AP 0436: How Do I Provide Offers for My New Podcast?

AskPat 436 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 436 of AskPat. I have a special guest with me today. Want to say hi really quick?

Keoni: Hi.
Pat Flynn: How you doing, bud?
Keoni: Good.
Pat Flynn: What is up? What's new?
Keoni: We got our BB-8.
Pat Flynn: What's a BB-8?
Keoni: A BB-8 is a kind of robot from Star Wars.
Pat Flynn: Yes it is, a robot from Star Wars, the new Star Wars.
Keoni: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pat Flynn: Yeah. Alright, bud.

Alright, and that's my son. He's going to go off and play with the toy we just bought, but anyway. That toy was actually for me, but he's playing with it. Anyway, thank you all so much for joining me. I like to share a little bit of my son. He's now five years old in kindergarten. He's been on some episodes pretty much since he was born back on Smart Passive Income, but I haven't had him on AskPat. I just wanted to just let him say hi really quick.

Anyway, thank you for joining me today. We have a great question today from Will, but before we get to that, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is AWeber, AWeber.com. That is the email service provider that I've always recommended for people who are just starting out with building their email list, because it's very simple to use, very, very good price points, and amazing customer service as well. They help serve over 120,000 small businesses with building their email lists. They've helped me actually, quite coincidentally, hit that same number of email subscribers. 120,000 is what they've helped me grow my email list to, and they just connect with pretty much every single other third-party email conversion optimization platform out there like LeadPages and Optimizely and OptinMonster and all those other ones out there. AWeber is very, very, very popular in the space, and I recommend it for you if you're just starting out. Just head on over to AWeber.com/askpat. Again, that's AWeber.com/askpat, and you'll get a 30-day free trial. Awesome.

Alright. Here's today's question from Will.

Will: Pat, this is Will Gramling, and I haven't launched a podcast site yet, mainly because the following question has me stumped. I want to have a podcast that interviews companies about their products and has a special offer that goes along with it. I know this is nothing new, but here's the question. How do you get started with this kind of podcast considering you're starting at listener zero? In other words, how do you convince companies to make these offers on a new podcast with very low listenership? It seems easy after you hit a certain level, but how do you do it on day one? Love all your shows and the information you put out. Thanks for all you do.

Pat Flynn: Hey Will, thank you so much for this question. Now when you're working with anybody, whether it's a company or another person, what you want to make sure is that you show them in some way, shape, or form, that you have value to provide, and this comes in many different forms. One, who you already have . . . So if you don't have a podcast audience, then obviously you don't have that already, but you might have an email list. You might have a following on social media, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, what have you. You might have a blog with a certain amount of traffic, so those are all things that could be providing value to a company even before you have podcast listeners. You might also have certain connections with other people or other companies that you've already interviewed, which you can then name drop, which would provide value through association, which you can include in conversations with these potential companies in emails and things like that to be able to convince them to want to work with you.

Now I will say that there are other strategies you can use to make sure that you are actually giving yourself the best chance to work with companies even when you're just starting out, so the first thing you want to do is you want to work with companies that are . . . They seem to say yes a lot, so reach out to companies that have already said yes to other podcasts because they're going to be familiar with that. You might find them on iTunes already. Use the keyword search in iTunes to find this company, and you might see that maybe they've done interviews on other shows before. Maybe you even know some of those other podcasters, in which case, like I said earlier, Will, that you can name drop, and they would be more likely to say yes just because there's some sort of common connection there.

You could also target companies when you're first starting out, when you have zero podcasts in the bag already, you could start out with companies that you know have something that they're going to be promoting, where they're in the mindset that they just want to get out there as much as possible, and anybody that they can get in front of is going to be useful for them. So in my space, the entrepreneurial online business blogging space, it's a lot of times very easy to figure out what the promotions are because I could see who's coming out with books, who is teasing courses, and those sorts of things. It just makes it very easy for me to have somebody on board who would more likely say yes, because they just want as much promotion as possible, and for other companies, corporate companies, it might be a little bit more difficult.

But if you can, again, prove that there's some value in working with you even before you have podcast listeners, then that could help, as well as just the kind of vibe that you guys have with each other. In that conversation that you have with that potential advertiser or a person that you are looking to promote on your podcast, you want to build a decent relationship with them at first. If you give them a cold email and just ask them out of the blue, it's not going to give you much of a chance, but if you have a relationship with this company beforehand . . . Maybe you just reach out to this company and just say, “Hey, I'm interested in this niche. I'm going to be doing a podcast. Just want to let you know that I look forward to working with you one day.” This is something you could do in the future. Then that could work, and then when you reach out to them in the future that you won't be just some stranger, you'll be somebody who has then put a lot of work into the branding of it.

Then those are other things that you could show that you are actually serious about this. You could show the branding. You can have projections and things like that just to convince these people that you are worth their time. Of course, a lot of times, these people are going to be busy as well, so you want to make sure that you are upfront with what exactly you need from them. So 10, 15, 20-minute conversation, and also if there was some special deal that you could offer, which is of course what your goal is or was, then that's great, but that's not always going to be able to happen, and a lot of times what you might be able to do, especially if you're just starting out, is convince these companies to give you access to their referral or affiliate program. That way, there's no loss for them. It's only if you perform that you actually get paid, and they pay you, so an affiliate-based promotion rather than a special deal promotion is a great way to go.

Of course, instead of having the other company actually offer a special deal, maybe there's a way that you could offer something in addition sort of as a bonus for people who are listening to the show, which would show that you're actually providing value to this company as well. The bonus might be a quick start guide or some sort of free video that relates to that particular company. Maybe it's a video on how you use it or some of the more difficult parts of using that particular product, and then you can walk people through that. I think that would be a nice bonus that you could offer your audience, and maybe there's an affiliate promotion tied to that, in which case it would be a pretty convincing reason for people to sign up through your link, because you're already giving them value. They're getting to know who exactly this company and what they're all about, and if the company can't offer a special offer, which isn't always possible, then you are offering something and providing value to your audience, which is of course the most important thing. Then if there's an affiliate commission involved, great. If not, then that's okay.

I think over time, you'll be able to build that audience, and again, that's the most important thing here in addition to getting these people to come on your show and share this stuff with you. You want to build your audience, and so over time, you're going to build this fan base in which you'll be able to leverage that to find new companies and then work out special deals, where eventually over time, you're going to have them knocking on your door and wanting to give you deals just to get in line. Again, that's down the road. That's going to take a while. This doesn't happen . . . The success doesn't happen overnight, and it's going to take a little bit of work. It's going to take a lot of networking and reaching out and a lot of nos and a lot of failures, but that's okay. That's part of the process.

Will, I just wish you the best of luck, and I look forward to hearing what else you have going on and how this goes for you. Thank you again for the question. I appreciate it. We all appreciate it. For having your question featured here on the show, we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt free of charge. You'll hear from my assistant Jessica in the next couple weeks to collect your information for that, and for those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page.

I also want to thank today's sponsor which is AWeber. Again, you can get a 30-day free trial for your email service provider AWeber by going to AWeber, that's AWeber.com/askpat. Again, that's AWeber.com/askpat for a 30-day free trial and some of the best customer service you'll find in the email marketing industry, AWeber.com/askpat.

Thanks so much for listening in. I appreciate it, and here's a quote from Jamie Paolinetti. She said, “Limitations live only in our mind, but if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.”

Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.