PP 160: Amplifying Your Visibility Through Podcast Marketing with Tom Schwab

Website: https://interviewvalet.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InterviewValet/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/interview-valet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TMSchwab

Tom’s wonderful resources for Positive Productivity listeners
Podcast Guest Profits – Tom’s book
Play Bigger by Al Ramadan
Internet Business Mastery
The Bitterest Pill with Dan Klass
Social Media Social Hour
Natural Born Coaches with Marc Mawhinney

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host Kim Sutton, and today I am thrilled to welcome Tom Schwab to the show. Tom, thank you so much for joining us today.

Tom Schwab: Kim, I am thrilled to be here.

Kim Sutton: Oh I am thrilled you are here. Listeners, Tom is the founder of Interview Valet and the author of Podcast Guest Profits, and I know that you all are going to learn so much and just be entertained. Well, you know, it’s always somewhat of a zoo on my side, but enjoy.

Tom, can you give a little bit of background to the listeners about where you were before you founded Interview Valet and how Interview Valet came to be?

Tom Schwab: It’s a great question, and it always sounds better when you describe it. In hindsight, I have to say we sort of fell into podcasting to be marketing. My background is inbound marketing, using content to attract customers, engage leads, delight fans, and most of the time, that content was always blogs. You know, that’s how most people had done it.

Tom Schwab: And one of the things we saw about four years ago, was that the blogs just weren’t working as well. They’ve gotten saturated. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that every strategy has its expiration date right at one time. Billboards worked great. At another time, television ads worked great. Even email when it first started worked great, right? You’ve Got Mail and we were all excited and then it turned into spam.

Tom Schwab: Well, one of the things that we saw was that podcasting was really taking off. And you know, anybody that says doing a podcast is easy has never done it or never done it. Well. The great ones just make it look easy.

So one of the things we looked at is that could you use podcast guesting, you know, being a featured guest on a podcast, almost like we used guest blogging, right?

Tom Schwab: Instead of starting your own blog, well get on the Huffington Post or, you know, Entrepreneur Magazine, something like that, and blog for them to get that instant traffic, get in front of the right audience, get to know like and trust.

So we started to test that. And it came originally, I was just blown away. I didn’t think the results were true. I’m an engineer by degree, so I always look at the numbers and test things. And originally I thought, you know, it’s the personality. It’s the niche.

Tom Schwab: You know, we were seeing conversion rates of 25% to 50%. visitor to lead and a blog is about 1 to 2%. So we continued to test that prove that it was really a system. refined it.

We started to teach it about two years later, and people said well, you know, I understand the system, but I really want it done for me. Now one of our clients said, I want to be the guest, you take care of all the rest.

Tom Schwab: So in 2015, we started to beta test really this done for you service. That came out of beta in early 2016, called Interview Valet, and it’s really focused on podcast interview marketing. How can you use podcast interviews to drive traffic, to get better leads and really grow your business.

Tom Schwab: And there’s all kinds of advantages now we’ve seen to it from the SEO value to the social media value to just you know that the high quality traffic and leads so it’s been a fun journey. And the best part is I get to talk to great people like yoru listeners,

Kim Sutton: I was not paid to say this — I just want to disclose this — but I have to tell you (?) that even just in a year and a half, I had no idea or two years, the team that you have put together is absolutely phenomenal. And I have enjoyed every interaction with them. So you are giving me so thing to aspire to, I had no idea again that it was only two years. If I can have a team that is so professional and so organized like that, that is my dream. Bravo to you.

Tom Schwab: Well, it’s been a process, and the real credit goes to the team. There’s a great book out there called Play Bigger, and they talk about category design. That you’ve got to, you know, define the category and help define that. And really, that’s what we’re doing, evangelizing.

You know, podcast interview marketing, I think, you know, that’s going to be as, as big as email marketing someday, you know, you’ve got to come up with a product, which is really the services and then the systems that we have in place.

Tom Schwab: And then the final sort of leg of the triangle is the company culture. And we’ve got great people, great hearts, that really understand you know, that our mission is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders, to millions of ideal people that they could serve for the betterment of all so we love what we do, and it really makes a difference in people’s lives,

Kim Sutton: Tom, with the introduction of different media players now going into cars, new car designs — I don’t know what that’s like quite yet, but someday I do imagine I’ll experience it –do you see podcasting dying anytime soon?

Tom Schwab: I keep hoping that the name podcast will die, because I don’t think it’s really podcasting anymore as much as on demand radio, right? My two youngest daughters, I asked them one time, I said, “You know, podcasting,” I said, “What’s the pod mean?“

And they just rolled their eyes. And, “I don’t know, Dad, what’s it mean?“

Tom Schwab: They had never really seen an iPod before. To them, it was always an iPhone. So they didn’t know what that was. And there’s so many people that I’ll talk to and say, you know, “Do you listen to podcasts?” And they’ll say, “No. What’s that?“

But then you start to hear that they listen to you know, Sirius XM. A lot of that is rebranded podcasts, you know. On demand radio is going to be a thing in cars, you know, so you can download it right there. So I think this whole idea of people will start to listen to podcasts, but not necessarily know what’s a podcast.

Tom Schwab: I give the example of last summer, I got a call from a couple of buddies in Arizona, and I’d been in the Navy with them. And they reached out to me and said, “Hey, I didn’t know you were in town. Let’s get together tonight.“

And, after I got the second call, I call them back and I’m like, “Why did you think I was in town?” And they’re like, “Well, we heard you on the morning drive this morning, on the radio, and we just figured you were, you know, in town in a studio.“

Tom Schwab: And when we pieced it all together, it was a podcast interview that I’d probably done six months before that got picked up on Terrestrial radio as filler content or whatever. And to them. they didn’t know if it was a podcast or anything. They just cared that it was content that was interesting to them.

Kim Sutton: I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t think my mom or my stepmom yet know how to install a podcast player on their phone. So hey, moms, if you’re listening, if you let me know if you listen to this episode, that would be awesome.

I mean, it’s still even though podcasts in that word that you don’t necessarily have been around for quite some time, it’s amazing how it hasn’t picked up any faster than it has. I mean, even text messaging picked out like snap in my opinion. It’s…

Tom Schwab: Yeah.

Kim Sutton: You know, American Idol said something about text messaging, too. It’s like, oh, what’s text messaging and that huge wave picked up and took off. But, just yesterday, I was talking to somebody about the first podcast I ever listened to. Do you remember what the first podcast that you ever listened to was?

Tom Schwab: Yes, it was Internet Business Mastery.

Kim Sutton: Hmm. That’s a good one.

Tom Schwab: That one and then it was about the same time would be Business Tech Weekly, with Cliff Ravenscraft and Andy Traub. And it was so amazing because I got to be friends later with both of them. And you know, just just started listening to a podcast. And that podcast probably ended, I don’t know, maybe eight years ago

Kim Sutton: Just going back to emails… I know I’m all over the place a little bit, but yesterday, I was actually just thinking about asking my list if they even read my emails, because I was thinking about that myself. You know, is it really, in the best interest of my time to be sending out broadcasts besides the fact that with our email service providers, we need to keep in contact with our list once every four months or they’re considered cold?

But really, is it worth my time when I could be focusing on expanding the podcast and coming up with better content, but I was thinking about the first podcast that I ever listened to it was Dan Klass with The Bitterest Pill.

Tom Schwab: Okay.

Kim Sutton: And he was a friend of my brother, and that was back in 2010. And I the light bulb just went off in my head yesterday when I was thinking about it. That was, that was 2010… Wow, it just never even occurred to me.

Tom Schwab: We were talking about this at a event I was speaking at and somebody asked like, “When do you think podcasts will get to 100%?“

Because I think now you know, depending, you know, what study you look at, it’s somewhere between 20 and 40% of the US population regularly listens to podcasts, and everything. about that for a little bit, it’s like, I don’t know that it’ll ever get to 100%. Right? Television and radio isn’t 100%.

Tom Schwab: I think some of it is, you need to put the content out there the way people like to consume it. So, you know, I, I say that I read a book, chances are I probably listen to it on Audible, because I’m more of an auditory learner. So I think one of the great things about this medium is that you can put it out there in the way you want, right?

Tom Schwab: So even when I write a blog, a lot of times I will dictate the blog, and then I’ll get it transcribed and somebody else will clean it up a little bit. And then I’ll put it up as a blog post because for me to go on a rant for four or five minutes that’s easy to sit down and write is hard. But I don’t want to tell somebody that, you know, only that learns through reading that no, you got to listen to me, and it’s so easy to repurpose the content.

Tom Schwab: Now I know some people will do video and put them up on YouTube as videos other people you Don’t get transcripts or to take snippets out of it, and really to make it as easy for you to produce the content. And then it’s easy for the person to consume the content in the way they like,

(Transcript still being cleaned up. Thanks for checking it out!)

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. I take every podcasts and had the show notes. Eventually I have the transcript produce I eventually also I put it on YouTube. So if that’s their preferred listening, or watching I mean, there’s nothing to watch except for our picture, but it’s out there so we can hit so many different mediums here. So right there’s I, in my opinion, there’s a myth that podcasting is expensive. And I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that it really isn’t. Do you have any thoughts about that?

I think when you compare it to other mediums, especially, right, so if you want to do an NPR quality show with the high editing and everything like that, it could be as expensive as you want, but it also can be as inexpensive as you want. You know, if you want to do you know, all you need is a good microphone. Most of the tools you could use are free. You know, you could edit it yourself or you could, you know, start to look and say, which is more important to me time or money. To me, I look at return on investment. And sometimes I Well, I always feel guilty when I start talking about this to a podcast host because Kim, you’re doing all the work, you’re setting it up, you’re producing it, you’re doing the show notes, the transcript, all the rest of that. So your investment in it is substantial, and you get substantial returns out of it, but I look at it is like as a podcast guest. You know, I show up for half hour, 45 minutes, my investment of time and effort and everything is much, much smaller. But my return is just as big if not greater. So the return on investment is even bigger. And people ask me like, why don’t I have my own podcast, and there is going to be one coming out but I look at it and say two reasons. I’m lazy. And the other one is that I get a better return on investment as a guest.

I never really thought about that before you and I are going to have to talk a lot more. We already had to because I was already thinking about that. But yeah, now you just gave me more a bigger cake. Let’s just put it that way. Do you remember what the first show was that you were a guest on? I do.

And I should probably ask him if he could take it down. Because I’ve listened to it a couple times. Bernie Burgess. And it was social media business hour. And Bernie, great guy from Florida. And I’d written a blog for I think it was HubSpot. And he liked it. And he said, Hey, would you like to be on the show and talk about this? And I’m like, Yeah, that sounds great. So he was on his show, and I’m sure it was very, very rough. I, I didn’t do all the things that we we teach people now the calls to action, all the rest of that, but like I tell people, even our clients, the worst interview you ever do, we’ll be your first one. So get it out of the way. And that’s why we always you know, if they’ve never done a podcast or two While we say, well, let’s do a couple practice podcast interviews before they actually go live

Mark millenia natural born coaches invited me to be on his show. And that was my first. And I have to say that I think I was instantly injected with the podcasting book. And it only took off from there. It was a whole, I believe, a year and a half before I even launched mine. And I had so many ideas. I actually I had a night I was going to launch two podcasts at the same time. listeners, you know, I have enough bloopers to fill a whole week of episodes. So I can’t even imagine trying to balance both. But that was such a great podcasting experience, because it did get me out there. And actually, I was on three or four more shows as a result of being on Mark’s show. It was outstanding. And I was talking about Infusionsoft and how we could use it to systemize our business and get away from the computer, which is something that I’m trying to help listeners do now. Imagine that everything going full circle.

Tom Schwab: The thing is, is that the more interviews you do, the more comfortable you get. The better your presentation is, you learn from your mistakes. And we were talking before we started to record. I’ve been on over 1000 podcast interviews and with our clients we’ve done I think it’s we’re up to like 5000 now. So we always are trying to learn new things. And we’ve got a checklist of everything that we’ve learned, you know, in, in the military, they talk about, you know, checklists are written in blood. And I gotta admit that a lot of the blood in the checklist is mine. You know, things like turning off Dropbox sinking, before you go on a podcast interview, I was on one interview, and then I thought it was going great, and then all of a sudden, somebody on my team sent me that video that I had been asking for forever, and all of a sudden the bandwidth just disappeared, or you know, checking your microphone beforehand. So I bought a big interview and speaking into a $400 microphone, and it being picked up by the internal microphone on the site or on the on the computer and nothing ruins your credibility more than it sounds. Like you’re calling in from a bathroom,

I had never thought about Dropbox thinking. And here I am looking at the green little icon in my system tray. Thank you. It’s uh,

I was just gonna say it’s always better to learn from somebody else’s mistakes. And if anybody wants that checklist, I’ll share that with him and you can download that and learn from us and the same thing that we share with our clients.

I love all my guests. However, I have been amused at what goes on during our episodes, for example, the the desk tapping and it really doesn’t bother me. I mean, they’re making a point but the desk tapping or playing with a slinky or eating m&ms out of a glass jar, it cracks me up because I don’t think that it’s necessary necessarily thought of all the time of all those extra sounds that are picked up. This is not about podcasting, but I have to share a quick story with you Tom and listeners if you haven’t heard it before. I hope you’re entertained when I first started my business in 2012. The first interview I ever got the gentleman wanted to speak with me Skype and I didn’t even know that I could do audio only so we picked up the whole living room so that when I turned on the camera it would be okay we were in a small apartment at the time. And he wasn’t even planning on a video call but when he sees me on one he he turns his on as well Tom and you You and I were talking about this before the call, you know, is everything cleaned behind us, you know, are we all set? Well, everything was going great. And then all of a sudden two of my cats came into the room. This is so not appropriate for children listeners, just so you know, the cats were fixed However, they didn’t realize it and their screen or above my shoulder, I could see them going at it right during this interview with my first ever prospect and my husband sitting next to me at his desk and I start tapping him. You know, try not to let the prospect see what and I’m and I point to the screen he just pushes down on my leg and he’s like, stay still do not say anything. Do not move. Maybe he won’t notice. And he never said anything. I actually, that was my first contract. I got the project.

Tom Schwab: But it’s amazing with the technology now, you can be any place and do a Skype call a podcast interview. My embarrassing story is that you know, some of the interviews are on video. Well, you know, I, I’ll put a shirt and maybe a sport coat on for the interview. But if it’s summer, I’m still going to have shorts and flip flops on. And sure enough, I had back to back calls one time, and I walked outside between calls just to get some fresh air. We’ve got two miniature donkeys. So I went out there to see them. And I was walking back in the house with my daughter and her friend pulled up and she was just mortified that I had had shorts, a dress shirt, sport coat, and flip flops. And she’s like, Dad, please don’t go out a house like that. And I’m like, we live in six acres. Nobody can see me What difference does it make? And so from that standpoint, you could do a video interview from him. from any place I’ve done podcasts, interviews, from hotel rooms on vacation at work, you know, as long as you’ve got a microphone and a decent internet connection at work is what you do, not where you are.

Absolutely. It’s, you know, Mark Mason from late night internet marketing.

I sure do.

He was my first guest when I launched the podcast. And I remember that morning I had listened to an episode where he was in China, I don’t remember what city and he actually had the concierge at the hotel record the intro for that episode. And there are so many of his episodes that he does record from hotel rooms, which is amazing. I love that. I’ve told my husband that when all of our kids are gone, which listeners you know, we’ll be in like two decades. I’d love to get an RV and do this from anywhere. It would be amazing to be interviewing people from my RV on a coast somewhere.

Tom Schwab: We have a client that works for a major fortune 500 company and he’s their spokesman and that’s what he’s been doing the Last year, he and his wife bought a customized van had been going all across the continent. They were up in Canada and Alaska. And he’s been doing podcast interviews from the band, and you’d listen to it and you would never know the difference. Even at times, he’ll do video interviews. And you have no idea that he’s sitting there sitting right there in the band. He did. One it was north of the Arctic Circle. Here, they were up there this summer, and he did a podcast interview from up there.

Oh my gosh, I would love an introduction there that was not intended at all, but that that is absolutely amazing. Sounds like the digital nomads dream come true

very much. So when he would do a speaking event or something, he may fly to that event, like there was one that he did in Turkey. So he flew there, and then decided where he was going to meet his wife, because she was going to drive to the next place. And so he’d drive fly back a few days later and meet her

Tom. I know this is a positive productivity podcast, but I always love to provide tips. And feedback and tools and resources that the listeners can use if they are considering whatever we’re talking about. What are some of the mistakes I’d love to start with the mistakes even comical that you’ve seen or heard, I guess, as the case would be interviewees making, we’ve already shared a couple of our own. But what are some of your recommendations,

I would have to say the biggest mistakes is not learning from other people, because there’s all this information out there. So like the checklist, I’ll make a special page Kim just for your listeners, just interview ballet.com forward slash positive. So everything Kim and I talked about will be there. But learn from other people on on how to make it work. It’s almost like you know, building a car, figure out the blueprints for somebody else gives you the blueprints, it’s a whole lot easier, or baking a cake. If somebody gives you the recipe, it’s a whole lot easier. And what I see a lot of people doing is we put the recipe out there and then they’ll say well, I want to skip some steps. I don’t want to do This part I just want to get on a lot of interviews. And so they’ll just focus on one part. And really, we’ve looked at, at it, you know, as we’ve tested it and everything, and there’s really, you know, six steps to podcast and a B marketing. There’s the prospecting, which is getting on the right shows. There’s the pitching, which is getting the host to say, yes, there’s the preparation, which is making sure you’re ready for the show. You know, nothing ruins your credibility more than jumping on stage in Dayton, and saying, hello, Columbus now. So be prepared for the performance, you know, having the right equipment. And then the next two steps are progression, moving them from being just a passive listener to an active visitor. And then the final the final one, which podcasts was always like, is promotion, you know, the podcast host is promoting the episode, you should do the same thing. And so, you know, sometimes people will, will skip those steps or just say I just want to get on a lot of podcasts. Well, you don’t need to get along. A lot of podcasts you need to get on the right podcasts and deal with 400,000 podcasts out there. It’s not so much the tough part is not getting on a podcast is getting on the right podcast, and one that matters. And I’ll just give you an example here of people make a lot of mistakes on pitching. You know, how do you reach out to a podcast host? Well, think of it. Think of yourself, do you like to be cold calls, you know, just somebody calls you during dinner and tells you what they want from you. You hang up on them. And it’s the same way for a podcast host. So you should always be focused on what value you can add. You should build that relationship before you pitch a podcast host. You should either work with somebody that’s got an existing relationship or you should build that relationship. So listening to the podcast, promoting it sharing things on your social media, leaving comments, leave a rating and review. I tell you what every podcast host looks at the ratings and reviews. If you leave one of those, they will know who you Are and after you do that for a few weeks, then you can reach out and say, Kim, I’ve listened to the podcast. I’ve really liked this about it. I think I could offer this as a benefit to your listeners. Because really, what you’re doing on a podcast is trying to make the host look like a genius for for introducing you to the audience. So I think that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes is forgetting that, like everything in life, it’s all about the relationships.

I completely agree with everything that you just said, Actually my least successful guest ever. I actually stopped the conversation. And I am not a confrontational Person person. So by the time it had reached that point, I was actually seeking the guest hadn’t listened to the show, and didn’t understand that it was positive productivity, and was arguing every question that I asked about how it wasn’t applicable, because everybody’s different. And I realized that everybody’s different. Oh, I realized that However, it’s possible. Productivity podcasts. I’m not coming here to start arguments. Right,

exactly.

So eventually, when I was scared to ask my next question, and I never know what my next question is going to be, but I was sitting here like, what do I even ask? I don’t want to be told it’s a bad question. And finally, I just realized, okay, this is enough, because yeah, don’t listeners, don’t waste your time and don’t waste the time of the host. Because I guarantee there are more people than me who will stop an episode when it’s just not going well.

If it’s really bad, it gets stopped. If it’s just sort of semi bad, the recording gets lost. And you know, actually podcasters will may admit this or may not, but technology can work in your advantage. If you don’t respect the host, the audience the rules, they may be very polite for a half hour and let you go on and on, but that will never see the light of day. And so you know, your guests, your guests in somebody else’s house. They’re inviting you in And introducing you to their friends. So from that standpoint on, never forget who the star is, and who the person is that invited you. And I would say, you know, podcasts are an awful place to sell. Nobody wants to listen to an infomercial, but they’re a great place to build relationships. And that’s, that’s one of the things that we talk about our clients and we say no to more clients than we say yes to because we’ll tell them you know, you don’t have the things to to fully leverage podcast interview marketing. And you know, from the our first hundred clients, we went back and looked and said, what makes the difference between good results and great results because we only want to work with people that we know can get great results and you know, it really boils down to, to message market and machine. So you know, the message was, do you have stories to tell and not just a product to sell, nobody wants an infomercial. You know, the market is Do you know who you want to talk to? And is there something you can help them with? No, we had one author and ask them, you know, What kind of podcasts he wanted to be on who he wanted to talk to? And he said, anybody that’s got $20 and wants to buy a book. I’m like, no, that’s not how it works. And then the final one is the, the machine. If you’re going to be on a podcast, make sure that you’ve got a machine that supports you. So you’ve got a website that builds trust that people can interact with a social media presence that at least builds trust. Because if somebody hears you’re on a podcast, chances are, they’re going to either Google your name, go to your website, and you want to make sure that that builds your expertise, not destroys it.

Absolutely. And I subscribe to way too many podcasts if that’s possible. I think I probably subscribed to 80 to 100. And when I’m listening to them, I always go back to the beginning and and listening to podcasts in full disclosure from 2013 right now, listeners it is not 2013 but no matter when you listen to this episode, I’m just gonna leave it dateless because you could be listening to this episode for years. After it goes out, but I am reaching out to guess on podcasts from four years ago. If you are on a podcast, I would even consider if that brand is no longer around that your point that you keep that domain and point it to where people can find you now, because somebody as long as that podcast is still out there, somebody will contact you. Some of these people that I’ve reached out to are amazed that I was listening to an episode from 2013 2012. Oh, where did you hear that? And I’ll tell them like, Oh, that’s amazing. I didn’t know that people still listen to that episode.

You’re so right, Kim, one of our first clients, I would say our oldest client, it makes him sound, you know, old. But it’s out over four years. He still gets traffic leads and customers from interviews that he did four years ago. And that’s one of the reasons I’ll pull behind the curtain here. before when I was saying you know, anything that Kim and I talked about will be at interview ballet.com forward slash positive. One of the reasons we do that is because our homepage is going to change with time. And I guarantee you that three years from now somebody is going to be listening to this podcast. And if I just say just go to the homepage, well, the same offers aren’t going to be up there the same things we talked about. So why would we want to ruin that user experience and the other thing too, is that sending people to a dedicated page can give them more content, more context, just the things that we talked about, but then it can also help you you know, from an infusion, soft standpoint, you can start to attribute that traffic so you know, what clients are, what, what traffic came from what source? So it’s a very powerful thing. And you know, there’s a we were talking before, and KIM was gracious enough to mention my book at the beginning. If you want to buy it on on Amazon, it’s there but don’t buy it. Just go I’m happy to give away free copies of that. digital copies. So I’ll put up pre digital copy of podcast guest profits also on interview valet.com forward slash podcast And it really talks about that entire system. We talked about the podcast interview marketing. And I always say it’s, it’s not magic what we do. It’s just a system and you can use the system yourself, or you can work with us or other people to use that system.

Tom, I know there’s the technological prep that goes behind preparing for a podcast listeners, we just got added to the blooper reel like four times, so that’s why I took my time. However, I know a lot of people including me are concerned about actually getting behind the microphone and sounding confident and not stumbling over their words, which I do all the time. Do you have any recommendations to address that aspect?

Tom Schwab: I don’t think it’s bad to stumble over your words. I mispronounce words at times, I’ll say um, a lot. That’s probably… I don’t listen to myself on the podcast interviews. You want to be real. The one thing that I would say is two things. One is you are an expert and somebody helped me with this years and years ago, the legal definition of An expert is someone who knows more than the average person because of their training their experience, their viewpoint. So when you think about that on your life, you are the undisputed expert on your opinion, you’re the undisputed expert. If you’re working in a business or a, an area, you’ve got expert knowledge that most of the listeners probably 99% of the listeners don’t. So you always have something to offer. And when you go on a podcast, they’re going to focus on your area of expertise. You know, if came all of a sudden asked me about advice on flowers, I would say I am the wrong person, I can give you advice on how to kill them, but not grow them. So you stay in that expertise there. So give yourself credit what you know, can help other people. The second thing is as far as not getting confused or going over your words, I always shut out all outside distractions. So all the tabs on my computer are closed. All that I have up right now is a brief sheet of positive productivity. And I’ve got Kim’s LinkedIn profile up there. So that if all of a sudden I’m distracted, it’s not like I’m, you know, who was this again, or if I’m doing back to back podcast interviews, I want to be focused on that and be fully present. and enjoying that experience as I’m going through it. I think where people get in, in trouble is when they got pop up on their screen their phones, giving them text messages, and they’re distracted from it. So I think if you’re really, you’re there, you’re present, and you’re in the conversation. It’d be just like talking to a friend. And the more you do it, the more you’ll get comfortable with it.

I love that you brought that all up. And that’s actually why I don’t have a list of questions that are standard in every episode, because I know if I’m asking the same questions, then I would probably tune out a little bit just by the nature of being me because I’m so easily distracted by anything. I mean, even just a cat walking across my office, it’s sort of like the squirrels from, you know, I can I can look away for a second and be distracted and not know what the guests was talking about. I have to add to what Tom was talking about before, there’s a really, it’s a thick line, not a fine line between being interested and being interesting. And if you get on the episode, and you’re only talking about you, and you don’t give the guests or the host time to talk, just don’t do that. And also, if if you’re only interested, and you don’t say anything more than yes and no, and, uh huh, that’s not good either. But there’s such a wide berth or wide path that you can walk down in the middle and make it a really fun experience and an interesting experience for the listeners. So go and being yourself.

I love how you said that. You know, are you interested in being interesting? Because to me, the best podcasts are authentic dialogues going back and forth. When somebody doesn’t listen to a podcast. Sometimes I’ll explain it. It’s like, it’s like going to Denny’s and listening in on two people that are talking to each other in the booth behind you, you know, you can’t turn around and look at him because that’d be rude. But you’re just sort of sitting there listening going. This is an interesting conversation. And to me, I think the best podcasts are like that, where it’s just a free flow and they’re talking back and forth. And the host is asking the questions that the audience has to be those those the ones that are engaging,

I have forgotten to mention up till now because you have been so great about telling listeners where they can find all the resources mentioned. I forgotten to mention that listeners You can also find everything at Doug KIM SUTTON comm forward slash, pp. 164 Episode 160 Episode 156 with Alana Pratt was completely off the cuff in full disclosure, I had no idea how the conversation was gonna go down because she’s an intimacy expert. So I knew Atlanta already, but I was worried that it was all going to be about sex. And but it was such a great conversation. We ended up developing a product right there in the middle of our conversation that we’re going to be putting out for the public to purchase. Because it was just all about that great dialogue and letting whatever happen happen. We had no idea that we are going to be launching something as a result of our podcast

chat. It’s just the serendipity that happens when people talk.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Tom, this has been an amazing chat. I know you’ve already told listeners where they can find you. But would you mind sharing one more time in case they were driving when they initially started listening? And they’re not anymore?

Tom Schwab: ​Oh, most definitely. And I realized that as an avid podcast listener myself, you’re probably multitasking. You’re hearing this that are one and a half times speed. I always joke that listen to podcasts at one and a half x while I run it half x and Kim it’s it’s always interesting. It sounds different listening to you here because I’m used to listening to you sped up as I listen to podcasts, but if Anybody wants to connect with me I’ll put all my social media there at interview ballet.com forward slash positive. I’ll put the the checklist that we talked about before, you can download the free copy of podcast guests profits. And there’s also an infographic on nine ways to get on your first podcast. So if we could help you in any way just please go to interview valet.com forward slash positive

that is fabulous. And that will be in the show notes on the KIM SUTTON calm as well.

Tom, do you have any words of parting advice? Any other words of parting advice that you can offer to listeners?

Tom Schwab: Very much so.  You know, we all know something that’s ordinary to us but amazing to other people. We’ve learned something we could share something that would really help people and it’s so easy today to do this, you know, through a blog through a podcast, being a guest on a podcast.

Tom Schwab: And so I would encourage you to share what you know. It’ll help your relationships. It will also help other people. We’re meant to be in community. And if you are a business owner, I would also encourage you, if you’re listening to podcasts, you know how powerful this medium is, you know that it’s growing.

Tom Schwab: So really the question is, in the future, you know, that your customers will be listening to podcasts. And the real question is, are they going to be listening to you or to someone else? And they could be listening to you as a podcast host a podcast guest are both but you’ve got to make that decision —  if they’re going to be listening to you or your competitor.

Tom Schwab: So, share what you know. What’s ordinary to you is amazing to others.