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When you talk a lot about becoming a guest on podcasts and speaking on event stages, you hear a lot of questions about HOW to get booked.
What’s the best way to find stages? What makes a good pitch? Do I need to do it myself, or can I use an agency? Where can I find pitch swipes? What should I talk about?
All fair questions (and ones I teach often), but even with all these questions answered, many business owners STILL don’t send pitches.
Why? It comes down to 3 reasons:
1) They’re already well known and people are REQUESTING their presence (#PRgoals)
2) Rejection sucks so they avoid it, often disguising that fear with a bunch of how-to questions, thinking the more they know will help them take the leap.
3) Doing the research, sending customized pitches (because generic ones will go straight to the trash bin), building relationships and following up takes time.
If you’re a #1, you keep rocking with yo bad self (aka, this is probably not for you).
If you identify with #2, I’ve got you covered with this past episode # 23 – 4 Pitching Truths to Land your next YES which will give you the how tos and reframe that rejection.
But if you’re feeling pinched for time, you need support, specifically a smart strategy for a virtual assistant or team member to tackle the heavy lifting of the pitching process.
I got you.
I asked my friend, client and woman behind many of my stages booked in 2020, Emily Reagan, to teach you how. Emily believes that delegating the pitching process to a virtual assistant (VA) or a member of your team is totally doable, affordable and can actually lead to YESes (landing YOU and your message on stages and podcasts).
In part 1 of this 2 part training, Emily will teach you:
- ORGANIZATION: How to systematize and track your process
- TIMING: when’s the right time to incorporate pitching into your business
- QUALITY: the specific elements that make a good pitch
- ACTION: specific ways you or your team can make to personalize and create effective pitches (in this episode we tackle the first 3 of 7 ways to incorporate your VA in the pitching process, we’ll tackle the remaining tips and strategies in episode 74)
Episode Show Notes
Why most business owners put off visibility work
We can all relate to this as business owners where we’re trying to do a lot of things. We have this goal of increasing our visibility and we know how important it is but when it comes to time to execute it, we fall short and a lot of it is because it is so time consuming and takes a lot of work. That can hold business owners back a lot. We are too busy putting out other fires in our business and it just gets pushed to the bottom of the stack.
Also sometimes business owners haven’t really figured out what their speaking topics are which relates directly to what their service is. They don’t actually have that component of their business ready yet and they are scared to put themselves out there. Fear of rejection keeps them stuck in not doing it.
Keeping yourself organized for success
Keeping yourself organized especially if you’re a solopreneur is a critical piece. It takes a lot to pitch. There’s a lot of follow up and a lot of tracking. You need to have your speaking topics and your bio ready. You have to be able to have control over your calendar, be able to book appointments successfully and follow up. And if you don’t have the back end of your business or maybe a team helping you, it’s really easy to drop the ball, not follow up and not book the gig at all.
If you’re not organized and you’re wanting to bring on a team or wanting to delegate or outsource, how can you expect your team to be one? They’re just going to be chasing you and it’ll stunt your growth in scaling your team.
When is the right time to get started on pitching?
If you can get the ball rolling now the better. You can start on a baby podcast, getting experience speaking, flushing out those speaking topics and see what successful and what people bite on. That’s an important part of the process. You can’t just go in with a pitch then suddenly you’re booked. It doesn’t work that way. Know that it takes time to get there so start doing this now and develop these habits so you can be ready.
Tips to have a good pitch
- Do your homework
Find the commonality between the host and the speaker. Share how your topic relates with their audience and why this is a perfect match. You want to find people that you want to work with beyond just an interview.
- Understand the podcast and its audience
Be as specific with your speaking topics and make them feel they’re getting the exclusive topic from you. Find somebody who your audience is aligned really well and you have shared philosophies around business.
- You need to be serving
Lead with value and think about reciprocity. It’s not just about what you’re gonna do for me. It’s how I can help you. Make this the biggest home run for the host.
Ways to include your VA in the pitching process
1. Leveraging your VA to help find podcasts.
It takes a lot of work to go find the perfect audience. It’s not just you just do a search. You have to do a little bit of ‘stalking.’ Your VA can own these tasks so you do not need to go down the rabbit hole and spend hours doing this.
Actionable Tips:
- Go into your Apple podcast platform and look for related podcasts. You don’t need to go after the Top 100. Go for the podcasts that are achievable and will give you those wins and experience then you can move on to that dream list.
- Stalk out your competitors and see what podcasts they’ve been on. Find somebody who is related to you and that would have a sister audience.
- Find somebody in the same industry. They don’t have to be a competitor. Just literally follow somebody else’s footsteps.
2. Listen to past episodes.
When you start listening to those episodes, you’ll get familiar with their message and what kind of topics they’re doing. This is something you can easily outsource to your VA.
Actionable Tips:
- Have your VA listen to the trailer and recent episodes
All of that core information is usually in that very first episode but don’t go by that alone. Listen to the recent episodes. Also pick up an episode that’s related to the topic that you will be speaking on so you can do something related to that.
- Ask your VA to take some notes for you while they listen.
Have them take notes of timestamps. They can pull out those important meaty parts for you so you’re educated and you know a little bit about the host and you can reference that to your pitch too.
3. Do your homework.
Once you plant the seed, start laying the tracks. Follow and interact with them to get the ball rolling. Be sure to engage on their content and be on their radar. That’s not sneaky. It’s just introducing you to people that you need to know and that you need to start networking with.
We covered a lot of ground when it comes to pitching. Sit with this and take a moment to reflect on the few things that stuck out with you. More importantly, put some things into action.
Then in part two of this episode, we’ll dive in further and share the other four additional ways where you can leverage your VA to help you with pitching.
Tune into the episode with the player on the top of this page, or read the full episode transcript here.
About my guest, Emily Reagan
Emily Reagan is a self-proclaimed jill-of-all trades when it comes to digital marketing and techie skills. She’s worked as a behind-the-scenes digital media implementer and virtual assistant for a decade for online biz owner clients. She’s a mom of four, Air Force wife, and founder of the Digital Media VA Crash Course, where she teaches women the digital marketing skills to get hired online as a unicorn virtual assistant.
Grab Emily’s Podcast pitching & tracking tool for VAs HERE here
Connect with Emily Reagan on Instagram | Facebook | Check out her VA Crash Course
Books mentioned in episode:
RELATED / MENTIONED EPISODES:
Embrace these 4 Pitching Truths to Land Your Next YES – Ep #23
