148. 3 Ways to Subtly Sell on Your Podcast Without Feeling Sleazy | Podcasting Tips for Online Marketing

Do you ever feel awkward trying to sell your coaching or digital offers through podcasting? You’re not alone. Many solopreneurs struggle with how to guide listeners toward paid offers without sounding pushy or salesy. In this episode, you’ll learn 3 subtle selling strategies that feel natural, build trust with your audience, and turn listeners into paying clients. No sleazy tactics or awkward pitches...just simple podcasting shifts that help you serve generously while confidently guiding your audience to the next step.

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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Are you unintentionally leaving money on the table every time you hit record on your podcast? You're not alone. Most solopreneurs start their show to build authority and grow their business. But when it comes to actually selling on the show, it suddenly feels weird and awkward. I hear a lot of folks say that they don't want to come across as salesy or pushy, and I get it. I have been there too. Hey there, I'm Julia Levine, AKA the Podcast Teacher, and you're listening to Podcasting for Solopreneurs, the show that helps online business owners grow their podcast to get more listeners, leads and sales. If you're creating great content, building trust, and positioning yourself as an expert, but you're not guiding your audience to the next step step, you're actually keeping them stuck. And that's not helping them or you.

So today we're tackling one of the biggest sticking points for online business owners. How to sell on your podcast in a way that feels natural, aligned and authentic. No infomercial style sales pitches, just three simple strategies that help you make real offers and without making you or your audience uncomfortable. You'll learn how to generously give valuable information but still guide listeners to the next step. How to build trust and curiosity and how to subtly sell without even trying. These tweaks can turn casual listeners into paying clients. So let's start with the first and honestly, the most important strategy. Teach generously and end with direction.

This strategy is all about giving value and inviting them to take the next step. When you teach generously and follow it up with a clear next step, you're not being pushy, you're being helpful. So give your audience value and light bulb moments for free in your episodes. That is what establishes you as an expert and helps build trust. Then offer your paid programs and services as a natural extension of that information. The key here is that you have to actually tell them about your offers. You can't expect them to go look at your website and discover them on their own. I find that most podcasters stop short.

They teach amazing content, they drop great nuggets, and then they quietly wrap up the episode without ever inviting listeners to take the next step. And that is a huge missed opportunity. You don't need to give a long, drawn out pitch, just a simple sentence or two. Like if this episode resonated with you and you'd like support applying it to your own podcast, that's exactly what I help you do. Inside the Podcast Growth Collective, you can find all the details at thepodcastteacher.com/collective See? Easy peasy, not annoying or salesy. When you teach generously and you end with direction, your audience won't feel pressured, and they'll just feel supported and empowered to move forward. So next time you hit record, make sure you're giving value and that you're offering an invitation. All right, let's talk about strategy number two.

Use stories that sell for you. This one is perfect if you're still getting comfortable talking about your offer directly. Instead of feeling like you need to put together a formal pitch, just tell a story. Because nothing builds trust faster than giving a real life example. And when you share a transformation that someone experienced working with you, your audience sees what's possible, not just because you told them, but because they felt it. So let me give you an example. One of my students, Michelle, came to me feeling completely stuck. She had been podcasting for over a year, releasing episodes every single week, and yet there were crickets.

Her downloads were flat, she wasn't getting a lot of engagement, and she had never booked a single client from her show. She started questioning, is anyone even listening? Am I just wasting my time? Should I give up on this whole podcast thing? And so we worked together, and in just three months, we restructured her content strategy, aligned each episode with her offer, and built in subtle, natural selling cues, just like the ones that you are learning here on this episode today. And Michelle reported in our last meeting that she has gotten two new clients in the past month. Woohoo. So in me telling you that story, did I pitch my program? Not. Not really. Not directly. But did you see the result? Did the story sell the result that I'm offering? Absolutely.

And that is the power of storytelling. So you don't need to rattle off the features of your program or describe your coaching package in great detail. Just highlighting someone's before and after and letting the transformation do the talking can work. This social proof is subtle and simple. And most importantly, it's sticks. So ask yourself, what wins have your clients experienced lately? What before and after stories would inspire your audience? Because when your listeners hear a story they relate to, they start thinking, hmm, maybe that could be me. And that moment is when the real selling begins with. Without it ever feeling like a pitch.

And last but not least, strategy number three is to use testimonials and let someone else tell the story and do the selling for you. So if telling the story yourself feels a bit too awkward, you can have someone else do it for you. Capture an audio testimonial from a client and Then play it on the podcast. Testimonials are incredibly powerful because they add that third party credibility. It's not just you saying how awesome your program is, it's someone else saying it. When your audience hears someone else talking about how great your thing is, it doesn't feel like a pitch. It feels like a recommendation from a friend. It feels like proof of concept.

This is subtle, authentic, and it makes a bigger impact than you probably realize. And that's because testimonials don't just show simply that your offer works. They show that people like your audience are. Are seeing results. And so this strategy builds what is referred to as borrowed confidence. Your listeners might not believe in themselves yet, but when they hear someone else experience this and that person is similar to them, it kind of opens the door in their mind to the possibility for them to think, hmm, if this worked for her, maybe this could work for me too. So very similar to strategy number two in that sense. But when someone else tells the story, it removes the pressure, builds trust, and sells for you without you ever needing to say a word.

So take stock of any existing testimonials or. Or reach out to your current and past clients to ask for testimonials. I like to ask people to record their testimonial as a video if they're willing to do so, so that I can use it in multiple places, and then I just incorporate the audio into a podcast episode. So use testimonials, tell stories, and teach generously while ending with direction in order to subtly sell on your podcast without feeling sleazy. These are sustainable strategies that let you stay true to your values and grow your business at the same time. And if you're ready to go deeper to optimize your podcast to grow your audience, to convert more listeners into clients, then I'd love to invite you into the Podcast Growth Collective. Join us now at thepodcastteacher.com/collective. Until next time, happy podcasting.