EP 77 Angie Trueblood final audio
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[00:00:00] Corey Quinn: You're teaching other people on the perfect pitch. What is a perfect pitch today? I'm joined by the founder of the pod wise group, Angie Trueblood welcome Angie.
[00:00:09] Angie Trueblood: Hey, Corey, it's good to see you again. So there's no such thing, Corey, as a perfect pitch. And I think that's where people go wrong because they think, Oh, there's gotta be this template.
[00:00:19] Angie Trueblood: And if I just plug everything in, then I'm good to go, you know, and it is so much more. And I think this is the biggest gap we're filling with the PR agencies. Podcast guesting is so much more of a human interaction than a lot of the media relations that they have experience with. And so when you're sending an email to a host or a producer, they just need to feel like there's a human on the other end of that communication.
[00:00:44] Angie Trueblood: And so that really is the biggest overarching theme is be a human.
[00:00:49] Corey Quinn: Welcome to the Deep Specialization Podcast, the show where we blend focus, strategy, and client intimacy in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show. Today. I'm joined by the founder of the Podwise group, Angie Trueblood.
[00:01:06] Corey Quinn: Welcome, Angie.
[00:01:08] Angie Trueblood: Hey, Corey. It's good to see you again.
[00:01:10] Corey Quinn: It's great to see you. I'm super excited for our conversation today. Would you mind just introducing yourself to the audience who may not already be familiar with you and your background?
[00:01:19] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. So I'm the founder of the Podwise group, which is a podcast guesting agency.
[00:01:25] Angie Trueblood: So we book our clients to be guests on other people's shows and it's, we started it back and I say, we, I mean, I back in 2017 really is a freelancer. So I'm one of those accidental agency owners. I had a previous business and to grow my visibility, I had pitched myself to be a guest on other people's podcasts and quickly learned.
[00:01:48] Angie Trueblood: One that I loved it and I have a background in sales. So I'm that weird person that loves pitching, but a lot of my colleagues in business started asking how I landed those opportunities and I realized not everyone loves pitching and a lot of people need it inside of their business. So. That other business, which was in the meal planning space, the mom and family niche, I ended up really turning into, um, a business where we pitch other business owners to be guests on podcast.
[00:02:19] Angie Trueblood: And we've evolved over the years. You can ask anything you want, but we've pivoted, we've niched, and we're currently in another evolution to where. We're still pitching clients, but we're transitioning into a bit more of a consulting and training firm for other types of agencies who pitch their own clients.
[00:02:40] Corey Quinn: That's awesome. And so as it relates to the sort of the core business today, the podcast guesting agency, who do you typically work with? Like who do you, who do you specialize in working with? Yeah.
[00:02:50] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so we actually work most directly with founders in the client side of the work. So they're not really solopreneurs.
[00:02:58] Angie Trueblood: Many of them have their own agencies. There's a couple of solopreneurs who are more course creators, so they've got pretty solid revenue and a pretty solid audience, but there are people who are selling their services. They're consulting to other businesses. So really in the B2B space.
[00:03:15] Corey Quinn: And so when they come to you, are they very focused on a specific audience?
[00:03:20] Corey Quinn: Do you help them to identify the podcast? Like what they need in order to be able to be qualified to, to, to sort of, you know, hire your firm.
[00:03:27] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, well, so one, they need to make sure they have a product or service that they have sold a number of times. And they know that if they get more eyes on their business, they can grow their business and grow their sales.
[00:03:40] Angie Trueblood: So we don't take business owners who are kind of brand new or ones who haven't guested before on podcasts to know that it's a good use of their time and money. So that's really like the baseline qualifier. And then they come in and a lot of them are more generalist. of the types of audiences that they can serve, but It's almost like my business, right?
[00:04:03] Angie Trueblood: Like we're very specialized in the service that we deliver, but we can be a little more flexible with the type of business owner that we work with. So we get to play around with our clients and help them find. And then we'll be back here again in a couple of days for another Q& A. So, I'll see you there.
[00:04:32] Angie Trueblood: The transformation that many of them go through with us.
[00:04:34] Corey Quinn: That's powerful.
[00:04:35] Angie Trueblood: COVID was a really great example. Like we had several clients in COVID who worked with, one of our clients owned a bookkeeping firm and they worked with a lot of gyms and local businesses. And during COVID. It didn't make sense for us to get them on those types of shows.
[00:04:51] Angie Trueblood: So we were able to pivot the messaging and then also pivot the types of business owners that we put them in front of so that their business didn't take such a significant hit. That's interesting.
[00:05:02] Corey Quinn: So what was the net result of that? Did you, did they end up just being more broad or did they find another niche to focus in on or how did that work out?
[00:05:09] Corey Quinn: I'm curious.
[00:05:10] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so for the local businesses, some of the messaging was really around the financials of shifting their business models. So talking to gyms that might be interested in offering an online membership and really helping with the finances of that. So we didn't discount some of those altogether, but we changed some of our clients messaging for those verticals.
[00:05:33] Angie Trueblood: And then for the newer ones, they went after course creators and people that were really exploding online at the time, because those were the businesses that needed the help that they were able to support.
[00:05:43] Corey Quinn: So this is a new concept. We were talking about this offline. This is a new concept to me, which is that, you know, as a, let's say more of a generalist agency, or maybe one that's working with a niche in decline, they're ready to kind of reposition.
[00:05:55] Corey Quinn: How does podcasting help you to identify maybe another niche to pursue?
[00:05:59] Angie Trueblood: Also, What we always ask our clients when they come to us, I want to get a rundown of who are their favorite people to work with. And a lot of them have many different types of clients that they've worked with. We've worked with lawyers, we've worked with doctors, we've worked with creative firms.
[00:06:14] Angie Trueblood: And if there are any that are really easy, For them to work with to where they can deliver stellar results without it being super taxing on themselves or their team like that's something for them to be aware of and then we can go out, research the shows that talk to that niche that vertical and get them placed on those shows so that they can connect with audiences.
[00:06:36] Angie Trueblood: Get more discovery calls, get a couple of new clients so that they can work with them and kind of test out, like, is this something we want to go more into? Do we just want to, like, for me, we haven't niched, you know, into a super specific business owner, but I don't really want to. We can't, it would be super competitive for us to have five different clients who own bookkeeping agencies, right?
[00:06:59] Angie Trueblood: Just because of the nature of our work, they would be competing for interviews. Yeah. But. I can always keep the plate spinning on financial companies knowing that they can use guesting to get in front of ideal clients without me niching, like, to the public, if you want to think of it that way.
[00:07:15] Corey Quinn: Sure. And so, in other words, just to feed this back to you, so in other words, the, the, the client who is maybe exploring niches, niches or specialization, verticals.
[00:07:27] Angie Trueblood: Verticals.
[00:07:28] Corey Quinn: Exactly. That's why I call it verticals, because niching is too confusing. Okay. They're exploring different ones and then you could help to help them to first off guide them to a specific vertical that they Probably have some level of experience and data and track record with they say well Maybe I want to develop more of those and then do you work with them on the obviously you must work with them on The pitch so let's say it's attorneys and they were working with accountants that they want to go to attorneys That you help them to create a, craft a pitch that's going to appeal to a podcast that has an audience of attorneys, okay?
[00:07:59] Corey Quinn: Right? Does that make sense? Yeah, but the
[00:08:00] Angie Trueblood: interesting thing, Is you really just have to niche the pitch a little bit I mean an accountant who works with attorneys doesn't do a lot of things differently when they then work with A doctor right a medical practice like there's just not some of these different verticals aren't that different from one another?
[00:08:20] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, it's just like us like yeah me working with a bookkeeping firm What we do for them is not a lot different than what we work for like a fractional. Um, Clo it's just We just changed the messaging. So we work with them in the sense of, Hey, is this something you can talk about? Like you've worked with doctors, you know how to talk their language, right?
[00:08:40] Angie Trueblood: And then they absolutely will tailor their conversation a little bit more towards the audience that they're talking to.
[00:08:47] Corey Quinn: And so I was always, I've always been curious. I've been kind of on a podcast tour of my own.
[00:08:55] Angie Trueblood: Recently
[00:08:55] Corey Quinn: launched a book and now doing a bunch of stuff, uh, with, with programs and whatnot.
[00:08:59] Corey Quinn: And I'm always working on my presentation, the stories I tell, and I'm curious now that you've been doing this for, for as long as you have, do you have an opinion on what makes a really great podcast guest? Like what are the things that must be true for them to be a podcast, a great podcast guest?
[00:09:15] Angie Trueblood: It's really just their ability to show up and be human.
[00:09:19] Angie Trueblood: Um, I mean, I guess it depends. There are some people to where. Their topic is so fascinating that they don't themselves have to be that interesting I mean, we've talked about it internally with our team of like if we have a client whose topic is not super Compelling or you know, sexy, if you wanna call it that.
[00:09:38] Angie Trueblood: Mm-Hmm. . But their personality is then that can still be someone that can kind of sell a topic like financials. Right. That's not, not everyone wants to talk about finances. Sure. But it's important for business owners. And so you pull out some stories that help bring that to life. Mm-Hmm. . And that's really.
[00:09:55] Angie Trueblood: In terms of being a podcast guest during the interview, if you are a natural storyteller and can bring up examples of clients that you've worked with or experiences that you have had to where one, the host is engaged with you and there seems to be some sort of energy between the two of you. And then also the listeners feel like they're a part of that conversation.
[00:10:18] Angie Trueblood: I mean, to me, that's the perfect guest.
[00:10:20] Corey Quinn: What has to be true to Let's say a client, two clients come in to you and they want to, they want to work with you to help them to land more podcast guests. One is let's say really easy to place and get a lot of opportunity. The other one is more, much more work for your firm to be able to get them.
[00:10:36] Corey Quinn: What's the difference between the two? Like what makes a guest that's really easy to place versus someone who's less so?
[00:10:42] Angie Trueblood: I mean, part of it is the personality because we do make sure that our pitches help convey that. And part of that comes back to the digital presence, right? So if we have a client who is a ghost on social and The podcast hosts that we're pitching to can't find examples of who they are as a human.
[00:11:03] Angie Trueblood: It's really hard to get them booked, but we do it. We just really try to make their topics far more appealing and unique than what someone else in that space might be talking about. And we also brainstorm, like we've got a group of, they own a financial planning firm and they only work with physicians and it's, um, two men in the firm and leadership that we're representing right now.
[00:11:26] Angie Trueblood: And their topics are around finances, but then there's also topics where they're talking about fatherhood and how, because they're both men and they have a lot of male members and female members admittedly, but they talk about how sometimes men see their sole role in the family as earner. And they'll work themselves to the ground without, you know, having any sort of downtime to enjoy the experiences.
[00:11:51] Angie Trueblood: Well, that's still fits really nicely into a conversation about long term financial planning. Like Don't use all of your energy right now earning money for the future like take time to enjoy it So we have to just be a little bit more Unique and creative with some of the topics to get them placed
[00:12:08] Corey Quinn: Very cool Very cool.
[00:12:10] Corey Quinn: And you say you said you've been uh, you've been sort of in another evolution for your business I mean, I feel like
[00:12:16] Angie Trueblood: it's yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I started in 2017 You know, my kids were really little we had covid in the middle of this which You You know, presented its own challenges with the business.
[00:12:29] Angie Trueblood: Are we good on connection?
[00:12:31] Corey Quinn: Yeah, it, uh, it could look a little fuzzy on your end, but yeah, you're fine.
[00:12:35] Angie Trueblood: Okay, cool.
[00:12:35] Corey Quinn: Okay.
[00:12:36] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. So we've evolved a bit over the years. Uh, we experienced COVID, which was actually a really big year of growth for us because so many speakers were canceling events. Obviously they were no longer And so people turn to podcast guesting as a way to grow their business.
[00:12:54] Angie Trueblood: Um, and then we've done products to where I've trained individuals and I've trained teams on how to pitch themselves. And right now we're really evolving into a bit of a consulting and training firm for other agencies to help them pitch their clients. Um, so. It's funny when I very first, when I started one of my taglines on social was ridding the world of robotic pitches, and I feel like by us really training other firms to pitch well, that's part of the work that we're doing.
[00:13:26] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, you're fulfilling your
[00:13:27] Corey Quinn: mission.
[00:13:28] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, exactly. Who knew? I thought back then it was just so silly, and now I'm like, oh, actually, this is what we're doing. We're impacting far more people this way.
[00:13:36] Corey Quinn: Could you give me an example of a typical agency that now you're training? Like what type of agency, what type of clients are they pitching?
[00:13:44] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so right now we're working with a couple of different PR firms and it's interesting getting into that space and in your book you talk about learning the language and really understanding what drives all of them. You know, there's PR, I didn't grow up in the agency space. My background is education, biology, um, and so all of this, I have a sales background, which is, I think, what helps us be really solid at the work that we do.
[00:14:09] Angie Trueblood: Um, but I didn't grow up in the PR agency space. And so there's PR agencies, comms agencies, marketing agencies, And sometimes all of them are pitching clients for podcasts as a part of their core offering. So right now we're working with more traditional PR agencies. Some have been pitching their clients for podcast interviews, and it's just not as effective as they think it should be.
[00:14:33] Angie Trueblood: Um, others have shifted from getting those interviews outsourced. So they've worked with white label partners and they want to be more sustainable and keep that in house. And we're Really licensing training to where we come in. They can get our training program for their team, learn how to pitch their clients.
[00:14:54] Angie Trueblood: And then we consult some on the strategy of some of the clients they're working with. And so we've got people who are working with cybersecurity firms as their clients. We've got ones that are working with. You know, celebrity, celebrity doctors, if you will. So it kind of runs the gamut, which is fun for me to be able to put my brain on that strategy and help them get wins.
[00:15:19] Corey Quinn: So now that you've been doing this for a while and now you're teaching other people on the perfect pitch, what is a perfect pitch?
[00:15:26] Angie Trueblood: So there's no such thing, Corey, as a perfect pitch. And I think that's where people go wrong, because they think, Oh, there's got to be this template, and if I just plug everything in, then I'm good to go, you know?
[00:15:38] Angie Trueblood: And it is so much more, and I think this is the biggest gap we're filling with the PR agencies, is Podcast guesting is so much more of a human interaction than a lot of the media relations that they have experience with. And so when you're sending an email to a host or a producer, they just need to feel like there's a human on the other end of that communication.
[00:16:01] Angie Trueblood: And so that really is the biggest overarching theme is be a human when you are sending these emails. Don't start off the first paragraph with a bunch of statistics about the industry. Um, we often see really long bios. And I mean, I get pitched for my podcast, you get them for yours. And the whole email is.
[00:16:23] Angie Trueblood: Their credentials and their history without any recognition
[00:16:27] Corey Quinn: huge huge thing. I'm like, you know the background like
[00:16:30] Angie Trueblood: You have to weed through this
[00:16:31] Corey Quinn: to figure out like, is this a, is this the right guest for the audience? Yeah.
[00:16:34] Angie Trueblood: Well, right. And so the challenge of that is you're basically throwing up via email to the host all this information and asking them, Hey, can you sift through this and maybe come up with a topic that could work for your show?
[00:16:47] Angie Trueblood: So it's really be a human, propose a topic, I mean, how many times have you gotten an email that has five different options for topics? And you're like, no, you give me the best one. Like you check out my show enough to know what is the best topic for my audience. So I feel like if people follow those, I mean, keep your bio to a minimum, include what you need to convey your credibility, right?
[00:17:13] Angie Trueblood: And your ability to talk on this topic, propose a very specific topic with some details around what it could involve and. Don't assume that you are the greatest thing since sliced bread and actually ask the host, does this sound like a fit? Like ask the question rather than do you want me to send over my scheduling link?
[00:17:33] Angie Trueblood: Which is what we see in so many of them.
[00:17:35] Corey Quinn: Hey, it's Corey. I hope you're enjoying this episode and I want to let you know that I have a new bestselling book that has just come out that gives you my proven system to escape founder led sales. It's called anyone, not everyone. And it's been endorsed by Aaron Ross.
[00:17:51] Corey Quinn: April Dunford, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, John Rulon, and many others. If you'd like to get the audio book, absolutely for free. There's a link below in the description, or you can simply go to anyone, not everyone. com and start listening right now. So the best pitch I've ever received, and I'd be curious to hear, um, maybe when you've seen, or you've been involved in, but best pitch I've ever received to podcast with someone who.
[00:18:16] Corey Quinn: He was passionate about this idea of niching down and having, having specialization. He purchased my book, gave it a five star review on Amazon, took a screenshot of that and then put that up on the email and said, Hey, I loved your book. I'm a big fan. I've been listening to so on and so forth. Would love to, you know, the opportunity to come on the show caught my attention because it was like, yeah, reviews now being an author, it's, it's interesting.
[00:18:41] Corey Quinn: I. Reviews are like currency. I can't review is very powerful. So it caught my attention. I was like, Oh, someone actually. Went through the effort of buying the book and, you know, reading it and then leaving an amazing review. Like, that was just, that was very powerful for me.
[00:18:56] Angie Trueblood: Did he give you a topic that he thought would be relevant for him to talk about?
[00:19:00] Angie Trueblood: Absolutely.
[00:19:01] Corey Quinn: Very clear. I mean, it was like, it was very intentional. This was not a, there's not some, you know, quickie kind of, uh, you know, request. It was very, very intentional.
[00:19:10] Angie Trueblood: But that part that you mentioned, though, the, the screenshot of the review, like, that is part of that Really like humanity and connecting with the host and so there's no templated way to do that for him that totally worked Some people do little videos which I feel like if you're not careful, those can get pretty To me, those sometimes if you, I got, there's this one pitch and I know it's gone around because I've seen this person guest on so many different shows.
[00:19:37] Angie Trueblood: And I'm like, I know he sent a video to all of these podcasts hosts. And I think the videos can be really personal as long as you are communicating to that specific host, not just. Yeah, yeah. So, there's many different ways to do it. I often will have some sort of joke or reference, um, you know, to something that has to do with them or their show, but it doesn't have to be over the top, you know?
[00:20:01] Angie Trueblood: Okay.
[00:20:02] Corey Quinn: Have you had any, like, direct mail or anything, like, off of, uh, the email to, like, get a, get a guest place? Like, send them a care package or something crazy? Okay.
[00:20:10] Angie Trueblood: No, but I thought about it when I was reading your book. I was like, should we be sending cookies?
[00:20:18] Angie Trueblood: No, I mean, we do kind of, because we want to keep our efforts as scalable, you know, amongst members of the team, but there are times if we've got a big show on our radar that we will watch their socials a little bit more. We've got one of our clients a couple of years ago, booked on Pat Flynn's podcast, and it was because he had a post on Instagram.
[00:20:40] Angie Trueblood: Our client had engaged with it. And then that segment of the comments kind of blew up. And so I sent him a message and I was like, Hey, I noticed this really resonated with your audience. Would you be up for me? You know, maybe pitching, not pitching, but like, would you be up for a conversation with her about this on your show?
[00:20:58] Angie Trueblood: And then he connected me to the team. So.
[00:21:02] Corey Quinn: That's really cool. Have you ever, uh, do you typically get, or is it common to have a guest Sorry, excuse me, a client come in wanting to hire you and saying, Hey, I want to be on, uh, Tim, uh, Tim Ferriss's podcast. And then I'd love, gosh, I'd love to be on Joe Rogan and then, yeah, could you hook me up type of
[00:21:20] Angie Trueblood: thing?
[00:21:20] Angie Trueblood: I like having this
[00:21:21] Corey Quinn: really inflated
[00:21:22] Angie Trueblood: podcast. It's adorable, Cory. I mean, yes. And I will say. The beauty of, I have a podcast and so I think people will listen to that before the pitched podcast And it's got a ton of kind of how to and my take on podcast guesting So I think people listen to that before we get to the discovery call so they kind of know my approach and I think for guesting, these niched podcasts are so much more engaged than some of these really big shows.
[00:21:56] Angie Trueblood: And so rather than us beating our heads against the wall trying to get someone who has No social following relative to Tim Ferriss, you know what I mean? Or not on his radar at all as an expert. Let's just go out and get still really solid engaged audiences, get on those podcasts and sort of build up the bank where maybe it will make sense at some point to pitch to these giant shows, but no, no one has like The phone number of, I mean, they probably do have Amy Porterfield as an example, but she's not going to put a topic or a guest on her show.
[00:22:33] Angie Trueblood: That's not a good fit just as a favor. So it's still very much has to align with what the host has planned for their content.
[00:22:42] Corey Quinn: Does the, and you mentioned it anecdotally, but does a guest who would love to be, let's say on like an, with Amy Porterfield. Um, what it increases the chances of that happening, like what, what has to be true besides maybe the topic has to be spot on.
[00:23:01] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. Um, one, it's not going to be the first podcast they've ever guessed it on. So they need to kind of build up to that. And I would recommend that one for the pitch, but also. I think back to my first podcast interview. I'm really glad it wasn't on Amy Porterfield's podcast. I mean, it was atrocious. Um, and so you want to build up to that confidence wise and messaging wise, like you want to really get the kinks out before you're on a super high visibility show.
[00:23:30] Angie Trueblood: And then. We will work to see, well, do you know anyone that knows Amy? Have you taken any of Amy's programs? Like that in the online space can be one way to get a foot in the door. Like, Oh, you took a course from Pat Flynn. Does he know you exist? Like, is your name at all familiar to him? So then we start looking for connections and where we might be able either to get introductions or just a little bit of a warmer contact than You know pitching to an email address that's podcast at amyporterfield.
[00:24:03] Angie Trueblood: com.
[00:24:04] Corey Quinn: I wonder When her PR team is looking at the people of all the requests, what are they looking for?
[00:24:16] Angie Trueblood: So I think a lot of big shows are looking for people that also have fairly large followings. And so, you know, the clients that we work with, some of them have really large followings. Like we've worked with people that have shows that have over a million downloads, you know, and they've got, you know, 35,000 followers on Instagram or you know, 20,000 on LinkedIn.
[00:24:39] Angie Trueblood: But that still doesn't compare to the magnitude of some of the big shows that we have tried to get clients placed on. Um, one thing we did do years ago, I had a student in my course who wanted to be a guest on Amy's show, and I helped her write the pitch. So it still came from her. And we've definitely done this with bigger shows to where.
[00:25:03] Angie Trueblood: Our client had a little bit of a connection to the person is okay. Well, let me help you write the pitch Um to make sure you're hitting everything that you need to hit you send it and then we can collab on any sort of You know response that you get so I think they're looking for all of it and it's yeah, there's no magic formula Unfortunately,
[00:25:23] Corey Quinn: it reminds me of when I was when I was before I launched my book.
[00:25:26] Corey Quinn: I reached out to a bunch of people Authors, people I respected, to get, uh, see if they'd be open to doing and endorse, endorsing my book, reading my book, and then giving me a blurb. And, one of the, the, one of the authors that I respect, and I've read his book, and taken his materials, is, uh, Donald Miller. If you know Donald Miller, he talks about StoryBrand, and you have like the whole, like the, the whole script, the story, story script, I think it's called.
[00:25:52] Corey Quinn: In any event, I crafted this beautiful, like, pitch, the story, like, using his format. I was just truly trying to communicate that I truly respect him and that he's, uh, he would be someone amazing to blurb my book. So.
[00:26:09] Angie Trueblood: And, what happened?
[00:26:11] Corey Quinn: Unfortunately, he didn't get back to me, so. Did you follow up for him? I was listening.
[00:26:18] Corey Quinn: Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller. I'm still waiting.
[00:26:21] Angie Trueblood: Yes. I'm still working on that. We can include it in the second edition.
[00:26:25] Corey Quinn: Yeah. No, I'm, I'm still working on it. So hopefully, hopefully I'll get it.
[00:26:28] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. You never know. And, and that's what we try to set our clients up to know as well is none of this is a magic, you know, it's not guaranteed.
[00:26:38] Angie Trueblood: Um, and I think that's one of the challenges, some of the firms that we work with too, their clients. Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the ones that we're working with, their clients are much more prominent than some of the businesses that we're working with. And so they have very high expectations. And one of the modules I'm creating for them is client relations and how to set those expectations.
[00:26:57] Angie Trueblood: Because, I mean, I, we are leading our clients and so to do that, we have to level set some of their expectations for sure.
[00:27:05] Corey Quinn: Yeah. That's why they're hiring you the expert because they're going to make assumptions that are not founded.
[00:27:11] Angie Trueblood: Right.
[00:27:11] Corey Quinn: So I'm curious, now as a business owner, been doing this for a while, you're going to focus some effort into building relationships with PR agencies and other agencies who are doing this already but not, are not leveraging your system.
[00:27:23] Corey Quinn: How are you going to, how are you going to build that? Like what, what is the, do you have a sort of a plan in mind as it relates to getting in front of these PR agencies to, to share that you have this amazing product?
[00:27:33] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so networking is top of mind for me. It's what I love. It's what I'm good at. So I have some contacts in the space.
[00:27:42] Angie Trueblood: Um, one of them has a very large newsletter. So I messaged her the other day and I was like, Hey girl. Do you take sponsorships? Cause I'll pay you. I'm a big advocate of women getting paid for their audience that they have built and men as well, but so often we see, you know, and, uh, I was like, I'll pay you for it, but I would love, you know, in a couple of weeks to like include a blurb in the newsletter and she was like, yeah, absolutely.
[00:28:04] Angie Trueblood: So I'm going to advertise in newsletters, definitely guest on podcast. Um, this has been really effective. It's the primary way that I've grown my business over the years, both Getting in front of potential clients, but also relationships and growing my network. Um, so it hasn't failed me yet. So we're going to do that.
[00:28:23] Angie Trueblood: And then taking a note out of your book, I think really digging in to some of the associations and the meetings, like really immersing myself in the space is going to be key because their language is a little bit different than the language that I, you know, built in my agency. And so just kind of, um, Filling that learning gap because I think there's other things we could potentially help some of these agencies with operations I see they have so many moving pieces because there's so many different types of media and we're pretty rock solid with ops.
[00:28:58] Angie Trueblood: So That's my core plan sponsorships podcast interviews and then Meetings and I don't know if it's meetings associations like really getting into having a
[00:29:08] Corey Quinn: presence building relationships networking in those worlds Yep,
[00:29:12] Angie Trueblood: and
[00:29:12] Corey Quinn: then cookies
[00:29:14] Angie Trueblood: Definitely cookies. Yes. Yes. Or ice cream, but that's, you know, Oh, ice cream, middle of
[00:29:20] Corey Quinn: summer.
[00:29:21] Angie Trueblood: Yeah.
[00:29:22] Corey Quinn: Well, hopefully it's an, it's an overnight package. It's funny. The cookies will melt if you, um, if you, if you do multiple day shipments. So yeah, I wonder what ice cream. Well, I feel like
[00:29:30] Angie Trueblood: because of you, there's probably all these folks out there mailing cookies. So now I need to change up. It's going to get, it's going to get nuts.
[00:29:36] Corey Quinn: Like next, next week, I'm, I'm, uh, as we're recording this next week, I'm be, I'm going In Miami, talking to 300 agency owners about, um, using GIFs to develop direct relationships. And cookies are like the default story. So yeah, there's cookie companies everywhere are going to be just, you know, booming for the next, you know, who knows, but This is one cookie company that I'm excited about because they've The way that they go to market is is in alignment with what I believe which is that the experience is everything and in fact the founder of this cookie company said something that totally resonated with me, which was that, um, the experience of receiving and opening a gift is almost as important or is more important than the gift itself.
[00:30:24] Corey Quinn: Right? Yeah. And so the name of the company is called Last Crumb. Okay. And if you go check them out on their Instagram page, their website they're doing some changes but on their Instagram page you'll see they have amazing photography and they're dubbed the most expensive cookies.
[00:30:39] Angie Trueblood: Oh nice, they just own it.
[00:30:42] Corey Quinn: That's
[00:30:42] Angie Trueblood: it. They own it. That's who we are.
[00:30:44] Corey Quinn: Exactly. But it's because they put a lot of emphasis and investment of time, money and resources into the experience of the box. And they have like an amazing printed brochure in the box with beautiful photography and great copy. And then the cookies themselves.
[00:31:00] Corey Quinn: Oh my goodness. Like they are, they're heavenly. So I mean, Unboxing is a
[00:31:05] Angie Trueblood: thing, Corey. Unboxing is a thing. Whenever we get something delivered, you know, because I've been in programs where I get things sent to me or clients and refers my 14 year old, she wants to open all of it. It's just such the experience.
[00:31:20] Angie Trueblood: We do a lot with, um, sugar wish, which isn't the same because you have to, have you ever heard of them?
[00:31:27] Corey Quinn: I think so. That the one where you have to go online and they choose their own gifts type of thing?
[00:31:30] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so it's a little different. I feel like for some, like, to get into an attorney's office, it would be more challenging because, you know, they have to go through and do the ordering.
[00:31:38] Angie Trueblood: But it's a really cool, we love it. We send it to some of our referrers. We send it to clients. It's great.
[00:31:45] Corey Quinn: Yeah, I, I think it was, uh, someone was, wanted to send me a gift and I got to go on their website. I got to choose between, you know, different types of tequila. Now let's see. That was pretty great. What?
[00:31:54] Corey Quinn: That's awesome.
[00:31:57] Angie Trueblood: We need to hang out more, Cory, I need to meet your friends. I know, come on, cookies and tequila. Tequila? Oh.
[00:32:05] Corey Quinn: That's great. Yeah. That's awesome. So, uh, I'm excited for you in this, in this focus. I, you know, look, I think the more focus you could have in pointing your, your expertise in a specific area, there's more.
[00:32:19] Corey Quinn: I think, generally speaking, opportunity for you to build, for it to build to more of a flywheel and momentum. Yeah. I love the fact that you're doing that and you're leaning into things like advertising in newsletters and getting involved in associations. There's, there's so much need for the work that you do and, and I love to hear that you have now packaged it up and you're now empowering other people to, uh, to, to pitch, uh, in, in intelligent ways, I guess.
[00:32:44] Angie Trueblood: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Corey Quinn: Uh, so that's really cool.
[00:32:45] Angie Trueblood: I was going to say, um, and I do what you want with this, but I read your book at a point where we were at this pivotal point in the agency to where I was deciding, are we going to scale the client side or are we going to consider the consulting and doing training again?
[00:33:04] Angie Trueblood: And for me, with our business being as specialized in the service as it is. I could not figure out like what vertical we could go down unless it would be like B2B authors or, you know, cause some of the other bigger podcasting agencies, it doesn't seem like they have also. None of them seem to have really chosen a vertical and reading your book and just recognizing, Oh, but if I went in this direction, even though our service would change a little bit, it would be so much easier to talk to a very specific group of people.
[00:33:40] Angie Trueblood: Offer them a specific service rather than trying to hit all of these different types of businesses And like shouting loudly, which is not what I enjoy doing So, I mean I credit your book for helping push me to make a decision one way or another That's awesome because the challenge and the agency side was so challenging
[00:34:00] Corey Quinn: Yeah, and and as you've described it, it makes sense to me Which is that if you know, there's only so many places you could do that Go to any, so many podcasts you can go to within a specific niche that you've had a thousand financial advisors.
[00:34:14] Corey Quinn: Like you can't get them all on the 15 different podcasts that are available. It's just not, it doesn't make sense in that, that type of business model. So,
[00:34:22] Angie Trueblood: yeah, interesting. Cool. Exciting. Cool. Well, what else, um,
[00:34:27] Corey Quinn: what else should we cover as far as, you know, the, the, the art and science of podcast guesting?
[00:34:33] Corey Quinn: Yeah.
[00:34:34] Angie Trueblood: I mean, some of your listeners who are thinking, okay, maybe we'll test a couple of verticals this way. They likely want to know, okay, well like how many should we test and how many pitches should we send out to each of the verticals? Yeah. So for listeners that are thinking, this is something that we want to test internally for us to figure out our own verticals.
[00:34:57] Angie Trueblood: I would say, When people come to us and they've pitched themselves before either they've not pitched enough, right? They will have sent out five pitches. They didn't get any response and they think this isn't going to work for me. So a couple of metrics to kind of keep in mind. I would pick. Maybe three different verticals that are appealing if you want to do that You could also just pick one and kind of go down it but pitch to at least 20 different shows And you don't have to do them all in a week I don't recommend it because if you do all of them in one week, it might be Not be personalized as well as the pitches should be but pitch to 20 different shows Do the appropriate follow up so for us internally what we do for follow up is we will pitch a podcast host Then we wait two weeks Reply to that original pitch just kind of get it to the top of their inbox And then if we still don't hear anything, we'll send the last follow up two weeks later So we don't need to be obnoxious like I get pitches You On a Monday and they're following up on a Wednesday, we don't want to do that because we're being human.
[00:36:05] Angie Trueblood: But you do have to follow up. So if someone has pitched and they haven't done any follow up, then you can't really say it didn't work because you never closed the loop on it.
[00:36:16] Corey Quinn: You know, before they hire you, is there any kind of tools that you'd recommend that they use to find the shows within the verticals?
[00:36:21] Corey Quinn: Like what's your go to tool set that you recommend?
[00:36:24] Angie Trueblood: So we use a paid account through Podchaser, and I would not recommend that to folks who are just testing podcast guesting. It's just an investment that's unnecessary. Um, we use, Early on, we would use Apple Podcasts, and you search for the shows that you're looking for just like you would in Google.
[00:36:43] Angie Trueblood: So you would go in Apple Podcasts, and if you're interested in a vertical for HVAC, put in, how to grow an HVAC business. HVAC business. Any of those types of search terms, just make it, Make it the search terms you would use to find shows that you're looking for and see what comes back. And if you find a show that's really solid, Apple will give you similar shows.
[00:37:07] Angie Trueblood: So it's like they serve up to you on a nice little platter, um, several other HVAC shows. So it's not like you're in research mode for that long. You can also do giving away my secrets. You can do a Google search. So for a Google search, you can literally go into Google and search top podcasts for HVAC business owners, and it'll give you some shows, but it'll also give you listicles where people have done the legwork for you.
[00:37:36] Angie Trueblood: So there's really quick ways to be able to find those shows. And once you found one, you can almost find the rest.
[00:37:41] Corey Quinn: What's the secret for finding, once you find a podcast, what's the secret for finding the contact to reach out to so you can pitch them?
[00:37:48] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, so we always go over to the website, that's the easiest place for us to start kind of poking around.
[00:37:54] Angie Trueblood: A lot of hosts will have a form that they want you to use as a guest. So, if that is what they want you to use, then that is what you need to use on the first contact. Um, if you don't find a form, then you kind of get free reign to be able to send them an email. Several hosts, a lot of hosts will have the emails on their website.
[00:38:16] Angie Trueblood: If they don't, you just need to do a little bit more research. There's Instagram you can go to on mobile and find an email. Yeah. LinkedIn, you can often connect directly with the host on LinkedIn. So there's ways to find those email addresses. It just takes a little bit more hunting and pecking. If you will.
[00:38:35] Angie Trueblood: Do
[00:38:35] Corey Quinn: you have an opinion, good or bad about those podcast hosts who want to charge you to go on their podcast?
[00:38:41] Angie Trueblood: I am all for podcasters making money. So that is my first thing. If that is the business model that they're using to monetize their show, I'm all for it. What I have a really hard problem with is not disclosing it to the audience.
[00:38:57] Angie Trueblood: So we see the back end of a lot of podcasts to where we will send a pitch and then we will get an email response back that is, Oh, you know, we charge 300 as a production fee, or if you want to pay 150, you can get to the front of the waitlist and we can get right. And it's never disclosed to the audience.
[00:39:20] Angie Trueblood: So we have a standard reply that is. One, please send us like your media kit. Like we want to know your numbers because this is now shifting into advertising, and we need to know if there's an ROI. And then we also ask them, how do you disclose the sponsor relationship with, to your audience? And about 90 percent don't.
[00:39:40] Angie Trueblood: And that's when I never recommended to our clients.
[00:39:44] Corey Quinn: What? They just won't reply to your email. Like, yep.
[00:39:47] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, no, they will. Oh, they will. Well, it's interesting because in verticals that are outside of business, I had a conversation with a really big podcast. It was a producer of a very large show and she seemed flabbergasted that we would want that relationship disclosed to the audience.
[00:40:06] Angie Trueblood: And we, I mean, we had like, I even shared a podcast episode that I recorded on it. And I just told her for us, it's really an ethics and, you know, a truth in advertising so that the end user knows that relationship. Right. Yeah. So. What's your opinion on it, Corey? What's that? What's your opinion on it? Cause I'm sure you've seen it.
[00:40:28] Corey Quinn: Well, along my path. So I am doing the podcast tour and I have come across podcast hosts who are, yeah, they're, they're charging. And of course, the next thing I would do is I would try to understand like, what is, okay, what is the true opportunity here? As you said, like, what's the ROI, what's the potential for an ROI.
[00:40:51] Corey Quinn: And in the very few times, because I'm not, obviously I'm not a professional in this area, but the few times I've come across this, the, the opportunity was never really worth the cash that they were asking for, specifically in my case. So, I would pass on those situations.
[00:41:05] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, we, I mean, we've seen numbers all the way from 35, which I think is bananas.
[00:41:10] Angie Trueblood: I'm like, is that even worth, like, setting the system up for? Yeah. Like, to thousands, so.
[00:41:18] Corey Quinn: Yeah. The, the one that I have, um. I did sort of engage with a host or producer just to be a guest. And they did do the thing where it's like, yeah, if you want to go to the top of the list, it's 150 bucks. And yeah, I'm okay to wait.
[00:41:32] Corey Quinn: Like, no, all good. Just put me on the list. Let me know when you were up.
[00:41:35] Angie Trueblood: I'm like, we got project management. We'll put a circle back date on our task.
[00:41:41] Corey Quinn: That's awesome. I passed on that too. Yeah. Cool. So I love that. So, um, yeah. For agency owners who are in the process of uncovering a vertical market, you mentioned earlier that you, you would explore verticals you have some experience with, you like, you want to potentially lean into them.
[00:41:57] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Do some podcasting in their world, generate a few more clients that will really validate this, and as a result of that you can say, okay, we're ready to really, really focus in on this vertical market. You mentioned starting with three verticals, 20 shows each. Do the follow up. Don't spend money on getting lists on, you know, through these websites.
[00:42:15] Corey Quinn: Just do your own research. And as a result of that, you'll be much smarter about these verticals and have a much, much more data to make a really high quality decision when vertical, when specializing in a vertical.
[00:42:27] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. Well, and there's other free apps out there that can help. So Listen Notes is a great one.
[00:42:33] Angie Trueblood: That's free. really accessible, great search features, um, chartable. I think they have a free version to where you can get a sense of if the show has ever placed on the charts, which is kind of nice to know the size of it. So I feel like there's plenty for folks who are pitching themselves, not, you know, a whole gaggle of clients to where you don't really need to invest.
[00:42:58] Angie Trueblood: Podmatch, we've used that before as an agency and an individual. And I adore Alex and what he is doing. I think there have been some really great collaborations that have come out of there. And for me, it's hit or miss. And I feel like it's reasonably priced. And so to me, it's worth it just to at least explore it for a couple of months to see if you get matched with a show.
[00:43:22] Angie Trueblood: That's a good fit.
[00:43:23] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Um, you know, candidly I'm on there and my assistant
[00:43:26] Angie Trueblood: is
[00:43:26] Corey Quinn: going in and she's researching different opportunities for me. Yeah.
[00:43:30] Angie Trueblood: Oh,
[00:43:30] Corey Quinn: I love that. Nice. Yeah. Awesome. What else? What else for our agency audience? What else would be helpful from anything?
[00:43:40] Angie Trueblood: So that's the number. Well, so one question a lot of people always ask is, is the pitch better coming from me or an assistant?
[00:43:49] Angie Trueblood: How to project manage that? Because agency owners for sure do not have time as an available resource. Yep. And. The idea, I mean, I think of even myself pulling a pitch list for me, it doesn't happen. Like I have to get a teammate to do it. So The idea and the question might be is how do we implement this if it's something that we want to do with our team?
[00:44:13] Angie Trueblood: And it's really understanding the skill set and likely if you own an agency you have several people on the team with different skill sets. For agency owners that are thinking how do I implement this with The number of people that I have on my team, I would definitely delegate to different folks, um, the research component.
[00:44:30] Angie Trueblood: So finding the shows to pitch, if you have someone that is great at doing research, whether it is kind of collecting competitive data or on behalf of your clients, really looking into like the landscape and. Strategy for clients. That's probably a great person for research. Um, you're going to want a strategy brain in there who also is solid at messaging.
[00:44:53] Angie Trueblood: So that's where we see our teammates that do the pitching are really great at communicating. Through email. I mean, you want someone who has a little bit of business acumen to be able to do that. And then I highly recommend an admin person for doing the scheduling and the interaction with the hosts on the back end, because that's before we had an admin on our team.
[00:45:15] Angie Trueblood: I felt like I was always dropping the ball with scheduling and the things that I'm not good at, and having someone have ownership of that is great. So, I would say they probably have a couple of folks on their team that they can segment the parts of pitching and guesting out to.
[00:45:31] Corey Quinn: What type of time commitment does this look like?
[00:45:34] Angie Trueblood: Yeah, I mean, you know, I said 20 shows to pitch. I don't recommend, I mean, two a week for an individual is probably fine. If you really want to go big, I think an owner could maybe get five pitches out in a week if they want to do it in more of like a sprint formation to where. All right, we're going to pitch for eight weeks and then call it, you know, do the follow up, do the interviews, but we don't need to do this all year.
[00:45:58] Angie Trueblood: I mean, to get a pitch out, I would say between research prep, sending and follow up probably a total of one and a half hours. So if you could allocate just a couple hours a week and just keep that plate spinning, that's the key to it. It's just not, we had a student one time and she said, I have a pitch list of a hundred shows.
[00:46:19] Angie Trueblood: And I'm like, Oh my God. Why did you not start pitching when you had 10, you know, because you want to get that, um, just some of that, not endorphins, but just the positive feedback of, oh, this is working rather than like going down the research. Um,
[00:46:36] Corey Quinn: when it comes to the call to action, so you're coaching your clients, you're getting them on amazing podcasts.
[00:46:42] Corey Quinn: They obviously are wanting, let's say in the, in the term of an agency owner is testing out some verticals. How does being a guest on a podcast translate into clients? Like what, is there a pitch? Is there an offer? Like what do you, how do you coach them?
[00:46:54] Angie Trueblood: So the pitch isn't a hard pitch because you want to be respectful that you're creating content and helping the host, you know, grow, create content for their own audience.
[00:47:03] Angie Trueblood: But at the end, first you want to plant seeds throughout the interview, you know, drip the idea of the types of clients that you've worked with in the past through your stories, which I've done here. You know, your listeners can probably think, okay, she works with agency owners. I know a couple that she's worked with at the end.
[00:47:18] Angie Trueblood: And that's the challenge. I think so many people place all this emphasis on like that last two minute blurb of what do I tell the listener to do? And really it should be set up along the way to where at the end they're expecting you to say, Hey, if you want to know how to work with me, go to this page.
[00:47:33] Angie Trueblood: The app, like the big call to action, whether it's schedule a discovery call or sign up for my opt in, it really depends on your business model because bookkeeping firm. No one that wants to outsource their bookkeeping wants to sign up for some financial spreadsheet that they're never going to do. So, right.
[00:47:56] Angie Trueblood: So we tested that in the beginning. We worked with that client probably for three years. And at one point she had a book and then at another point she had a financial dashboard. And we finally, I said, just give them the link to the discovery call. Like if you want help, sign up and let's talk. So the most direct call to action, like their next logical path of working with you, share that with them.
[00:48:19] Angie Trueblood: And then we coach and help our clients just to create a landing page that has several different options because listeners all have different personalities. And some may hear me and think. Oh, I want to talk to her. Like, I really want to book a discovery call with her and others might be like, Oh, this is interesting, but it's not relevant right now to me, but maybe I'll go connect with her on LinkedIn.
[00:48:42] Angie Trueblood: So we have a landing page that folks can go to and they can see, it's like, choose your own adventure. We're all adults here. I don't love the idea of siloing them into like, do this one thing or we'll never. Yeah, yeah, so
[00:48:58] Corey Quinn: that's beautiful. Well, um, yeah, with all that in mind, where could people reach out to find more, find out more about you and your service?
[00:49:05] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. So my landing page is the pod wise group slash hi there. And there's access to the podcast, scheduling a discovery call, more info on the work that we do. And then I'm really active over on LinkedIn and Angie Trueblood. So. Okay. Yeah.
[00:49:22] Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Well, this has been fantastic. I always love bringing seasoned experts in a specific area that directly relates to agency founders.
[00:49:30] Corey Quinn: And this has been a real great conversation. So much good data. I've been taking so many notes. Thank you, Angie. This has been great.
[00:49:38] Angie Trueblood: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Corey. Appreciate it.
[00:49:40] Corey Quinn: That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope you join me again next time on the deep specialization podcast. If you received value from the show, please go to apple podcasts and leave us a review.
[00:49:51] Corey Quinn: Thanks. And we'll see you soon.
