Your AI Pitch Is Getting You Blacklisted

Media veteran Josh Elledge on the #1 podcast pitching mistake.

Is your AI pitch getting you blacklisted from every podcast? 
If you want to build your authority platform, and frankly, you should, because podcast guesting is a must for you. But so it is for everyone else and that is the problem. 

Internet marketers have found yet another way for mass spamming through AI slop, flooding every podcaster inbox. And they, myself included are rejecting everything that reads like a template mass pitch outreach with fake hyper personalization AI style.

 Meaning that you are wasting money and literally blacklisting yourself or your agency. Josh Elledge, founder of Up My Influence and PodVerified, explains what the current methods are, including a particularly infuriating $20,000 podcast booking scam that sounds legit, but you will not get a proper ROI. A podcast has a particular hook, a style and we look for a fit so we can deliver to our audience what we promise. And most of us honor our obligation and promise to our audience.

Back to Josh, I've been on his podcast and I have been watching him for years. Call me a fangirl. He's the real deal, and he's a professional in the truest sense: he tells the truth and says it as it is because he follows a simple principle he learned from his mentor, ‘do not lie to your audience.’ That integrity is one of the cornerstones he's built everything on. One of the things I admire most about him is his ability to watch, observe, apply critical thinking, and then make a change when necessary. He embodies lifelong learning, and on this show he gets personal and shares his personal transformation by walking away from decades inside organized religion. 

That kind of openness is his secret, and he is sharing it on Founders of the Future. Many people who let go of certainty go looking for a new version of it. Josh didn't. To hear his enthusiasm, clarity and choice to be a lifelong student is inspiring.

That's exactly why this conversation matters for Founders of the Future. Things are moving fast. Business changes and transforms in rapid succession, and you simply cannot hold on to a previous version of yourself or your strategy. 

And when it comes to speaking out loud in your voice, podcast guesting or even hosting is a great way to reach an audience. So what does Josh do that makes him so successful? How did he get to over 3,000 media appearances, 2,500 hosted episodes, and more than 300 launched podcasts?

Listen to the episode and find out.

Time Stamps:

• 00:00 Is your AI pitch getting you blacklisted?
• 00:35 Intros + AI’s promise vs “AI slop”
• 02:05 Why AI mass‑pitches backfire (reputation + blacklisting)
• 05:00 Human‑in‑the‑loop: using AI without sounding AI
• 10:05 The $20K podcast guesting scam
• 13:30 Integrity in media: the Adrian Cronauer lesson
• 20:45 Personal transformation and values in business
• 24:50 PodVerified: standards, score, and DIY tools
• 30:15 What great guests must know (gear, hooks, show flow)
• 35:40 Key takeaways + treat podcasting like real media

Connect with Josh Elledge: Website|LinkedIn

_____________________
We appreciate you, thank you for listening. Let us know in the comments what resonated in this episode, we want to hear from you.

Leave a comment, like, share with one person who needs to hear the message our guest shared.

Take our QUIZ and find out what your talent is worth in this market:  What's Your Talent Worth (http://WhatsYourTalentWorth.com)

Follow us on Instagram:
Check us out on Tik Tok:
Work With Us

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Is your AI pitch getting you blacklisted on podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Oh yeah, 100%. Oh, without a question. And in fact, it's going to do reputational damage because I mark all of that stuff as do a lot of other podcasters. And and then there's the $20,000 scam. I They're just blasting out spam crap. And um, that's what you're paying $20k for. In business, your reputation is everything. It goes with you for the rest of your life. If you knew the technology behind what they're doing, like you can do so much better than what they are doing with AI right now. If you're doing it right and you're using it right.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I secretly admire you too, Beate. It's it's it's a mutual thing. And my opening, my opening question for you is Is your AI pitch getting you blacklisted on podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Oh, it's uh, you know, listen, there, I am so grateful. Like it's amazing the technology that we have access to. I think that, you know, if we weren't to, if AI never evolved beyond where it was right now, I think it it could keep us busy. It would forever change the planet. I think right now we're only limited by the imagination of what we can do with this technology. And I'm, you know, again, kind of talking to all of our other founders. That said, I think as founders, we have seen a lot of instances where AI is being used in a very novel and immature kind of way. I think that, you know, inexperienced folks are just grinding out slop websites, images, copy, social media posts. And it just feels so disingenuous, right? And it's really, if you look at consumer behavior right now, it is a really bad idea to today, as a business leader or business owner, uh, to perpetuate AI slop. It's it's a really high risk thing to do. And, Yate, in answer to your question, I I need to sound the sirens, rate, wave the red flags. Do not, I repeat, do not, because this is my area of expertise, use AI to write pitches on your behalf and blast it out to hundreds or thousands of podcasters. That is absolutely, we all know what you're doing. You're not fooling anybody. I know you're doing it because you want to save time and you think it's gonna get you the maximum amount of exposure, and then you're gonna uh again kind of rely on percentages and percentages, and you kind of shrug your shoulders and go, hey, collateral damage, it's okay. I would caution you against that. And I know, Beate, I think a lot of people might hear this and go, oh, oh, whoa, uh, oh, I didn't realize. And that's why I'm here is to advocate for podcasters and guests alike to let you know that that is not working. Um, and that us podcasters, we talk right now, because of AI pitches, I run an okay show. I, you know, it's about 2,500 episodes, been doing this for a while. They're all interview shows. I do mostly a daily show right now. And I get, Beate, I can't imagine how many pitches you get as well. I get over 400 pitches a month. And so if you use your AI tool to blast out to me and you're just kind of phoning it in with every pitch blast that you send out to, it's just not going to get you what you want. And in fact, it's going to do reputational damage because I mark all of that stuff as do a lot of other podcasters. I I shouldn't say I don't, I route them and I can get into that a little bit, but most podcasters I've talked to, they mark a lot of that as spam.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Not just spam, but sometimes it's so bad that I block it if they repeatedly go back. So I want to backtrack a little bit. I think there's categories. There's the general lazy category. I want to be on your show. I am a blind manufacturer in Tennessee, and my father gave me the business, he almost ran it on the ground. I brought it back. Doesn't that sound great?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Great story.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

That's a great story, thumbs down. Gone. The next one comes and says, I am going to, you know, they do they make the AI go in the last episode and take the description and they spin the description. As you were doing in your last show and you were talking to Josh. I specifically liked when Josh said, you know, so and so and so. That's the second one. We have now a podcast application. So what they're now doing with us is they take our application, they take the regular one sheet that they have, you know, which is already fairly advanced in in guesting to have a one sheet, a pitch one sheet, and they tell the AI to make that one sheet fit our show. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Okay, so here's here here's kind of my line on when it comes to AI. And then I think that AI should be doing about as much of your back end stuff as possible. However, there is, there are places that you absolutely must have stopgaps in there for what we call humans in the loop, right? So human in the loop on the front end, and I think let let me let me tell you why I'm so cautious about this. Um, you're you're treading into a space where you do not, like if you haven't done this a lot, if you haven't been doing a lot of media, listen, I've done over 3,000 media appearances, I've hosted over 2,500 episodes, like I've I've launched over 300 podcasts for clients, I've facilitated tens of thousands of podcast connections. This is an area of which I have a lot of competence. Most things I don't. I'm not very good at it. I I'm just um I'm just average. But in my area of uh of my zone of genius or whatever, um, I think all of us have this experience where you're talking with AI and AI gives you information, you're like, are you kidding me? That is so stupid. Do not do that, do not say that. That would be terrible. Like I do that frequently with my AI, as well trained as my AI is, it still suggests a lot of stupid stuff. Okay. And so if you don't have that extreme level of competence, um, and you're just a pet you're just relying upon your AI output, people who that do have a lot of competence are going to see that you're trying to play in a world with AI of which um we could tell that you kind of just faking it. So can you use AI for applications? Absolutely. I think you that should use that to organize your thoughts. I think you should use it for research. I think you should use it for everything you need to do so that you can show up in a more human way. But then when it comes to that last mile of communication, now these are my words that are going to be representing me. And it doesn't matter if it's a social media comment or an email or an application. These are your words. Please choose them very carefully. Now, you know your voice. You know when AI produces output, there's like, yeah, that doesn't sound like me. Okay, that should be a human in the loop filter. You protect it there, always, right? Don't ever put your words out there as AI speak. People are gonna hate you if you do that. It just feels, I feel so ripped off, you know, when someone's like, wait a minute, are you just copying and pasting slop? Like if someone, if a team member does that in Slack to me, um, uh and I can I can tell what they're doing. I say, hey, um, I listen, I appreciate that you put some thoughts together in there. Um, I just want to make sure that we're talking human to human here. Is that okay? Right. And so no, no harm, no foul, but I'm gonna call them out. You know, I will politely call them out, right? Um, so there's that. Then, Beate, there are the rules of engagement. And this is my area of expertise. So there's your voice that needs a filter. Then there's best practices, and that's where you should be working with a really, really smart person. Great example. Okay. If you go into your AI and say, I want to get on a podcast, here's a list, or go research me a list. Okay, cool. Now write me a list of, you know, how do I get on these shows? And what it's going to do is your AI by default, I can tell you right now, is just going to write off a bunch of emails that you can send. And those emails are not going to work by and large, unless you are reaching out to really newbie, brand new kind of shows that don't really have much of an audience and are probably not going to make you a lot of money. Okay. And it's because, again, it's just not standard best practice for this world. So uh that's where it makes sense for you to have access to some pretty smart people or best practices so you can make sure you're not violating a lot of these rules of engagement. The biggest one, obviously, is you know, when you reach it, it's all about you and you're trying to sell yourself. Like you, there's there's better things that you can do, which America.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah, yeah. So I want to sum this up. So you're saying your AI pitch is actually getting you blacklisted.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Oh, yeah, 100%. Oh, without a question. I know that because I'm on the backside of hundreds of podcasts and I talk with podcasters all the time. We hate it. So please don't make our life worse because it makes it really hard for us to work with you because you're probably a good person. You just don't know, right? And so there's the willful ignorance, you know, where you're intentionally just being lazy, which we pointed out. And then there's just people that, like, I don't know. I'm just doing what I thought. Like AI told me to do this, or some marketing bro told me to do this, right? And I, you know, we're here to help. So, like at Pod Verified, this is basically, you know, we got, you know, hundreds of podcasters got together and it's like, here's the things you probably need to know. Here's how to reach out and engage with us. And it's like all these fundamental things that you can learn. And also, Beate, make a lot more money and grow your audience and make a bigger impact in the world because ultimately it feels good to be a guest on a podcast. But if you're not, it's not helping your business. I don't know that I would keep doing that.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

There's two major scams out there. One is where they're saying they want you on the podcast, but it's really the business model for them to sell you having your own show and then do these daily YouTube shows by actual salespeople. Or sell you anything. Yes, if the podcaster does that, is that what you're talking about? There's a $20,000 scam. I do think it's worth mentioning that because that is a huge, huge red flag.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yes. So here's um so there are back in the day. So what I want to do, I I would like to, so back in the days, so podcast guesting was very much an extension of public relations professional services. Now, in that background, which is my background, which I've done since the 90s, you know, it's really about it's building relationships. It's really truly trying to find those connections in media and beyond that are going to they're gonna be great for everybody, but mostly the audience. That's the primary goal, is to bring value to the audience. So public relations professionals would work very hard to make sure that that's the outcome that they are creating for both their clients and for the media contacts that they have a trusted relationship with. And they are not going to damage that relationship. That's the way that it was in podcasting up until maybe shortly before COVID. Then a bunch of bunch of marketing bros said, wait a minute, what happens if we just buy up a bunch of podcaster email addresses and just blast out way more of these, 10,000 pitches on behalf of our client? We could probably get them on 20 shows if we do that. And for a while, they absolutely could. And the shows were actually not that bad a quality. And then it just got worse and worse and worse to the point where you now you have podcasters, you know, again, at my level, which is I'm just a mid-tier podcaster, right? I mean, I get over 400 pitches a month. And so at some point, how much is too much? So if you want to work with someone, you need to know what they're doing. If they are just sending out email pitches blindly, they'll probably lie to you and tell you, oh no, these are trusted relationships. No, they're not because I'm on the backside of 300 shows. They're just blasting out spam crap. Yeah, and I was asking. That's what you're paying 20k for.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I was on the receiving end of one of those where it's like a monthly subscription service, and they put your show information in there without my consent, mind you. And next thing I literally woke up one morning, I had 120 pitches. Oh dear. And they all sounded the same. And then I asked a couple of them, I said, How did you even get this? And I said, Well, you know, we you're subscribing to the service, and it's literally a click of a button. So let me get a little bit more personal now. So, one thing, and you and I we've known each other for a while. You have this quality about you that I personally admire. And I'm I'm not not here to, you know, make you just feel good about yourself. I mean, yes, I'm a host and I want you to feel good about yourself, but I'm saying this very, very truthfully. You are you exude integrity, and you have a quote that your mentor taught you. Will you share that for our audience that about lying?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Oh, yeah. So I I listen, I was very, very fortunate um right out of high school. I I had no operating, like I had no prospects. Like I had no money, like I was like officer and gentlemen. I I had nowhere to go. Um, and so uh I joined the US Navy and so and I got really like I really fought hard for it, but I was able to become a U.S. Navy broadcast journalist. And in journalism school, which is defense information school, just a little enlisted 19-year-old, we had a guest speaker come in for the day, and he spent the whole day with us, and his name was Adrian Kronauer. And Adrian Kronauer was the subject of the movie from the 80s, Good Morning Vietnam, where he was played by Robin Williams. And so Adrian Kronauer spoke to us, and his whole story was that in the Vietnam War, yeah, he had, you know, he had personality. He said it wasn't quite what, and I've listened to Eric Jack's. Yeah, it wasn't quite like Robin Williams, but it was entertaining. But his big thing is that he had a real tough time with the things that he was seeing and the things that he was told to say. And he had a crisis of conscience, right? And so eventually he chose his conscience and he said, I can't lie. I'm just not going to do that because what am I? Right. And I if I lie, ultimately people are going to get hurt. And so he chose his conscience. And short term, you know, that led to him, you know, he lost his job out in in Vietnam. They got him, they uh cycled him somewhere else. But then history vindicated him. But, you know, what he when he spoke to us, he said, listen, sometimes you're going to be faced with some tough decisions where just because of the mission of the, you know, the US forces, you're going to have to write some difficult, you're going to have to find a way to tell some difficult truths or work with the chain of command. But your job is to be an advocate for your audience at all times. You are expected. I expect you to push back when you're when you're being told to say something that is you know is just not true. Because here's the deal people will find out. You might be able to get away with it short term, but eventually the ship always writes itself. And it is not worth lying today, especially if you have to keep that charade up uh for a length of time. Um, your audiences will know. And listen, in media training, I've been doing media training for decades, and you cannot fool audiences today. It's kind of like when you watch uh a, you know, like a TV show or something like that, and you're like, eh, I don't really like that person. What is it? I don't know, man. There's just something, something's off about I'm getting a bad feeling or a bad vibe about that person. Like, or you know, and you can't even tell what it is. Sums off. Sums off. Something's off, right? And so audiences can tell. You are not fooling anyone. So if your product sucks, you know your product sucks, and you're talking about it like it doesn't suck, it's there's just something we're gonna we're gonna pick up on it. And eventually, like I said, the truth will be known. And listen, in business, your reputation is everything, it goes with you for the rest of your life. And so if you make some bad mistakes here, because listen, I know what it's like to like you need to make sales, like you're you got bills due, you're accumulating debt. Like it sucks being in that position. But a lot of us have been there. And, you know, as long as you maintain your integrity, it might feel a little rockier at first, as opposed to if you kind of engage in maybe some stuff that might be outside of your values. For example, you know, a lot of people that we work with, Beyonce do not want to spam other people. They're like, no, no, no, no, my reputation is way too important. I don't want to be a spammer, I don't want to be an annoying pest. So I'm not gonna act against my own values. I'm just not gonna support or do that. I'm not gonna outsource to anybody to do that kind of thing. If it means that it takes me a little bit longer to make my millions, I'm okay with that. I think that that so that's who we work with a lot. So it doesn't matter if you violate your values on stage in front of a crowd or if your actions violate those values. You here's what I've seen as well. You will start that tension will exist and you'll feel it, and you will start to hate coming to work because your actions are not in alignment with your values.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, no, I'm I'm right there with you. Um, talk to me about your personal transformation because you are very successful, and we're going to talk about Up My Influence and about Pod Verify in a minute, but I want to have the audience really get to know you a little bit more. So you come from a very religious background, and then you went through a transformation. So tell us about sort of where your belief system is and how did that factor into the strategy that you're using today for business?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

You know, coming from my upbringing, I think that it was really valuable that I sought out stability, right? And systems. And I think that that's what led me to the military. I'm like, great, they figured everything out for me. They give me very simple answers. Um, they tell me exactly what to do. I don't have to, you know, use critical thinking and kind of I don't have to, and I could pretty much just follow the chain of command's orders. And I'm gonna probably thrive in this environment if I if I comply and and get along in that way. It's it's generally the military's kind of a hard place for outside the box thinkers and you know, people who question authority and that sort of thing frequently. It's it's kind of hard. Uh, you know, it's a hard environment too.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I cannot even imagine how what a dreadful experience for me that would have been.

unknown 19:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Um, and so yeah, that did, you know, there were definitely people that I did not get along with. And it really was just um, you know, it's kind of like different energies. It's it's really hard for for some energies to be in the room together. And it's not that we dislike one another, it's just like we're just playing at a different level. It's okay, right? And so I can still love them, but I don't have to buy into whatever that thing is. Okay. So then from the military, I ended up seeking out a very high demand religion. Um, I wasn't super religious growing up, but you know, coming out of the military, I'm like, oh good. I I you had five years in the military in the US Navy, and then found this religion. My wife was a part of this religion, and they had answers for everything. Probably will give enough clues that, you know, someone might be able to identify what I'm talking about. But it was a very works-based uh organization where it's never quite, you're never quite doing enough. So you kind of have to earn your salvation uh based on what you do on a day-to-day basis and how you live and like you just get no respite. It's always dependent upon, you know, are you holding up to whatever that standard is? And that does, it gets exhausting after a while to feel like, you know, you're you're just never enough. And of course, then you kind of layer in all the shame and guilt, both from, you know, it's like, oh, well, you thought that thought, and so therefore you're imperfect, so therefore you should repent. Like that sort of stuff. That's hard. Just your natural human personality or tendencies, or you know, heaven forbid you have a sexual thought that might be outside of the, you know, prescripted narrative or whatever. And then you're really, you know, paddling up a you know, panel up a creek without a, yeah. It gets really, really bad. My wife and I, you know, we we consider ourselves to be, you know, my wife is a very, very successful um couples therapist and and and sex therapist. And she's she's pretty deconstructed already. And her and my personality led to, you know, we just start asking questions, right? And and not out of any malice, not because we want to upset any apple cart. In fact, I don't want to upset any apple cart. I would much rather figure out that everything is great and not take the red pill, so to speak. But yeah, we we ended up doing a lot of research. And I'll tell you, anyone who's been through this and you come to find out, oh, wait a minute, what I was being told is is actually not correct. And there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that that's kind of a lie. So if you're raised and taught to have this amazing integrity and scrupulosity, you know, for lack of a better term, um, and then you find out, well, wait a minute, um, you know, you should have told me just all the all the truth at the beginning. And now we wouldn't have this, you know, problem 24 years into it. But yeah, that that's it's Probably Beate, um, Beate, I I ended up, you know, my family and I went through probably the most painful experience of our life. And that is when all of the answers are given to you, and then you're kind of left unmoored with, oh, well, wait a minute. Well, if that's not true, and that's not true, and that's not true. And again, I'm not speaking on issues or matters of faith. That's a different thing. I'm talking about demonstrably someone says this is the way that it happened, and then you find out, oh no, it didn't happen like that at all. Like that's what I'm talking about. So I'm not, I don't want anyone to feel like I'm, you know, crapping on religion or anything like that. I think it's I I I love faith. I think, you know, faith keeps, you know, gives us hope and and all that other things. There's so many practical benefits to that. But certainly when you have someone, an organization that is outright, you know, that it's demonstrable, like they've been lying, they have been lying to you, that's a n that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

And so it's not necessary, in my opinion, Josh. Uh, I think that spirituality, a religion, or wherever you come from, if it's being used to control people and to keep them in this limited mindset, and I want to talk about mindset next, is then then there's something wrong with it because then it's used to control you and not to help you grow. So but you are a lifelong, you're a lifelong learner. So you got then you you got triggered out of it, right? And so what is this transformation now where you say, I learned this early on, don't lie to your audiences. I went somewhere where I thought somebody had all the answers. I found out that they didn't. You were uh going through this uh difficult separation, so to speak. But unlike other people, you didn't hold on to it because when you lose a belief system like that, it's almost like you lose this identity of yours.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Oh, oh, and a lot of your friends, your social network, a lot of a lot of like everything. You lose everything, which is why it's so effective. Like tribes are so successful.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

I find it inspiring, and I think it's important that this message goes out because people and I especially see this right now. I mean, not talking politics, but if we're in a charged environment and you hold on to something, then there's so much friction that it it it it literally gets you sick. So let's talk about the business though. So you are now you got it figured out in business, you got your podcasting thing. Now AI comes, everything is thrown all over the place. Now you you you're very successful in what you do. Now this whole thing comes and takes a sideswipe at you. What do you do in business? Because you have to redo everything again.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Well, we saw, Beate, is this now on the backside of you know over 300 podcasts? I saw just how bad the podcast guesting industry was getting. And then I would talk to these guests, and these guests would be like, Yeah, I cut them a check for $20,000 for 20 guaranteed uh podcast placements, is an example we were using earlier. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I, you know, it's like after I don't want to tell them what they're what's going on, but I'm like, man, that company is making some really high margins. I mean, maybe they're spending it all in advertising in order to get those clients, but you know, it's like, man, if you knew the technology behind what they're doing, like you can do so much better than what they are doing with AI right now, if you're doing it right and you're using it right. And so that's where Pod Verified came from. And I said, you know what we need is we need some standards and we need some sunlight in this in this space. Because if guests knew how it works and how to be successful at this themselves, well, they wouldn't have to spend the $20,000. They can do this stuff internally for the most part, as long as they don't mind building relationships, because that's what podcasters have asked for. So yeah, we we ended up talking to obviously I talked with all my clients. I probably had probably close to a hundred other conversations with other podcasters. I said, listen, let's imagine, and I think our guest, you know, our friend listening to this will appreciate this. This question I asked them, and I asked this, like I said, nearly a hundred times. Let's say that there is a guest out there, and they actually are a really good guest for your show. They've got a great audience of themselves, they're gonna help you accomplish all your goals, they're gonna help you create great content together. What do you want them to do? Like, how do they raise their hand and say, hey, you know, can I be on your show or can we create some content together? And so here's what we found cold pitches, no. By and large, that is a losing strategy today because you'll just be one out of 400 pitches and they don't know who you are, even if you write it beautifully, even if you send them Shakespearean level, you know, communication, you say all the right stuff, the odds are not in your favor. So, how do we get you into an environment where you can get way more wins? Well, you are just going to have to replicate what good public relations professionals know, and that's you're just gonna have to spend a little bit more extra time on the relationship and truly lead in that Bob Berger, Bob Berg go giver energy. You're gonna lead in generosity. So I've been in the media over 3,000 times, 800 TV segments alone. I have never gotten a media placement from a press release, nor would I would say a cold pitch. What I did every single time is I found out the journalists that I wanted to work with. And then I started building a relationship with them as a fan, as a listener on social media. I would promote their work. If I had something that I could do for them, I would do that first. Like I've had, you know, some really big podcasters that I've I've been on their show. I reached out and I said, listen, um, I was looking for a press kit for you. I noticed that you didn't have one. Listen, you've done so much for me. I've listened to hundreds of your dozens of hours of your shows or whatever. Can I I would just love to, you know, do this for you pro bono? You could say no, but listen, you know, here's you, you I'd I'd just love to do this as a thank you, right? How many people are willing to do that? Yeah, I not too many, right? A lot of things that folks give away are, you know, just kind of like a lead magnet or whatever. Um but would you be willing to do something or go out of your way in a in a friend, what what a friend would do on the before your ask, would you be willing to pre-invest in these relationships? No, it doesn't take much. You don't have to build press kits for people. I do, uh, but that's because I could do these things at scale. Like I've I'm really good at this stuff now. But um, you know, and that's the energy you need to have. Um, and it also has to be always if your mindset is, I just simply all I want to do is provide value to your audience. I don't care what I get out of it. Now, you do that's not ultimately what's going to happen. But if that's your energy and you've let go of what it is that you want and need, everything just gets a lot easier. And then trust me that when you lead in generosity, most people that have been around for a length of time, experienced business leaders, are generally going to reciprocate. But if you give them the space to reciprocate, they will. If you don't give them the space to reciprocate and you're always coming out of the gate with asks, it just gets a little tiring because podcasters have been around for a while. They're surrounded by asks. They get 400 asks a month. And so try to be a little bit different. And it doesn't take a whole lot. You could just engage with them on social media for a month or so and genuinely do so. Don't do it because you're winding up for a big pitch, but do so because you just, these are people that you want in your life. And you you really just want to bring all these friends in and lead by being a good person. If you'll do that, this is what podcasters said. If I get someone like that, and they're also genuinely the kind of people that I would have on my life, I want to hang out with that are aligned with my values, by all means.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Uh, bring him, bring him in. But what I cannot stand is this immediate when you reach out to somebody, they counter pitch you, or they uh they walk in the yeah, or they walk in the door and they don't even know what you know. I mean, I don't honestly, I don't expect everybody to know exactly what my uh to have listened to six episodes of my show. People are busy, but at the very least, please do read the show description so you know that we live at an intersection of a spiritual transformation and a strategic implementation. I mean, that is the show. So if you come and you want to tell me that your father was bankrupt and you took a blind business out of Tennessee, you know, back on the market, you have no relevance to my audience. My obligation, and I think this is something that I'm hearing here, is my obligation is to my audience. I expect you to have a microphone, I expect you to have a light, I expect you to know how to pitch, I expect you to work with me on a show flow, I expect you to know what a YouTube hook is and how the audience on YouTube where the video will go is different than it is on Apple, than it is on Spotify, and that when we work out the show flow document, that you understand these kinds of things. That's my expectations of you. Because I'll give you a full copy of this interview because I know that you are gonna want this good content that we're creating, and you can slice and dice it any way you want and use it any way you want with attribution to the show because we are in a collaborative environment.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

100%. Yeah. And and lead business leaders who operate like this recognize when it is absent in newbie or novice business leaders or own, you know, business folks. We we feel it and we just politely kind of smile and like, oh, well, hey, keep rocking it, you know, and and and and again, I it's something I didn't know when I was a new business owner, but you know, eventually your experience and wisdom will let you know that most big business is done in your Whisper network. It's it's done because of the high-level relationships that you have, the network that you've built, the investments that you've made into your industry or your audiences, and then you work in service alongside other leaders. Those are the kind of people I'm always looking to collaborate with. And there are a lot of folks like that. Um, unfortunately, I think that they're being represented by a lot of marketers that are.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

I think the word you're looking for is a schmuck, right? And you know, and sometimes even the PR agencies, you know, we have an application process. I've told you four times is an application process. You still don't send me an application uh because you are justifying what you are charging by doing the pitch. A personal transformation that has a spiritual undertone cannot be done by AI, and it cannot be done by a publicist. It is literally impossible. That's what this show is about. And so what I'm hearing from you is that so pod verified, and so so let's just be very specific. What does Pod Verified actually do for me?

SPEAKER_00 33:33

So Yep. So here's the good news. So there's a lot of great technology that a lot of smart people and I are kind of working on to try, like if we don't all work together, at least, you know, we don't get a bunch of leaders together and say, listen, um, if we don't interrupt where podcast guesting is going right now, then it is not going to be valuable for anyone. And no one is going to be interested. It's going to just kind of turn into a big crap show. And so I don't want that to happen. So, yeah, so we've generated a lot of free tools that you can use, press kit builders and um, you get your pod verified score, which is basically, I mean, you should know what your um essentially we created a credit karma score for podcast guests. You need to know how you are showing up. So then what we're gonna do is free. Just punch in your social, your website, and some other information. And then you go inside, and then what we'll do is we'll kind of break down. Here's how you come across to podcasters. You need to know that. Um, and by the way, if you have not done the pre-work, like if if your website is janky, you're like you're not on your website anywhere, um, you have no press kit, your LinkedIn's not dialed in, you just don't look like you are an experienced media guest. Why are you spending a bunch of money trying to pitch yourself to get on big shows? They're just gonna say no because it's kind of like you are paying a speaker bureau and you're paying them out of your pocket to make you a speaker, but you've got no speaker kit. Why would you do that? You're doing this backwards. You have to do this work. You have to brand yourself as being someone who teaches audiences uh in the media and on podcasts. And if that is not evident on your website and on social media, you're doing this backwards. So, all of that stuff, I'm gonna help you with all of that for free. I don't need a dime from you. Um it's a lot of AI instructions and tools. And honestly, your AI can do a pretty good job if you give it the right instructions and the prompting, right? Um, now you should still have this reviewed by humans. AI is not perfect. Generally, I tell people it'll even if we get this really well dialed in, it's still about 80, 90% of the way there, which is amazing because uh that's 80, 90% of the work. You don't have to spend weeks doing. You can get this done in an afternoon and then get some humans on either side of it. And that's, you know, kind of what we do. So with Pod Verified, I work as a fractional chief uh communications officer for my clients. I help them build their own internal PR systems. I'm gonna give them access to the same data and systems that some of these high-priced agencies are using, and actually better ones than they're using. And with your own AI using your own connections, you can browse through all of the podcasts that you want. By default, do not use your AI's advance or AI's advice on what to do with that. That's where you need to follow our best practices. You need a human in the loop to make sure that you know then exactly what to do. So you got to get your stuff all set up first, then obviously kind of working on your engagement. And then we got to make this stuff pay for itself too, because most podcast guests, I can tell you 90% of my podcast guests, probably could improve their calls to action. They probably could improve their performance. They really need to take a lot more thought as to the user journey of a podcast listener, which is so different than a webinar audience or a speaking audience or a TV audience or uh someone surfing the web, you know, bumping into you. These are all very different audiences and you need to communicate with each of them a little bit differently. So, again, if you're just guessing at this stuff or having AI inform you, you are just going to be really frustrated at the lack of money and business that you make. You're gonna do this for a while and you'll be like, podcast and guesting sucks. It doesn't work. No, it's because you just paid someone to pitch you and you weren't ready, and their pitching was just terrible. So we are hoping to improve the ecosystem for everybody. It's a big lofty goal, but like I said, we're giving away what other people have been charging thousands of dollars for uh if you don't mind using a little bit of, you know, your AI tools. And like I said, if you want to work with me, I'll set up all this stuff in your own AI and then you could do a lot of this with your own team assistant, as long as you keep experienced humans in the loop. Because again, most areas that we have intense competence at, oftentimes we can review what AI says with a different lens. And like, yeah, no, don't do that. That would be a dumb idea.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

You you you need some leadership in there. So, you know, again, that's where I think that you could probably save yourself a good five to eight thousand dollars a month. Maybe not everybody could do their own PR internally. Best thing to do is just kind of look at what we're sharing for free and see if this feels like an alignment. And then, you know, I always love grab, you know, I listen, grab 15 minutes with me. Happy to brainstorm. I may or may not be a good fit for you, but uh maybe I have a some connections or some other tools you might want to use or a book I'd recommend or whatever. I I'm happy to make connections and share with you good ideas. Um, is there's really kind of a certain type of person that I work really well with as well. So I'm looking for a match on my end as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah. Well, I love that. Well, what I'm taking away from our conversation today is that the number one, the lifelong learning about paying attention to what's going on in the market and then being very critical to the tools that are being brought in front of you and making your own decisions, making sure that you design how you show up first and then make the AI serve that, not the other way around. Yes. And also to, you know, really go check out Pod Verified if you're interested or serious about guesting, because I will tell you that the AI slob is out of control right now. And uh the number of I I mean, it's not even a bad pitch. I mean, it is it's it's pathetic, uh, really. I mean, I can cannot even believe that somebody would dare to send this uh to to somebody like me. And I do agree that at a certain level, when you operate on a certain level, other people will operate on the certain, on the same level too. And it's less is more and deeper is better than wider.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Yeah, for the you know, for the mid-sized shows on up, um, it's kind of a requirement because you know, we we just again the newbies, you can magnetically attract if you use marketing tactics like that, you're just gonna magnetically be attracted to other people who are kind of playing at that level, which is fine. If you don't, that doesn't bother you. Um, but if you want people who care very much about their audience, they care very much about um the quality work, and you know, generally these are pretty successful people. Just attune your energy, attune your activity to match those values in that energy, and you will do fine. You're gonna do fine. There's a lot more of us than there are of the engage in the bad behavior.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Exactly. Excellent. Well, I appreciate you having uh coming on the show and spending the time with us to talk about uh podcasting and all these good things. I think it's been a valuable contribution. Thank you so much for being here. Fiat, it's been a joy. Thank you so much for having me. And that is it for us for today. I thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of the Business Growth Architect Show Founders of the Future and Founders of the Future. As we have heard today, is you got to get your message out. Look at podcasting as a publicity and media aspect of your business and take it as seriously as you would if you would go on a major news television appearance because the ru it's now no longer the rule of 12, it's the rule of eight hours as per Google. You need to be in front of somebody for eight hours, and what better way than to use podcasting to do that? And with that, I say goodbye. That's it for this episode of the Business Growth Architect Show, Founders of the Future. If you're done playing small and ready to build the future on your terms, subscribe, share, and help us reach more trailblazers like you. And if you're serious about creating, growing, and scaling a business that's aligned with who you are, schedule your uncovery session at uncovery section.com. Lead with vision. Move with purpose. Create your future.