Podcast Guesting Strategies for Coaches

I am really getting into podcast guesting this year, and wanted to get all the expert advice I could get access to.

I recently had a conversation with Tom Matzen, a master of turning podcast appearances into golden opportunities, and he shed light on some eye-opening podcast guesting strategies!

So, if you’ve been wondering what secret sauce you’ve been missing, watch this video and discover the roadmap to using podcasts in ways you probably never thought of.

 Be sure to Grab his FREE Podcast Directory of over 940+ Podcasts! 

The full transcript of our conversation is right below, and I promise, it’s packed with insights you don’t want to miss.

Milana Leshinsky: Welcome, everybody, and welcome, Tom Matzen. I’m so happy to have you as a guest. This is a one of a kind interview I’m doing. I always was like, oh, I wish I had a podcast so I could bring Tom in because the topic is really hot. I always talk about how coaches need to learn how to do this, and I’m also very interested in this topic.

Milana Leshinsky: We’re gonna talk about podcast guesting. Podcast guesting is a way to grow your coaching business, attract more clients. And I’m just gonna start introducing you. But I just wanna tell people how I know you. Many years ago, in another life, I used to run a company called the JV Insider Circle, and you came to one of my events.

Milana Leshinsky: And that’s where we met. You actually were a sponsor and that was almost 8 years ago. And last week, we met again, and I was so happy to see you, Tom, because it’s very rare that I meet people in person that I also know online. So it was a pleasure to hang out with you for 3 days at the event. And you’re very impressive.

Milana Leshinsky: You have so many ideas and businesses, and there’s 1 specific thing that you are currently the area of topics that you are an expert on and that you’ve been really working on is podcast and podcast guesting. So let me just first ask you, who are you and what do you do? I wanna hear your way of introducing yourself.

Tom Matzen: Well, thank you so much, and I appreciate the invitation. It was great to reconnect with you and even share a hug.

Tom Matzen: It’s something that, you know, Zoom doesn’t quite No. The part, does it? It’s not the same. Although it’s amazing when you meet someone you’ve been you know for years on Zoom and you do know them. It’s not like you feel you know them.

Tom Matzen: You know them. Right? You know them.

Milana Leshinsky: The hugs are just a little bit better after you meet on Zoom.

Tom Matzen: Way better. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And we we love JVIC, and and JVX did it for several years.

Tom Matzen: I was running the strategic alliance summit at the same time, started a couple years before, and I just thought it was such an incredible event. Because, you know, if you think about it, for everyone tuning in, if you’re a coach, a consultant, an expert, 1 of the fastest ways to grow your business is by having other leaders promote you to their audience. Right? That’s what podcasting is. Right?

Tom Matzen: That’s what radio is. That’s what lead magnets or giveaways can be. They’re a way for you to accelerate your reach, your impact, your influence, and, ultimately, your income in the process. And so I love it. You know, I’ve been an entrepreneur for 38 years now, made and lost millions multiple times at 93 businesses.

Milana Leshinsky: Oh my god.

Tom Matzen: 10 of them to 7 figures and beyond, but most not to 7 figures and beyond. And a big part of what I’ve learned along the way are, how do I avoid the mistakes that I did early on in my career, and how can we help other entrepreneurs get results faster? And podcasting is something that ever since it first started, I got involved in. I did a lot of radio interviews, a lot of TV interviews, a lot of press interviews.

Tom Matzen: And this podcast thing came along, and I thought, oh, it’s just like that. It’s just like radio. And I learned very quickly, it’s not just like radio at all. It’s very, very different. And I’m sure we can dig in a bit of the story because it was pretty dramatic when I first learned that 1 the hard way.

Milana Leshinsky: Yes. Yes. I don’t know the difference, but we’re not gonna get into it too much. All I can say is that I can always tell when somebody has a radio voice, like, deep, confident, flowing. I’m still having to get my ums and ahs out of my talk, but you seem to be, like, very, you know, very confident and polished when you speak.

Milana Leshinsky: So it’s gotta come from that radio hosting for years for you.

Tom Matzen: Yeah. A lot of radio background. A lot of interviews on radio. And as my mom would say, I have the face for radio. So thank you, mom.

Tom Matzen: Thank you, mom. I appreciate that. No. She never said that. That’s just a joke.

Milana Leshinsky: Let’s jump right in. So we talk about podcast guesting. So when you are a guest on other people’s podcast, give me, like, 3 top reasons for why coaches would want to do podcast guesting, Tom.

Tom Matzen: So the first thing is to understand that for most of us, we kinda guest in a show because we think we’re gonna get some prospects, some clients, right, and from the audience, from the people listening in.

Tom Matzen: And I gotta tell you, there’s over 1.2 million active podcasts. There are 4 million podcasts, but only 1.2 million have published shows in the last 90 days. The first thing to realize is that the vast majority of shows that starts sputter out. And part of the reason is the shows aren’t making money, so it becomes a passion play that’s difficult to sustain. And then the next big challenge is we think it’s the audience.

Tom Matzen: Well, I learned when we were doing research for this business when we bought Steve Olster’s New Media Summit and all of his assets last year, 29 downloads is the average of those 1.2 million shows. That means 50 percent of all the active shows have less than 29 people listening to them.

Milana Leshinsky: Wow.

Tom Matzen: So it’s not about the audience. In fact, when I got my first big audience show, they averaged 12 million downloads a show.

Tom Matzen: It was this incredible J. V. Crum III. Some of your some of your people will know J. V. Crum, conscious millionaire, this incredible show now millions and millions and millions of downloads, over a hundred million downloads. And I’d landed my first big show with J.V., and we hit it off. We did our green room interview. We loved it.

Tom Matzen: We went double time in the show. He plugged my lead magnet, which was my most popular lead magnet ever, multiple times. I mentioned it multiple times, and we didn’t get 12 million downloads. We got 13 and a half million. It was amazing.

Tom Matzen: And I got 32 opt ins.

Milana Leshinsky: I expected that.

Tom Matzen: 32. Not 32000, which is what I thought I would get. Right?

Tom Matzen: Or 32 million or whatever. It’s like 32 total downloads. And that’s when I realized podcast is different. It’s a different beast than radio. If I’ve had 13 million listeners on radio, I know how many I would have got.

Tom Matzen: But podcast is an intimate environment. Right? It’s not broadcast. It’s like a 1 on 1 conversation like we’re having here, much more like that. And so that started me down a path.

Tom Matzen: I didn’t realize at the time, the solution that we now teach, thanks to Sheryl Plouffe and her brilliance on this subject. But I knew that the conventional idea of it’s all about the audience wasn’t the solution. And so I began a journey to try and figure out what is the solution, and that’s what we do now with our all of our team.

Milana Leshinsky: Yeah. You’re kind of putting the whole idea of podcasting and podcast guesting on its head for me a little bit because as I was driving or flying back from the event that both you and I just attended, I was thinking, oh my god.

Milana Leshinsky: I met so amazing people, so many amazing people. I wish I had a podcast to interview them and give them exposure and build my audience and grow my email list, but I don’t want 32 opt ins from 39.

Tom Matzen: No kidding. And yet the idea is this is excellent because what happens in that 20, 30, 45 minute discussion is you get to if you choose to, you get to know more about them, what drives them, what challenges they’ve had in their life, what they’re working on now, what’s exciting about where they’re going. You’re building what you and I would call in JV world a high trust relationship.

Tom Matzen: And that’s actually the number 1 benefit of being a guest in a podcast is you get to if you do it right, you get to build a high trust relationship with the host. And if you have a show and you’re listening to this, you get to build high trust relationship with your guest. Number 1 benefit. It’s not the business spin off stuff that comes more sequentially later. It’s the building of that high trust relationship, especially if you get strategic.

Tom Matzen: And I know we’re gonna talk about that because you guys are coaches. You wanna be able to get clients. You need to be strategic about the time you make. It’s always great to build high trust relationships, but if it’s not strategic, if it’s not what I call 1 plus 1 is 11, right, then it’s it’s not really worth your time to do it, frankly.

Milana Leshinsky: So there’s a lot of it seems like there’s a lot of factors to creating a winning podcast where you have a large audience and everybody wants to be on your podcast.

Milana Leshinsky: I don’t necessarily want to do a podcast. I wanna be a podcast guest, but I always saw that as an opportunity to get exposure and those opt ins to my lead magnets. You’re saying, Milana, you can’t do 7 figures from a podcast audience. So where does the money come from? Where do the opportunities come from?

Milana Leshinsky: You started talking about that as a relationship building tool. Say more about that.

Tom Matzen: Yeah. We call this the Triple P monetization strategy, and this is how you make money off your guesting. I’ve done 7 figures as a guest.

Tom Matzen: We teach people how to build 7 figures leveraging their podcast. Oh, hello. Thumbs up sign. That’s funny. The middle of the Mac, it gives me the automatic reinforcement.

Tom Matzen: Thank you, Mac. But but oh, that’s funny. So here’s the key. We call it Tripe P.

Tom Matzen: The first P is your patrons.

Tom Matzen: The second P and I know you’re not supposed to give the list on advance, but I’m a notetaker. So if you’re a notetaker, your first one is patrons. The second one is partners. The third one is platforms. We can talk about each of them because they’re the key to actually monetizing your podcast or your podcast guest experience.

Tom Matzen: Same thing. Right? Patrons is the first one. Most people know that as your clients. Right?

Tom Matzen: Sharing your client’s successes. So, you know, if you’ve got your own show, you can interview your successful clients and they talk about all the results they got and how amazing Milana is and how amazing Tom is and how they help me overcome all these challenges.

Tom Matzen: Right? Most people know that already, but it also gives you a platform to go even deeper with them and talk about their challenges that they’ve overcome and humanize the experience. Right? It’s very different than radio.

Tom Matzen: Radio, you don’t get a chance to do that hardly at all. Right? I love talking about mistakes I’ve made and the lessons learned from it because, frankly, I’d rather you learn from my mistakes than your own mistakes. It’s way less painful, and I’ve made a lost millions multiple times. Some of those lessons are so powerful that you could hear a piece of it and go, oh, I don’t wanna do that.

Tom Matzen: Yeah. I’m gonna learn from that 1. And and also my experience because I’ve been at this so long and worked with over 10000 businesses, you’re gonna learn that mistake 1 way or the other.

Milana Leshinsky: Right.

Tom Matzen: One way or the other, you’re gonna learn it.

Tom Matzen: So you might as well learn, in my opinion, from other people’s mistakes rather than your own.

Milana Leshinsky: So say some more about the partners

Tom Matzen: Partners. And so you call them joint ventures back in that day. I call them strategic alliances. I see joint ventures as a subset of strategic alliances because, you know, joint venture, I’ve got something you promote it or you’ve got something I promote it.

Tom Matzen: It can be very transactional. But, you know, the best relationships go far beyond the transactional side. Right? They get you get to know people and serve them. I’m helping serve your audience with some powerful information.

Tom Matzen: Right? It’s not a marketing opportunity for me. It’s an opportunity to serve your tribe, and that helps you and your tribe, and that’s a win-win on my side. So partners are all about who can you build high trust relationships with that have ways to serve you, not necessarily instantly but ultimately.

Tom Matzen: They could be promotional partners for sure but they could be content providers that become part of your program later on, or they could be people that become advisers to your board. You saw and I did at this event.

Tom Matzen: We were at several soulful leaders that had tremendous insight and tremendous experience. And in that setting, you had a chance to talk to them 1 on 1. Well, I was exchanging a conversation with 1 of the leaders that was there who’s done over 30 million in sales in our space. And I was sharing a new thing we were testing and the results we are getting, and he was flabbergasted. And I basically said, well, hey.

Tom Matzen: If you wanna know how to do it, just give me a call anytime. I’ll be happy to share. Well, I sell that advice for 25000 dollars. I’m not gonna sell it to this guy. He’s a heavy hitter influencer in our space.

Tom Matzen: I’m gonna give it to him on a platter. Hope he uses it because he’ll become a raving fan of Tom and the team that we build. So partners, sometimes we think so transactionally in partners. Right? Just promotional partners.

Tom Matzen: That’s part of it. But the best partnerships come where you’re helping serve their audience or their tribe or that person. And then down the road, they’ll serve back, but it doesn’t have to be literally a tit for tat reciprocation. There are lots and lots of ways. 1 of my mentors Brian Kurt says, you there’s 5 ways to get paid.

Tom Matzen: Money is number 5. Because especially when we’re coaching, we’re thinking, yeah, but I need to get clients. I need to get clients. Yeah.

Tom Matzen: Well, you know what you need? You need a bunch of raving fans in your world more than you need clients because the raving fans are the ones that can really be game changers going forward. Does that make sense?

Milana Leshinsky: I love that. No.

Milana Leshinsky: Raving fans is more important because I noticed even Mark Porteous, once he loves you, he becomes your raving fan. Nancy Jones

Tom Matzen: Oh my gosh. Right?

Milana Leshinsky: Once she loves you, she talks about you. It’s the people who just have that in their personalities.

Milana Leshinsky: Just I am a raving fan of you. I’m gonna talk you up, and I’m gonna talk about you all the time and a lot and to everybody.

Tom Matzen: Yes.

Milana Leshinsky: I love that idea.

Tom Matzen: And for those who don’t like to sell, stereotypically, it’s way better because raving fans do the selling for you.

Milana Leshinsky: Yes. Right.

Tom Matzen: If you met Milana in this coaching, I’ve told, like, 4 people about Coaching Genie, since you and I talked about it. I didn’t know you were doing it. I hadn’t heard about it.

Tom Matzen: I hadn’t heard a thing about it. I should have, but I hadn’t. And so you told me about it. I got on the site. I took a look.

Tom Matzen: I’m like, oh, this looks fantastic. And I told 4 people since you and I talked about it, and I have no idea if they become clients or not, but all of a sudden, it opened up a whole new world for me to share with other people because I trust your judgment and experience in this space. I haven’t even looked at the software yet, but I trust your judgment and experience. And for you and me, that’s way more important than the actual software. Right?

Tom Matzen: Do you trust their wisdom in that situation? Same with doing interviews like this. You’re not gonna invite someone in that you don’t know what’s going on.

Milana Leshinsky: So when you say partners, do you mean that podcast guesting the main opportunity is that you get to build a relationship with a potential JV partner or strategic alliance partner.

Tom Matzen: I say yes to every single podcast interview I can.

Tom Matzen: And I get asked to be booked on shows that have 0 audience, brand new shows. I’m part of their 4 and or 12. I still say yes. They’re transparent. They tell me about it.

Tom Matzen: They’re really nervous. Like, you got a big list. I’m pretty sure you wanted that. I can’t mail for every person on every show that I’m on, but I can offer great valuable content, and I can build trust with the host. So if you think of it from the point of view of how can you build trust with the host, well, you can shatter some myths on air.

Tom Matzen: You can give them valuable content. You can have a handout that their tribe benefits from. It doesn’t have to be an opt in that you capture an email always. In fact, you really wanna stick out, offer it free without an opt in, and the people are like, oh my god. That’s amazing.

Tom Matzen: Right? People think so transactional when they should be thinking, my job is to make you look good. I’m only successful in this interview if every 1 of you listening says to Milana, that was awesome. Thank you so much.

Tom Matzen: That’s when I look at a call like this. Not what is Tom gonna get out of it? How many opt ins is Tom gonna get? No. No. No.

Tom Matzen: How can I serve and elevate the host? That’s the other part. And I learned this from radio. When if you do radio interviews, this is 1 of the things that’s the same as podcast.

Tom Matzen: Your job is to make the host look good. In radio, we would add to their boss.

Milana Leshinsky: Mhmm.

Tom Matzen: Their boss because everyone radio’s got a boss somewhere. In podcasting, it’s not to the boss because they usually are the boss.

Tom Matzen: It’s usually the show. Right? But your job is to make them look good. Make them look good, not make you look good. And a lot of people have that backwards.

Tom Matzen: Right? They’re looking to pitch when they get on shows. And you know what happens with that? You don’t get invited back. That’s for sure.

Milana Leshinsky: I wanna come back to this in just a moment, but I wanna finish the list. So we have have patrons, which are your clients, partners, who are your promotional referral, JV partners, strategic alliance partners, and then you said platforms. What is that about?

Tom Matzen: Platforms. This is really cool.

Tom Matzen: Do they have a platform where they can elevate you? Sometimes that’s a live in person event, like Mark’s event that you and I just came from. Sometimes that’s a live virtual event. There’s lots of those out there. Sometimes it’s a summit, a virtual summit.

Tom Matzen: Sometimes, you know, you started telesummits back in the day. Now they’re all on Zoom but that’s still a form of a platform. Sometimes they have collaborative books. Right? Sometimes they have a tribe or a high end mastermind.

Tom Matzen: I make a lot of money speaking, a lot from speaking, especially when I make offers. But if anyone runs a high end mastermind and they want me to contribute some value to their high end mastermind, I never charge for that ever because the room is filled with fascinating people. Why would I put a barrier to helping fascinating people grow their business? Doesn’t make any sense. So think of platforms beyond just the obvious ones, but find out what sort of platforms they have.

Tom Matzen: Any good podcast host will have a pre interview before you do the interview. Some people call it the green room. Sometimes it’s a separate call. Sometimes it’s just 5 or 10 minutes before you have your call. And so you wanna take advantage of that time to get to know them.

Tom Matzen: Right? Ask who is their audience? Who is this going out to? Like, I found this is going out to the Coaching Genie newsletter. Right?

Tom Matzen: So that’s a type of an audience. It’s Milana’s raving fans that are on our newsletter. So I’m aware of that as we’re talking. How can I make it helpful to all of those people? You need to do the same thing.

Tom Matzen: You wanna find out what are the platforms that are there. And guess what? You can do homework. You may not know the person. You can get on doctor Google, as I like to call it, and do a bunch of homework.

Tom Matzen: And in about 20 minutes, you can learn all sorts of information, good, bad, ugly, about almost anyone nowadays, right? And don’t believe everything you see on the internet. I know that’s a shock to some of you, but some of that’s not exactly accurate. But you can find out all kinds of information very quickly. And when you’re a guest, you’re not gonna put the host on the spot, but what you can do in the green room, say, hey. Like, I saw you’re involved in this.

Tom Matzen: Do you mind if we talk about that a little bit? Most guests are busy trying to highlight themselves. Right? That’s not what you wanna talk about. You wanna talk about how it’s a win-win for the audience, and your host looks awesome.

Tom Matzen: And I will tell you, those are the people that invite you back and you build more trust with.

Milana Leshinsky: You know what’s interesting? You said platforms like events, stages, summits, collaborative book. I always consider a podcast as a platform.

Tom Matzen: Yes.

Milana Leshinsky: But if they have 0 in the audience, then it’s no longer a platform.

Tom Matzen: Plus half of the audiences is 30 downloads an episode.

Milana Leshinsky: Right.

Tom Matzen: So even if they have an established track record, that’s not super relevant to your contribution. You wanna make sure that whoever’s listening… I always like to say there’s 2 people listening at any 1 time.

Tom Matzen: Right? That both those people are getting value a hundred percent.

Milana Leshinsky: Yes.

Tom Matzen: But way more important, I can tell you now I’ve done over a hundred and 50 podcast interviews. I’ve done 2 and a half million directly tracked to podcast shows in sales.

Tom Matzen: Every single 1 of those situations had nothing to do with the audience and everything to do with the host.

Milana Leshinsky: Yeah.

Tom Matzen: It wasn’t that the host became a client always. Sometimes that happened, but sometimes it would be the host who then introduced me to someone else. Oh, you gotta meet this person.

Tom Matzen: They’re amazing. They’re perfect for you, or they’ve got a stage. Platforms and partners aren’t just the host. It’s their circle. Their circle.

Tom Matzen: Right? I had 2 side conversations at this last event we were both at. 1 person has 800,000 courses they had sold. 800,000 in the life coaching space.

Milana Leshinsky: Yes.

Tom Matzen: Well, I could have been super predatory about it thinking, oh my god. That’s perfect for me. House. Instead, I said, well, what’s your biggest challenge? What’s your biggest challenge?

Tom Matzen: She said, well, I need someone who can take them. Once they get off the ground, they start making money to the next level. That happens to be a good friend of mine who happens to be a VIP client and a partner on another project. I have this perfect person for them. I said, oh, I gotta put you in touch with Robert.

Tom Matzen: You’ll love it. He specializes in taking life coaches from a hundred thousand all the way up to a million, blah blah blah. She goes, oh my god. That would be so helpful to me. So now I’m gonna connect the 2 of them.

Tom Matzen: I’m not asking for a piece of the deal. I don’t want a piece of the deal. I just want them to help each other, and that guess what’s gonna happen to Natalie and Robert? They’re both gonna think that Tom’s an awesome guy. Right?

Tom Matzen: And if they end up working together, they’re gonna help each other grow and profit and and have more impact and more influence. Because, really, this isn’t about the profit. It’s about the impact and the influence. Right? Let’s be clear.

Tom Matzen: Income is just a measuring stick. You know that. Right?

Milana Leshinsky: What’s interesting is I don’t say yes to all podcasts.

Milana Leshinsky: I probably say no to most because I do check them out. And I see I look you know, I was trained like, well, you gotta check their audience. You’re gonna listen to the podcast, see their style. You gotta do this and this and make sure that you gotta discern before you say yes.

Milana Leshinsky: You say yes to all podcasts because you see it as an opportunity to meet somebody in your space, to build a relationship with the host, not the audience, and then that person potentially can become your partner, your client, or a connection, give you a connection to somebody in their circle.

Milana Leshinsky: And I love that. I think that is a big ah-ha for me. I hope everybody is listening, sees it the same way. I don’t know that I would say yes to all podcasts because, you know, I need some time to eat and live and build my own.

Tom Matzen: I will tell you a little subset, and I appreciate the distinction.

Tom Matzen: I’ve got a half an hour sorry. Half a day a week where I book those sorts of things.

Milana Leshinsky: Okay.

Tom Matzen: Sometimes it’ll be 3 weeks out or 3 months out.

Milana Leshinsky: Before you can talk to them.

Tom Matzen: Before I can talk to them. It’s different if they’re clearly a massive influence, I make it a priority, and I ask for their link, and I book it in. But if it’s the other way around, Milana, I just give them a link that only has a set amount of time, and they’ll come back always. They’ll come back always.

Tom Matzen: I can’t get a spot until, like, 4 weeks from now. I’m like, yeah. I’m busy. And it doesn’t and by the way, it doesn’t negatively affect the relationship at all because they’re grateful they’re gonna get a chat.

Tom Matzen: So I’m not saying you should do everyone everywhere. Like, there needs to be you gotta have a good feel. Right? If the content you know, if it had something to do with crypto, I wouldn’t do it because I don’t understand it.

Milana Leshinsky: It has to be a good match topic wise, and they have to be kind of in the same industry space.

Tom Matzen: I have to be able to help the host. I have to be able to help the host. That’s why I look at it. Not their audience, but the host. If I can help the host, I’ll do it.

Tom Matzen: We’re joking at this at this event about woo woo, right, and crossover woo woo. And and I’m a crossover woo woo. I’m not full woo. I’m not full not woo. I crossover.

Tom Matzen: I go back and forth. But 1 of my skills, 1 of my superpowers is to be able to market woo woo things to non woo woo people. And so for me, I’ll get these, you know, amazing woo podcast people that on the surface, there’s no direct fit for me whatsoever. But I know if we have a fascinating conversation, I can dig in and help them reach more people in that interview. And, therefore, I don’t mind that little bit of contribution.

Tom Matzen: Plus it’s a lot of fun. A lot of fun meeting new people and learning what makes them tick and how they serve. Now I will say I do manage my time on those ones and block it off. And that also is where I do all of my secondary JV meetings too. So it’s not just podcast.

Tom Matzen: It’s all kinds of people competing for those little spots on the calendar. So often it’s booked a month or 2 ahead. Like, right now, I know because I had someone I gave them my link at that event. They can’t get anything till May.

Milana Leshinsky: Yeah. Totally.

Tom Matzen: We’re recording this right now, and it’s like, yeah. I’m booked. I’m booked. And they’re like, okay. I’ll book it now. I’ll book it now.

Milana Leshinsky: So for the sake of time, I have 1 important question for you.

Tom Matzen: Yes.

Milana Leshinsky: You know, I’ve been trying to get on podcast, and I’ll be honest with you. I’m not getting a lot of traction. And I don’t know you know, my team has been kind of working on it, pitching me. I’m not always getting a response, sometimes not finding the right podcast. Like, so far, podcast guessing has eluded me a little bit.

Milana Leshinsky: I’ve been on a lot of podcasts over the years, but not in a systematic way. And I’d love to pick your brain on that a little bit.

Milana Leshinsky: But before you answer that, how can people learn more about you? I know we’re gonna put a link up in the email.

Tom Matzen: Yeah. We’re putting a link to this directory of 958 of the top podcasters and how they wanna be pitched along with their contact information. So if you wanna be on shows, and I’m assuming if you listen this far in, you are wanting to be on shows you definitely wanna download that directory. It’s awesome.

Tom Matzen: It’s amazing, and you’ll absolutely love it. So thank you for that. And my contact information, the company name is in there. You guys can connect with me. The favorite way I like new people to connect with me is on LinkedIn.

Tom Matzen: Just search my last name, MATZEN. There’s only 17 people with that last name in North America, and half are related to me. There’s only 2 Toms that are like that. So you’ll recognize me and connect happy to talk about that.

Milana Leshinsky: Perfect. Yes. So the link is gonna be below the video or in the article below the video. And it’s really the directory of almost a thousand podcasts that you can reach out to.

Milana Leshinsky: So what am I doing wrong, Tom? Why are podcasters not really returning my call?

Tom Matzen: Yeah. So there’s 2 parts. I’m gonna give you the simple way and the more advanced way to to improve this because they’re quite different. And the more advanced way comes into play when you’re dealing with higher bigger audience, bigger authority podcast host. The simple way is creating what’s called a media one sheet.

Tom Matzen: Every 1 of you need to do this. It’s typically 1 or 2 pages long, sometimes a bit longer, but clarity of thought helps. You can get templates out there. Canva’s got templates. Lots of people have templates.

Tom Matzen: We give away templates at our Big Icon Maker event. Like, there’s lots of ways to get templates if you don’t know what a media one sheet is. But a media one sheet basically says, why would I want to have you on my show, and why are you qualified? And in the media one sheet, the simple strategy is you need to share something that’s not what everyone else is sharing. If you’re the same as everyone else, there’s no reason to have you on the show.

Tom Matzen: Right? So you wanna shatter myths, alright, or shatter commonly held beliefs or challenge common strategies. So for example, we talked about it’s not about the audience. It’s about the host and the high trust relationship. Well, most people talk about getting shows because you’re gonna be able to get all these audiences.

Tom Matzen: Right? So even in our green room, you’re like, oh, that’s, like, completely different. That’s really neat. We gotta talk about that. Right?

Milana Leshinsky: Yes.

Tom Matzen: Right? So that’s the first thing with your media one sheet, a simple one. Just remember that your media one sheet’s job is to show them why you versus all of the other choices. The more advanced strategy is important for someone like you, Milana, and for anyone that’s got a more established business.

Tom Matzen: You have to build an actual media kit, and the media kit needs to include audio and video clips of you at work. It needs to include much more detailed evidence about how awesome you are and why you’re awesome. It needs to include testimonials, success stories. All of these other elements need to be built in a whole media kit. And then realize you’re not pitching the show host.

Tom Matzen: You’re pitching a producer that screens you, and they have what’s called a rejection committee. Most people don’t know this, but the big shows get a thousand plus requests a week. The really big shows, a thousand plus requests a day. So if you’re like, oh, I’m gonna get on Joe Rogan. I have this really unique idea to get on Joe Rogan.

Tom Matzen: Joe’s not even gonna see you until the rejection committee accepts you far enough along that someone does homework and checks you out, and that’s where you need your media kit. You need your media kit. So you need to take time to develop that. That requires those assets to be put together in easy to share way. Good news is with the internet, it can just be a folder in the cloud.

Tom Matzen: For most of you that have your personal speaker site, it should be, you know, tommatzen.com/media. Right? milanaleshinsky.com/media. So you know what it is. You can give it out easily.

Tom Matzen: And if you’re ever on stage and you’re sharing it, it’s easy to share. But it also tells the producer this is a pro. And on that site, you’ve got headshots, high res, medium res, low res. You’ve got logos, high res, medium res, low res. You got stage shots, high res, medium res, low res.

Tom Matzen: Do the work for them. Do the work for them so they can look at this and go, oh, this person knows what they’re talking about. This is a professional. Right? It’s a professional.

Tom Matzen: Nowadays, everybody wants to do everything electronically and have physical cards business cards have disappeared. I still have physical business cards. Why? Because if I share it with someone now, they go, oh, that’s different. Good for you.

Tom Matzen: It sticks out. Well, guess what? Part of the media kit should be a folder with these samples in it that you physically send that along with your book. Most people that are doing this seriously have a book or 2 or 3. You send a book and a media kit, you’re gonna stick out from the crowd, especially if it’s related to the topic that you wanna share and you wanna stick out.

Tom Matzen: So the good news the simple one is the media one sheet. Everyone should have that. Right? Take take an hour in Canva. Create one.

Tom Matzen: You got it electronically. You can send it. At a minimum, that will stick you out from the crowd of 80 percent of the other people. But if you’re going for the bigger shows, you’re gonna have to do the work of having a full speaker site and a media kit within that.

Milana Leshinsky: Is the email or the pitch that initial message that you’re sending to the host, it links to the media kit.

Milana Leshinsky: But in order for them to click on it, they need to be interested in the first place. So what are you saying in the actual email? Do you give them your unique topics?

Milana Leshinsky: I mean, I have a unique story, and everybody tells me, just tell them, like, well, I’m not the only one who came from Soviet Union. That’s not that unique anymore.

Tom Matzen: So here’s the secret there. Great question, and I love this one. And I learned this from Sheryl Plouffe, our partner on Icon Maker Lab. Yeah.

Tom Matzen: They actually don’t care about you or your story.

Milana Leshinsky: Oh.

Tom Matzen: They care about in this case, they have bigger audiences. They care about their audience and how you can serve their audience. So the way to get that person’s attention is watch a recent show, watch a show from a year or 2 ago, and watch a show early on.

Tom Matzen: Listen to, in this case. Right? 3 different shows, 3 different periods, figure out some unique common elements, and then craft your subject around stuff that matters to them in their format. There is nothing more attention getting than saying, part of the reason I think I’d be a great guest is a couple of years ago, you did a show on insert topic, and you talked about problem and challenge. I can help your audience overcome that.

Tom Matzen: In fact, when you first launch your show, you also did a show on insert topic and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now does that take a little while? Yeah. It takes a little while because you wanna watch at least 3 or listen to at least 3 shows. A recent one from a little while ago and a long while ago.

Tom Matzen: Of course, you can outsource that to a VA.

Milana Leshinsky: I was thinking about that.

Tom Matzen: Right? You can get transcripts made now like this. Right?

Tom Matzen: You can upload it and get a transcript, and you can sort through it. But that’s what the pros do. The pros don’t pitch a generic offer. They pitch a customized opportunity to maximize the impact for their audience, And that’s really the home run. And I say that with respect and admiration because I don’t do that.

Tom Matzen: I don’t do that very often. There’s a couple times, like, when I’m like, oh, I really, really want this, and I’ll take the time to do that. But the people that are really good at it, the people that host their own shows, they know if they get a customized offer that someone’s taking the time to do that, then at least they’ll listen to your presentation. The rejection committee. Again, it’s not the host.

Tom Matzen: On the big shows, it’s not the host at all. When you do TV, same thing. When you’re doing TV interviews for any big shows, morning shows, Good Morning America, even any of the big, big shows, you don’t even talk to the host until you’re on the show. They don’t even know who they’re interviewing until the day, usually, of the show. This is all driven by producers and by assistants to producers.

Tom Matzen: Same thing happens. So the more you can customize it, the more you can personalize it to their you know? And you nowadays, you can find out and say, what have they been talking about the last 3 months? Blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, how can I tie into that subject?

Tom Matzen: Is there a way for me to tie into that subject matter? Right? So we’re going into politics season as we record this. Right? In America, there’s gonna be massive amount of political controversy.

Tom Matzen: You don’t wanna be politically controversial unless you’re targeting that sort of audience. But is there a way to hook in? Maybe part of what you teach is for us to respect the other person’s point of view and disagree without being disagreeable. Well, that can go on any show. Right?

Milana Leshinsky: That’s right.

Tom Matzen: What happened? The US senate used to do that. No one does anymore.

Tom Matzen: Do your clients need that? Like, maybe that’s your hook. They call it a hook when you’re pitching someone. Right? What’s the hook for them to go?

Tom Matzen: I like that. And my personal experience, Milana, is the best thing is to shatter a myth or a common belief that even the host believes.

Milana Leshinsky: You did it for me. You did it for me.

Tom Matzen: Yes. Exactly. Right?

Milana Leshinsky: I was instantly hooked. We have to wrap this up. It was a very enlightening conversation. Thank you, Tom Matzen the new owner. You actually own New Media Summit at this point.

Tom Matzen: New Media Summit, Podcast Magazine, Icon Maker, Icon Maker Live. Yeah.

Tom Matzen: We’re super honored to take Steve Olsher’s legacy and build on it and hopefully make it even better.

Milana Leshinsky: And I do remember the podcast directory, how hot it is and how everybody really needs to have it and wants to have it. So we’re gonna put a link in. My name is Milana Leshinsky. I am the founder of Coaching Genie, the platform for group coaching programs.

Milana Leshinsky: Thank you so much everybody for watching. I am excited to hear from people because I don’t interview a lot of people outside of the virtual summit that I do. This is like a one of a kind interview that I wanted to do with you, Tom. So thank you so much again. And it was just a pleasure seeing you last week.

Milana Leshinsky: And I know we’ll work together again. So thank you again, everybody.

Tom Matzen: Most welcome. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Appreciate it. Let her know if you, like, got some value. Let her know. That’s a way to build trust with her.

Milana Leshinsky: Oh, okay. That’s a great tip. Thank you, Tom. Bye, everybody.