. But then we also have programs where we teach entrepreneurs, business owners, how to pitch themselves. Regardless of who it is, we always start with a pitch template, which might sound like something that you just blanketly email out to 50 podcast hosts. That is not how you use the template, but we use it to be a starting point. So that when you go and you’ve identified a host that you think might be a good fit for their audience, you’re not just staring at a blank email, to where you have to come up with everything from scratch. 

So we have a pitch template that we start off just in a Google doc. Typically we start with three to four core topics that we feel like would resonate with different types of audiences. Candidly, by the end of the time that we work with our clients, we normally have fleshed out seven to eight different topics because we have found shows that would be a good fit for them. Then we need to finagle some of their core top topics to fit under that umbrella. Or we’ve identified a couple of different niches that we didn’t anticipate, and we really want to have a topic that speaks to them. So three to four is a great starting point for folks to get their feet wet and to have something in reserve. 

Megan: Can you talk through your pitch template? Would you mind doing that? 

Angie: Yeah, for sure. So it’s a Google doc and it’s almost the beginning part of it and the ending part of it, if you can imagine, almost stayed the same in every pitch that we send. The first paragraph is a connection point. This part definitely does not say the same, but the bones of it do. Hi podcast hosts and we use their name. We also use the name of their podcast, which a lot of folks who are doing this more like automated pitching, never do. I feel like I’ve been on this pattern of getting pitches to be a guest on the Go Pitch Yourself podcast and they say, I love your podcast. You’re doing such great things with it, but yet they never even mentioned the name of it, which drives me bananas. So that first paragraph, it’s really a point of connection. Of, I see your podcast. I really appreciate how you are doing this and this, or I appreciate how you are helping food bloggers monetize their passion. It’s almost like restating. What it is that their podcast does, who they speak to and how they serve them so that the host feels seen and heard in that email. So that’s really the first point is making a bit of a connection and kind of bridging that gap as to why you’re reaching out. So really spelling out who I serve. I feel like there is some similarity, or I noticed you haven’t talked about the topic of XYZ, which is why I’m reaching out today. So that first paragraph is really important, really just to establish the fact that you’re not just sending out the same email to 50 other people. Then we’ve actually changed our template in the order in which things are presented. But at some point you want to include a bit of a bias. Now a bio is not a three paragraph detail of what you do, all the awards you’ve gotten. It’s really a two to three sentence snippet. It needs to be succinct who you serve. If you’re a podcast host, if you’re a blogger, include some of those things in there, but it’s really just to give that host a level set short idea of who you are and who you serve.

Then you introduce the topic that you’re pitching and you even see it from the application that I submitted to be on your podcast. We include a couple of bullet points so that the host can envision what that conversation might sound like. That’s really important. Then we just close it out if the guests, or me, if I have been a guest on other shows, I will link to two of them so that they can see, okay, she’s not a total newbie. Other people have recognized her as an authority and she is able to articulate her thoughts in an audio format. I think for me as a podcast host, and I’m sure you too, Megan, when people pitch you, I don’t necessarily want to take a chance on someone that I’ve never been able to hear how they share their ideas.

So then we close it out and it’s not a hard obnoxious close of, I think she would be a great fit, send me over a scheduling link. It really is asking the question of, I would love to get your thoughts on whether or not you think this topic and this guest would be a good fit for your show. That’s very non pressure in the way that we send pitches.

Megan: That is such a great pitch. You talked through some amazing points. One thing I wanted to touch on was the proving that you’ve actually listened to their show. I think this is really important and why it takes a little bit of time. In my opinion, tell me what you think, Angie, but I feel like you can’t just look in your podcast player. Pick one that you’re like, oh, that kind of relates to cooking. So I’m going to apply there. Actually dive into a few of their episodes and listen. You can’t pitch until you’ve actually listened because they might not align with you at all. If you’re pitching them one thing and they’re like, wait a second, that’s not aligning, then it’s totally insincere. So I feel like you’ve got to invest time and actually listen to a few of the episodes. 

Angie: Yeah, it’s interesting that you say that. I think that’s actually an obstacle for a lot of folks to even begin pitching because they build it up to imagine that I have to listen to three episodes of every podcast I pitch. It’s going to take me forever and inside of our co-op, which is our new program that we’re offering. It does teach folks how to pitch themselves. I give a lot of shortcuts on how to do this so that your pitch is still authentic and well aligned, but you don’t have to spend all of this time listening to episodes. Candidly, I get pitches from folks and they will quote a certain episode. I loved episode 32 with Susie Q, but then the topic that they pitch makes zero sense for my show. So I one, don’t believe them. Two would prefer that the pitch topic is more relevant. But that doesn’t take away exactly what you said about the alignment and it really has to do with the energy.

So a really great shortcut to that is, as you were vetting the show and coming up with your topic, just listen to an episode playing in the background. Because you’ll be able to hear the audio quality of the show, right? If you’re starting out, you’re likely not going to pitch the biggest podcast in your space. You might be starting with some that have maybe not been out as long. They’ve been out six months to a year. You still want to be protective of your own brand and reputation and make sure that you’re on shows that you feel proud to share. We always listen in the background because that intro of the podcast can be really informative.

You can get a really great sense of what this host sees as important and valuable, and then you can also poke around on their website to see what’s important to them. What are they getting paid to do? That’s something that’s a great tidbit is look and see how they are monetizing their business? Is it through the podcast? Is it through an offer? Then that will give you an inclination of what’s important to them. You can angle your pitch accordingly. 

Megan: Wow. I love that. Okay. So that is so great because I think you’re right. It can be overwhelming. Why would I ever do this? I’m not getting to invest three hours of my life this week just to figure out if I’m a good fit, but just putting it on. What you said about the energy, it tells all is so true. You can tell within 10 minutes if your energy aligns with the host’s energy. So do it while you’re cooking. Just turn on a few and for 10 minutes each, right? That’s all you would really need to do to know if you’re aligning. Then I love your shortcut of just going to their website, because I think that is a huge factor in just telling you, yes, this is someone who aligns with me or not. So that is great. I’m actually gonna steal that because I can get overwhelmed too. I have a set number of podcasts that I listen to regularly. If I just find one on my player, I’m like, oh, I have to listen to a bunch before I can figure this out. So I really appreciate all of that. Thank you, Angie.

Angie: I think you are saying that is really important for your listeners too, because the people, like what you said, I want to be able to listen. I want to make sure I’m aligned. So the people that would actually spend the time listening to three episodes are the people that we want pitching us. I want people asking to be on my podcast because they really want to show up and deliver value that is aligned and relevant to my listeners. That’s really one of the reasons that I started my program back when I did two years ago, to help people learn to pitch. Because I felt like the people that we actually wanted to be guests, the folks that would actually show up and deliver real value. We’re more intimidated by the process and I wanted to simplify it. So I love you pointing that out because if you’re listening and you’re thinking, oh, I really think I do need to listen to three to four episodes. You are the people that we want pitching because you will be showing up to share your gifts. That’s what we’re all looking for as podcast hosts or should be.

Megan: I just personally would never pitch to be on someone else’s show if I didn’t have a 100% solid yes feeling that it was a good fit. I get pitches quite often that are so not authentic. It’s disconcerting. I just feel like really? You clearly don’t know anything about my podcast. You said this earlier, that they won’t even say the name of the show, which is first of all, like really?? Okay. Say the name of Eat Blog Talk. Show me something that you know about, even anything about food blogging. I have people pitch that know nothing about food blogging. They don’t even know it’s podcasts for food bloggers. 

Angie: That’s what I was going to say too, is for you, I’m picturing even some of our clients and what we’ll do because we will select verticals in specific niches. I actually have a client that I want to connect you with, and I was thinking about this earlier. If I were to pitch her to you, I would make sure in that topic, it included the words food blogger, because it’s very clear that’s who you serve. By omitting it, it doesn’t seem as personal or as relevant of a pitch for your audience. I do feel. The number of pitches that we get that are so off the mark. There have been times when I think, do we spend too much time really personalizing our pitches? Is this working for others? 

Megan: Yes. Clearly it must work some of the time because I feel like I am just part of a copy and paste template that gets put on multiple emails. So I don’t know, maybe it does work for others. I just had one other thing to say about your pitch template that I loved, and that is that you had bullet points. So this is something that I feel really strongly about. When I have guests on the show – I asked Angie, I ask everybody, to provide talking points. I think if you do it upfront, it’s so valuable because providing your own talking points for the topic that you are talking about by the way, takes a load off the host. Because if you’re an expert in this area, then you know it. So why would I provide your talking points? I have actually had people get mad at me because I asked them to provide talking points. 

Angie: People that pitched you?

Megan: I actually reached out to the person I’m thinking of. I reached out to them, ask them if they would love to be a guest. They said, yes. Then I asked them for a couple of talking points and they were irate. They were like, I cannot believe you would ask me to be on your show and then ask me to provide points. I was like, oh my gosh. So I just feel so strongly, if you are the expert and clearly you are, you’re my guest, then you provide those talking points. So doing it within the pitch, I think is super valuable because you’re showing the host that you’re going to show up prepared. Here’s exactly what I’m going to talk through. 

Angie: It’s also nice to have in your back pocket when a host, and we’ve had this before, too, sometimes there’s a form that you have to fill out and it will say, can you give us three to five questions? Sure. We just take those talking points and basically put a question mark. We just make them into a question. So a lot of it helps the implementation side of it, that it just doesn’t take as long to get that ball rolling on scheduling.

Megan: Great pitch. Okay. I wrote all of that down. So this is going to help me, so thank you. I hope you don’t mind that I steal some of this.

Angie: Oh, no, I do this for my show all the time. 

Megan: We’re going to take just a little break. So we will dig back into the conversation after this message. 

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Hey guys, just reminding you to head over to iTunes, if you haven’t already to subscribe, rate and review Eat Blog Talk. It adds value to this podcast when you do that, and I would be so grateful for your time. It will take two minutes. Press pause, go do it and come back and keep listening. 

Angie we’re back and I would love to talk about once you’re actually a guest, what do you think are ways that we can deliver content that’s actually engaging and powerful and something that people want to come and listen to?

Angie: So the biggest thing is incorporating the idea of storytelling. I know in business, we hear about that all the time. Again, I think that also can be really intimidating. Immediately you think I’m not a storyteller, I’m a business owner. I’m a food blogger. But as a blogger, you are telling stories through the work that you create and put out there.

What I mean for podcast interviews is to have some examples, especially in the beginning. So if you haven’t guested on a show before, have a couple of go-to examples that are stories. Whether they are client stories, your own experiences that are tied to some of the topics that you’re anticipating you might speak to. Because anything that you can do to create some level of depth to the information that you’re sharing is really important to help draw the listener in. A podcast interview is so different from a blog post, because you want to make sure it seems conversational for the most part, with the hosts. So there’s a relationship there that you are having. But you also really want to draw the listener in. You don’t want the listener to feel like they’re just eavesdropping on a conversation. You want them to be involved. So anytime that you can, and even earlier in our conversation, I mentioned specifically, so listener, this would be something to think about. Anytime you can draw them in, any time you can share examples, of if it’s a recipe, if you say, in this one blog post that I wrote back in XYZ. Anything you can provide that offers some level of depth is really going to draw the listener in there.

Megan: Oh, I’m writing all that down too. We all love stories, right? We love it. I love it when I start listening to a podcast and someone gets involved in a story and how it can relate to business. I don’t know. A good story is just, there’s nothing like it. So finding those things, do you have an example? How do we find stories that are related to, I don’t know, food? Do we tell a story relating to a kitchen incident? I can just imagine that people listening are like what would I tell if I’m an expert on vegan cooking? How would I relate that to a story? Do you know what I mean? 

Angie: Yeah. So I think it depends on what the angle of the interview is going to be. First you just really have to see. So for this interview, as an example, I knew that I would be talking to food bloggers. So I have stories to tell from my experience, having a blog of my own. So it would really be stories that you just take 10 to 15 minutes before you record. We always recommend doing prep before you get on your podcast interview. That includes getting to know the host and their online presence. I told you before we hit record, I was just listening to one of your episodes beforehand. So getting a sense of what that host might want to talk to you about, ,is really the best way to incorporate just some level of depth in your answers. Just the word storytelling is a little bit intimidating. I have a client, a previous client, Nikki Rousch, who’s a great friend of mine. Her business is the Sales Maven. She’s extraordinary at authentic selling without feeling sleazy. We recorded an episode way back when I launched go pitch yourself about leading listeners to take the next step.

She talked about the idea of planting seeds. So there’s definitely storytelling involved, but if you can plant seeds throughout your interview of the name of your blog, of some specific posts that your people might want to check out, that the new listeners that just discovered you. Some of your top topics that they might want to go back and read. Or if you have a paid offering, planting those seeds, it just, again, helps that listener create a depth. They almost create their own story around you and who you are so that they can imagine you after the interview is over and what your niche is and just how they picture you and your expertise. I don’t know if that seems more approachable than storytelling. 

Megan: I love that. Planting seeds is something, I use that phrase a lot. I just love the concept of planting little seeds in life and conversations. I think that something like this can seem a little intimidating, like you said. How would I think through that? I just want to talk to someone. The more you do it, the better you’re going to be at it. The more you talk to people on the fly like this, the better you get. When I first started podcasting, I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have planted seeds. I would have been like what are you talking about Angie?

But now I’m like, okay. It’s way more natural. It is something that you need to really commit to and just let the process happen and let the magic come from it. 

Angie: It will be uncomfortable in the beginning and you will make mistakes. I remember back in my Meal Planning Mama days, one of my first interviews, the host had asked for my bio and I didn’t have the online bio that we have now.

The bio she used basically included where I went to college and grad school. As she was reading it while we were recording, the other thing is she read the bio and I didn’t realize that people would just read the bio as your intro. As she was reading it, I was like, oh my gosh. Even afterwards, I reached out to say, I can give you a different bio to read if you don’t feel like that one was as relevant to your audience as it should be. But just know weird stuff is going to happen. You just learn from it. 

Megan: Yeah, you’ve got to roll with it and that’s how you get better. You encounter those weird situations and you just deal with it. In the end, it just makes you better.

Angie: And it gives you stories. 

Megan: Yes, it does. You just told us about your bio story. It makes a memory. I always say that when my boys do something weird. I’m like, Hey, you just made a memory. You just made someone smile. They’re going to talk about this forever. So we talked about this a little bit or alluded to it anyway, the whole planting seeds thing. How do you recommend, Angie, that we make the most out of each interview as far as mentioning things that we have to offer or mentioning our website? Do you have strategies for that? 

Angie: So for sure. I would say over the last year, we have seen a bit of a shift in podcast guesting. In the early days I felt like it was an excellent growth tool for email subscribers. But I think everyone in the online business space is sometimes struggling now. It’s not as easy to quote, grow your list, as it used to be. Whereas that was more of a primary focus and almost a primary selling point of being a guest on other people’s podcasts, we still measure that as a metric, but it’s not something that we really lead with when we entertain the idea with potential clients or even when we coach our students through it.

I think it’s important to know what your goal is with guesting. Some of those things it’s not really easy to measure, like the authority building. What is the number that we use to measure our authority in a space? For bloggers, definitely, it would be page views, and I would still recommend definitely you do want to measure the email conversions. Because on some shows we do see a really great growth in email lists. But it’s not always. It could be that you want to grow your Instagram following. So first of all, it’s going into identifying what is most important to you and your business. This kind of comes later. It’s almost like Megan, you talked about let’s get all of some of the uncomfortable mistakes out of the way initially. Then the next layer is really being intentional about what we want that listener to do after they hear us and hopefully fall in love with us. So I always like to recommend offering almost a tiered approach of a call to action at the end. One could just be. Hey, if you like what you’ve heard here and you wouldn’t say it like this, but it’s almost, I like you. I want to get to know you. What’s an easy way that I can stick with you? Maybe that would be you following me on Instagram or maybe that would be to go over to the blog and check that out.

Then you might have another tier. If you really want to stick with me again, that’s not how you would sell it at the end of an interview, but if you want to get more information on how we plan our vegan meals for our family of eight, you can go download this freebie on my website. So that’s a little bit more of a sticky action because they’re giving you an email address. Then I’m also not opposed to offering, Hey, if you want support in doing the thing, this is what I offer. You can go here to get more information on that. So I think first of all, a tiered approach to that idea of a call to action is really important and know that you can plant the seeds throughout the interview for each of those.

Megan: Good strategies. I think finding the pain points for your audience is really important here, because when you can address that and say, I have a freebie, or I have a course, or I have coaching or whatever it is that solves the problem for this pain point you’re having, that’s when people really listen. So I think that is step one. What is the audience and what are they really struggling with? I think that’s where a lot of people get hung up because we offer these blanket solutions, like easy weeknight dinners, which I’m not saying anything bad about, because I love easy weeknight dinners. But getting a little bit more specific than that. Something that really irritates me, and solving that and figuring out what that is. But that’s like a whole other conversation I feel like. 

Angie: It is! But it’s warranted. If you really get into the podcast guesting and you commit this is what I’m going to use as my primary visibility outlet, then it does make sense to take the time to curate something that is very specific for your audience. We’re actually testing with one of our clients right now, and I need to do it for my own business. But rather than offering, here’s one place to go for this, here’s one place to go for that, is just creating one landing page that has all of the different offerings so that you’re just sending them to one space to check it out and connect with you. I really like that idea and the effort of making it simple for the listener. 

Megan: What do you recommend as far as once the interview is done, you’ve made this relationship with this host and hopefully had a good experience. Do you follow up? Do you come back later and ask for a second interview? What do you do from there?

Angie: I think those are all great options. So much in what I see where people fall short in really leveraging these opportunities that they’ve landed. Candidly, it sometimes takes a lot of work to get these interviews accepted and scheduled and recorded. Then sometimes people just after the interview, you never really talk to that person again. I think that’s really should be the starting point of your relationship and obviously share the interview when it goes live. So make sure that, when it goes live, most hosts will let you know. Although we’ve definitely run into others where the interview just goes live and we were never notified.

Megan: Oh, interesting. 

Angie: So actually one of the jobs of my executive assistant is every week, she basically scraps apple podcasts to see if any of the shows that our clients have recorded have gone live and that we had just not been notified about.

Megan: I would never not consider letting my guests know. We always let our guests know, Hey, tomorrow, your episode will be published. That just never occurred to me. Wow. 

Angie: Very eye-opening. So definitely as a guest, make sure that you are sharing the episode across your social platforms. We actually share most of them inside of our every other week email newsletter that goes out to our subscribers. Just because not everyone follows me on Instagram, they might follow me on email and that’s good enough for them. So I really want to do my due diligence in sharing. Then in terms of the relationship, I think it’s great to see, is there an opportunity for me to share this person, this podcast host, with my audience somehow, and it depends on the structure of your business. Maybe you don’t have a podcast, but maybe you offer guest posts on your blog and there is something relevant, or there is a way that you could share that host with your people. It would need to be aligned. I’m not saying create an opportunity that just feels like you’re putting a what is it, a square peg into a round hole. We don’t want to force it, but if there is an opportunity, for sure, invite that person to meet with your audience. Then keep circling back, staying connected with them on social media. Don’t be afraid. So I am a super connector and I know not everyone is built the way that I am, but when I meet people, it’s almost in my brain, I immediately picture others that they should be connected with.

Megan: Oh my gosh. 

Angie: So it’s important for those of us that actually have that ridiculous skill. I don’t even know. I don’t know that it benefits me all the time, but to take that action step and say, Hey Megan, are you familiar with Monica? I think the two of you should really know each other and connect people by email. So I do that a lot when there are hosts that I’ve been connected with that I just fall in love with. I automatically think to connect them with people in my world. So I think it’s really just seeing it as the beginning of a relationship and ways that you can nurture it moving forward.

Megan: I’m glad to know you do that too, because I sometimes feel like I’m a little annoying when I’m like, oh, you should. I feel like that’s all I do is send connection emails. I do this all the time. Hey, you should know this person. I don’t know what this could bring or why I’m introducing you, but it just felt right. Maybe you guys could help each other out. All around, I feel like it’s beneficial to do that. But again, I do feel as if I’m slightly annoying them sometimes. 

Angie: I do too, but I don’t know if I have an official canned response in my email because I do it so often, but I have shared it. I remember being on a coaching call with some students who said they wanted to introduce people. They asked, do you have a template for that? I actually ended up sharing it because I think it’s important for both you and I to recognize that’s just something we do, but it also comes back to serve us. It does serve other folks who might not think the way that we do. I really like helping them grow their network. So I see it as a service. 

Megan: No, I agree with that. It is. It’s valuable because not everybody thinks that way and not everybody acts on it too. Can I just say this? I love people who I’ve had on my show, who follow up with me. I love that, when they come back and they’re like, I don’t know, just anything. Oh, I was listening to this other episode or, Hey, it was really great to talk to you and I loved our conversation. Or yeah, I’ve thought of this new connection that you could be aligned with or whatever it is. I absolutely love it. It makes me so happy and I copy and paste all of my followup emails and put them in a document because I call it my document of awesomeness and I just love looking through there and it’s nerdy, but it just makes me happy. 

Angie: I think it’s important that you said that because a lot of folks will ask, should I send a gift? If I’ve been on someone’s show, should I send a card? I was on a show before and they sent it like a gift box; it was amazing. But again, to me, it over-complicates this connection, right? This avenue of connecting with someone and their audience. It might be a little intimidating, if you’re not a gift giver by nature. So really the fact that what sparks joy for you is having guests reach back out and circle back and stay connected. I just want the listeners to know that you don’t have to have this massive follow up plan. It just needs to be, Hey, we need a really human connection and we’re going to keep it alive. 

Megan: One email and one sentence is all. That makes me as happy as a basket of fruit. I think a simple email is all I need. It’s just, I love that. I love talking to you, Angie. I feel like we could go on and on. I was telling you earlier that I talk so much about food blogging that when I can actually talk to someone about podcasting, it’s really exciting because I don’t often do that. My world is so centered on food blogging. So I love it when we can marry these two things too, because they really can, podcasting really can benefit food bloggers businesses. I know this is a really new concept to wrap our heads around, but I feel really strongly about this. If you’re a food blogger, I encourage you to try it. Find an area of expertise that you just love talking about. We all have it. There’s something there. You probably have five things you could think of right now. Take your top thing and pitch it to one of your favorite podcasts that maybe aligns. Pitch it to me. If there’s something that aligns with food blogging, come here. I would love to have you as a guest on my show. This would be a great practice because it’s easy here, right? Like you guys hear me and know me, my format and my style.

So do it here first and then take that and do it other places and just get really good at it. Get good at talking about that thing that you love so much. Do you have any encouragement, Angie? I feel like you could really deliver some encouragement too, as far as getting food bloggers out of their comfort zone and doing something like this.

Angie: It’s interesting, because, and this is from the last 18 months. I’m based in the US and I have two school aged children, and we ended up homeschooling last year. I was in a mastermind call. It was a peer mastermind that I created with two of my great business friends. I was really considering it. It shifted my business, needing to pivot, to make space for how home life had changed. I was going over all of these different ways that I could make that pivot. My friend said, Angie, here’s the thing. You can do all of these things. It wasn’t so much that she said it in a way, you know how you’ve heard people say you can do all the things, but you need to choose. The way that she angled it to me was, you are able and capable of doing every single one of these things that you have come up with, but you can’t do all of them. 

For me, It was really the nuance, and I’m saying this because I know in the blogging space, I remember when I had a blog, there was one point that I was talking to my best friend. I’m like, I have all these ideas and she had me make this post-it note wall of all of my ideas. It was so overwhelming. So I’m saying this to you as a listener, as someone who has gone through it. You are very likely capable and well-qualified to do all of those things. You could choose them and be very successful at them, but you can’t actually do them all and be successful. So I don’t know if the nuance is clear enough in what I’m sharing, but it’s really that you can do it. You are capable. I feel like I, owning that I could be successful, that the success was already there. I just needed to decide what it was going to look like for me, was really the shift that I needed. 

Megan: Oh, wow. That was well said. So well said.

Angie: It seemed really jumbled. 

Megan: No, it wasn’t. I, that was really encouraging and motivating and you guys can do it. You guys are awesome. Food bloggers are amazing. I just have to say that. They can do so much. They can do everything. They have 19 different jobs that they can do on a regular basis. So when it comes to putting your voice out on audio, you can do that. You put yourself on video. There are so many things that you can do, and this is one of them. Podcasting is not going anywhere. It’s only getting more popular and more people are consuming podcasts every day. So get on this train and get your voice out into the world. Become a fluent speaker on your topic of choice. It’s only going to benefit you. I just like to ask you before we start wrapping up, is there anything that you feel like we missed before we say goodbye?

Angie: I don’t think so. I think just the idea, like you said, stepping into it, using your voice. It’s helpful for obvious visibility and authority, but also it really helps you flesh out your expertise and your positioning in the niche where you are. For me, when I started guessing before I ever hosted a show, and it was one of the best ways for me to recognize, what do other people see me as an authority in? What questions do they have? It actually helped me create better content because I got someone else asking questions rather than me envisioning what my audience would want to hear from me. I just say blogging and podcasting are so related in that content marketing field, that to me, it’s a natural transition over.

Megan: Oh, and I just have to say real quick that a common hangup I think, is like the equipment and getting set up. I always like to just squash that concern because it’s a non-issue. It is so easy to create a podcast. I knew nothing. I bought this microphone that plugs into my computer. I already had the software on my computer because I have Adobe products. Literally pressed record. I pull up Skype and press record there. That is it. Editing is way simpler than video editing. That’s a non-issue. If that is something that you guys are concerned about. Email me, if you are concerned about that and what microphone do I get? That is something that I can help you with. So check that off the list. Okay. Angie, this was so fun. I loved this conversation. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing this awesome value with food bloggers. We all appreciate you. Before you go. Do you have words of wisdom beyond what you’ve already shared with us? I feel like you’ve shared so many wise words or a favorite quote that food bloggers might enjoy?

Angie: Yeah. I think it really just goes back to that idea of you can do all the things. The more that you can hone in on which ones really bring you joy, it’s going to make all the difference in your business.

Megan: Awesome. While we will put together a show notes page for you, Angie. If anyone wants to go peek at those, you can go to eatblogtalk.com/angietrueblood. Angie, why don’t you tell everyone where they can find you online? If you have anything to offer yourself, you can mention that now.

Angie: Absolutely. So obviously the podcast. So if you were intrigued by the idea of guesting on other folks’ shows and even stepping into podcasting on your own, The Go Pitch Yourself podcast is a great place to start. I’m also fairly active on Instagram at Angie_Trueblood. Then we are actually launching a new product. It is more of a membership model than what we have done in the past. So I’ve had a course for a couple of years called Go Pitch Yourself, teaching folks how to pitch themselves for interviews. What I have found and you alluded to it is that the podcasting space changes so rapidly. Honestly, Podcast guesting, I see it all the time as a gateway drug into other forms of visibility and then hosting your own show. I thought, you know what? We need a space where people who are invested in the podcasting space, whether it’s as a host or a guest, can really come together and learn, and be held accountable. So what we’re launching is the Podwize Co-op and it is for small business owners who are committed to leveraging podcasts to grow their brand in some way. Your folks can go and check it out over angietrueblood.com slash/coop C O O P, which looks like coop, but it’s co-op. but they can go and check that out if it’s something that they might be interested in joining.

Megan: Such great offering. Thank you for that. I loved your gateway drug comment. That made me laugh. It’s so true though. It is. That’s the best descriptor ever. So thanks again, Angie, so much for being here. Everyone go check Angie out and everything she has to offer. I’m personally going to go listen to your podcast today. So that is on my list. So thank you again, and thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro: We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk.


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Megan
Megan

Megan started her food blog Pip and Ebby in 2010 and food blogging has been her full-time career since 2013. Her passion for blogging has grown into an intense desire to help fellow food bloggers find the information, insight, and community they need in order to find success.

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