199: The DM Strategy That Helped Me Book 5x More Podcast Guest Interviews

In this solo episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on the exact pitching process that helped me book five times more podcast guest interviews this year — without using a fancy media kit or a full PR team.

If you’re a solopreneur or entrepreneur who’s been stuck sending cold email pitches that never get a response, this one’s for you. I’m sharing how I now use DMs to connect, build genuine relationships, and pitch myself in a way that actually works.

You’ll learn:

• Why I ditched the traditional email + media sheet pitching process
• How using DMs made my outreach more natural (and way more effective)
• The importance of having niche speaking topics that make it easy for hosts to say yes
• How to make sure you and the show are actually aligned before pitching
• Why bringing real value and being a good human still matters most

Whether you’re just starting to pitch yourself for podcasts or you’re ready to refresh your approach, this episode will help you land more aligned interviews — and actually enjoy the process again.

The Podcast Tour -> https://stan.store/CandaceDudley/p/podcast-accelerator

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:19

I am back with a solo episode and we're gonna take a deeper dive into pitching, into pitching yourself to be on podcasts and be a guest speaker. I'm kind of chuckling to myself because this episode is stemming from a post that I made on Threads a few weeks ago where I just posted stop sending your podcast guessing pitches as emails barf emoji. In hindsight, I could have left the barf emoji off, but I really, really fired some people up. There's a few things to clarify here. Those people were publicists. If you're listening to my podcast, you're likely like me, a solopreneur, or maybe you have a VA or something, but you have a very small team, you're wearing a lot of hats. Someone that has a publicist, however, would likely have a large team, a much bigger scale. Of course, the standard in that space would be to send emails. And I also don't hate an email in general. And I do think there's a time and place to move your conversation to email because it's a much better place to keep track of things and it's a much better place to schedule and book time on other people's podcasts or for your podcast. However, my point in saying let's go to the DMs is from my experience. And so before I get into that and dive deeper into sharing, that's because pitching is the biggest question I get about podcast guesting and booking themselves on shows. We're gonna deep dive in that, but before before this is a perfect time to remember that people that are sharing their advice on social media, it is from their own experience and their own perspective. Mine is coming from hosting a podcast for over four years. I produced over 200 episodes. I have guested on over 50 shows just in 2025 alone. So that means that just this year, I have talked to 50 plus podcast hosts. And I can confirm that in that network, they have also said what I have said, and they've seen a huge influx in bad email pitches being sent to us. So what I mean by that is we're getting emails daily, if not daily, weekly, that are bad pitches. They're templates or copy-paste, they're spelling your name wrong. You can tell they didn't listen to your show, you can tell they didn't check for alignment. There, there's no alignment in their um client and your show. It's a waste of time. And also, there's always scams and things going on. So people are leery of clicking anything in an email. Okay, so with that experience and that quantity of hosts and people saying it, that is where my advice of saying, do not send your podcast guessing pitches as emails is coming from. Because what those hosts have also told me is they don't read them either. They're sending them to the junk folder. Now, does that mean that there are no good email podcast guessing pitches? No, absolutely not. There are well done pitches. There are publicists who do a fantastic job of checking for alignment and and going that extra mile. Those are getting lost in email, just like people in the comments of this post were saying, Well, I will never book something on a DM because it'll get lost. I understand, but people that lose things are also losing them in email. So I don't think that's a fair argument. But that's where I'm speaking from. I'm speaking from my experience, four years of producing 200 plus episodes, and then this year alone, talking to that many hosts, those numbers to me are enough proof that I'm gonna start in a DM and see where it takes me. So let's talk about that. The main thing though, whether you're gonna take the DM route or take an email route, because again, if emails have been working for you and you've already been doing this and you're booking shows, well then one, I don't know why you're listening to this because you probably you've got it. Keep going, right? If something's working for you, don't change it just because I said to change it or Joe Schmoe on the internet said to change it, use your experience because it can work for you. Just like doing a 30 reels and 30-day challenge has not worked for me. I have seen people that it has worked for. There is no one size fits all to entrepreneurship, to visibility, to marketing yourself, to getting yourself out there. And I'm sharing from my perspective and my expertise as a host and guest podcaster. Okay. So the key though with either of these is to do it well. You need to be a genuine, good, authentic human. And that means you should have listened to the person's show. Don't email someone or DM someone if you haven't listened to their podcast. Rude. Okay. Rude. They put so much time and effort into that, and you're asking to be on it. You're asking to borrow their trust that they have built with their audience. So, bare minimum, you can listen to the episode and make sure that you align in some way with what their message and their mission is with their audience. Bare minimum. And the second thing is to make sure that you are leading with the value that you can bring to the show. It's not a me, me, me, I want to get on as many shows as I can. How many emails can I send out? How many DMs can I send out? In that regard, I don't care what avenue you send them, DM or email. If you feel better about a certain way, do it. If if you are too nervous about a DM, but you feel good about sending an email, go that route, right? You have to do what works for you. Um, I can think back to my network marketing days where I followed advice just because I didn't know any better, and people said, do this, it works. Yeah, it works for them and it works for their people. It it felt like nails on a chalkboard. I felt like I was going against the grain of my being, my whole soul. That's dramatic, but it literally felt like that. And so when you're doing things like that, don't just follow what someone says just because you have to check in with yourself. I'm all about alignment and doing things differently and not having to fit the mold. So you need to check in with yourself. This is like a gut check episode. Yes, the theme is pitching, but like also, are you doing things in your business just because other people tell you to, but it feels not right, then don't do that anymore. Do it differently. Certain advice works for certain people, it might not work for you, and vice versa. And that's the beauty of getting to be in charge of your own business. So the the second major thing that I was starting to talk about in a pitch is the value. You need to tell the host what kind of value can bring. And so that's why I always go back to step one in my process is making sure that you have niche speaking topics figured out. Two to three, four speaking topics that you are an expert in. They also should align up with your offers, but that's a different episode. So go check that out. But you want to tell the host what kind of value you're gonna bring, can bring so much value on these three topics. Are any of them a fit for your show? I do this in a DM because back when I first started considering podcast guesting two plus years ago. Here's the process I was doing. I was sending an email. That means I had to find the shows, things like that, find their emails. It takes a lot of digging sometimes. It's much easier to find their social media handle. And then I was sending my email and I was doing a good job. I was including these things. I was, but but it was super time consuming. I had a full media sheet that I would attach about my myself, my business, my speaking topics, a timeline of my life, a bio. I had an entire media sheet. I attached that. I had a full email where I detailed explained how I was aligned with their show and what topics I like to talk about that I could bring value to their audience and and that type of thing. And I'm not saying that I didn't book any shows. I did. I'm just saying that during that time, I probably booked 10 shows for the year. Okay, so give that's give some perspective there. 10 shows. And the amount of time that I put into that and the amount of emails, follow-ups, searching for these things that I put into that, I bet would match the amount of time that it took me to book myself 50 plus shows this year, this year. And I didn't do those emails anymore this year. So where I have leaned my focus this year was engaging on threads because there's literally people posting every day that are looking for podcast guests. And if they list specifics that they're looking for and that's you, it's so easy to write a comment there. In that case, you wouldn't have listened to the show yet. You can do that later. You can comment and say, if we should chat more. It sounds like I might be a fit for X topic that you listed there. That's where you go from threads over to the DM on Instagram and continue the conversation. I think it'd be very weird to get an email that says I'm finished, I'm just carrying over our conversation from threads. It wasn't that serious to account for you searching and finding my email and then email me. Again, if that works for you, great. I'm gonna take that little comment from threads and I'm gonna go over to Instagram and follow it up because sometimes threads get wild and there's tons of comments, and then they're gonna miss you. So most people don't take the next step to thread uh head over to Instagram, follow it up and say, Hey, heading here from threads and following that conversation. Again, being a good human. And then also at some point you're gonna listen to their show because you're not gonna get on a show and not have listened to and have an understanding of who their audience is. Your uh talk is not gonna go over as well. So that's what I've done now. And honestly, in the beginning, yes, I had to send some pitches, yes, I had to do some reach outs because you're kind of in this uphill getting momentum started, but now I don't. I'm I'm just engaging with the people that are posting that they're looking for guests. I'm tagging people and other hosts that I have uh networked with now by guessing on their shows that I know what topics they talk about, and I tag them in those two. So I've found people tagging me now. Again, that's a lot easier to get tagged in those situations when you have niche speaking topics, which is why it's the first step. And I will never stop saying this in my process because you will come top of mind when someone is looking for your niche, and that's how you get tagged, and that's how you get referred to be on other podcasts. So take the pressure off of having to pitch sometimes. People feel like they're spammy or they're whatever. That's because there are people doing that, but you aren't them, so you don't have to take that and put that on you. That's not what you're doing. You are literally planning to get on that show and bring value and not gatekeep and be genuine and share the episode when it's over. And podcast hosts are always looking for guests. We are looking for quality guests. There's people that do only guest episodes, so they're putting out 50 episodes a year and they need 50 guests. Why can't that be you? Why can't that be you? So, anyway, that's a deep dive. Uh, who knew that was gonna take off on threads so much and ruffle so many feathers? Again, wasn't trying to work anyone up, but this is the perfect time to just reiterate that you don't need to take advice that doesn't feel good to your body and your business. You can take the advice that works for you and leave the rest. And if you're doing things that work already and you're booking things and things are happening for you, fantastic. Keep going. If they're not panning out, there's a few things that could be going on. And that's exactly what I can help work you through during my podcast tour offer. So that's linked in the show notes. If you want to send yourself on a podcast tour like I did in 2025, uh, and you want to do that for 2026, let's get you booked. Let's get you visible, let's get your business out there in a genuine, aligned, value led way. Because that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. I'm not here to spam people. Icky, I'm here to help the people that want to be helped, as are you. And if that's you and that's your heart and soul of your business model too and your values, let's work together. I'm all in. Thanks for being here, and I'll catch you next week.