Building authority online is a long game…
Podcast guesting isn’t an overnight get-rich-quick scheme. If you go into it expecting that you’ll just magically get a flood of leads and sales… it’s probably not gonna happen 😅
Erin from Mabely Q is a great example of this! Her experience is a much better picture of what building authority online can actually look like when you’re showing up in front of new audiences, spreading your message, and letting the momentum build up and grow your business
It’s okay to play the long game while building your authority!
During our case study interview, Erin pointed out that when they listen to a podcast episode, people often need some time for what you talked about to actually sink in
Looking at it like that takes the pressure off doing a podcast interview. Because podcasts tend to have a bit of a lag (it takes time for the host to get the episode edited and slotted into their content calendar), you’re not going to wrap up a recording and immediately get leads and sales showing up in your inbox
But because you’ve got humans listening in, not robots (hopefully), they may want to get to know you a bit better before they fully step into your world
For some folks, that could mean joining your email list right away, but not buying for a hot minute. For others, they may lurk on your socials and eventually buy straight from there or join your list later on. That still counts as a win from podcast guesting! You just may not be able to trace it directly back 🤷♀️
It’s time to meet Erin!
Okay, so I’ve talked about Erin for a sec, but I should actually introduce you. Erin Perkins is the founder of Mabely Q and Successible, and her work centers on helping small business owners understand how to be accessible in all areas of their business
She’s Deaf-blind, and passionate about making businesses more accessible. That’s not always an easy subject to get featured for, though, and especially when you’re trying to get in front of a new audience like she was!
Erin had been a guest on plenty of podcasts before, but she’d never really had to pitch herself. Through her No-Fuss Podcast Tour, she wanted to branch out from the online business podcasts she’d mostly been on so far. Her goal was to get in front of small- to medium-sized business owners who needed an accessibility consultant like her—even if they didn’t know it yet! 😉
How Erin shifted from “getting invited” to pitching podcasts on purpose
So Erin wasn’t exactly new to podcast guesting. She’d been around the block a bit, but she was ready to test her wheels outside her cozy neighborhood, so to speak 🚴♀️
When it’s time to go beyond the podcasts where the host is maybe a friend or a friend of a friend, it can be scary. It means cold pitching 🫣 It means going outside your comfort zone. It may mean getting rejected!
It also means that maybe you’re not sure if the audience is going to “get it.” You wonder if people are going to care or see why what you’re talking about matters. Are the hosts going to regret saying yes? (Hint: no!)
Erin felt a lot of those same concerns too, and they’re totally normal, I promise
Getting outside your comfort zone feels vulnerable… but it’s also totally worth it!
Building authority online isn’t just showing up and talking 🙃 It’s being responsible with where you’re showing up. It’s making sure that you’re getting in front of the right audiences, with the right message, at the right time
And Erin’s story shows what can happen when you get a lil bit uncomfy and put yourself out there… even when you’re not sure how it’ll go! 😅
The “four white men” interview: what Erin expected vs what happened
One of the Perfect-Fit Podcast Picks I gave Erin was for a podcast where the hosts were four white dudes
She was not sure this was quite such a “perfect-fit” at first 😂
Erin had been on white-dude podcasts before. As an accessibility advocate, there are a lot of guys like that who are not her ally! She worried that they were going to run her over in the interview or dismiss what she was saying… but she trusted me 🥰
She told me she was surprised at how that interview went!
She talked about how well everyone took turns, how flexible the hosts were, and how the whole interview felt collaborative instead of combative 🙌
I’m not going to say that’s how every podcast interview is going to go—there are going to be times where it goes exactly the way you’re afraid it will—but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth giving it a try!
If that interview hadn’t gone well, I would have advised Erin to just not promote it and disavow any backlinks from it 🙃
But because she took a chance on it, she ended up with a great interview that positioned her as a topic authority—and she got a great experience out of it!
Building authority online by disagreeing (without making it awkward)
The great thing is, Erin didn’t just “get through” that interview. She also shared that there were moments where she didn’t agree with something that one of the hosts said—and she spoke up about it!
It wasn’t that she went in looking for a fight per say, but she also wasn’t going to let something slip by that she didn’t think was true or right
This isn’t an easy thing for most folks!
Disagreeing with a podcast host can be intimidating. What if they brush you off, or put you down on mic? 😬
Sometimes you have to take that risk, though—and that might be exactly what the audience needs to hear in order to trust you
The pay-to-play red flag (and why she said no)
Something else happened that surprised us, though: a couple of the Podcast Picks had “guest fees” that they didn’t disclose publicly 😑
I almost NEVER advise my No-Fuss Podcast Tour clients to pay to play with their guest podcasting! Especially not when it’s something like the almost two-thousand USD that one podcast expected Erin to pay 🤮
That’s a sponsorship feature, not a guest appearance. If you’re gonna sponsor a podcast episode, cool… but that’s not the same thing. As a podcast guest, you’re also bringing value to the table. It’s not a one-way trade-off
If a podcast asks you to pay a fee, they better be providing some dang good statistics as to what the ROI is going to be—especially for $2k!!
It’s not your job as a guest to pay for their podcast production fees. Without proven metrics, it’s usually a quick no, and that’s why Erin opted out of those podcasts once we discovered that
When shows don’t disclose these “guest fees,” it wastes everyone’s time: the guest (in research and pitching time) AND the host (in fielding those pitches). That’s why I love when clients like Erin report back those duds, because I keep a running list so that I never include them in any future clients’ Perfect-Fit Podcast Picks list 🙃
That’s also part of building authority online, though: being willing to say no to stages that don’t make sense for you, even if you could technically “make it work” (which, trust me, you don’t need to)
What Erin’s podcast guesting results actually looked like in real life
When Erin started her podcast tour, she went in with tempered, realistic expectations
She knew that podcast guesting has long-tail results. That generating leads and sales will come… but they don’t always come immediately
If you go into guesting expecting immediate payoff, it can mess with your head
There’s a lot of timeline logistics that go into it. It may take 3 months for an episode to air after you record it. Someone might be listening to an episode 6 months after it airs and join your email list or even buy directly!
Some people may need to hear you on 2-3 podcasts before they recognize and trust you as an authority. The results you get from podcast guesting may not always be immediately measurable, but like Erin recognized, you’ll start to see those seeds sprouting in the long-run! 🌱
The part folks forget: you still have to follow through 🫣
I know we talked about how it’s not the guest’s responsibility to pay for the host’s production costs. But the work of podcast interviews isn’t all on the host, either!
So many podcast guests just ghost the host (haha) after the episode is recorded 👻
Um… not cool
If you’re a podcast guest, you’ve got some responsibilities too! Not just because you’re obligated, but because you’re going to get way more out of the experience if you do
You should be sharing the episode with your audience. Engaging in conversations that pop up around it. Treating this episode like it’s part of your evergreen marketing library, not a one-and-done thing!
That’s how you create a Visibility Ecosystem that grows and blooms, even when you’re not there every second
The real gold: transcripts, “spitballing,” and the content you didn’t know you had
One of Erin’s favorite parts of this whole process was actually the stuff that happened after the podcast interviews—when she got to see the transcripts and realized there were so many good one-liners and hidden gems tucked away inside her answers!
Let’s be real: a lot of times, you get off a podcast interview and go, “uh… did I black out? What did I even just talk about?!” 😱
But when you get to look at the transcript, you may realize you sounded like a freaking genius 😜
Erin even talked about how “spitballing” in a conversation can pull things out of you that you wouldn’t necessarily write down if you were staring at a blank doc trying to sound smart on paper
A host is going to ask questions in ways you might not have thought about before… but you know your stuff and you’ll probably be answering before you even realize you do know the answer 🤩
See, building authority online isn’t just about sounding smart. I mean, c’mon, you ARE smart, and podcast interviews let someone else show people how smart you are. It’s like teeing up a joke and letting someone else hit it out of the park—except that someone hitting it away is you!
Why the interview question list changed everything for Erin
During our case study chat, Erin mentioned that a big thing she found really helpful for her tour was having a list of tailored interview questions for each podcast
Podcast hosts don’t always know what to ask you to get the best interview. A good host will ask questions from the perspective of their audience, but it may not always be the questions you most want to answer (and know will help their audience the most)
And if you’ve ever been the guest on a show where the host is lovely but underprepared, you know how quickly the conversation can turn into “So… tell us about yourself” as they scramble to find something meaningful to ask 🫠
That’s why I always give my No-Fuss Podcast Tour clients 10 example questions they can use in their pitch emails (and give the host if they want more!). That list of interview questions serves a couple purposes, too
First, it helps the host run a better interview without having to guess what direction to go. You’re able to gently point the interview in the direction you prefer so it’s actually profitable to you AND the audience
Second, it gives you as the guest a way to prepare and think through your answers ahead of time, so you can show up without worrying about what they’re going to ask, or if the interview’s gonna stall out, or any of that 🎉
That goes a long way if you’re trying to build authority online, because you’ll automatically sound like more of an expert when you’re showing up prepared 💪
I loved something else that Erin pointed out, too: even the questions you don’t get asked are still useful!
They can turn into prompts for social media posts or emails. You can riff on them later in other avenues, like live videos or Stories
Those podcast interview questions that didn’t get used can also help you keep talking about the same core message without it feeling boring, because you’re approaching it from new angles instead of repeating the exact same script over and over again
Saying “I don’t know” on a podcast?! Yep, do it!
One of the things people have told me holds them back from podcast guesting is that they’re worried they’ll get asked a question they don’t know the answer to. But Erin actually embraced that!
For one thing, it makes you a human being. The listeners aren’t looking for some guru on high to have all the answers. They’re looking for someone they can relate to and trust that they won’t lie to them
Saying “I don’t know” can actually instill more trust, not less!
The way Erin handled it was to say “I don’t know… but let me follow up with you afterward with an answer.” That still positioned her as a topic authority, because she knows where to look for the answer
Disagreeing politely is an authority signal
We already saw this a bit in that “four white dudes” interview, but there’s another aha moment I think we need to pull out: you don’t have to share the all of host’s opinions 🤷♀️
If you disagree, you can say so! (And you should)
Don’t goad them into a fight or anything, but saying something like “Hmm, that’s interesting. I actually see it like…” can show that you’re not just a yes-man; you have your own opinions and thought leadership
A listener who agrees with YOU will see that as a positive!
In the same way, someone who doesn’t like what you said will steer away from you—and you probably don’t want them as a client or student in that case anyway, so win-win 😉
Sticking to your guns on an important point on a podcast interview can actually build your authority way more than just agreeing with everything the host says, so don’t shy way from it
Building authority happens after the podcast interview 🙃
Erin’s story is a really good reminder that building authority online isn’t about visibility just for the sake of visibility. Exposure doesn’t do you any good if it’s not profitable
You have to show up in the rooms where your message matters to the listeners. You have to give them next steps to take with you
If you’re nervous to get started, that’s okay. Erin made a great point in her case study about how doing more podcast interviews will build up your confidence over time
It’s totally fine to have some practice interviews to build your speaking skills muscle, ‘k? It gets easier, I promise!
The more you practice, the more you’ll learn how to answer questions on the fly (because you know your stuff). You’ll understand how to pull the right stories out of your brain to illustrate a point you’re making
You’ll also learn what kinds of podcasts are the right fit for you, so you can say No to the wrong ones 😌
Podcast guesting truly can generate confidence, leads, and sales… but only with the right strategy in place
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