Bonus Episode: The Power of Podcasting for Cost-Effective Branding with Mischa Zvegintzov

Mischa is a dynamic force in the world of digital marketing; empowering heart-centered entrepreneurs to amplify their message into the market and elevate their authority, their impact, and their income. No need for throwing money away on Facebook ads, Mischa has got a better strategy up his sleeve!

With a track record of 20 years in old-school sales, Mischa marries tried-and-true strategies with the cutting-edge tools of the digital era. He has made over a million phone calls, run massive flier campaigns, and pounded the pavement door-to-door and business-to-business.

Mischa and his team generated over 1.5 billion dollars in loans funded. After a brief retirement to guide his two boys through high school and enlighten others through yoga teaching, Mischa's now back in the game and his superpower is building influence.

As the founder of the "Influence Army" and host of the “Table Rush Talk Show”, he's all about sharing his expertise and inspiring others to put their voice out there in a big way.

In This Conversation We Discuss:

• [00:49] Intro
• [02:17] Building business on a budget using earned media
• [03:58] Using podcast tours in brand promotion
• [05:50] Tapping into diverse podcast audiences
• [07:15] Leveraging CTAs and catchy URLs
• [08:44] Crafting impressions for host recommendations
• [09:53] Enriching your network through podcast
• [10:57] Leveraging podcasts for collaborations
• [12:00] Podcasts as platforms for affiliate partnerships
• [12:59] Exploring joint offers and revenue sharing
• [14:00] Repurposing content for maximum impact
• [14:43] The multifaceted power of podcasting
• [15:39] Video transcription tools for seamless editing
• [17:12] The branding benefits of podcasting
• [18:25] The impact of podcasting in exposure and authority
• [21:00] Finding and targeting niche audiences
• [22:26] Refining podcast search strategies with AI
• [23:22] Tapping into speaker lists for opportunities
• [24:20] Using tools to track competitors’ appearances
• [26:20] Efficient outreach with RSS feed finders
• [27:32] Hunting for podcast contacts
• [28:55] Proven templates for podcast guest outreach
• [30:38] Handling various replies to guest requests
• [32:53] Leveraging no responses for second pitches
• [34:34] Garnering interest for further discussion
• [35:48] Prioritizing conversations with interested leads
• [37:54] The power of follow-up in podcast guesting
• [39:34] Using LinkedIn to expand your network
• [40:16] Quick, simple, and value-added messages
• [41:17] Navigating positive and unexpected replies
• [42:07] Asking questions for smooth guest onboarding
• [43:05] Addressing production costs with guests
• [46:38] Responding strategically to feedback
• [47:26] Amplify your voice with The Influence Army

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Amplify your voice with a tribe of heart-centered entrepreneurs theinfluencearmy.com/mifge
• Start a profitable podcast tour theinfluencearmy.com/guide
• Valuable insights on strategic marketing podcasts.apple.com/ng/podcast/table-rush-talk-show/id1541515693
• Follow Mischa Zvegintzov linkedin.com/in/mischaz/

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

 

Transcript

Mischa Zvegintzov

All you have to do is send an email to guests on a show. The simple script. It's that simple. And then get the response and you'll see what you need to do next.

Chase Clymer

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game. 

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating  real results. 

I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.

Let's get on with the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. 

And today I’m welcoming to the show, Mischa Zvegintzov. 

He is the CEO and Chief Influence Officer–I love that–of Belove Media. They help online entrepreneurs bring their products to market in a big way without costly advertising. 

Mischa, welcome to the show. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Chase, so glad and honored to be here. Looking forward to this. 

Chase Clymer

This is going to be fun. I always enjoy talking with other podcasters. We say a lot of stuff and we're really good at that. But hopefully, we get some substance in this episode. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

That's right. 

Chase Clymer

Awesome. Let’s dive in.

So let's talk a bit more about Beloved Media. Can you quickly just tell me, what are you guys doing most of the time? What's your main service? 

Or how are you helping your clients just to help the listeners understand where we're really going to dive into today? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah. Love it. Awesome. Such great questions. 

Belove.media is my umbrella brand. The main thing I do, well, I was like, do I want to go deep on Belove.media and the Umbrella Brand? But basically when I started entrepreneuring, re-emerging in the online space after being a retired stay at home dad for a number of years, I was like, Russell Brunson, I joined his $25,000 a month coaching program. 

And he's like, “Start an umbrella brand,” and I was like, “Belove.media,” and so you can go to Belove.media and I believe it takes you to my homepage where I teach you how to grow your business online, right? 

In reality, what I'm doing, so if you go to badzuck.com, I've got what's called The Influence Army. So I teach people, entrepreneurs who want to bring their message to market in a big way so they can increase their influence, their impact, and their income without throwing money away on Facebook ads or social media marketing or all this stuff. 

I teach people to go on an influence tour. So they joined my Influence Army. So you can go to influencearmy.com. There's another dotcom for you. 

But basically, I teach entrepreneurs how to go on an influence tour. And that all starts by guest speaking on podcasts. I'm here right now. Yeah, go ahead, Chase. 

Chase Clymer

Oh, I mean, I just love it. And I can't wait to get into it. 

For our listeners, what we're going to talk about today specifically is like a go-to-market strategy for all of you young entrepreneurs that are launching brands that don't have any money to get into the paid ad space to launch that way. This is going to be a cost-effective strategy, it's gonna be free if you do it right. 

But it's going to be a very fruitful strategy to get what we're going to refer to as earned media. This is  how you get traffic without a budget. That's what we're going to talk about.

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. How to get traffic without a budget. And a lot of traffic and perhaps build an amazing business without a budget. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. So let's take it back. And you're talking about an influencer tour. But you kind of then said exactly what it is. 

You're talking about a strategy that's about a podcast tour as kind of like a marketing strategy. How would this play into Joe launching his brand of new unique sneakers? Let's just use him for an example here. 

He reaches out to you. What are you going to teach him? How are you going to help him? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, I love it. So Joe has... I'm just taking notes here. Joe, who's got an amazing sneaker brand, and he's like, “I just created this amazing sneaker. I've got an amazing story.” 

Hopefully he's documented his stories a little bit. What inspired him to come up with these sneakers. I'm sure he's got a message there, probably look cooler or maybe they've got better padding or maybe you can jump. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, they've got some cool, unique way that makes them more earth friendly. Let's go with that angle. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

I love it. I love it. Earth friendly. You're producing sneakers that are earth friendly. 

Sorry, I was just thinking of my friend. It's been a long day already, Chase, so bear with me, but I've got a friend who literally 3D prints sunglasses that are earth friendly with castor bean oil. Anybody can go to saunteyewear.com. They are the most beautiful works of art ever. 

So I'm like, oh my god, Joe, sneaker, earth friendly. I love it, it resonated with me. 

Anyway, he's got a story to tell. And so a way to do it for free to get your message out there without having to start spending money on Facebook ads or social media ads or spending money on Amazon to promote your store or whatever, is you strategically go guest speak on podcasts. 

And so the first thing to understand is that when you guest speak on a podcast, there's six main benefits of how you can grow your business from guest speaking on podcasts. 

The first one is CTA, the call to action. We go out there and we find some strategic podcasts to speak on and Joe Sneaker is going to have a lot of audiences to speak to. 

He could go speak to entrepreneurial podcasts for young people, if you know what I'm saying. He could even speak, your show obviously is Ecommerce, but just think of all the podcasts out there that talk about marketing and business and entrepreneurship that speak to a younger audience that he could jump on and talk about his shoes. Right? 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

So it doesn't need to be just sports-themed podcasts. Obviously, those podcasts are amazing. Basketball podcasts. Think of the litany of sport podcasts you could speak on. 

But if you get creative and understand that there are so many podcasts out there that have that slice of your audience. 

So once that settles in our brain, it's like, Oh my god, sky's the limit. 

Chase Clymer

Well, not only just the entrepreneurship angle, another one is the differentiating factor that we made up for Joe Sneakers is like the earth-friendly element. He could go talk on like an environmentalist podcast as well. It's a whole different channel he should go after. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. Massive opportunity right there. How about depending on... There's The Creator Podcast as well. There's the... There's just so many different podcasts to go speak on. 

Yeah, mind boggling. I'm just... My brain's going, wow, do we know a Joe sneaker? Do we have a real guy? 

Chase Clymer

I don't know. Someone needs to reach... If this is... We're talking about your business, reach out. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, right. 

Chase Clymer

Because we're just gonna do a whole free brainstorming session. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yes. So you've got the call to action, right? So you're... You literally are saying, hey, anybody can go to joesneaker.com and they can see my earth-friendly sneaker. And you can buy a pair and try it and it's going to be amazing. 

And then you think of a, hopefully a catchy, a catchy URL. 

So Joe Sneaker actually is not bad. So maybe someone who's listening needs to go register josekneaker.com right now. But for example, I've got badzuck.com. So anybody who's already resonating with our message, go to badzuck.com, join my Influence Army, right? 

So the call to action. So that's the most obvious one. 

The next is the host will sometimes directly recommend you to somebody. 

So Chase, for example, you're hearing me talking and by the time we're done with this, and we had a conversation before this, you're like, “You know what? Mischa's a little bit older, but he's sharp. He's got great experience. He knows what he's doing. He can help some of my e-commerce customers. Like as a matter of fact, Joe Sneaker needs to talk to him. So I'm gonna directly introduce him.” 

Those opportunities are happening all the time. If you're speaking on a podcast about earth friendly stuff, about eco this, eco that, or how to...What's the term I'm thinking of? Your eco-friendly production, or… I can't remember what the term is. 

Chase Clymer

Sustainability is the big term in Ecommerce these days. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, there we go. 

Chase Clymer

Don't worry, I couldn't think of it before. It just came to me as you were talking about it. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

So that person is going to go, “Oh my gosh, I got all my friends and they need to buy your sneakers.” Direct recommends right there.

The next is, the host, obviously, if they're grooving on what you're talking about, there's a great chance they might use you. 

So you might go, “Hey, Mischa, help me get on a podcast” or the host goes, “Oh my gosh, I'm gonna buy these sneakers for my whole family.” 

I know in the Ecommerce space you're trying to sell a bunch. But you get it, man. It all adds up. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. 

And going back to the second point you made about them making recommendations, there are these ancillary recommendations that you won't think about asking, but it will just make sense when you start talking about your product and your story to these people. 

A host might be like, “You need to meet my cousin who is on this foundation and they need to know about your product.” 

There's all these weird things that are just from increasing your surface luck area of getting your message out there and meeting new people. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. 

The collaboration opportunities, right? That is the third one, the opportunities to collaborate. You get a combination of the collaboration and the host direct recommend or some version of that.

There's this great story and I'm looking for the brand name because it is freaking awesome. It's, uh, where is it? Oh, Fire Creek Snacks. 

So these guys from Fire Creek Snacks, they make beef jerky sticks, healthy beef jerky sticks. Like slim gyms, but healthy and extra protein packed. 

So they had gone out onto the pro golf tour and were promoting their product that way. So all these pro golfers were buying their beef sticks, right?

These guys got inspired to go on a podcast tour. Next thing you know, they're speaking on podcasts. The next thing you know, the exact thing that you just spoke to happened. 

Walmart. They got introduced to Walmart through a podcast. Next thing you know, their products are in Walmart. You can go to firesticks.com and check it out. 

Chase Clymer

Once you have some cool things to talk about, those things happen. 

I want to circle back. You said collaboration. 

Would this be an example of collaboration where you get on a certain podcast and maybe they do curated lists for holiday gift guides every year and they want an affiliate link from you. And they're going to really push that particular thing. Would that be this collaboration you're talking about? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Love it. Exactly. Great, great example. Yep, you have the opportunity.

You are going to do the marketing for me, Joe Sneaker, where you're going to say, “Hey, for a percentage of the revenue, I will market your product on my Christmas list,” or whatever, however you do that, “and you don't need to pay me until products start selling.” 

Do that affiliate percentage relationship. Am I saying that right? 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. No, I was just confirming that's where you put it on your list. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, absolutely. And massive opportunity. 

For example, you could even go... So you're an Ecommerce. You have an Ecommerce podcast, you help e-commerce sellers. 

I help people guest speak on podcasts. And initially, someone might go, well, I don't see any collaboration opportunities there. But again, you might love the message about guest speaking on podcasts. So… great. 

What we're going to do is put together a joint offer where we'll do a master class. I'll have an offer at the end where I'll do a discount for a year. You can join my Influence Army. Instead of being  $1,200 for the year, it'll be $1,000 for the year. You promote that class for me through your list, through your audience, and then I share the revenue on the end for people that join. 

So there are collaboration opportunities like that too. All we got to do is start thinking creatively. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. What are we up to on your list now? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Okay, sorry. Yes. We're repurposing content. #5. Repurpose content.

I'm going to do everything I can to get my hands on this episode from you, right? 

Chase Clymer

That's pretty easy. I'll send you the link. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

There we go. Bam. 

Now I've got the raw content. I can create clips, TikToks, all that stuff. And now I've got a ton of content that I've created organically.

This type of organic content is so powerful. It's a natural conversation between you and I and it just plays well on TikToks, Reels, all that sort of stuff. So we'll have a ton of repurposable content. 

And of course, there's just... Go ahead.

Chase Clymer

I appreciate that you put this at number 5 on your list when I think a lot of people view podcasts as just making content. It doesn't even broach your top 3 of what the power of podcasting is.

I think that's where when I started podcasting 5 or 6 years ago, it was because I didn't like writing. And it was a way to produce content. And then through just doing it and then learning about what the power of it was, it still is me stretching my brain and producing content around these topics that I want to talk about.

But everything that you said so far is like, all these doors that have opened up from podcasting, for sure. 

But yeah, I think that the content element of it, if you were to argue, all you're doing is just making content every week, that in and of itself is worthwhile. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. I've written some crazy chat GPT prompts. There's a program called Descript. I don't mean to get too techie for you and your audience, but there's a program called Descript. 

You upload your video to it, show the video on one side and it automatically transcribes it on the left. It's got the timeline on the bottom. You can edit the video off of the transcript. So as you cut and paste and move sentences, it's moving the video. 

Chase Clymer

Oh, that's really cool. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

It's really cool. So I created a chat GPT prompt that's crazy. It says, give me the top three inspirational quotes, literal quotes, inspirational, tactical, there's a third one and you could get as creative as you want and put those together for me for the output on a grid. 

Then I'm just cutting and pasting and editing. I can crank out clips so fast on Descript. Output, social media, reels, and so that's crazy what we can do right now. I didn't mean to go down that.

Chase Clymer

I'm excited to see what you do with this episode. We use something called Opus Clip, which takes it a little bit further. And the computer does it for you. But you don't have the level of finesse as you're talking about here. So I'm excited to look into that and figure that out. 

Obviously, content is king. What is the sixth thing on your list? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

The sixth thing is branding. You will be seen as an authority in your audience.

We forget that just by the fact that we're speaking on podcasts, speaking on podcasts, speaking on podcasts, we are creating our brand, we're creating our brand story, we're putting ourselves out there and growing our brand. 

Does that make sense or did I say that well or maybe you wanna read? 

Chase Clymer

It makes sense to me because I understand it and I've had people who make me understand that. 

Shout out to Phil from Future Commerce. He's been very adamant to me, like, “You're an influencer, you're a creator, you produce content every week, you need to think about this.” And I was like, “Yeah, I guess you're right.” 

That subject matter expertise and that authority that you get from being on other podcasts, and producing your own podcast, even, that is very powerful in your career and in the foundation as an asset for your business. 

That's a whole other avenue we could go down. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, I'll speak to that in 30 seconds too. 

When I got started back after I had retired to get my kids through high school, I had a long sales career. Telemarketing, flier campaigns, email lists, just getting the phone to ring. 

Retired, I'm like, “I'm bringing all this into the new school.”

So I joined Russell Brunson's $25,000 a year coaching program. This was three or four years ago. I just go big, right? Why not? 

The first thing he does is have you start a podcast. Start talking about what you do on a platform. And he basically said pick a podcasting, blogging. And I was like, “I don't like to write, so I'm going to podcast.” Or the third, YouTube. 

And for whatever reason, I picked podcasting. So I've been a prolific podcaster for a number of years now. 

I would go to Russell. I will never forget it. I had started my podcast and word had got out that I had had a podcast. I'm walking through Funnel Hacking LIVE. You know what Funnel Hacking LIVE is? Have you heard of it? 

Chase Clymer

I do, but the listeners need to know. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Okay. So all you listeners and the audience out there, Funnel Hacking LIVE is basically this rock concert for 5,000 of your best online marketing friends. 

So it's... Sorry, my brain is a little fried right now, but anyway, it's a marketing event. 5,000 people show up. 

Chase Clymer

It's Russell Brunson's premiere event every year, right? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yes, exactly. 

Chase Clymer

And for those that haven't read Dotcom Secrets, go read that book. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Go read that book. It's amazing. Absolutely.

I'm walking down, I'm walking around. Well, I'm literally walking through the crowd of 5,000 people at Funnel Hacking LIVE and people are like, “You're that podcasting guy! You're that podcasting guy! You're that podcasting guy!” 

People hadn't even listened to the podcast, but they knew I was that podcasting guy, which speaks to the branding, which speaks to being the authority, which speaks to being known for something, even though they don't even.. perhaps they haven't even heard it. It was powerful for me. 

Anyway, I'll move on. Where were we? Branding? Did you want to speak more to branding or did we close that loop? 

Chase Clymer

I think that you have convinced Joe Sneaker, he needs to go on a podcast tour. 

Now, the thing about Joe Sneaker and our listeners is some of them aren't going to be able to afford to work with badzuck and Mischa, right? 

So if I want to DIY this, can I? Or do you have all the secrets? Do you have all the cards? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

You know, we're done. You gotta go to badzuck.com. No, you can totally DIY this. Basically, you wanna find the podcast to speak on, then you need to find their emails, and then you need to send an email.

Correct? It's pretty gosh darn simple. So how can you find the email? So give me one second. I wanna pull something up for you.

I've got my, where is it? My Find Your Perfect Podcast framework, my five step framework to easily find more podcasts to speak on than you know what to do with. 

But I'm going to cut to the chase. You can go to Google and start there and go eco podcasts, sustainability podcasts, environmentally friendly podcasts, basketball podcasts.

Let's say Joe Sneaker makes earth friendly sneakers that are catered towards Ironman. Ironman podcast, whatever, running podcasts, whatever. 

And then you're going to find more podcasts than you know what to do with. 

Chase Clymer 

I will even take that a step further to what you'd mentioned earlier with ChatGPT. I think a lot of people have a problem with drawing parallels between similar topics that are the same thing.

You ask ChatGPT, it’ll be like, “What would be another word for an environmental list podcast?” And it will give you a bunch of ideas to then go Google again. 

Or a sustainability podcast, “What are other ways people would be talking about this?” And then you got a bunch more ideas to Google. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Love it. Genius, Chase. Such a good idea. 

And you could even say, “Hey, I'm Joe Sneaker. Here's my audience.” In your prompt, explain who you are, what you do. Help me figure out what podcast to speak on and go crazy or something. 

Chase Clymer 

We're going to circle back to this to step two, because there's an awesome thing to do there, too. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah, good. And so then you just start finding those podcasts that way. 

The other thing is when you find a good target podcast… A little of the grunt work can start to be mind numbing, unless you love research, then you're like, “Oh my God, I'm in my dream space,” but if you find it mind numbing, once you find podcasts that you want to speak on, you hack their speaker list. 

So I will go to Honest Ecommerce and go, “Let's look at all the speakers that Chase has had here, all the interviews.” I'm going to hack that list because there’s a high percentage chance that 70% of those people have a platform that they speak on that they would love a guest such as myself. 

So whether they're podcasting, YouTube, blogging, maybe they're even just an influencer on social media that has an audience, you could do a joint something or something. 

Does that make sense? So just hack the list. 

And then once you find those target-rich podcasts, there are literally endless podcasts to speak on. 

Chase Clymer

I think finding those podcasts... Here's a golden nugget for all the listeners out there. 

I do a lot of this. I'm a guest on a lot of podcasts and I think one of my favorite avenues to find new podcasts, because I'm very familiar with all the ones in my ecosystem, is listennotes.com. This is a paid tool. 

We were talking about not having a budget before, but I feel like it is very affordable and gets you there a lot faster. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. So I was going to just say ListenNotes. You can absolutely pay on ListenNotes. And I will tell you as well... Give me one second. I have this incredible spreadsheet that I built.

Where is it? The podcast guest speaking template. There it is. 

You can go to ListenNotes as one. So you search. 

What somebody could also do is go, all right, Chase has spoken on a lot of podcasts. So Clymer is your last name. Am I saying it right? Yeah, great. So Chase Clymer. 

So I go into ListenNotes and I put in, quote, Chase Clymer, end quote. 

Chase Clymer

And then it shows me all the podcasts I spoke on. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

I found all the podcasts I spoke on.

Chase Clymer

So if Joe Sneaker knows that Harry Sneaker, his direct competitor, has already done this, he can just go find all the podcasts that Harry's already been on because those people were already apt to a similar story. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

There you go. And the key is the quotes because if you don't put the quotes and you put Chase Clymer, it's going to give you every podcast that's had Chase or Clymer or whatever. 

So we'll save the technical mumbo jumbo for that. So there you go. 

And then there's Chartable, another awesome one, and Podcast Addict. Those are great ways to search. 

So what happens is you find the podcast you want to speak on. Now you got to figure out how to reach out to them. This is going to be a little bit of techno mumbo jumbo, but basically every podcast has an RSS feed and embedded in 90% of those RSS feeds is the podcast email address. The show manager's address. 

So you go to Podcast Addict or Chartable. These are my favorite RSS feed finders. You put in the podcast. So you would put in honest ecommerce@podcast addict.com. And then it says copy RSS feed or show me RSS feed. And you click show me RSS feed. And then you scan it and there's the email. Bam.

A little bit of grunt work, but you can find 90% of podcast emails through the RSS feed finders. You don't even need to know what an RSS feed is. All you need to know is that Podcast Addict and Chartable have the RSS feeds. Again, you can go to ListenNotes.com and just pay for the email address. That's another great way to do it. 

I'll tell you this as well. I found a podcast that I wanted to speak on. I actually wanted this lady to speak on my podcast. This was just a day ago. And I was like, “I got to have this lady on my podcast.” 

So I searched all the RSS feeds, but couldn't find the address. Facebook page is next. You go to their Facebook page. A huge amount of people have their email address on their Facebook page. 

If it's not there, fine. You can go to Instagram, look at their Linktree or whatever. Sometimes you can find a podcast, or their email address that way. 

Really what you do is you go to YouTube because everybody's got a YouTube show they started at some point and you go to the info and then you go give me their email address. There's that little button and you click on the arrow and it says email address and you get their email address that way. 

So there her email address was. 

Chase Clymer

This one is if you really want to get a hold of one person, I'm not talking like a Mark Zuckerberg level person, but. like. the CEO of some wedding brand that you know she's been on, go listen to that podcast and I guarantee at the end, she gives away her personal email. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

I love it. So good. So good. 

So there you go. And then the next question is... 

Chase Clymer

Let's just recap.

Make a list of the podcasts you want to be on, then you find the right email to reach out to. 

The next, I'm assuming, is you email them. But what's in the email? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah. So my goodness. Let me pull up my worksheet for guesting request emails. 

And you know who Johnny Lee Dumas is? 

Chase Clymer

I do not. I'm here to learn.

Mischa Zvegintzov

Awesome. Johnny Lee Dumas has a podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire. And in the entrepreneur space, it's one of the biggest around, or it's a big one. He's the master at podcasting, he’s been doing it for a long time. 

And at one point he's like, I saw him at Funnel Hiking Live, “Here's the script, the email script to send to get on a podcast.” And it's actually pretty good, “Hey, Chase. I'm Mischa. Love your podcast, the Honesty Ecommerce. Loved your last episode where you had Mischa on there. I learned that I should go on a podcast tour. Would you like to do an interview swap? Assuming you have your own podcast. If so, click here. Also, I did a five star review. Here it is. Here's a couple of episodes I've spoken on recently.” Hit send.

Okay, so there is a framework for you. You can also just Google how to guest speak on podcasts. People are gonna give you these templates that are very creative. 

Introduce yourself, tell them how you love the show. Give them a five-star review, listen to four episodes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. Add value, do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All amazing, do it all. 

However, if you're like, I'm not sure if I have any of that together yet, literally all you have to do is send. Let me find it for you. It's the easiest email in the world. I send it out all the time.

And I literally say, verbatim, this has gotten me on endless podcasts:

“Chase, I found your Honest Ecommerce podcast and you have a great show. Are you looking for an interesting guest to be on the show? If so, what are the next steps?” 

Chase Clymer

And you sent me that exact email and I replied with, “Who's the guest?” 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Who's the guest? There you go. So you get four types of responses. 

You either get no response, okay, which is literally no response. Out of 200 emails that you send, 180 are not going to respond. In other words, if you send that exact email that I said to 200 people, 20, 10% out of the 200 are going to give you some sort of response. The other 180 aren't. 

So you literally just resend the same thing again. I literally will just hit forward and say, “I just wanted to make sure you saw this.” 

And then two, they say yes. Great book here. Or they say, “Yes, and” Which, what did you say? 

Chase Clymer

Yes. And who's the guest? It's like, yes. And who's the guest? Who are you talking about?

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yes, and who's the guest? So I said, “Me!” or whatever I said. Then you might need to have an idea for a pitch, right? “It's me, and I'd love to talk about…” I can't remember exactly what I sent you, but it's usually like, “Me,” and then see what they say. And then more is revealed on what you need to say from there.

The final answer is no. So they either don't answer at all, they say, yes, book here, or yes, and, or no. 

If they say no, it's an opportunity to pitch for pitch number two. 

So if you just said, “No, I'm all booked up,” or “No, I'm done interviewing people,” or “No, I don't know you,” I would say, I literally go, “Hey, thanks for responding back so quickly, Chase. Noted that you're not taking guests because you don't know me. You're all booked up.” 

I literally just parrot exactly what they said. And then I say, “But I'm interviewing people on my show. You want to be a guest?” And so you're starting the relationship that way. A huge amount of people say, “Yes, I would.” Or you could say, “Hey, I'd like to run an ad on your show,” or “No, I understand. Thanks for responding. I know you aren't taking guests. But…” offer number two. 

Does that make sense? 

Chase Clymer

It makes sense to me. And I think this whole part of the process here, it really is very similar to old school cold outreach strategies. 

So to get good at this part, and this is definitely what's going to separate the people that get on podcasts from people that don't, you have to not be scared of no, not be scared of this unknown fear of annoying someone else. 

That's going to be your biggest detractor of any wins you're going to have in your personal life or your business life. Just get over that. 

But this is all old school cold outreach stuff. You can find a lot of awesome information on how to do cold outreach the right way. And you're just using cold outreach to the means of getting on podcasts. 

And so something I'm going to say about how I found success with cold outreach in the last couple of years is my first message to anybody isn't necessarily looking for a yes or no. It's more looking for them to be open to me telling them more bullshit. 

So it's like, I'll reach out to Mischa and be like, “Hey, are you guys currently accepting guests? I do X, Y, and Z. Let me know if that's interesting to you.” I like to keep it short and sweet. 

My rule of thumb is if I can't read it in one frame on my iPhone, it's too long. Because that's what someone will actually read. But if you get a novel, and you recognize it's a cold email, that's going right in the trash, 9 times out of 10. 

So my first thing when I'm doing cold outreach is to basically get them to opt in to let me then give them a shit ton of information. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yes, I love that. To start the engagement, right? To start the engagement and then you can see what's the engagement point. Which is just what you're talking to. 

You're just trying to start the conversation. We've targeted somebody, “Hey, let's have a conversation,” versus data dump. 

When I first started in sales back in the late 1990s, listen, I literally, Chase, have made a million hand dialed phone calls. Like I was a telemarketing machine and then I got auto dialers and then I built telemarketing teams and when I would telemarket for home loans and listen, back in the day, I funded $1.5 billion in home loans and that's a lot of units. 

And think that if you funded a $500,000 home loan, that would put on average $2,500 to $5,000 in your pocket. And so I would build these lists of people who had a home loan and I would start by saying, “Hello, Bob,” or “Is this Bob?” “Yes, this is Bob.” “Hi, Bob, it's Mischa. I'm calling to see if I could interest you in our discounted mortgage rates?” and then shut up, right? And then if they said no, I'd say, “Oh, so you're not looking to purchase or refinance?” “No.” Done. 

I'm not trying to sell somebody who doesn't want to be sold, right? And what happens is I make a hundred calls. One of them is gonna say, “Oh my God, I can't believe you just called me. It's so funny. I am looking to buy a home loan. I can't believe you just called me.” And then you say, “Oh, great. So what's the purchase price?” 

You don't go into, “Here's my rate,” or here's the data dump. You engage the conversation. That's what you're talking about, and that's what I would encourage anybody to do. And to get over the call reluctance, or that cold outreach reluctance, just understand that you're going to hear a lot of Nos and You're wasting my time and You're a dirty bastard, and whatever. 

Chase Clymer

You'll hear some interesting stuff. But yeah, you have to get over that fear. 

And we never said it specifically, so I will say it now. You're going to make a list of 100 podcasts and what Mischa said is true. 20 will respond. Maybe you'll get on 5. But it’s just a numbers game and you keep doing it. 

And then another thing, Mischa alluded to it, it’s a follow up. If you don't follow up, you're leaving that 80-90% of possibilities just on the table because, hell, these days, I archive stuff just to see if they follow up. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Yeah. Follow up, follow up, follow up. The fortune is in the follow up. 

I used to listen to guys like Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy. It's really interesting right now, on my Instagram feed, Brian Tracy, he's old as dirt. He might be dead so it might just be old repurposed content, but Brian Tracy and all those methods are getting a lot of play right now as he's this genius, which he is. 

But I used to listen to him on cassette tape and CD back in the day. 

But anyway, these guys spoke to follow up, follow up, follow up. The fortune’s in the follow up. I know that I might need to reach out to somebody, follow up with somebody five times. 

So actually, I have trained myself because I've been in this sales game for so long. I'm asking five times. So I already know that you're going to say no, and I'm going to reframe the question and I'm going to address the thing. Your objection. I'm going to five. But that's how it goes. 

Anyway, sorry. 

Chase Clymer

Let's recap what we're talking about now. So you made a list. You found the email. 

I'm going to double down there. Something I've been doing a lot lately is just LinkedIn profiles. That's another way. Don't necessarily need to... If you know Chase Clymer, Honest Ecommerce, LinkedIn, you type that in. Guess what? You found my LinkedIn profile, maybe I'll read your message, maybe I won't. 

So it doesn't have to necessarily just be email. I think step 2.5 here... If you don't have any budget, you're doing this all manually. If you do have a budget, there are tools out there that will do this email automation and follow-ups for you. 

Also, same thing with LinkedIn. So that's going to, I guess, elevate our way out of the no-budget strategy. 

And then craft your message. Make it quick. Make it simple. And like you said, add value for sure. It's like, if someone reached out to me and it's like, “Hey, I grew a custom engagement ring company to $5 million a year, we did x, y, and z. Is that a story you're looking to tell?” I'd be like, “Yes, here's the next step,” Right? Because they know exactly what I'm after. 

And then just follow up, like we said, did I miss anything there? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

No, I don't think so. I think you've done a great job of recapping it, especially with the 2.5. The LinkedIn tip, that was tip of the day right there, Chase. So good. Thank you for that. 

Chase Clymer

Look, I'll tell everybody out there. I use an app called Linked Helper 2.

It keeps you out of LinkedIn jail, supposedly. And that's how I get a lot of my guests for my podcast is I use that and I find their profile. And I just say hey. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Boom. Is that like... Linked Helper 2?

Chase Clymer

Linked Helper 2 I just type it in Google. 

But my exact outreach for me to get guests on my podcast is one sentence, “Hey, would you be interested in being a guest on a top 5% podcast?” 

Mischa Zvegintzov

That's so good. Amazing.

And so what are some of the answers that you get? 

Chase Clymer

A lot of them are positive. A lot of them are non-answers. A lot of people don't accept my LinkedIn request. So there's all that's out there. 

But yesterday, somebody said something that was truly funny, which was, “I'd be the worst guest ever. I hate our Ecommerce.” 

And I was like, “Oh, okay. Thanks for the honesty.” 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Oh my gosh. That's so good.

You know what, that actually would be a fun episode. You could be like, “Let's do an episode on eCommerce horror stories.” 

Chase Clymer

I was just like, now you have me interested. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Excuse me. 

So if somebody says yes, I would. What's your next reply? Or what's the typical chain there? 

Chase Clymer

For my process, the next reply would be… we do a lot of pre-vetting where we look to see who we want a guest to be. Then I send them a call scheduling link, and within that link, I put some questions in there to make sure that the guest is what I assumed they were. 

So these are qualification questions. Because sometimes it's uncomfortable to ask those questions even though it's my job. We've been doing sales forever. You could just have a robot ask a question for you.

And then you have those kinds of qualification questions within the process. What you went through, Mischa, we had that pre-call, talked about what we want to talk about on this episode, then we talked about what the next steps are, what the software is, etc. x, y, z. 

And then I just dumped you into the next step of the process. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Amazing. 

And I loved your process and I actually borrowed something from it. Do you mind if I speak about your process quick? Because I don't want to give away anything. 

So you have this really cool thing where you have $500 to do the production costs, right? And then you say, “Hey, use this coupon code because you're a friend, or a referral,” or whatever it is.

And so I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I integrated that into my Calendly flow, where if it's an unsolicited invite to be a guest on my show, I'll be like, “Absolutely. There's a $500 production cost. You'll get X amount of clips.”

Chase Clymer

It's funny to end this episode talking about what they might experience. And I think we should just be honest to it. 

When you get to a certain point, sometimes guests aren't the right fit. And you get a lot of solicitation. And I get quite a lot. Our ideal fit is a founder telling that founder story. But sometimes it's SaaS apps, sometimes it's other podcasters, other marketers, and things like that. 

And I have a default response that I don't even send. My assistant sends. So I can't even have any personal thing to it anymore, which is like, “Hey, there's a cost associated with producing these episodes. The cost is X. Do you have that in your budget?” 

And it's not to make money here. It's just that I can't produce every episode because the quality will be terrible. And also, some of these things just aren't the right fit. 

So you might experience that. And if it truly is a podcast you want to be on, maybe just pay the fee. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. And what was so inspiring about it for me was it is a way to defer the true production costs. So any of your audience that's watching this, I love podcasts. I have a passion for it. It's a labor of love. But it's a lot of work. And there's a lot of production going on. 

And especially if collateral assets are coming out at the end, meaning, “Chase, you're providing assets for me to promote the episode.” It takes time, effort to create all this content. 

And I was like, yeah, I want help deferring the cost. And this is an efficient way for me to do it. I loved how I could integrate it in the Calendly. That was my big takeaway because I'd been thinking about, I need to start deferring some of these production costs. And then you had integrated it into your Calendly or the scheduling flow? Onboarding form. 

Chase Clymer

The onboarding form. And then just to tell everyone out there, I use Cognito Forms for our onboarding form. And then once you submit that, it kicks you right over to Calendly to schedule and we bill for these bonus episodes when they aren't a strategically free bonus episode. That's how we're billing, just through Cognito form. It just keeps things seamless. 

And then I'll take the fee away all the time when there are certain reasons to. It goes back to sales and negotiations. It's like, give me a good reason to make this free. And Mischa had a great one. And a lot of people have great ones. 

And sometimes they don't care to pay the production fee because they've got an investment. They've got a marketing fund and they just kick it over there and it gets paid for. And then you get your expenses offset for producing that episode. So it's a win-win, I guess. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Absolutely. And we don't need to go any more deeper on that. 

I think the key takeaway is, if you're hearing this and all of a sudden the can of worms has been opened, all you have to do is send an email to guest on a show. The simple script, it's that simple. And then get the response and you'll see what you need to do next. And then you'll get the next response and see what you need to do next. 

At some point someone's gonna say, “Give me your bio” If you don't have a bio, then you write your bio. Or, “What's your free giveaway?” You're like, “Well, I don't have a free giveaway. I guess I'll create.” So just create it as you need it. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. So Mischa, I listened to this episode, right? And I'm sold on the power of podcasting. And I actually do have a budget. So I don't want to do this. I'm busy. 

How do I reach out to you and just have you do this for me? 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Go to badzuck.com. Of course, it should be right there. If you're listening and you can't see it, it’s badzuck.com 

I've got what's called my Influence Army, you can join my Influence Army. I've got a couple of tiers in there. 

One where it’s done with you So I'm gonna coach you up, give you everything you need to do it yourself, and I'm gonna make it so easy for you to do it. I'm gonna be there with you as you do it. 

As well as I've got a tier three service where I will send out 200 emails for you a month, brand new to brand new podcasts a month. And that's a pretty good way to go. I'm just creating a massive engagement for you. And next thing you know, you're going to be on more podcasts and you know what to do with. 

Does that answer your question? 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. It answers my questions. We'll make sure to link to everything you've chatted about today in the show notes. 

Mischa, I can't thank you enough for coming on my show. And I'm looking forward to chatting with you on your show. 

So depending on when these things come out, we'll make sure to link to those things in the descriptions as well. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Chase, amazing conversations. Thank you so much for sharing your platform with me and bringing me on. 

Chase Clymer

Thank you. Chat soon. 

Mischa Zvegintzov

Cheers. 

Chase Clymer

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

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