What if I showed you a process to consistently get high value content that showcases you and your business? Get it created for you with almost no work on your part? And then have it featured on your behalf on media platforms, where people actually come expressly to find content and solutions, just like yours. And you get all that for free? That's what strategic podcast guesting will do for you. And that's what the podcast guesting for business growth podcast is all about. I'm your host September Smith. Today, I want to look at the question, and it's up for debate, but let's look at podcast guest appearances. Are they more powerful than your own podcast? I'm all about leveraging the power of podcast in particular via the guesting opportunity, simply because it's a whole lot less work and it's often all that's required to really light a fire under your brand building. I held a webinar a couple months back called Free Media Exposure with Podcast Guesting, Hosting, or Both to focus on how businesses, entrepreneurs and thought leaders can be taking advantage of the broadcast media channel. I'm a podcaster myself with one interview style podcast that She's All That video podcast. And this one that focuses on everything guesting to grow your business, what you need to do to really make it work for you and your business goals. So well, I could easily speak to what's involved in being a podcast host and producer, as well as all the strategic ins and outs of leveraging guest appearances. I thought it would be more interesting to invite another podcaster to take the side of hosting in the discussion of which one is best. And spoiler alert, it really depends on your company, your message and your business goals as to which one is best for you. Well, what transpired in the ensuing month, tells a really interesting tale, the podcaster that I invited to speak well, let's let's back up. She herself is a podcaster. And she's actually somebody that I had invited on my podcast to be a guest. And the reason for that is because in season two of my she's all that video podcast, the tagline of which is conversations with women doing awesome shared, women that I think people need to know about, they're doing a bang up job, and they're doing something really valuable. And in season two, I was focused on entrepreneurs, women who were doing things, either processes or technology or techniques, that were all things that we opposed pandemic. optimistically, I thought then it would be post pandemic, in a post pandemic world, businesses were going to need to know about and start thinking about maybe incorporating that into how they ran their business. Well amongst that, not surprisingly, when I was strategizing about all the things that we should maybe be adopting to augment how we're doing our business, particularly since we've all so much more moved online since the pandemic began. One of the things that I wanted to address was the power of podcasts. Now, I could have spoken about that myself what it takes to start a podcast, but my show is an interview show. So I decided I wanted to interview someone else whose niche what they were focusing on as their business was teaching people how to create podcast. Now, I didn't want to just grab anybody who was putting themselves out there as a podcast host because, as I've mentioned in other episodes, the fact that in early March of 2021, Forbes magazine had announced that podcasts were one of the best marketing platforms for 2021. And onward. This resulted in scores of people suddenly setting up shop and declaring themselves to be experts in helping you start a podcast. I myself just in my LinkedIn network can probably count six such people all have varying length of this expertise and levels. But I wanted to speak to somebody who that was focused and they'd been doing it since before this big surge in the interest in this very thing. So I found somebody who was admin too. They are somebody that had a background in audio and radio, and creating audio, and their proficiency and all of the strategy and the techniques and the equipment involved in podcasting and what it would take and they were very systematic, and I thought she would make a great guest. So I invited her to be a guest on my show to leverage the power of podcast casting for her reputation, because today is provisioner. She was she was a pretty low key semi obscure podcast expert out there. So I had her on my show. We did that like in all of my She's All That episodes, and we created a piece of showcase content with her as the spotlighted guest talking about her abilities in podcasting and getting people To set up as a podcast host - SCORE ONE for podcast guesting she now had from both the video and the podcast, hundreds of more people now aware of her. Now, as so often happens when you're a podcast guest if you help a host create an episode that is so well received, and that was so satisfying for that host, you know, have a little warm spot in their heart. They like you, they're gonna think of you if an opportunity comes up well, not a month and a half later, I decided to produce a webinar all around podcast hosting and podcast casting, as I'd mentioned at the top of this episode, free media exposure with podcasts guessing, hosting or both. Now as I said, I could have been speaking to both sides of that, but I thought now it will be more interesting on the webinar to have two people. So who did I invite back? The person who had been an excellent guest on my podcast? So I produced this webinar and gave her a role to the audience that I had put together for this webinar. She was now the podcast hosting expert SCORE TWO for podcast guesting. Again, this gets you out in front of other audiences, as so often happens when opportunities come along. Your host is going to think of you as that go to person. Well, it happened that an associate of mine who had attended the webinar was so impressed with the webinar and the value it brought when it came to deciding how podcasts and podcast guesting can play in your business. And I'll put the link down below if you want to catch it because it might be a good primer if you're undecided. She was so impressed with that webinar that she contacted me and she asked if I could help her out because she was helping to produce a month long celebration of podcasters for the month of September. And would I be a guest interviewee for that special celebration representing the whole issue of podcast guesting and the advantages to businesses and how to do it right. And did I think that this person that I had had on my webinar would be a good person to have on as the person representing why hosting is a great idea. And of course, I said she'd be fabulous. And with this came the opportunity not only to be interviewed and to be a guest yourself on this month long celebration for which there was an audience of 1000s and 1000s of people. There was also an opportunity to be as guest speaker on a panel talking about different issues to do with podcasts and now and into the future. Both of us were invited for that opportunity as well. SCORE THREE and FOUR for podcast guesting Soon after that now with all of the social media that I always follow up on all my episodes with social media promotion. Well, there was a whole lot of people that now knew about this topic, and myself and my guest that had been speaking about it. Well, pretty soon she was invited to be doing both in person and virtual speaking events on the topic. And now she was using the topic of podcast guesting podcast hosting, the combined talking points, and was doing her own virtual speaking, which was something that she hadn't been doing before. Her reputation was growing, her audience was growing. She was now differentiated from all of those other people, they might have known who were putting themselves out as podcast experts, and somebody that could coach you into creating your own podcast. And it was generating leads, and new opportunities. And the next opportunity came when a local business magazine was looking for someone who could speak to as an expert speak to the benefit of starting a podcast for your business. They invited this person who just four months before was a relatively unknown person in the field. They invited her to be speaking as their local expert on the topic of the benefits of starting a podcast for your business. I was invited to speak on the benefits of guessing for your business, that spine out of all of the things that came before. So SCORE FIVE for podcast So from relative obscurity, one of many people guesting. teaching people how to start their podcast with a solid foundation and a plan for future growth, which is critically important and something that not all of the coaches out there are going to give you to in a few short months as strongly differentiated expert with a growing identity in her field. So while podcasting itself is an amazing vehicle to establish your credibility and to build a broadcast media based portfolio for your expertise, depending on your business, podcast guest and can fast track this journey, having more impact and build your brand faster with a fraction of the work. I think the jury's still out as to which one is best overall, but I think I've answered the question, which is more powerful guest appearances or having your own podcast for a lot of people. It's podcast guesting. Thanks for being here. I hope you got some value from this episode. I very passionately believe that podcast guest appearances. done right is one One of the biggest opportunities available to us right now to build our brand, pledge our flag and start building a media presence that establishes our authority and expertise. If this is something that you would like to have working for your business in 2022 Make sure you subscribe and follow and join us for our free virtual events that we do every second month to help you figure out how you can be using other people's podcasts to explode your presence and credibility and reach the audiences that need to be hearing you