Starting a Podcast is the Fastest Way to Meet the Best

Starting a Podcast is the Fastest Way to Meet the Best

The Online Business world is filled with scammy scams, hopefully you’ve never been a victim of them but it’s out there.

People selling worthless “info” products or creepy MLM schemes that sound amazingly good but rarely pan out. Sometimes it’s hard to rise above the fold, but here’s a simple way you can start succeeding online or offline.

Start interviewing the best around.

When I say that, I mean, starting a podcast. It doesn’t need to be a 6-figure business or a 5-star rated show, that’s not the point.

You’re actually doing it for a very selfish reason which I’ll get to in a second.

Think about it, if you reach out to a successful person you know online, a Pat Flynn, Andrew Warner etc. and ask them for an hour of their time to talk, you’ll get a NO, a very nice no to be fair. Their time is mega-valuable and if they took 1 hour for every person that asked, they’d be 150 years old before they finally got around to their own projects.

Thus, you need a better way to POSITION yourself in their minds. Remember positioning is one of the keys to negotiation and persuasion.

You actually present it as a way to let them market and promote themselves for free. In their minds, they chat with you for an hour and than you have their name, face etc. on your site and promoting it without them having to do anything! Of course some will do it out of goodwill, but we all have selfish interests at heart, as bad as that sounds.

It’s a slam dunk for them. Now, I’m not going to say that everyone agrees to be on your show, especially when you start out you’ll get rejected many times. Heck, I’m sure Andrew Warner and John Dumas get rejected and they have some of the best podcasts around!

Here’s a sample email I sent to Pat Flynn the DAY we released.  We had zero traffic, a small sample of downloads but was still able to nab someone as busy and successful as Pat (being a nice guy helped to in Pat’s case) but we used this type of email for many other high profile guests.

Why You Need to Start One Today, JUNIOR

I’m not going to go into the How of starting a podcast, there’s many resources for that.  This is a WHY piece as that’s the important part.  Remember, even if your intention is for your show to sit at the bottom of the iTunes sea never to be seen, you need to start a podcast for the Whys.

1. Build Your Personal Brand: I’ve harped on the importance of this my fingers might bleed from all the typing.  You’re putting yourself out into the internet world and showing the chops that you have with speaking, formulating ideas and sharing ideas with others.  People like people who share, that’s what you’re doing.
2. Credibility: In whatever niche you dive into, you get to rub elbows with some notable figures in the space.  In other words, you get to be seen with successful people.  When others see you getting to hang out with successful people, their perception of you goes way up!  They trust you more, they feel you know what you’re talking about.  That’s influence that many will never have, you have access to it.
3. Speaking Skills: Maybe it’s not technically public speaking but you get a chance to record yourself speak.  When you public speak you need to think on your feet and this is the perfect opportunity, take advantage of it.
4. Consulting: This is the key reason to start a podcast.  It’s the selfish reason I mentioned. You’re getting FREE consulting and able to ask whatever you want.  Having problems starting a business? Bring on the best to help you.  You still need to provide great value as your guests are smart enough to smell a rat, but get your burning questions out.  All the mistakes they made you can avoid.
5. BEST REASON: Provide Value to Others:  SYKE! You think I was just being selfish right?  This is the best reason to start a podcast.  You get to give back to others.  Generosity is the theme of this game, those who give, get!  It costs very little to do it as well and you don’t even need to come up with the theme.  With blog posts you need to think up a post idea, do the research, write it up.  It gets Exhausting! Here, you do research but just to get background info.  Everything else falls into place later and you can switch up the direction of the content in a second.  It’s exciting.

Have I convinced you? Remember, even if you don’t want to be #1 in iTunes, this is still a smart move.  Head over to the podcast at Entrepreneur Showdown to get the ideas going!