Podcast Guesting Advice From An Expert Pod-Matcher

The transcript has not been edited.

[00:01:08]Heather Osgood: [00:01:08] Welcome to Wednesday. I'm so excited to have Alex joining me on my live stream today. I just moved from California to Sarasota, Florida, about five days ago. And Alex, it looks like you are in Jacksonville. Is that right?

[00:01:24] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:01:24] I am welcome to Florida.

[00:01:26] Heather Osgood: [00:01:26] Thanks. I'm so excited. And I think it's so funny because I get such mixed reactions when I tell people that I'm moving to Florida. But. I'm so excited for the heat. And I think people think that is a funny thing too, but I really like it when it's hot. And I love the humidity too, which I think people also don't seem to enjoy.

[00:01:48] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:01:48] We'll get very hot. You will, you might regret us talking about this already. Like in just a couple of weeks, give it a couple weeks. I'd be like, why did I even bring it up?

[00:01:55] Heather Osgood: [00:01:55] I know for sure. Alex, it's been so great to get to know you a distance [00:02:00] through LinkedIn and just some of the content you've created. And I wanted to bring you on today because I think you've had a really interesting kind of path and a history and what I wanted to start by talking about is I think it's really fascinating that you've been a blogger for over seven years and just really recently got into the podcast space. And from my perspective, I see a lot of similarities between the blog space and the podcast space. And so I was curious about your journey and Let's see here, it looks like Sean just joined us.

[00:02:35] But yeah thanks for being here, Sean, but yeah, I'm curious, what your thoughts are between what the difference is between blogging and podcasting.

[00:02:46] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:02:46] Yeah. So I got into podcasting because I got into blogging years ago. It was like one of those things that just naturally progressed into it. And I didn't get into blogging super early or anything like that. It was probably about eight years ago. Right now that I started looking into it seven years ago is when I actually [00:03:00] started a blog. But I looked at it a little too long probably, but I was like curious. I was like, a lot of people are starting to do this maybe I should. And I had a passion to write. So I was like, you know what, I want to go ahead and do it. So I finally like bit the bullet and overcame my fear of actually starting a blog. Now everyone's Oh, everyone can start a blog. But back then it was still like a scary thing. But repeat all those feelings a few years later, when I decided to get into podcasting. I was like, I've really enjoyed writing and being involved in, creating blogs and things like that. So maybe I should do a podcast as well, same feelings probably for about a year, maybe again, a year too long if we're actually got into it. But I originally got into blogging and podcasting with a website that I started years ago, I guess it was seven years ago called dailyps.com.

[00:03:39] And it's a faith-based blog, and we launched a podcast with it about three years after, and that was me doing the podcast and to this day I still do that podcast along with my main show, creating a brand, which I started, two years after that show. So I have two podcasts and two blogs, and it's something that I do enjoy doing.

[00:03:57] Heather Osgood: [00:03:57] Yeah, that is awesome. So do you [00:04:00] see similarities between kind of the trajectory of blogging and the path that podcasts are on?

[00:04:08] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:04:08] Yeah, a little bit. So blogging has always grown into like just more and more into yeah. Just becoming like a powerhouse when it comes to SEO or way to really separate yourself as somebody who's a subject matter expert. And I think that podcasts have had a much slower onboarding then than blogs did for some reason. I know blogs been around for about 20 years, but for just the first five, it was Ooh, somebody's writing on the internet. That's interesting. And it became very mainstream very quick. And then it's really that for a long time, the only thing that ranked on search engines was blogs really? That was like, you had to write long form content for it to rank. That's changed quite a bit over the years, but I definitely saw that become very powerful, very fast and still to this day from an SEO perspective. Yes. I know videos show up now podcast show up all these different types of things show up, but nothing beats blogging still to this day.

[00:04:50] Good quality content that is in written form is always going to do really well. And we might see more of a transition later, but when it comes to podcasting, I've seen a much slower rise. [00:05:00] Podcasting has been around for, I don't know how many years. Exactly. I think 15. 2004. Okay. So we're in our 16th or 17th year, right?

[00:05:08] Yeah. The first one someone told me about a podcast. I was like, that's so stupid. I was like, I don't want to listen to somebody talking. And they're like, you need to download it. It takes about an hour to download and then you can listen to it while you're doing something. I'm like what? I'm going to listen to music if I'm doing something, and that has shifted, I don't really listen to music very much when I'm working out or walking. It's always a podcast now. So it has become more, more mainstream. It's just taking more time. And I think that even this year I should say the last since 2018, when people started really buying up the big podcasting companies, like big businesses, like Amazon started getting into it.

[00:05:41] I just saw it a couple of days ago that Twitter is now getting into buying up podcasting companies. So you see big players like this, starting to buy it up. And then people were starting to monetize them, starting to really get there. Their viewers or their listenership up. So I'm seeing it come into a mainstream.

[00:05:53] So there's a lot of similarities. It's just like the rise of things. Now, I actually see podcasting lasting longer than just [00:06:00] about any other medium, really, because it's, you can do it while you're doing other things. Hopefully nobody listening to us today is watching a YouTube video while they're driving. But you can very easily listen to a podcast while you're driving or while you're in the gym or while you're just doing something on the house that you can have multiple focuses at the same time. And it's really continuing to grow in popularity. And we saw a huge increase in 2020. And I think that this year we're going to see an even bigger one.

[00:06:23] So yeah, I do see some similarities. I know I'm rambling here a little bit between podcasting and blogging. There are some things that are very similar and I see it both mediums continuing to grow, but podcasting really taking off this year.

[00:06:34] Heather Osgood: [00:06:34] Yeah, I totally agree. I think that what is fascinating to me about it is that this year we I shouldn't say this year. Oh my goodness. It's 2021 last year in 2020. We exceeded the million number of podcasts that are over a million podcasts. I think there now probably 1.6 or maybe 1.7 million podcasts.

[00:06:54] And I remember, I just feel like everybody freaked out for a minute and I was like, When I Google it, there are [00:07:00] 600 million blogs out there. So probably just scratching the surface. And I totally agree with you. I think the power of podcasts are that you can do so many other things while you're listening to podcasts and they just provide so much information.

[00:07:18] And we also have, I just, I think it's so cool to get, to listen to the first perspective of so many amazing people out there and they're in their own voice right. In their own words. And it's not that there isn't power in blogs. I think that there still is. And like you said, from an SEO perspective, but I just really love to look at the similarities between the two,

[00:07:38] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:07:38] yeah, I'm with you on that. And it's something I'll add to it real quick. I think last year we saw an initial dip, right? When COVID all began and things like that, we saw a dip in podcasting, but it only lasted about three weeks and then it really rise to an all time high. And I really believe that's because people miss people, a lot of people are in States and countries are completely locked down and hearing, for me always interview podcasts lot, I like to listen to, it's great hearing a conversation, even if you're not [00:08:00] part of it when you're living in a world that really wasn't able to have that form of community, this was like our own way of doing it. So weird kind of random, but what it was like, okay, it's nice. I feel like I'm here. I'm part of this. I can hear people talking. So it was just a nice thing to be part of. I think.

[00:08:13] Heather Osgood: [00:08:13] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Totally fully agree. So now you got interested in podcasts and then it looks like not too long after becoming a podcast or you started a podcast guesting company.

[00:08:26] Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:08:29] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:08:29] Yeah, sure. So it was a natural progression. As I started creating a brand, the podcast got a lot of a lot of publicity, a lot of press. And because of that, just naturally, I started coaching a lot of different podcasts. And then I started speaking at conferences and I had the idea to actually, while we're speaking at a specific conference, In Orlando, Florida, actually.

[00:08:46] In-person I don't know if you remember that, but we used to go to conferences in person, shake, hands, all that stuff. Anyway, so went and did that. And I just realized that there was like a big need of people having trouble finding guests for their podcasts and vice [00:09:00] versa. There was people in that same rooms, about 2000 people there.

[00:09:02] There were authors there that saying, I don't have a podcast, but I want to be a guest on people's podcasts. Can I do that. And yes, there are the booking agencies, which are incredible. They're just, they're not realistic for everybody. They're expensive and that's the standard that they've set. And I think it's a great thing.

[00:09:15] It's for certain people that are really serious about doing something, but the general population can't really use that. So I just had the idea of what if we did something that was very similar to an online dating app and just did it for podcast guests and hosts to meet automatically. So that's what we built.

[00:09:28] We built a program that connects guests and hosts together automatically. Based off of their entire I guess their niche their profile, all the different things that they do, and we're able to connect them and it's done really well. We've had a lot of fun doing that. So that's PodMatch is the name of the company and it was something that was just born out of a place to help serve the community that I'm part of.

[00:09:48] Heather Osgood: [00:09:48] That is so awesome. I love that. And  it really is like a social media platform and that you can go in, you put your information and then the computer program or the software [00:10:00] you've created automatically matches people. As opposed to me, needing to look through a list and say, Oh, Alex, he looks like a great person.

[00:10:07] I'm going to reach out to him. So there's like an instant kind of connection that's made via the software.

[00:10:13] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:10:13] Yep. Exactly. Yeah. And it works again, just like a dating app. I've been married too long to actually use a real dating app. So I'm saying this from I think, but yeah, that, that's the way we've connected.

[00:10:21] It not every match is a complete win. Like obviously sometimes you'll see somebody you're like, ah this I'll pass on this one and you have that option. You can message. You can pass or you can save it for later. And those are options that you have as you're filtering through the different matches that you have.

[00:10:33] Heather Osgood: [00:10:33] I think that's awesome. One of the things that I talk to podcasts about all the time is that podcast listeners listen to podcasts. And if you're looking to grow your show, I really do believe that one of the best ways to grow your show is to get on other podcasts. Because when we look at the numbers of people who listen to podcasts, and I'm really interested, always to see as the numbers grow, but I'm really only [00:11:00] about 30% to maybe 40% of the us population actively listened to podcasts. And so it's not that being on social media or being in these different places to promote your podcast isn't a good thing, but really when you reach somebody who we know is a diehard podcast listener, cause they're listening, it's really a great way to grow your audience by guesting on other shows, not to mention a whole lot of fun. Do you feel like that's a primary goal for PodMatch? Is that, really helping people to grow their audiences or are you finding people on PodMatch that maybe they're just but say started a new company and they want to be interviewed on podcasts. So they're coming onto the platform, like who do you see using it? 

[00:11:46]Alex Sanfilippo: [00:11:46] I would love to have a really specific demographic because that would make me feel really good. But the truth is it's pretty broad. We have the people that are online course creators, new authors, people that have created a business, that something software is a service and they want to be able to get the word out there. [00:12:00] But also we do have that the podcasters that have created, we call a hybrid account and that basically allows them to have their podcasts on there, but also their guest account. And that's what I do. Actually. You mentioned growing your podcast through being a guest on other podcasts. I was on about a hundred of them during 2020, and that's my primary focus was getting more listenership to my podcast.

[00:12:17] And my podcast grew when most of them weren't early during COVID and things like that over summer, when we sell a bit of a spike, I was like really capitalized and top end of those things. And it was all because I was jumping on other podcasts. And on top of that, it helped me become a better speaker, the more reps you get, right? The better you get. So that's what I was using it for, but we've got a pretty big mix, but I always encourage any podcast or get on other ones because you help add value to other people. And if there's one thing I know to be true, a great podcast guest is also a podcast host because they get it. They know what's going on the other side of the mic, and being a host is far more difficult being a guest. And we have a guest that can help you a little bit. That's really comforting.

[00:12:54] Heather Osgood: [00:12:54] That is totally true. So can you give us some tips if you are somebody out there [00:13:00] and you're thinking, gosh, I want to be a guest on more podcasts. Obviously they can use your platform, but are there other strategies that you might provide someone to really capitalize on the value of being a guest on other shows?

[00:13:16] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:13:16] Yeah, sure. Heather, I've got a few things I'd like to mention here, if that's all right though. I think it'd be really helpful.

[00:13:21] Okay. The first thing I want to tell people to do, because I find if we skip this step is we need to first define quality, right? If you're going to have quality guests on your podcast what does that mean? And it's gonna be different for each, and every one of us. What is your podcast focus? Where do you want it to go? It's really important to define this upfront and not just be like, Ooh, this person looks cool. Oh. And that person looks cool. You want to make sure, okay, what's the focus? What's the people who, the people going to be listening. Would they like to hear from this individual? So determining what that quality is the first thing that any of us have to do to again, figure out, okay, is this going to be the right type of guests because let's face it, you and I can both find a lot of really cool people to talk to, but is our audience going to be interested. It's [00:14:00] really important we define what that quality looks like. So that to me is the very first thing that we have to do.

[00:14:05] Followed very closely by the second thing, which is a plan ahead with your show. So example, I know that you do this, I believe Heather, you do this every week. Is that right? Okay. So next week, you're not going to have somebody on to talk about finding guests for their podcast. Met many people though. They just take the first thing that comes up and they'll have three episodes in a row that are all extremely similar. It's really dangerous for you to do that because people will lose interest. Now, I have a few topics that are repeat on my podcast, but I space them out about every 10 weeks and that way it's okay, cool, Alex is coming back around to this thing that we always talk about. We'd like to hear, but if you do it week after week, it gets a little mundane. And you're like, man, is there anything else we're going to cover on this? So I think it's really important for everyone to think about. Okay, what am I going to be doing for the next 10 weeks or this next year of my podcasts? Quarter, month, week, day, like what's my plan to make this thing really succeed longterm. And when you, again, those two things, we need to find that quality and plan ahead with your show. That's going to set you up for a win. And I can dive into a few more things, but I definitely want to start off with that. Give you a chance to talk [00:15:00] before I just keep on rambling here?

[00:15:02] Heather Osgood: [00:15:02] No, I think that is really that's such valuable information because I just, I totally agree with you. I think that it's not about really always just getting people.

[00:15:13] And I think that if you have an interview based podcast, especially when you're getting started. I think that it can be a little bit overwhelming because you're like, gosh, I need to find people and Oh, will you be on my podcast? And I think we've all probably experienced those times where we've listened to a show and it's about maybe business. And all of a sudden they're talking about raising kids and I'm like, Why didn't you have this guest show, exactly? I feel like that happens sometimes too, that people really stretch. They're like, Oh I can make that work. But really from a listener perspective identifying what is a win for you is so invaluable, so valuable and what that win is going to be for your audience.

[00:15:51] And then I totally agree with you as well, that. If you have the exact same content week after week, that's not super entertaining for anyone, to [00:16:00] listen to the exact same things over and over. Do you feel like guests do a good enough job preparing to be on podcasts? And what does that look like?

[00:16:09] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:16:09] It depends. So again, like the ideal guest is somebody who's also a podcast host because they'll, they know again, right? Like they'll do their time.  That's a really important question actually, that you asked there it's, that's a matter of vetting. And so something that I do a lot of is I'll actually listen to that guest on other podcasts before we'll have them on mine.

[00:16:25]Now an exception of that is if they are a, an author of a book that's at least unfairly well, or has a good focus, right? It's not like the book about my life. But it's like the book on how to do this. Typically I find that authors have written a book on a single topic. If you get a copy of the book, you can really just dive into the pieces you want.

[00:16:41] And they'll just go on autopilot and share some really great information without getting like all over the place. So it's important to remember okay, am I vetting this guest? Are they going to be somebody who's high quality, who's going to cover what I want to it can be scary if somebody has never been on an interview before and I've given a few people a shot, if you will, with that, [00:17:00] I just gave one, like a try. He's Hey, I'd love to be on your show. If somebody just a couple weeks ago. And I got the interview coming out a few weeks and he was literally one of the best guests I've ever had, but he had a book. It was very specific. He had done public speaking and things like that.

[00:17:12] So it was just a matter of initially he's like, How do I turn on my camera? That was the first question. I was like, Oh no, I was like, what's going to happen. But it was like, literally one of the best interviews I've ever done it was really great. But so that was giving someone the chance.

[00:17:22]But it's a matter of really vetting that individual. And I think that if I could speak to that, just one more thing. That's really important. Be careful for somebody who seems like they're self-serving. If they initially asked, like how many people were listening to your podcast? Do they, would they be interested in buying this?

[00:17:36]If you hear a lot of that kind of approach that with some I don't know, just be careful with that. Like you don't want to make sure that you get someone on there that just wants to sell over and over again on the podcast, because it just doesn't add value. Yeah. You referenced PodMatch my company, I've not brought it up every chance I get. And if I did that's not really me adding value. So I think that for all of us that are thinking about guests, we need to think, okay, is this person really going to add value or are they not going to? [00:18:00] And that's an important thing to, to ask. I believe.

[00:18:02] Heather Osgood: [00:18:02] Right. I totally agree with that. One question I'm curious about is I think that it's really important if you are looking to be a guest on a podcast to define what your goals are. And I think to your point, you mentioned being on about a hundred different shows last year. I love being a guest on a podcast simply because it gives me practice, right? Like you said, the more you do it, the better you're going to get. And so I like being a guest because it's fun. And sometimes I'm like, Hey, I've been a guest on brand new shows where I'm like, there's probably two people listening and that's totally cool with me because I'm like, it's good practice. I made a good connection with this person. And we know with podcasting that it could lead maybe the show might be small today, but that doesn't mean that in six months it might not be huge. And, people will go back and listen to that episode. So I think defining your goals is really important.

[00:18:54] Why are you being a guest? But one of the other points that I want to bring up that I think can be a [00:19:00] little bit of a touchy subject sometimes is that if you're looking to grow your audience by being a guest on other shows, it's being a guest on 10 different podcasts that each have 20 listeners is probably not going to have a significant impact on your audience size.

[00:19:21]So I always recommend that number one, you go and you try to make connections and via guests on as many places as you can to get the practice, but also set your sights on some larger shows and maybe make some goals for yourself where you look at. Gosh, if. If I could be on this show, what would that look like?

[00:19:39] And how could it help? And how could I contribute value to, the audience, but also how could that help my efforts to grow? Because I'm, instead of getting in front of 20 people or a hundred people I'm getting in front of 20,000 or 200,000, what are your thoughts about actually examining the audience size when you are guesting on [00:20:00] shows?

[00:20:01] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:20:01] Yeah. So a lot of what you said is so powerful. Clearly you've got a lot of wisdom in this space. Like you're not new to this. So hopefully this is something that you know about as well. I think that when you start off, especially it's okay to take the steps. I've been on podcasts that I don't know if anyone ever listens to and I've been on some that are much larger, but that's okay if you're called to action, though, like your CTA for right is to listen to your podcast.

[00:20:22] Yes. It does need to be a little bit of a bigger audience to be able to actually have some traction there. Now, if you create some sort of a freebie for people that listen, right? If I tell them to go to creatingabrand.com/free, which is my website. And tell them, okay, there might a free ebook for you. I'm making this up. Don't go do this because this is not there, but we have a free productivity ebook, or like a short little video, or course on that. They'll give to you. Then those 20 people might actually a good percentage of might actually go. And that's a little bit different if you're gonna do something like that. Or if it's like you have a product or service that you're trying to sell, but also the smaller shows, you never know who they'll lead you to as well. And I don't do it necessarily to win. I firmly believe in about to say here that I'm going to do for one, what I wish I can do for [00:21:00] all. I try not to get overwhelmed with the numbers or anything like that. Really, if I can help one person, then what I'm doing is worth it. And I want to make sure that I remember that, but I've had some podcasts has been like, Hey, you're on my show. It's super small, but Hey, my really good friend has a show with 10,000 listeners. You did so good. I introduce you. And you're gonna, your, this might shock you a little bit, Heather, but, or some of the listeners today I've turned down a few really big shows. And when I say turned down, I've told them not right now. When you're going to do something like that, you want to make sure that you really have the foundation set for it. And especially early on, I had the opportunity to go on a pretty big show and I got on it way too early. If I would've gotten on that show today versus a year and a half ago, when I first got on it, I would've converted much better.

[00:21:39] I would have made something for those individuals. I didn't. So for me, I just keep those in my back pocket of, Ooh, I'd love to come to your show. I'm not quite ready yet. Let me make sure I would have value to add to your audience and something that's specific for them. And so I've got a running list of different places eventually I will show up on, but for now I'm playing on some of the smaller podcasts, but to give that some context to people like a smaller podcasts, like if you have [00:22:00] 50 listeners every week, I want to give this frame of mind for it. Imagine going to a room like a conference center or something like that and there's 50 people waiting for you every single week to show up. Would you ever stop showing up to that room? If they want to hear everything you have to say, and they're like listening intently? No, you would show up every single week, no matter what, like you would never skip that. But for some reason we just hear 50 people listening to my podcasts Oh, it's not a big number. And I think that social media has ruined us to be like driven by numbers and things like that. But really that's 50 people whose lives they're trusting and their time they're trusting with you. I think that's a big deal. And we have to really remember the weight of that.

[00:22:34] Heather Osgood: [00:22:34] I totally agree. And I know Rob Walsh at Libsyn has said this, I've heard him say several times at conferences, that if you did have a room of a hundred people or 200 people or a thousand people, which a lot of times we're like, Oh, it's a thousand listeners, That's significant, right? If you were going to get up in front of a thousand people or even 50 people and speak, a lot of people would have a hard time doing that.

[00:22:57]Yeah. Audience, I think that is such a good point to [00:23:00] make. And I also, I had an experience early on in my career before I got into podcast ad sales. Where I was doing some business coaching and I was on a very well-known podcast and I was so ill prepared for that interview. Now I look back and I thought Oh my gosh, I missed such an opportunity to really capitalize.

[00:23:21] Because this person had such a huge audience. I think I got 500 emails and I had nothing planned, nothing. I was like, what was I thinking. It just really, so it is so important I think to make sure that you are planning and I think really having a strong call to action is also really powerful. 

[00:23:43]Alex, I know we need to start wrapping this up here. So if you were to maybe, just give a couple pieces of advice to people on how to leverage podcast guesting, whether that's them being on a show or them interviewing people, [00:24:00] what would be some of your top tips?

[00:24:01] I know you've already given us a couple, but is there anything else that people should really consider.

[00:24:07] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:24:07] Yeah. So on the host side, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention both sides individually. First off the host side, this is probably one of the most common things I've been getting asked this year. And I've not talked about at all.

[00:24:14] So this is the first time I talked about this, but people have been mentioning that they have trouble saying no to people that ask them to be a guest. So they want to come on my show as an example, when I'm having trouble saying no, you're not the right fit. So people were like, I'm realizing people are like, okay, what do I do?

[00:24:28] Like, how do I approach that? I think it really goes back to knowing the,quality of your guests. Who is the person you're ultimately looking for? If you feel like someone's self-serving, they just don't fit the right place. Sure, saying no is pretty tough, but if you reword it in a way of simply saying, Hey, listen, my audience is not exactly who you would speak to.

[00:24:44] And I think that might not be the best use of your time. And for that reason, I'm just going to pass. But I do re I do appreciate you reaching out. Right saying something like that is so much softer than just, sorry, no. And some people don't have any trouble doing that. So we were like, no, get outta here.

[00:24:55]But the majority of us were like, Oh man, like that kinda you're rejecting somebody. But you have to remember [00:25:00] that you're responsible for people that are listening and we'll be listening to your show, not the person who was just asking you if they can be on their show. Cause chances are. You also want to keep them on that individual is asking you that might not be the right fit has probably asked another 20 podcasts that same day, and they're not taking it as hard as you are.

[00:25:14] So I want to really remind people really protect the quality of your podcast. Really get intentional with it. I've found that the more intentional you get, the more success you're going to see as long as you stay consistent with it. I have a couple of friends of mine that got into podcasting a year later they look back and I don't even know what I was doing with this thing.

[00:25:30] It's just all over the place and don't let that be you because podcasting is so much work and it's so powerful. So make sure that you're really focused on it. Be willing to say no to the wrong people and keep them looking and finding those right people. That's, it's still important that we do that.

[00:25:43] And then the flip side, if you're a guest and you're looking to get on more podcasts. I think it's really important that you smart. You start with some of the smaller shows. There is no, no shame in that at all. I still love getting those shows because I actually get to find new shows I've never heard before.

[00:25:56] And it's a really cool thing to be able to do. And then also you're potentially helping somebody out. If you're a [00:26:00] little bit bigger, I have a little bit of falling. You're able to actually go add some value and example. This is about six months ago. I was on someone's podcast. Wasn't really big, had a few hundred listeners.

[00:26:08] And she messaged me about two weeks or I guess it was about a month after I was on the podcast and said that since my episode, that her entire listenership had more than doubled and continues, which is really cool. And I don't have a big following. It was just, I was the ideal guest, the right one. And so if you're doing that, yeah. Get out there. Add value. You can really help somebody out at the same time. Have a good CTA, a good call to action. I always recommending having just something simple. Like you don't need to say here is 10 courses for you or five different things over here.

[00:26:36] Get one of my books, just have something really simple. Say, Hey here's you can go to Alex sanfilippo.com and don't do this. Because again, this isn't real Alex sanfilippo.com/a webinar, and they can go there and do, they can just get some sort of free resource or Hey, here's a productivity checklist.

[00:26:50] You can go download that for free. When you do that sort of thing, it gets people into your funnel, right? And then from there you can do more with sales and things like that, but have something specific because I've [00:27:00] realized this, when people are listening to you on a podcast, they want you to tell them what to do next.

[00:27:04] Don't leave it up to chance. Don't give them 10 different options or ways to go give them one clear, precise path. It should be what you were just talking about and say, here is what I want you to do. If you want the 10 tips, I just talked about go this website and download them here.

[00:27:17]Heather Osgood: [00:27:17] That's such good advice.

[00:27:18]And not something that I always do, which I really need. I need to put that on my new year's resolution list of things to make sure that when I'm guesting that I have that clear CTA, because I do think you're totally right at the end of it. If you liked the guests and you want to engage with them more, you want to know how you can get more and how you can find out more about the information they're sharing.

[00:27:39] So I think that's really good advice.  Alex, thank you so much for being on my life today and thank you guys for watching. I appreciate Sean and Karen for commenting. And if people do want to get registered for PodMatch or they would like to engage further with you, where can they find you?

[00:27:56] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:27:56] Yeah, so you can pod match is this podmatch.com [00:28:00] and you can set up a free account.  We do our best to serve the industry. So we've made it as much of it free as we possibly can. And if you're interested in a podcast, you can go to creating a brand.com/listen, or just creatingabrand.com. You'll find everything I do there.

[00:28:11] I like links to everything from that hub, but those are really my two things. And I just mentioned two called actions, which I'm not supposed to do. Heather, but

[00:28:18] Heather Osgood: [00:28:18] I asked you, I tried to do it was my fault. I said thanks so much, Alex. It's been great having you on, and I look forward to engaging with you more on LinkedIn and some other fun places.

[00:28:31] Alex Sanfilippo: [00:28:31] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

[00:28:33]