[Expert Probs] Is your pitch about YOU
|
Hey Reader, I've hosted podcasts for years, which means I've read a LOT of pitches. There's the one offering five different topics the guest could cover. (Pick one. I'm begging you.) There's "I can teach your audience how to make 8 figures." Have you meet me? (Oh no, you didn't bother to find out I have a podcast called Duped). And then there's the person who sends their speaker one-sheet and leaves me to figure out how they'd fit my show. NO THANK YOU. I'm not doing that work. So when a Expert Up Club member brought her first podcast pitch to a hot seat call, I had opinions. Welcome back to Expert Problems, where I pull back the curtain on the real conversations happening inside the Expert Up Club, so you stop white-knuckling your expert business alone. The problem: She's pitching herself, and the pitch doesn't sound like her. A member was two weeks from launching a program she'd poured herself into, and podcasts were the best place to talk about it. She'd just written her first pitch. She'd studied the templates, and every one of them made her sound like somebody else. Her words: "I feel so awkward and weird, and I say everything weird, and it's not me." When she wrote it her own way, it came out passionate, and a lot longer than any host will read. The Club's first read matched mine: cut it way down (no one wants to read your dissertation). A member who manages podcasts for a living told her hosts want three things fast: what you'll talk about, the angle only you bring, and why their listeners need to hear it. Another member said she really didn't like the "Here's why I'm pitching you" headline the template had handed her. All true. But the length was a symptom. I taught persuasion for 13 years before I started this business, and her pitch had a problem I see all the time when experts ask for things. It was built to prove something. Prove she'd listened to the show. Prove she was qualified. Prove the topic mattered. That's what templates train you to do, and it answers questions the host isn't asking. A host reading your pitch has one question: why would my listeners care? You get about two sentences to answer it. Everything in your pitch that answers a different question is in the way. (See also: the one-sheet.) So I gave her the structure I use when I pitch. (And yes, if you're in the Club, you get it too.) Then she made it better. We'd been telling her to name the "gap" she'd fill in a host's episodes. She pointed out that "gap" sounds like criticism. Her version: here's how I'd add to the conversation you're already having. That's a better line than the one we gave her. She walked away with one system instead of a pile of templates, and one angle to lead with. And this matters more now than it did even a couple of years ago. The podcast pitching world is awash in terrible pitches, and AI has made them faster to send. I'm not even booking guests right now and they still land in my inbox. If somebody pitched me by talking about my audience, I'd be thrilled. Which is why Asktoberfest kicks off today inside the Club. For the next month, members are making asks: podcast pitches, referral requests, "would you introduce me to" emails. Every ask earns points. A no earns more. Most experts I know would rather write another LinkedIn post than send one ask. I get it. Asking feels like begging when the ask is all about you. Build it around the other person's people and it turns into a favor you're doing them. Come get the pitch structure (and the room that goes with it) → Yours in rebellion, P.S. This member asked about podcasts on a hot seat once before, two months earlier. That time the question was where to pitch. This time it was what to say. Each call, she brought the next piece. See how the Club works here.
|
Make Marketing Suck Less
Marketing strategies for solo business owners who sell outside the online business bubble. Messaging and marketing for consultants, service providers, and experts whose clients live in the real world—where funnels don't work and referrals matter more than reels.