The Secret to Long-Term Visibility Without the Hustle is Speaking & Podcast Collaborations

In this mind-blowing episode, I'm sitting down with the brilliant Jenn Zellers of the Visibility Ecosystem to talk about building a sustainable, sleeze-free visibility strategy that doesn’t rely on social media burnout or being everywhere all the time. Jenn shares her expert insight on how to use speaking gigs, podcast guesting, and collaborations to create long-term marketing momentum—without feeling like you're constantly pitching.

We dig deep into what a podcast tour really looks like, how to know if you're actually ready for one (spoiler alert - we uncovered, I am in fact, not ready...), and how to stop wasting time pitching to the wrong people. If you've ever tiptoed into the idea of public speaking or wanted to establish yourself as a thought leader without the stress, this convo is your permission slip to explore what's possible—and get strategic about it.

Key Takeaways

1. Sustainable visibility starts with strategy, not hustle—use speaking and podcast guesting as long-game assets.
2. Only pitch to the right podcasts with aligned audiences—generic outreach won’t get results.
3. Customize your messaging for every podcast, even when the core topic stays the same.
4. Serve before you sell—focus on delivering value, not just promoting your offer.
5. Know your season—podcast tours are best for those with an established offer and audience clarity.

Stay In Touch with Today's Guest - Jenn Zellers

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Transcript

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All right, guys. Welcome back to today's episode. I'm Jesse, the founder and chief empowerment officer of This Way to Fabulous. And today I've got Jen Zellers with me. So, I'm super excited about this conversation um for a lot of reasons, and I know you guys will get that when I start talking about it. But, um so, Jen is from the visibility ecosystem. And what her and her team do, which she'll give us a better explanation, but um they essentially are equipping established business owners um to create like more sustainable and less stressful marketing systems. Um and these systems can grow with your business. Um and you it's really kind of that like generating sales without feeling salesy, you know, like that's a sales in general such a taboo term I feel like. um because I think that like people see sales in very different ways. Um and you know they help really help establish you as um thought leaders and I think that's a really really interesting topic because that's something I've been talking to a lot of people about lately. Um so I'm really excited to kind of dive into some of that today. But before you know before we get like too deep into that, Jen, why don't you let the viewers know you know who you are, maybe where you're at in life right now? Yeah. So, I've been in online business for gosh, I guess over 10 years now. And I've been speaking on summits and podcasts pretty much that whole time, which is where this ended up coming from because I had a lot of folks asking about how I do that and that kind of thing. So, we've got virtual summit search, which is our speaker directory and summit directories and things like that. And then as people were getting on there and they're like, "Okay, but how do I actually make this worth my time?" And so that's how visibility ecosystem then came about because my husband is actually a public speaking coach. So he's taught competitive public speakers. He's taught at the university level. So he's our resident public speaking and PR coach because he also did public relations in a past life. And then I take the 10 years of experience that I have in speaking on summits and podcasts and we've brought that together to create sustainable marketing systems through speaking and collaborations. So that's kind of our little nutshell. Yeah. No, that's amazing. So are you guys business partners then? Like uh do you guys both do that business together then? Yep. That is Yep. It's super fun especially because it kind of brings everything full circle because we actually met on the college radio station. So Wow. That's really cool. All right. All right. That's really fun. So when you guys, you know, developed the ecosystem, you know, what what generation are we on right now? What iteration are we on right now of the business? Because we all know that the business we start today is going to evolve tomorrow, next week, next month. Um, and so I think it's really important to be transparent about where we're at in our business, like what iteration we're on. um to kind of like shed light onto the fact that like it's okay and maybe even to like give some subliminal permission um to evolve, but like what iteration are we on right now? Like how has it changed since you started? Oh gosh. So like I said like virtual summit search kind of spawned visibility ecosystem but like way back when I started in like 2015ish. It was we started with the spare room project which is now defunct because we split that off. My husband took the creative side of that and the business side of that became virtual summit search. And so then actually no the business side of it became creative entrepreneurs lab. It's been a few iterations, so I guess technically four now, but virtual summit search still exists. So that's depends on how you count it. Yeah. No. And and and it the number doesn't matter, right? The number isn't necessarily what I'm looking for. Like there's a magic number, right? I want to just, you know, shed light on the fact that, you know, even this way to fabulous is on I don't even know what number iteration, right? Like it has it has changed and evolved so many times. And actually, fun fact, This Way to Fabulous has actually always been my parent company for God, I think like 17 years now. 16, 17 years. But I never operated under This Way to Fabulous until like 2022, 2021, 22. So I was in the wedding industry for 10 years and This Way to Fabulous was the parent company and we had multiple wedding industry brands and those were all umbrella brands, you know, like it was all umbrella. So those were all DBAs and this way to fabulous was always the parent brand. It was never actually the like public brand until very recently. So when we're talking about iterations here, you know, I I think it's just important to like recognize the season that you're in and recognize that you're not going to be in this season forever. Maybe it's maybe it's a bad season and you're like, I really need this to end. Maybe it's a good season and you're like, I don't want this to end. the reality of the situation is this season will end and whether or not the next season is better or worse is kind of up to you, right? Um so just really kind of open up that mindset to, you know, iterations of of your business because as we start to talk about public speaking a little bit here, um I want to acknowledge that I'm someone who has tiptoed into this public speaking um thing minimally, right? But it's something I'm very interested in from a thought leadership standpoint. And I know I have a lot of clients and peers who have also been kind of tiptoeing into the idea of this. Um, and so that's why I'm really excited to talk about this today because I feel like it is something that is under under here. It's like not it's not utilized. Um, so I'm very very excited to chat about that. So, Jen, let's kind of give them a little bit more detail of, you know, what it is that you guys do. Yeah. So, like I said, our foundation for the sustainable marketing systems that we create is speaking and collaborations. So things like this where you go on guest podcast interviews and speaking on virtual summits, going into other people's group programs or just generally like if they've got a free group, things like that, and doing guest trainings and there's so many different ways that you can do that, different collaborations and things, but using those opportunities and especially the questions that you're asked or the things that come up while you're talking through those and turning those into evergreen ing marketing content. So rather than going and creating new Instagram posts, new LinkedIn post and emails and blogs and things like that, you can pull things out of all of those speaking and collaboration opportunities and probably never have to create content outside of that again if you don't want to. Some people do, like some clients will go, they're like, I just I like doing reals. I like doing that kind of stuff. Power to you. Keep on. It's not my cupa. So, I I love going and using that kind of stuff. And of course, it's one of those situations where for me, it's I do it for my clients. And so, I don't usually do it for myself as much as I should. But we never do. We never do. The work that we do for everyone else is what sits on the back burner in our own business. That is that's just like a fact of entrepreneurship life. Yep. I'm glad I'm not alone. No. So yeah, that's that's kind of how a visibility ecosystem is built is you plant those seeds with speaking and collaborations. They turn into marketing assets and then the great thing is those marketing assets as they bloom and grow, they start producing their own seeds because people see you out there and especially hosts of podcasts and summits and that kind of thing see you promoting it and they go, "Okay, that's what I want. I want someone who's actually going to get excited about it, share it with other people, and not just do it one time. And so they start inviting you. And so you stop having to do as much outbound outreach, and you start doing more inbound invites and being able to say yes or no to those. And so you end up saving so much time, and you get the time back to do the things you love, whether that's client delivery or spending time with your family or, you know, actually having hobbies outside of business cuz like that's another thing we don't do. Is entrepreneurship a hobby? because if it if so, that's my hobby. Mine, too. So, walk me through a little bit who who is the client, who who is, you know, I kind of want to um I don't want to call anybody out and I don't want to necessarily like put anybody in a box, but what I do want to kind of open up the floor for here is like kind of comparing maybe who's ready and who's not. How how do we know um as business owners or as entrepreneurs or aspiring thought leaders or you know whatever like how do you know do you have a vetting system or anything that like someone has to kind of fit XY you know like XYZ boxes before this is something that is good for them or kind of walk me through like who this is for and maybe who it's not for. Yeah. So I think this can work for a lot of different folks. One thing that I have found with our particular approach to sustainable marketing, especially since it's through online speaking and collaborations, is that it typically isn't working as well for physical products or for location based folks. So, like if you are a photographer and you have a studio, you don't typically travel to your clients. The way that we teach it is not going to work quite as well just because it's online and so you're going to have people from all over the world listening who may not be able to buy what you're offering. But I have definitely found that the folks who it works at best for are established online business owners. So folks like service providers, coaches and consultants, course and membership creators, even authors. So like that's the one physical product that I will say can still work really well because shipping books is a totally different thing and there's a very definite value proposition that comes with that. So yeah, I've done podcast tours because we have our no fuss podcast tour offer and so I've done that for everybody from lawyers to service providers like system consultants and stuff like that up through course creators and web designers. So there's a wide range of folks who this can work for. But I definitely find that it works the best because you're speaking online. If you have an online focused business and if you have an offer that you already know sells, that is something where you can use speaking to kind of test the waters with a new offer to see if people respond back to what you're talking about that is around a topic of an offer that you're interested in creating. But if you want to actually get the results from it, having an established offer that you know does make sales, that you have your messaging dialed in, we're able to take that and really really hone in on what your profitable speaking topic is so that you can make sleeves free sales. Like we have an entire sleeves free sales framework that we work through with our clients so that you can make those sales even if you're never actually pitching. That's my favorite part cuz like when you're on virtual summits, you don't get to pitch usually. And as a host, there's a reason for that because otherwise it just turns into a pitchfest. Yeah, for sure. But as a speaker, it can be kind of frustrating because you're like, "Okay, how do I actually make money from this?" That's one way. I've actually played around with different lead magnets and things like that to get people more engaged and invested. So there's so many ways that you can use it, but it definitely works best for folks who have been in the game for a few years, are done pivoting and figuring out all those different iterations like we talked about because it will take a few years typically to really settle in and find what you're going to stick with. And so those are the folks that this works the best for. Yeah. And and so what's great about that about what you just said too is that again I don't mean this in a bad way but you've definitely funneled out a lot of people. Um and and a lot of those people got funneled out by one of the last sentences you just said that it takes a couple years to get settled in. And we live in a world where ain't nobody got time for that. Right. Nobody's got the time, the patience. Um everybody's got the time, right? We don't have the patience. We don't have the ability to like grasp the fact that we could do some amazing thing right now and not see ROI from that for years. That is a hard pill for a lot of entrepreneurs to swallow. Um, and it's a very rare pill real pill. Like that is a real pill as an entrepreneur in general. Any type of marketing that you're doing, there's going to be a a lead time, right? Like there's going to there is no Amazon Prime to delivering a message and seeing ROI. Like there is no guaranteed. Sure, I can have that to you by your at your house in six hours. As long as you choose $25 worth of stuff in your cart, we'll get that to you today for free. Um but but truly that's it's that's how do you navigate that in your own pitches um to these clients and like like what are the pain points that you see the most from people who like want to do this they have the idea they have this like you know they're dreaming about doing this it sounds great this is exactly what I want but what do you mean it's going to take a couple years like what does that process look like for you how do you get people past that pain point I mean so most of the folks that I work with have already and through that they've figured out where they're settled in. The pain point really in terms of the time usually comes up in the fact that I have to tell them, hey, I just need you to be aware that you may like I'll give you your podcast tour. You'll have your 20 to 30 podcasts and all the pitch emails and all that and you can just hit send. But it's probably going to take 3 to 6 months before you actually start seeing those leads and sales come in because you may record a podcast interview today and it may not come out for 3 months. It may even not come out for 6 months. I have one client who I've done a podcast to her but she also has her own podcast. She's booked out through September, I think. That's amazing. And so for her, when she when we were pitching her for her podcast tour, there were several people who came back and said, "Yeah, I'd be happy to have you on. Would you be open to doing a swap, though?" And she had to come back and say, "Yes, but it's going to be like 6 months before your episode would air. Are you okay with that?" And that's something that comes up for other clients, too, on the other side is they'll have hosts who are like, "Yeah, I'd be interested in having you on. Just need you to know." And sometimes they don't tell you that though. Yeah. So, you have to be aware of that as you're pitching. And that's something I have to walk through with clients and make sure that they understand it because if people come into a podcast tour or something like that, like if you get pitch for a summit, it's almost a good summit's definitely going to be about 3 months out. Like I'm getting ready to we're recording this in March. I'm getting ready to pitch my speakers for a June summit. So, it's going to be months before they're going to see anything from that. But if you set it up right, if you have your sleeves free sales framework in place and if you are leading people through the customer journey, well, you can get those clients and those leads that are coming in, especially with podcast episodes way after the episode airs. So, the lead time may take a little bit, but the tail on it is the span is very long. Yes, that's a great point. Like um I think a lot of people actually view podcasting as more of a shortterm lifespan for some reason. And I don't understand how people think that because truly I kind of feel like podcasting might even be a longer lifespan than blogging nowadays because this is what people watch more than what they read. Again, it comes back to the whole time thing, right? Like I can be multitasking and doing things while I'm listening to a podcast episode, right? But I can't really be reading a blog and totally multi, you know, like it becomes this world of like how much can I get done in no time, right? Because that's kind of where society has us right now is like you only have 24 hours. You got to fit all of it in. Um so that's yeah, that's a that's a big issue that I feel like we're dealing with in general um in marketing and just owning a brand. Yeah. So Oh, go ahead. That's the other reason that I recommend that clients create a full visibility ecosystem, not just go on a podcast tour, because if you're continuing to promote those episodes, that's another way that you're getting that long tail on it. Because even if the host isn't continuing to promote it, while there are still people that are going back and binging the archives of the podcast and everything, which is how you get that long tail, if you're promoting it, it's giving people more touch points with you. And it's putting somebody else in the seat of promoting you as the expert and so people don't have to take your word for it that you know what you're talking about. They can hear it in the podcast episode. Yes. Oh my god. Yes. That's actually a really good point of like recognizing that um podcasts are actually a very f is like a fantastic format of social proof in a sense, right? Because like you're not just showing up and recording yourself and you know putting this stuff out in the world like you're reaching out and collaborating and and having these conversations that people are very interested in. Um and that again becomes kind of public proof or oh my god that kind of becomes your social proof, right? And I think it's also really important to note that, you know, with podcasting, you're also reaching different audiences, right? So, like when we're kind of building up our um like our schedule for podcasting and stuff, you know, there there's strategy involved, right? You don't just bring anybody on your show that you know, like if if I'm going to bring um uh someone who's a veterinarian, but they it's not their practice. They're just a doctor. I'm making this up as I go, but like it's not their practice. They're kind of just hired. They just have the position, whatever. Like they're not going to have the community or reach that benefits me, right? Like we all want to be able to kind of swap our um our communities to for everybody to benefit, right? So, I love I love that you said that because I think that's really worth noting that, you know, social proof isn't just testimonials. Social proof is having these open conversations with other people in your industry, in neighboring industries in, you know, these kinds of formats. Um, I want to know more about this podcast tour thing because that, um, sounds really great and all, but like I want to kind of dive a little deeper into that because I think a lot of people are starting podcast right now, right? A lot of people are like, "Yeah, woo, let's get on the bandwagon. Let's do it." Yeah. and they have no idea the amount of work that is that they're that they're putting in their calendar. Okay? They have no freaking idea. So, let's kind of backtrack here a little bit and you know, podcast tourists, same thing. I'm I'm assuming you're you're definitely looking more for that like established person who has kind of a rinse and repeat like are podcast tours pretty much a rinse and repeat type of discussion. Are they talking about the same thing or are they just let's just give me a rundown of like what's a podcast tour? It sounds so fun. I want one. Yes. So, shiny object syndrome. Well, it's not really because this is one of those things like we said that is long lasting and so it's not really shiny. It's going to be a long-term strategy. I like long-term strategies. So, that's shiny to me. Okay. But I'm not normal so that's fine. Yeah, I feel that. So, I mean, I always I love doing these every quarter. Like, when I have clients who had their topic fits into podcasts that can can like essentially if it's if it's a wide enough pool of podcasts, doing them every quarter, it'll give you years worth of content just from like 15 to 20 podcast episodes a year. So, the way that we approach it is we only pitch right fit podcasts. I know people who pay thousands of dollars and hire some PR agency and they pitch them to literally any podcast they can find regardless of if it's a good fit because they told them they were going to pitch a 100 podcasts a month. Ew. So instead, what we do is we focus on those right fit podcasts where it aligns their audience and their topic to make sure that it's actually getting them in front of the right people. And then we pull 20 to 30 of those podcasts for them, put them into a database with all the information they need, the the host email address or their application form and a tracking system to tell when they need to follow up with them. And then we go in and we can also write the podcast pitches for them because that's usually where people kind of fall down a little bit is you're sending you probably get tons of these is just like random pitch emails that clearly didn't do their research, did not at all customize it to that podcast. And you're obviously going to get a no with those. So these are all super customized. We include two to three example questions that the host could ask so that they get an additional insight into how customized and how much research has been done because it shows that we've we know the audience and what kind of questions they're probably going to ask around this topic. And so the host is probably also like damn yeah all right cool I love that. Okay. Yeah. And making sure that we are that you ask about the topic. And this is one of my favorite things because a lot of people go and they just have a basic topic. They pitch the exact same title every single time. And while there's not strictly anything wrong with it, it can kind of get oversaturated. Like if you have the exact same podcast episode title coming out on every single guest episode that you are on, it makes it really really hard to promote it yourself. And since that is part of your visibility ecosystem, we don't want that. So what we do is we find some core themes like the core topics that you are going to be talking about but we find different angles because the things that you're going to talk about to a mom is going to be different from what you're going to talk about with a 22-year-old who just graduated college. Yes. And so you're going to get new things to talk about, new content that you get to promote through each of those episodes by making sure that you're angling it for the audience and for that particular podcast theme because they all be slightly different. And so you can recycle the topics without recycling the angles too much. And that way you get fresh content. You don't get bored of it and you have marketing content to boot. Yes. Oh wow. I love that. I love that for so many reasons. Obviously, because from a brand standpoint, right? Like this is an apple. Okay. Well, let's talk about the apple from this angle, from this angle, from this angle. Upside down. What if it's cut in half? What if it's wet? What if it's dry? I mean, like there is no end to the angles of which you can talk about a topic. And what I love the most about this is that you're doing the research in in a way that like you're understanding the brands. so well that the execution aspect is seamless because you are like you said speaking to the right people. You're you are speaking to the specific pain points of that community, right? Because that could be geographical too, right? Like if you're talking about um I don't know randomly like brand strategy, right? Like well if your brand strategy includes an online and an in-person like and a brick and mortar, right? That's going to be very different ge geographically. So you would not approach a New York City podcast the same as you would approach a middle of Wyoming based podcast, right? So it's so important what you guys are doing from a brand standpoint because um like you said, you're doing the work for them. Like you are going so far and beyond what anyone who has a podcast and is like pitching to people is doing. They have no idea what they're doing. Even me, I'm sitting here like, damn, I'm doing all the right all the wrong things. Right. Right. Like it this is so this is this is amazing because like now I know um that I'm not ready for a podcast tour right now. But that's right now. That's the season I'm in. I can recognize that that's not a season that I can can handle right now. Like 15 to 20. That's just a lot to me for right now. Like to think we for three three to five a quarter. Oh, okay. I was like I don't know how I can do that. Okay. on top of like, you know, my normal pocket. So, um, okay. I I love this. I love love love this. I want to go back to something you said in the beginning um about you know a photographer in their studio and whatever but what if the photographer has a studio but they also have an online community where they're doing online training in there. So, I think what I'm getting at here is let's kind of clarify what the tangible kind of needs to be um in order for something like this to work because I know you said you want it to kind of be like an established offer where you kind of know it's already something that you know people like, but from the standpoint of someone who may not be the right person, are there ways for them to become the right person? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And the photographer example is a great one because I actually have a client who is a brand photographer and she does in-person brand photography. Like, you know, you have to it's kind of how you do it. Yeah. But she also has an education branch. And so what we did for her podcast tour is we focused on getting in front of other photographers, either existing brand photographers or portrait photographers, wedding photographers who are tired of having every single weekend of their year taken up by weddings and got her in front of those kind of audiences so that she could build the education branch. And you can do the same kind of thing like a a photographer who does head shot might have an online course about how to do your own head shot if you like for me there's no brand photographers in my area. I'm in kind of the middle of nowhere Ohio and I've looked and there don't seem to be any. So for me if I had a photographer who had that kind of thing then I'd be all over that. And so some photographers have that kind of thing. And in that case, even if their main business is location-based, if they have something like that, then they can go ahead and sell it. Essentially, it's just it's really hard if you're speaking on a summit and you've got people in Africa and you're based in Canada. Yeah. Is going to be really hard to get clients from that. But if you are speaking on on creating your own brand shoot at home and you have clients in Africa, they can adapt it to their own local. So that's that's kind of it's it's not strictly that if you have a physical business, you can't do this. You just need some way to be able to actually make the sales because that is one thing is I don't want to go and create a podcast tour for someone and they don't get ROI on it. like you can still do it, but I'm gonna be upfront with folks and say, "Hey, just FYI, based on what you sent in in your intake form, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get you the ROI. Do you want to go forward or do you want a refund?" That kind of thing. So, yes. Do you feel like you get a lot of people who think they're ready and they're not? Um, I don't I wouldn't say that necessarily, most of the time people are going to self- select out because while like the if you're if you're working directly with us, the cost investment isn't super high, but it's not nothing. And if you're doing it all yourself, like if you're doing all the research, writing all the pitch emails, and all that kind of stuff, it's a time investment and you want to make sure you get the ROI on it still. So most of the time people self- select out on that kind of thing. And as long as you're that what I I mean as a brand strategist you I'm sure can speak to this even better than I can. If you're messaging things right people are going to self- select out. And so it's just making sure that when talking about it it's helping people do that to self- select out. And I so far haven't had anybody who's actually signed on to work with us who I don't think is a good fit because most of the time if they're considering it and they're not sure and they've looked at the FAQs and still aren't sure, they'll message me and find out. Like I had someone who's a fiction author and I talk about working with authors and she was like okay but how would this work for someone who's not talking about like an education topic I like that's a great question here's how we would do it and after that she was like okay that makes sense and I want to give it a try but she came and asked about it first rather than just going and booking it and that's what I find people typically do so so far I haven't had Come on. Yeah. No, that's good. That that that's good. And I feel like that's a important note, you know, about your your websites and your processes, your contacts, you know, like you want to be able to let people ask questions beforehand. And I'm not saying you should leave them with a million questions to ask. That is definitely not what I'm saying. But you want to keep you, you know, you want to kind of promote that open line of communication because in a service-based business, you are going to need to be able to communicate. And the very first impression they will have of that is how easy is it to get a hold of you? How easy is it to ask a question? Not saying that that they should be able to call you and you have to answer like right now. Definitely not saying that because that is a no boundary zone right there. But um what I am saying is that you have to make it easy for them to take that step. You can't hide your phone number or your contact form or who you whatever. You can't hide that [ __ ] on your website. You need to make sure that you are like openly opening that line of communication and you're giving them expectation of what to expect, right? Like you're giving them we respond to emails in 24 to 48 hours. We, you know, we book calls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Like as long as that information is clear, people are not going to run away because it's Tuesday and you don't take calls today. They're going to say, "Okay, well tomorrow's Wednesday and I'm going to try to, you know, XYZ." So anyway, just like be clear about that. So, I'm curious now about you because I know that you mentioned to me that, you know, you were struggling to, you know, kind of find the time for yourself to do the things that you do for your clients for yourself, right? I get that. I think every entrepreneur gets that. Any service-based provider gets that because we are so immersed in our client work that our own work gets put on the back burner like a thousand%. So, let's talk about your podcast tour. Let's talk about like you and your process. I know that you want to get your own tour going again soon. What is that process like for you? Give us a little bit of like a behind thescenes vibe of like what this process is like for you. Yeah, so I definitely have what I call cobbler's kids syndrome where the cobbler's kids have no shoes. And essentially it just for me it comes down to the fact that at this point because I've been doing this for what 10 years now I do have enough of a body of work that I can go back to and promote some of the podcasts episodes that I've already been on. So honestly I get a lot of inbound which is part of why I haven't prioritized an outbound podcast tour as much as I should. But what it really comes down to for me is going and using my own processes that I use for ANOS podcast tours and doing it on myself, which that's the hard part because since I do it for clients most of the time by the time I get around to my own, I'm like, I'd rather go work on my messaging or my offer creation or I'm a tech nerd, so like let me dive into Air Table and do a bunch of automations. So yeah, it's mostly just, you know, buckling down and doing the things that I know I need to do. Yeah. And so what I know we talked about kind of the the topic thing being a um an agile thing, right? You know, you want it to kind of be able to morph and whatever. So what is your you know, your core your core commonality in all of the of what you're talking about? Yeah. So I always focus on the sustainable marketing systems and sometimes we dive deeper into one aspect of it than another. But because I have that framework in place, maybe we end up talking about guest podcast tours for the most part and that's always the first step of the process, but it's not the last. Other times I end up talking more about the sleeves free sales framework or something like that or how to recognize red and green flags in your speaking invites. So it's I have a very broad topic and sometimes we go through the whole thing. We go from step one to creating all the different marketing assets and everything. But that way what I'm able to do is look at the podcast that I'm thinking about pitching or that is inviting me and say, "Okay, this I think is what the audience is going to be most interested in." And the other thing is going back and seeing what episodes have been aired recently and making sure that you're not rehashing that too much because I don't want to go and if they just had somebody on talking about guest podcasting, I'm probably going to lean more into this lesree sales framework. So like, okay, so and so already talked to you a few episodes ago about guest podcasting. Now, how do you actually go and make money from that? So that's where having that one core topic like usually one to three is what I recommend but having that core topic and then branching out from there diving deep into one aspect or going through the whole thing is really really helpful because you're not reinventing the wheel but you're customizing it to every podcast for sure and you're and you're customizing it from the standpoint of you know that audience's pain point or the season that that audience is more likely in compared to other ones. Um, and that's why I say, you know, that, you know, seasons are so important to just recognize it. [ __ ] bad seasons come, right? Winter comes to Chicago and like that's a sucky season, right? But seasons come and go and it's important to just kind of like take it for what it is, do what you can within that season and get ready for the next one, right? So, is there like kind of like a takeaway for, you know, listeners if maybe they're thinking about not necessarily a full full-on podcast tour or anything, but like maybe they just are trying to level up their game of, you know, getting on podcasts. What kind of like do you have any tips or advice that you would give to these entrepreneurs who are kind of like, I think I want to get on some podcast shows. Like, what do I need? Who do I like what do I do? like do you have any kind of like uh points or tips that you could give the the listeners for that? Yeah, so I always start with the audience. You can go and take a look for podcasts who have the same audience or a segment of your audience. So you said mine's kind of broad because it's established business owners, but I can look for service providers. I can look for course creators, membership creators. You can dig into certain aspects of that. And the way I'm going to talk about my main topic to a course creator is going to be different than to an author. And so making sure that you're finding the podcast are getting you in front of the right people is one of the biggest things cuz I see so many people who are like, "Ah, no, I'm done podcast guesting because I don't get results or I'm never going on a summit again because I got three signups." And then I ask them, "Okay, well, who was the summit for?" And they go, "Oh, this audience." And I go, "Tire salesman." Yeah, that's good. But that's not your audience. Why did you say yes to that? So, if you're doing outbound outreach, that is one of the biggest things is look for the audience first and then make sure that it's a topic match with the podcast overall theme. And if you're getting inbound invites, it's okay to say no. You do not have to say yes to everything. And honestly, like as a summit host myself, I would rather speakers say no if it's not a good fit or if they're too booked out. and that kind of thing rather than just saying yes to everything under the sun and then not getting results, burning yourself out, and deciding it doesn't work. So, if you're looking sustainable, no, it's not sustainable. Exactly. So, if you're looking to get on more, even if you're not doing a full-on podcast here or you're just looking for two or three podcasts to pitch, make sure it's the right audience and the right topic and go from there. So, how does one do or like how does one decide or do the research on the audience? Like, what if hearing that? I love it. I I get it. Um, but I know that there are going to be people that are like, "Well, that sounds easy, but I don't really understand like how how am I picking this audience? How do I know what to look for when like it's one thing to know the type of audience that you want to be in front of? It's another thing to find podcasts with said audience that you know blah blah blah. So what's what's the best way for someone to do the re once they once they know the type of audience they need to speak to because once I mean if they don't know that that's that's the first job right they need some they need some brand help and they need to figure out their messaging and they need to figure out that first but once they do have that how do they research to know what audiences are also theirs? So as long as you've got your audience segment that you're going to focus on. So, like another great thing with tours is maybe I'm focusing on course creators this time around and then the next time I focus on service providers. So, whatever audience segment that you're looking for, that's what the search bar is for. So, you can use different tools, but I mean the most basic place to start is go in your podcast player, search for course creators, see what podcasts come up. It's going to search in a bunch of different fields. So might come up with episodes that have that in them, but the the podcast itself isn't focused on it. But you'll probably also find podcasts that are specifically for course creators, for example. So if you're doing it on your own, that's usually where I'd start. I've got other tools that I use to research that for clients, but they're all paid. So I usually suggest just start with the basics, especially if you're not doing a full podcast tour. If you're doing a full podcast tour, it might be worth getting into some of the paid tools and like working on building one out myself because I'm not happy with any of them. But if you just start out by searching for that, and if if you don't have a podcast player that does that particularly well, just Google it. Google podcast for course creators, see what comes up and grab those two or three that look like a good match and go from there. And I'd also recommend don't pitch the big ones right away. I was just going to say, so like if Tony Robbins is the first one that comes up for me, should I pitch him? No, I shouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. No. And that's that's one of the reasons that I do use the paid tools is because they can typically pull up even just an estimate of how many people are listening. And if it's like 20,000, I maybe I'm going to steer clear of that for a little while until I get a bit more proof of of my authority because that's what they're going to be looking for on that kind of podcast. Yes. So maybe go to like the third or fourth page and just see kind of what pops up and what looks like it's more at your stage of business. And it's not to say you can't pitch podcasts that have a bigger following than you do. It just means that you have to be able to bring the value that's going to make it worthwhile for the host to have you on. Yes. I love that. And I think that, you know, to just to add a tiny bit on that, when you're doing your research and you're and you're doing you in the search bar search bar, uh the more specific you can get in your search, the better the results you're you're going to get, right? You put course creators in there, you're going to get a shitload of podcast, right? But then maybe you're searching, you know, um, female neurode divergent podcast for course creators. Well, now you're going to weed things out and you're going to find so many more things that are in line, right? You're kind of doing the the weeding. You're you're putting the pasta in the strainer and you're straining all the [ __ ] out. I don't know why I come up with these things on the go, but like you you want to funnel out the things that are not worth your time, right? like you you know that that you're not going to you're not going to pitch to Tony Robbins if this is the first pitch you you've ever done. You're not you're not going to do that, right? So, the more um the more detailed that you can get in that search, the better your results are going to be. It's it's that commonality of like you're going to get out whatever you put in. So, if you put trash in, you're just going to get smoosh trash out, right? Like it's it's the same thing. But if you get if you put the if you put that in there with lots and lots of details, you're going to get a lot more detailed results coming out. You're not going to have to, you know, weed through that. Okay. So, the last kind of like main question I have on this is like, okay, so I've done the research. I know the audience. I I have maybe a top 10 list of, you know, kind of things I want to pitch in the next year or whatever. Talk to me about pitches a little bit. talk to me about like either the process or the basics of the pitching part because I think that the pitching part for most people um is really overwhelming and they don't want to do it. So instead of doing it, they probably go into chat JBT and have AI do it for them and then they don't take the emojis out and so it's obvious that it's chat JBT and you know all of the things. talk to me about the pitches um and and kind of the the pros and cons of that or like the ins and outs of that. Yeah, that's honestly the chat GBT card is part of why we're building out a tool to do that for folks cuz I it's it's definitely very obvious when you use chat GBT. The main thing that I always recommend for clients who are writing their own pitch emails is to make sure that you make it about the host and the audience because the host is there to serve their audience. You don't even need to make it about the host, but if you make it clear that you are here to deliver value and actionable strategies for the audience, that's what's going to carry through. So, if you're sitting there going, I'm so and so and I've been in this for 15 years and I've had all these accolades. They don't care. They don't care. So, if you come, I still want you to say some of that, but that is not the first thing. Like when I start off the pitch emails that I write for clients, it's, "Hey, I was wondering if you'd be interested in an episode about a summary of the topic." If they're not interested, they're not going to read more. If they are interested, then they're going to go and you can say, "I work with so and so in order who want to this and such that's related to the podcast theme." Because you want to make sure that they know that your audience is interested as well. And then you go into why you think that the episode that you're proposing is going to be valuable to their audience and focus essentially the rest of it all on their audience. And you also want to make it easy for the host to say yes. So I always try to customize the titles to that I'm proposing to how they title their episodes because different people are going to be different. Maybe they use like a twoword title and a se or a colon and then a tagline on all of their episodes or most of their episodes. I'm going to title it like that. If you want to give them those couple of example questions that they can use and say if you want more, I've got more. I always provide my clients with 10 sample questions in case the host comes back and asks for more because you know sometimes the host is like these were really good and it also as the guest gives you a chance to kind of steer the conversation in the direction that you want it to go and make sure that you're actually getting to highlight the things that you know are going to make a difference cuz well you're also kind of setting up the content for yourself to like you're thinking forward towards okay I've talked to course creators four times times now, but we never really touched on this topic. So, on this pitch, I want to make sure that I try to get this topic in there so that I can now build content off of that. Again, very forward, long-term thinking. Yep. And it builds into your sleeves free sales framework as well because you then know what kind of questions they're going to come up and you know what kind of stories to share in order to get people interested in your offers. So yeah, it's mainly make it easy on the host and make sure that you're making it about their audience, not about you or even necessarily about the host. Yes. And something I want to add on to that is that forget the podcasting for right now, right? If you are out there building a, you know, service-based business and you're and you're looking for leads, you're looking for, you know, new clients, whatever, stop talking about yourself. Stop talking about yourself. So, the number one thing that I banked on, like when I rebranded and finally brought This Way to Fabulous out and in and the maybe like third iteration of This Way to Fabulous Now, um I changed all of my messaging. I flipped the script and all of the messaging now focuses on the reader. I talk to a person. I'm not talking to the masses. I'm talking to a person. I'm talking about them and their struggles. I'm talking about how I understand and I have been there and I have been doing this for 10 years and have helped XYZ solve the problem that you have, right? Like my experience only comes into play when it is proof of like the problem solving, right? Like the solution. That's one thing. The other thing you said that made me just like woo like goosebumps is like you need to show up to serve, not to sell. when you can show up and pitch to these people that you can serve their clients and and kind of give them that like um that like you're not saying it out loud, but you're kind of like comforting them with the fact that you're not going to come on and just pitch whatever your thing is, right? You're setting the tone of that conversation to be I am a brand strategist who is obsessed with you know serving my community and making sure that people have a clear understanding of what it means to have a brand to brand that to build a brand right that is me coming to serve not to say I have a magnetic brand formula course that people can buy and I can help your customers through my course that's selling right that's coming in to sell, not to serve. Um, and so that I think is like one of the biggest things that I'm hearing out of that is like when you're making it about them and their audience and the help or the transformation that may happen due to that episode, now people are like, "Well, hell yeah. I've been looking for a way to give my clients this transformation in a format that I'm not necessarily the expert at." Now people are like, "Yes, yes, more of this." right now. I know that you have on your website, I believe you have a pitch lead magnet, right? It's the interview questions generator. So, it goes into the pitch. The pitch generator is not quite ready yet. Got it. Okay. So, talk to me about that lead magnet. What can people get out of this or who is going to be the person who might really like need this today? Yeah. So, this is really great if you're getting ready to do those pitch emails and you want to make them stand out, make it easy for the host. All you have to do is input your topic. You can add some details about the podcast if you want to customize it even more as well. And it will spit back out 10 interview questions that are ready to go for you. And I I especially love it because when we were developing it, my co-developer, he was like, "All right, we're gonna test it." And he stuck in something so vague. It was like bees are awesome. I think it was literally three or four words and it came back with a fullon podcast interview and it was really really good. It was I was like, "Oh my gosh, I actually want to listen to this episode." So that is something that you can grab for free for 7 days. And then if you're a podcast host as well, this is super fun because you can use this to create your podcast interviews. If you're like, "Oh, I hate coming up with the questions. I never feel like they're creative or like if that they're really getting to the meat of it, use it for your own podcast, too." So, it's a multi-purpose tool, and it's it's really fun. You get some good stuff out of it. That's amazing. I'm going to make sure that I um leave that link in the show notes for you guys. So, if this is something that you you know, you're feeling like, "Yeah, I kind I want to dive into that. I want to like experience that. I want to kind of take a step of action." Um, I will leave that link in the show notes for you guys to check that out. But Jen, if other people are, you know, vibing with this and they're feeling like they want a podcast tour, they're seeing shiny long long-term objects, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you? Yeah, so you can find me on at Visibility Ecosystem on threads, LinkedIn, that kind of stuff. But if you want to go and grab yourself a no fuss podcast tour, it's visibility ecosystem.com/nofuspodcast. really easy. Love that. All right. Well, Jen, thank you so much for coming and chatting today about this. I'm super excited to kind of like really kind of get this this public speaking leadership type of, you know, topic in discussion right now because as my audience grows and as their seasons change, I know for a fact that there are people who are thinking and talking about this right now and really kind of they're curious. They're very curious, not necessarily to start today, but to know what they need to do before they start. So, this has been super super um educational and amazing. Even I am sitting here like, okay, I know I need XYZ before I can really do something like this, but um I'm super excited about this. So, thank you so much for chatting with me today. And you guys, I will leave all of her contact information in the show notes, including her free lead magnet. I highly suggest that you go try that. All right, thanks for tuning in again today, guys. Until next time, keep pushing, keep dreaming, and let's keep on redefining fabulous.