Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

I'm excited to be here. I think this is gonna be a really fun show prep guest booking segment here. I've been doing the creatively titled Jordan Harbinger Show for a really long time and I really, I think that for what we're looking at today having podcasted for a dozen years there's a little bit less that I'm gonna lean on from 12 years ago and more that I'm gonna lean on in terms of data, right. Things have changed a lot. In fact, speaking of changes even since last night I've checked my stats again and it's 4.7 downloads every month. I don't expect you to split hairs on that but I thought that illustrates really well how quickly this landscape can really change depending on what you're doing, right. One day there can be a new tool for everybody to use, another day there's a new set of stats everyone's looking at, and everything you knew about podcasting just goes straight out the window. So 4.7 million downloads per month sounds really great and then you divide it all up into these ...

little numbers which I will show you how to do later and then suddenly you realize this is a mountain you too can climb. The Jordan Harbinger Show is consistently in the top 100 in the U.S., Canada, Australia, so I like to think that that means that everybody who speaks English likes the show at least a little bit. I have over a decade worth of data to share and I'm not gonna do 10 years worth of data in this presentation so don't worry. But I do want to discuss how you're going to grow your show, how you're gonna book great guests for your show if that's one of the angles that you're gonna use for content development, and I want you to be able to create a show that other people actually want to hear because one of my cardinal rules for doing a podcast in the first place is don't do it unless you wouldn't care if anyone listened but I think we all kind of know that it's really more fun if at least someone is listening to what you're doing and what you're creating as long as we don't get hung up on that. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I want to make sure that this is useful for you. So does that set of topics sound useful so far? Yes. Great, okay. How many of you plan to have guests on your show at some point just by show of hands? Literally everyone except for one person in the back who's too shy to raise their hand, great, I'm with you. Totally my people right there. Do you feel like you have to have big-name guests? I have to have somebody important to give my show gravitas or maybe to get attention. Is that something that's in your way? Yeah, I know a lot of people struggle with that and a lot of people are embarrassed to admit that because they want everything to stand on it's own. My work stands on it's own and I totally dig that. However I think there's also a lot of maybe not quite FOMO but the idea like well, this other person who started when I started, they got a big-deal person so I have to get a big-deal person to compete. And that's something that doesn't necessarily go away. I do urge you to resist that because it can be a race to the bottom. Before you know it you're having reality TV show stars from the 90s as a guest on a show about some sort of technical topic that you use to love doing and then suddenly you realize you hate podcasting and you never wanna do it again. So make sure that you resist that impulse. But I will show you how to do this regardless just in case it is something you wanna indulge in at some point. And if you're running a smaller show, how many of you have shows already going? Okay, so quite a few people. Do you feel like getting big-name guests is impossible, really difficult, you have no idea where to start? I think that's pretty common. In fact, that's another thing that doesn't necessarily go away at some point. I know a couple of people, even people that are in this course have toyed with the idea of paying show bookers and Hollywood types to book guests for their show. And one person who shall remain nameless, it's not me, I promise, paid somewhere around 60 grand for a retainer for a publicity firm and they booked a whopping total of zero guests for that show over a six-month period. And we were all not very encouraged by that. So it is a problem that I think can be overcome. It's something that I've managed to do over the last decade and change and I wanna show you some tips and tricks on how to do that because it is fun to have a celebrity on the show. It's only not fun getting them there in the first place. How many people feel like prep is also a little bit overwhelming, like oh, there's so much info. Where do I look? Do I just print out their Wikipedia? Okay, cool. You gotta prep and then you gotta remember that while you have a hundred other things to do like making sure the record button is still lit for the 87th time because sometimes they just turn off spontaneously. You never know. And I used to think that way too. I've solved all these problems and a lot more in surprisingly simple ways that I'm gonna teach you here today in this class segment here. So moving right along, by the end of this segment you will know how to book great guests. You'll use systems to keep track of your workflow, keep track of your outreach so that you're not just shooting off cold emails to publicists a million times a day and not getting any responses. And you'll have systems for keeping in touch with people whether they're guests or other podcasters or other people in your network. I really want you to be able to leverage other folks that may be in this room right here today, other people that you connect with over years because one thing that podcasting is really, really good for is building a network. And its one of the reasons I started doing this in the first place not knowing that being one of the first 800 shows in Apple Podcast would even be. When we got started I thought no one's gonna ever find us. There's 800 shows in here. It's ridiculously impossible. Now I think there's 500,000 shows in Apple Podcast and I think average of 2,000 new shows per week are submitted. Don't worry, everyone quits so it's not really that many active shows. But you won't quit because you'll have the insider knowledge on how to make it fun and exciting for yourself. So we'll have those systems rocking and rolling and that I think is going to keep you in the game for longer because it's kind of a friction thing, right. The more you have in front of, the more hurdles you have in front of you the more likely you are to go I'm just tired, though, and I don't wanna do these seven really annoying things. So if they're automated, if they're systemized you can pack all of the annoying stuff into a Monday morning and then the rest of the month is kind of cool and free and clear which is my ideal scenario for you as well. So I'll show you as well how to prep a great interview. I think that if you're gonna have guests and interview them which not everyone is, you wanna make sure that you know what you're doing but you also want the guest to think that was totally worth my time. I will go on this person's show again or I will refer my friends to this person's program as opposed to going why do I do these again? I'm never doing a show again. It's better for the whole ecosystem of podcasting because everyone knows that the reason that so-and-so didn't come on your show last time is because they went on this other person's show, ruined it for everyone. So we're going to teach you how not to do that and as well, it's great to have regular recurring guests come back, speak kindly of your show. It helps build your audience and it helps make getting the next guest and the next guest that much easier. I also wanna show you which sources to use, how to outline a great show, keep everyone including the audience and the guest engaged. That'll build your reputation as a host of course. And if you don't learn this stuff and practice it regularly you might struggle for a really long time. And I think in the beginning I had the luxury of kind of not caring. It was just like a hobby. I was an attorney, who cares. No one listens to podcasts. Every time I say that I have one I have to explain what it is. They don't know what an iPhone looks like. So I mean that was the space we were dealing with back then. Now it's a little different but you still wanna make sure that you don't struggle, that you don't grind any much. I mean I think that grind is a bad word. I really hate using it. It really is kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It's like networking, another word I'm gonna use a bunch during this class. But we wanna make it less work, more fun, how's that. So you'll also flail around during your interviews if you have to keep everything in here. So I'm gonna show you some systems and sources and resources and the way that I outline. And I gave you that outline with a bunch of homework on it so you're welcome, everyone loves homework. (audience laughing) So we wanna make sure that we get all of this done. And it seems like a lot but it's gonna be fun and I promise you it's gonna make your life a lot easier if you're doing this for the next couple of months or years. And even if you don't plan on doing interviews, you don't plan on having guests, you're still gonna need all the skills that I teach for relationship development, networking, and everything to grow your audience, to grow your stable of colleagues in Podcast Land as well. And I highly recommend using the relationship building and development and networking drills and exercises in your personal and profession life outside of your podcast because this stuff was a game changer for me. It's all the stuff I wish I knew 15 years ago. It's saved my bacon on numerous occasions and helped me get some really good opportunities including this one that I never really saw coming. In fact, the reason that I'm here was I did some outreach and I was hitting up somebody who worked at Creative Live that I haven't talked to since I think last year when I did one of these. And she said oh, it's great that you should email me. I was just looking for your new address. We're doing Podcast Week. Do you wanna come? That's why I'm here. So this stuff actually works. I'm not just teaching you stuff I made up on the car ride here from the airport.