What Top Hosts Look for Before They Say Yes to Your Guest Pitch | Sam Brake Guia

After sending nearly 2,000 podcast pitches that have landed his clients on top podcasts, Sam Brake Guia knows exactly what separates the guest pitches that get deleted from the ones that get an immediate "yes"  (and the answer has less to do with your credentials than you probably think).

Sam's breaking down the simple 3-part framework behind guest pitches that top hosts actually respond to, what to put in your P.S. to build instant credibility, and the one habit that makes hosts want to book you. If you want to know exactly what top hosts look for before they invite you on their show, hit play and let's dive in.

…

1:56 – The 3 Things Every Podcast Host Looks for in a Guest Pitch

2:48 – Why Shorter Guest Pitches Get More Replies

4:35 – What to Put in Your P.S. to Build Instant Credibility

8:36 – How to Choose the Right Podcasts to Guest On

16:09 – The Interview Prep Mistake That Makes You Forgettable

18:04 – The One Habit That Books You More Guest Appearances

…

Episode Links:

Meet Sam Brake Guia: PodWritten.com | LinkedIn

Listen to Sam’s Podcast: Mics to Millions

…

Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

What to Do After Guesting on a Podcast to Get More Referrals and Clients

Why Guesting on Podcasts Won’t Grow Your Show (Unless You Do This)

…

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

After sending nearly 2,000 podcast pitches that have landed his clients on top podcasts, Sam BrightGear knows exactly what separates the guest pitches that get deleted from the ones that get an immediate heck yes. And the answer has less to do with your credentials or your expertise or how many podcasts that you've guested on than you probably think. So Sam is here to break down the exact word count that you should aim for in your guest pitches, what to say in your PS to build instant credibility, and how to know exactly what top hosts look for before they invite you onto their show. Welcome to Insider's Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. I am sitting here in the studio with the amazingly talented Sam Breakier, the host of Mike to Millions, the founder of Podwritten, and an absolutely brilliant mind in the podcasting space. Sam, the more I listen to you, the more I am amazed at the depth of knowledge that you have on podcasting. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Thank you so much for having me after hearing your show for at least a couple of years now, in and out, like your knowledge, it's a real pleasure. The pleasure's all mine.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm so excited for what we have to talk about here today, too, because podcast guesting is something I have lots of opinions on, but not a ton of direct experience with. And you are someone who has that direct experience as the founder of a successful podcast guesting agency.

The 3 Things Every Podcast Host Looks for in a Guest Pitch

SPEAKER_00 1:24

And something that you said in one of your emails as we were chatting before the episode here today that just blew my mind away is that you have sent nearly 2,000 podcast pitches on behalf of your clients to get them booked on top podcasts. Can you tell us the top two or three things that top hosts look for when they get those pitches from potential guests?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I would say one of the first things is really some evidence that you've listened to the show or some evidence that you understand them. We live in a world where AI pitches are being pumped out all of the time, and it's so rare to actually receive a pitch where someone's listened to the show, looked into what's actually it's about, and really kind of demonstrated that there's an aligned guest. Uh, another thing I think that's really important is just immediately understanding the word count really, really matters. And the reason being, I'm sure there's some psychological element that you can tie this back to, knowing your knowledge. But when someone opens an email and they see that it's like pages and pages or really long, then they're just gonna be discouraged. They're like, I'm not gonna read this. But if you really make sure that your pictures are super to the point, as to the point as you can, because we're all super busy, then they're more likely to invest and be like, okay, I'll read the first line, read this, read that. And then they're gonna get started. Of course, you want to share who you are, but one of the biggest mistakes I see is that people get really caught up in this. I'm this, I've discovered this, I work this, I work that. Really, all it takes is one sentence. You just want to live deliver one sentence which perfectly articulates who you are and what you've done to establish that credibility, and then immediately get into summarizing the value of what you're going to deliver to the audience. So immediately, first thing, demonstrate the fact that you know the show, demonstrate ideally that you've listened. One of the best ways to open up, I've found is to say, you've said before that the best thing you can do to grow a show is this. I'm Sam Breakgear, the co-founder of Podwritten, host of Mike's the Millions, uh, and I can help your audience do this. So, really, you just want to get this like XYZ formula as fast as possible. And then if you have a story, definitely share that. But then not all pitches are gonna be the same. Some of them are going to be story focus where you're like, I was a struggling entrepreneur, no one listened to my show, now I'm making millions, and this is an incredible story. Like, that's gonna grip people. You don't necessarily want to make the whole pitch about that because there's going to be takeaways, unless you're pitching to a story-focused podcast where no one's listening for takeaways, they just want to hear someone's story. But that comes back to the understanding the audience at the beginning. If you don't have a story, then just get into the focus of what's the value going to deliver. Then you want to add some bullets, make sure those bullets are quick, easy to read, really deliverable takeaways. And then a PS. Ideally, that PS will include past guest shows that you've been on. So you can check me out on this show, this show, this show to see what I'm like as a guest. Ideally, you want to keep that to 300 words, maybe 350 words. So this is a combination of what I've found from speaking with hosts over the past two years and also from the thousands of pitches that we've sent out.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Well, the pitch that you sent us, Sam, inviting me to be on your show was something that my assistant reviewed and immediately

What to Put in Your P.S. to Build Instant Credibility

SPEAKER_00 4:35

said yes to. And she knows how particular I am about who we say yes to. There's very, very, very few people who get like an immediate yes from us. And even though I couldn't do it at the time that you had said, you know, I'd love for you to come on my show this quarter is like, but how about next quarter? Because this really grabbed our attention. And then I went back and I read it as we were preparing for this interview and also my interview on your show. And I was really amazed because it was genuine, it was thorough, it was readable, and it hit all the points that you've just walked us through here. You mentioned the 350 words. Is that just for the PS or is that the total email, like your total word count would be total email word count.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Ideally, you want to keep

Why Shorter Guest Pitches Get More Replies

SPEAKER_01 5:12

it to that. We do find that like we try to keep it to 320, maybe 330 words, because really the shorter the better. If you can do it in like 250, do it. First of all, you don't want to take up their time because everyone's busy, everyone wants things done immediately. We live in this immediacy kind of thing, and you just want to make sure that they they get what they need as fast as possible so they can say yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, that's a great point too, just with how fast, how many emails hit our inbox in a day. Everyone is just moving so quickly. We're trying to clear that inbox, you know, and we're just skimming things at best. And it is true, and I'm guilty of this on the other end, the worst end of this spectrum, which is I send too long of emails. I'm like, I try to get it all in there and like, wait a minute, oh, take a page out of Sam's book here, guys. Like, send a shorter email. But also something that you did with the 2,000 pitches that you have sent, you have analyzed those and gleaned some insights and takeaways that we could all learn from to send pitches that get read and replied to. And I want to dig into that. But before we do, something that my dad has always drilled into my head from a very young age is begin with the end in mind. Begin with the end in mind. And for most people who approach podcast guesting, a clearly defined goal for what they want to get out of guesting is fuzzy at best. It's non-existent at worst, or in most cases. How do you recommend we go about clarifying our goals so we know exactly what we want to get out of our podcast guesting appearances?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah, definitely. Because this is going to drive everything that you do. I know that you've spoken about podcast guesting on the show before. And one of the things that was mentioned with the guest that you spoke with is about your CTA and like what you're looking to achieve is going to be the foundation of the shows that you go for because you need to know, okay, am I trying to sell my book? Because if I'm trying to sell my book, I need to know who's going to be reading my book and go after those audiences. Am I trying to sell a course? Do I have a retreat coming up? Like, what is it that I'm trying to sell and who is going to be buying it? And then you're going to focus on who are the audiences that I'm going to speak to. So that is absolutely necessary. You know, some people aren't always trying to sell stuff, some people are trying to grow their show, much like you've mentioned, or they're trying to get new clients for something in particular. So there's a real variety of reasons. Maybe they just want to establish credibility, they just want to grow their social media. So there's lots of them. And I think that podcast guesting can tick all of these boxes, some better than others, I will admit. But there's so many opportunities to achieve so many of these goals that I feel like if you go in just being like, you know what, I'm just gonna try and grow my podcast with podcast guesting, great. Like you might struggle a bit because I I feel like if you just go in thinking that, then one, you're going to have a hard time because you're like, oh, this isn't necessarily like what I thought. But at the same time, you're going to miss so many other opportunities. There's so many other ways that it can benefit you if you just look at it as like, I'm going to achieve this one thing. Absolutely, that you should make a priority of being like, this is going to be the North Star, this is what we're going to strive towards. But there's so many other things that we can tick off. There's so much more value we can get along the way.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

This is such an important thing to talk about out the gate because there's this huge elephant in the room that a lot of podcasters who have are listening to this show right now have tried guesting. Many of us have guested on other podcasts. Some of us have approached it with a lot of intention. I'm going to go on a podcast guesting tour. I'm going to do X amount of shows

How to Choose the Right Podcasts to Guest On

SPEAKER_00 8:36

and X amount of time. Some of us just kind of take the invitations that come that are interesting to us. We show up on those shows. But a lot of hosts don't see a significant change in numbers on the back end. And Sam, something that you have said is that podcast guesting is not going to automatically drive new listeners to your show, but that it can when it's done correctly. Can you tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, definitely. So, first of all, like I know that might sound strange, me being like the co-founder of a podcast guest booking agency, but yeah, it it doesn't automatically drive new listeners. What you need to really do or need to accept and look at is that there are two things that are going to influence this, which is size and alignment of the audience. And when I say about like size, for example, there is one client that I've worked with, Zach Brittle. He's the host of Marriage Therapy Radio. We got him booked on a really big show, Mental Illness Happy Hour. It has 70,000 monthly listeners. And we've got him booked on other shows before, and we've got our clients booked on shows before. But this was a particularly big show. And because of that, the moment the episode went live, we saw hundreds of new listeners, hundreds of new downloads come to his show because of that. And obviously, that's a case where this did work. That really did work. Like we did get um a lot of new listeners to his show because of that. But I also realized that your listeners maybe can't every episode and every week and every month get on a show with 70,000 downloads. But at the same time, I know your listeners are also very interested in securing clients and promoting their business. And that's a lot of the motivation that causes people to want to grow their show. So, really, if we look at that and say, okay, if we look past like maybe what you're trying to secure downloads for and look at the fact that like you want clients, well, the good news is you don't need to be on big shows to secure that. In fact, another relationship therapist client that we worked with, uh, we worked with all types of health and wellness uh professionals and businesses, but these are just two examples that happen to be relationship therapists. EJ and Tara Kerwin, they are the hosts of Relationship Renovation. They went on a show called Blended Family Breakthrough, and it was by far not the biggest show that they've been on, but they are relationship therapists and they have a blended family themselves. And they spoke to this audience, this really niche podcast, which is all about blended family therapy. And because it was so well aligned for them, they got multiple clients from this feature. So, again, not their biggest feature, but definitely probably one of the best for ROI. Again, Zach, that who I mentioned earlier, Zach Brittle, he went on another show, super well aligned for his topic, not his biggest feature, but it brought him clients as well. So I think the important thing is most people come to us, or lots of people are like, I want to be on Mel Robbins, I want to be on Huberman, I want to be on these big shows. And yeah, maybe that that's probably gonna help your download, certainly. But the reason most of us are looking for downloads is because we want to bring us closer to our business goals. And you don't need to go all the way, you don't need to go on Mel Robbins to move your business forward. You can do that with really niche, really well-aligned podcast guest appearances.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah, so what I'm hearing is bigger is not always better. And this is interesting too, Sam, because I have heard from a couple of people that have gone on Entrepreneurs on Fire, EOF. And that's a podcast that you have to pay to be on. And you're not paying like a few hundred dollars to be on, you're paying a few thousand dollars to be on. There is a huge audience there that listens to that podcast. And I have heard from some of those people who say, I didn't sell a single book. I I can't track a single listener back to my podcast. And here I was, I just paid thousands of dollars to be on this show, thinking that it was going to bring them something. So this is such a fascinating just conundrum that I see with podcast guesting, because to your point, alignment is really what matters. Size is irrelevant. If you've got a small podcast of very aligned listeners, that can be very profitable for you in terms of whether it is listeners that is your goal, whether that is getting clients or whatever that might be. But what I imagine is that maybe the unspoken thing here is what's happening inside of those interviews that's getting those listeners interested in actually working with the guest. Because I'm sure you've listened to podcasts and I've listened to podcasts, and you listening have listened to podcasts that we've listened to the guest and we just didn't feel a connection with him. We weren't really interested. The topic was kind of good, might have got a nugget or two out of that episode, but we didn't immediately run to that person's podcast and say, let me follow this person, or run to their website and say, Let me book a call. So what do you recommend? And maybe some of the things that Zach did in those episodes in that example, or the couple that you mentioned who are the relationship therapist, what are they doing as they approach those interviews? What are they doing in those interviews to help plant those seeds to get listeners pointing back to whatever that next step is that they want them to take?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, with all of our clients, we offer interview coaching. So I can share definitely like a breakdown of how we help them deliver these great interviews. So, first of all, one of the mistakes a lot of people make is they feel like if I deliver lots of information, people will remember me. And the thing is, is yes, takeaways are super important. You want to deliver that actionable advice, absolutely. But with Chat GPT and so much AI information available at fingertips, people don't necessarily tune into a podcast because they have an um an immediate demand or an immediate need for information. Anyone can access anything and get their answers solved like that. What they really tune in for is that personal touch, it's those stories, it's it's hearing someone explain how they overcame a problem personally, how they experience something that Chat GPT can't really replicate in the same way. Almost, for example, like I mentioned there, like I've worked with these two clients, for example, and that's a personal experience of me seeing how that's worked, and I'm kind of bringing my own personal experience there. And also just I think if you weave those in, like naturally weave in examples of how you've brought results for your clients, but not in a pushy way, not in a sense of like we're great because we do this, we're great because we do that, and again, not going to the other extent where you're just giving information and not really being promotional, like someone could finish the episode and be like, Oh, that was fantastic, but what do they do? Like, how do they help people again? Uh, so it's really important to walk that line between delivering good quality information that leaves the listener with value they can act on while also delivering stories and that kind of personal element that AIs, at least now, can't really imitate.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, I'd love to dig into this a little bit more with you because when you go into a guest interview, and if you've ever done a guest interview, then you know sometimes the host doesn't share the questions ahead of time, which is okay. I'm a host that doesn't share questions ahead of time because I don't want the guest to be overly prepared. Because sometimes I might not even ask the question I prepared. I might ask something different if it comes up in the conversation. And so that's a personal choice that I make for my show. But I've been on the other side of the mic too, where, you know, Sam, you have shared all your questions with me coming into your interview. And that was really nice to be able to sit there and say, okay, this is kind of what Sam is thinking about for his listeners, which got me in that mind frame for your listeners. So I felt more prepared. Are there some universal principles that you can teach us going into a podcast interview? And then feel like we really showed up as our true self in that interview so that it's an interview we walk away feeling good about and not feeling like, oh my gosh, that was my

The Interview Prep Mistake That Makes You Forgettable

SPEAKER_00 16:09

worst appearance ever.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

I would say the most important thing is just to know your examples, know your stories, like have a few examples in mind where you're like, you know what? I'm talking about podcast guesting. I definitely know some client examples of where our clients have excelled in different areas. And I can be like, yeah, exactly. We got this one client who did this, and I'm going to use that example to really highlight a point. Again, not to just like promote for the sake of promotional, it's going to give the listener a perspective, which makes them think, okay, they did it through this way, or they did it because of that. Uh so I think just before you get on a show, really know the examples that you want to share that are going to deliver value, make them personal. Definitely talking about yourself is very effective. Uh, if you say, like, you know, I really struggle with this for a long time, I couldn't do this. But you know what? I found out that I could do it this way, and it completely changed things for me. So you can speak to your own perspective or you can talk about your clients' stories. But having those stories and making sure you weave them in, it's super effective for connecting with the audience and just being memorable and also just showing, like, hey, I'm a professional or what I do. I've walked this path for a while, and yeah, I I'm someone that you can trust with this kind of information.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

That's really smart. I need to sit down and do that. It's a great tip. Also, Sam, I know you have a very specific way that you recommend for people to track to measure the effectiveness of their guest outreach and their results from guesting. Can you take us through what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah, I mean, it's a bit difficult because we have our own system that we've designed specifically at Pod Written, but you can do the exact same thing with a spreadsheet. So simply you can learn how to set up formulas. And my best recommendation is to track everything that you send out. Track what shows you're pitching to, track the number of pitches you send. But one of the approaches that we take here is we

The One Habit That Books You More Guest Appearances

SPEAKER_01 18:04

have we approach different audiences for different kinds of different segments. So, for example, if someone is coming to us with a book and we can see, okay, you know what, this is a book is applicable to people in relationships, people with addiction, people who are maybe going through menopause. I know those are three different random categories, but there might be like a loop that like or or a linking thread that that connects them all. And we're gonna say to ourselves, you know what, we're gonna create the same kind of pitch or the same approach with the same intention, but we're gonna target these three different audiences. Uh then you should go out and do outreach to these audiences and understand like which where is this message resonating? And if you track that, you can see, okay, so for in our case, for example, we'll see the menopause is booking at a booking rate of 20%. That means every one in five pitches we send out, we know that we're going to get a yes. The other one is booking at a rate of 10%. So that's not doing as well. Let's double down on the menopause, let's drop the addiction one relationship. It's doing 15%. So let's see how we can tweak that. Maybe we can improve it. We make some improvements, suddenly it goes up to 30%. So as long as you're tracking your numbers of everything that you're sending out, and we do this at a really granular level to uh in so many different ways with the system that we've designed. And I'm pretty sure you could probably do the same in a spreadsheet. We don't use a spreadsheet, but I'm sure maybe there are some Excel or Google Sheet nerds out there that are probably like, yeah, I can do that. I don't know. But that's the best thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

ChatGPT can write the formula for you, have some sort of tracking in place. And you know, it's interesting because I I have clients who have told me this, they're like, Courtney, I would rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than track. They might have not used those exact words, but to that it, you know, like they hate tracking. I don't want to track the things, I just want to know if it's working or not. It's like, well, okay, great. If you want to go into this strategy and you just want to do the strategy and you're not gonna track, then know that you might not have a way to close that loop to know if you're getting an ROI from this, but have fun with it and show up and do it because you want to do it versus needing it to deliver something for you. If you need it to deliver on that goal that you set back a few moments ago when we were setting that goal, like, hey, let's think about how we're gonna approach this, then you got to track it because otherwise you're not gonna have a way to close that loop. Sam, something we didn't get to cover in this episode, which I'm very excited to dig into with you in the next episode, is what to do with all the connections that you make from podcast guesting, because that's where 80% or more of the conversion actually happens. And if you're listening right now, thankfully Sam has agreed to join us back for a bonus episode where we're gonna unpack this in just a moment. So, Sam, thank you so much for being here today and for all the wisdom that you've shared with us.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Again, my pleasure. Thank you, Courtney.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

And if you found this episode helpful and you enjoy learning from Sam, go follow his show and drop a comment or leave a review to let him know. Just type in Mike's to millions wherever you listen to podcasts, and then stick around because most people think that landing the podcast guest interview is the win, but it's not. And if your podcast guest appearances haven't led to more clients or more referrals or repeat invitations, you're gonna want to hear what Sam has to share next. He's gonna hand you his strategy that will help you turn a single guest appearance into a network of referral partners and long term business relationships. So if you love podcast guesting, but you want more ROI from those guest appearances, head with us to the next episode and let's make your podcast bingeworthy.