Choose Guests Who Will Grow Your Audience

Transcript: Episode 5 of Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing

Episode Title: Choose Guests Who Will Grow Your Audience with Grant Jenkins

Grant Jenkins: Because you also don’t want to make the assumption that this person does this all the time. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but give them the tools to be successful. Set your guests up to win.

Clark Buckner: That’s the voice of Grant Jenkins. He’s the former Director of Agency Marketing at 5by5 Agency located in Brentwood, Tennessee. He joins us to share how the right guests can amplify your story and expand your show’s reach to find new listeners. Grant also shares his best tips on choosing and prepping a guest for your episode’s topic and walks us through the most effective ways to invite and interview them onto your show.

Clark Buckner: Welcome to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing, the show all about how to build a professional branded podcast that delivers on your business’ goals. I’m your host Clark Buckner, partner and Co-Founder here at Relationary. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for B2B content marketing. We help brands and agencies create engaging content to establish thought leadership, nurture key relationships, and promote events. For a recap and transcript of this episode and to download our free five-step guide to building a branded podcast, head on over to relationarymarketing.com/podcast. Now let’s jump in.

Grant Jenkins: I’m the Director of Agency Marketing at 5by5 Agency.

Clark: Grant, I am so excited to be hanging out with you. We’re going to be talking about some of our favorite things, podcasting, marketing, branding, and specifically in this episode on our show, we’re talking about guest selection and how do you choose the right guests for your podcast. And there’s a whole approach to this, and it’s all connected to the larger picture of building a vehicle to get your message out there. But before we jump into all of that, just for context, just a quick overview about 5by5, where you’re at and what the mission is.

Grant: Yeah. So 5by5 is a digital marketing agency based in Brentwood, Tennessee so just on the outskirts of Nashville. We are celebrating our fifth year this year.

Clark: Way to go.

Grant: Yeah.

Clark: And within those five years, you’ve accomplished quite a bit.

Grant: We’ve accomplished a lot. Yeah. I’ve been there for three of those years so it’s like, “I’m a veteran now”. I think I was employee number, I don’t know, 13 or 14, and I think we’re at 40 now or something. So it’s kind of, it’s a lot of rapid growth, which brings a lot of great opportunity and unique challenges, but it’s a really exciting and vibrant place to be. I will say, so the past two years we’ve actually been named on Inc. Magazine’s, Inc 5,000 of the fastest growing privately held companies in America.

Clark: Way to go!

Grant: Which is, that’s a really cool distinction for just the work that we do. The cool thing about what 5by5 does is we are what we call a change agency. And so…

Clark: The work matters.

Grant: Yeah. The work matters like it’s got some substance to it. And so we’re what we call a “for-profit, for good” agency as well so we have a double bottom line essentially. And so we do have a revenue bottom line, but we have as well a results and an impact bottom line. And so every one of those, Inc 5,000 ranks that purely on revenue growth, a percentage of revenue growth. And so that’s a lot of dollars of growth, but every one of those dollars represents work that we’re doing for clients that are impacting lives all over the world in a variety of ways. So the cool thing is, yeah, that’s a really cool flag to wave about, “Man, Inc 5000 2nd year in a row.” We’re doing a lot of hard work, but we know that every dollar at that percentage is representing on Inc 5,000 represents lives all over this globe that we get to have some kind of a hand in, in impacting through the work we do with our clients.

Clark: I love that. And I remember we first got connected I think it was just a couple of years ago and we started to do some projects together. We did a podcast for you all, and it’s really nice to know that the content that you’re creating, it has a deeper purpose. And already, I think with podcasting, you have this authenticity that you’re not going to necessarily get just period. You’re not going to get from just video or just blog posts, podcasts, the voice, all of that. It has a deeper connection so when you combine that with the change agency model, that’s really cool. And what I love hearing Shannon, your CEO talk about is, where 5by5, the meaning comes from. So let’s say that really quick. And then I think that might be a good segue to really talk about how you can use podcasting for getting your message out.

Grant: So, yeah so the term 5by5 is actually really an old military term that was used to measure in terms of signal strength. So basically it was, there was a one to five scale and that would give you a measurement of how clear a signal was and how far a signal would reach. So basically if you were broadcasting out to whoever’s out on the field or into the planes or whatever and ships, you would have a signal that was on a one to five clear on a one to five reach. And so if you could have a really, really clear signal, but it didn’t reach very far, well, you’re really not going to make much impact.

Grant: You could also have a signal that’s not very clear that reaches very far, so you may reach people way off, but they don’t really understand what you’re saying because its signals not clear. And so that is really the metaphor that we shaped 5by5 around in being a change agency is clarity and reach are our two really focal points and helping organizations determine how do we maximize the clarity of our message. And then once we have a clear message, how do we maximize the reach of that message so we’re reaching the most people possible?

Clark: Love it, and what a great way to transition to podcasting as a way to create a message that can go far. And so, one of the biggest strategies, especially for podcasting is the interview model. And most of the podcasts that we’re doing, it includes that solo host, solo guest, an interview model with that you’re guaranteed to have built in audience from that guest that you’re choosing. So who you choose to be on the show matters, not only from a reach perspective, but it gives you a really promising opportunity to nurture them. It’s awesome. So how about we just begin from the work we’ve done with podcasting in your words, what do you think about when you’re trying to select the right episode guests?

Grant: Sure. You know, I think you raise a valid point that part of it is about reach and you do want guests that bring audience because part of the goal is not just to speak to your natural audience and who you already have on onboard, but who does that person bring to the table that can be a part of the larger conversation that you’re wanting to create? So I think really initially the overall vision for your show is really important. So whoever you’re trying to reach with the larger narrative of your podcast, everything really centers there. And then through that lens, I think it’s where the audience, I like to focus on where they are, but also where I want to take them with a narrative of not just one episode, but over time.

Grant: We could do a lot of preaching to the choir and saying a lot of the same things that everyone knows and checking those boxes on a lower level, but at some point you risk distributing content that could also be white labeled. And so the challenge is to give enough to where it’s accessible and it’s executable and it’s relatable because you want to engage the audience with that. But you also want to attract new listeners and taking some risks in that space. I’ll say one example. One of my favorite examples actually is one of the podcasts that I was a part of was a parenting podcast. And there was author, speaker that I worked with and incredible had a great audience, had a couple of bestsellers under her belt. And so right in the middle of doing episodes about how do you talk to your kids about money and saving and sleep issues in kids and teaching kids about gratitude and kind of some of…

Clark: All the things.

Grant: kind of some of the more standard content in the parenting space.

Grant: You know, here we come with an episode about how to talk to your kids about race and diversity, which at that time in that space, obviously a pretty hot button issue that I think wasn’t talked about enough, which is one reason why we wanted to really talk about it from that perspective of there’s all these talking heads on all the stations and all the channels about all the aspects of it as adults and all the complexities of it. But how do you really engage a child on that level about those issues? And that was something that was totally that wasn’t standard parenting fair at the time.

Grant: We did an interview with Benjamin Watson who played for the Baltimore Ravens and he came on and talked about his kids and how he has these conversations with his kids on a level they can understand. And how do you really engage with, “Hey, the world is different.” You know, how do we accept and love people who are not like us? And it was so powerful because I think it was so unexpected. It wasn’t what people were looking for. So it gave us a chance to not only engage and challenge our current audience, but to really attract and reach out to an audience segment that appreciated that we were having that discussion at a time when we could be talking about sleep cycles.

Clark: Right. They might not be looking for it right now, but it’s once they see it, they’re like, “Wow, I really need to hear this.”

Grant: It’s great evergreen content. Absolutely. It’s something that it seems like increasingly there are new, we hit new heights or depths, however you want to look at it of that topic in the culture, but that’s something that someone’s always going to be…kids are always going to be coming home from school, asking questions and countering kids at school and at church and on playgrounds that are different from them. So how do we empower our parents to have those conversations with their kids? So that was one of my favorite moments of create a surprising moment that engages and reaches.

Clark: So how did you find this particular guest? Any tips on finding someone who’s of course knowledgeable and entertaining, but they also I’m sure have a pretty good reach.

Grant: Yes. So that situation was a little bit unique in that the author, her name was Dr. Meg Meeker. She’s a speaker, author. She actually has a relationship with the NFL Players Association and she had used to go in and do events with players really about fatherhood. And so Benjamin Watson was one of the people on her team so to speak that she had a relationship with that these guys, these big NFL players reach out to her and ask parenting questions. And so it was a really cool existing relationship that we were able to really reach out and maximize to talk about this larger topic.

Clark: That’s good. It’s a good example to use the network you have, and you never know, you actually might have a goldmine of opportunity you’re sitting on.

Grant: There is. There is. And I think part of that in considering the guests, cause you’re right, you want to check the knowledgeable box, you want to check the entertaining box. You also want to figure out now who’s going to be engaging…even…they may have great information, but they may not be very engaging. And so there’s a few different levels that we would recommend approaching there.

Clark: I’d love to hear that.

Grant: Yeah. So obviously considering who you have relationship with and who you already have potential, you can reach out to them. That’d be a really easy ask. That’s definitely a big one. That dynamic that is created on a podcast where someone you already have an existing relationship with. That’s going to be very different than someone you’re just engaging with for the first time and trying to like make a conversation happen with someone you’ve never spoken with before so obviously that’s going to add a layer. That’s like when you’re looking at guests, that’s the first place to look. Who do I know that can speak to topics that I want to address?

Clark: What I like about that too is something we like to recommend especially starting from a podcast from scratch. It’s great especially your first couple of guests to be just like that someone you know, you have a relationship with and if the podcast goes south and it’s not a good interview, you don’t damage your relationship.

Grant: No, absolutely.

Clark: And always redo it. And they’re okay with that.

Grant: Yes. I will say too that the part of the challenge is, and we worked on this with a couple of different podcasts is you want to try to balance the experts with everyday people in some sense because I feel like you want to be able to deliver authority and experience in a space, but also leave some room to have content that’s really practical and relatable. And I think that if you have too many experts in the room, the tone can easily kind of be very heady and aspirational, but alienate people who don’t feel like you get them.

Clark: Right especially if that person is talking in a way that is very academic-y.

Grant: Yeah. Very academic, very heady. And it’s like, “Hey, that’s great. These are some great ideas, but my kid’s doing this right now.” One thing I love when we worked on the, we did a podcast called “Coach ‘Em Up” that was really targeted towards the young athletes space and coaches and leaders and parents and a coaching slash leadership slash parenting focus, and a lot of the people who we talked to were these legacy coaches and players and who the host Caz had relationship with, which was a…

Clark: Clark Kellogg, some really big people.

Grant: Oh yeah, there was some, there was some heavy hitters in there, and I would say 85% of everyone who we talked to were people who he had an existing relationship with. But what was interesting about that is in what we tried to accomplish in every episode where we would have the conversations with the legendary NBA, NCAA players, coaches, we try to also add in a segment that was more of a practical, inspirational tip for coaches, parents, leaders, something you can take away and use right now on the field whether you’re coaching, you know, little league team of eight, nine people, or you’re coaching big college program. Here’s something you can use right now. We try to really balance that whether it’s in every episode or across time, which is a variety of voices.

Clark:Right. I really liked the tactical takeaway. And what I also really like about that is when we’re creating podcasts, typically we use more of a B2B model and usually it’s a little more compact. It’s little more edited, more, there’s a purpose specifically around a particular goal or a mission. And so it’s really good if they can actually grab something of immediate value because your traditional B2C shows those are usually going to be more based on let’s build a huge audience. This is really for entertainment purposes. This is a crime thriller, political podcast, one of those so the tactical takeaways are really important.

Grant: Yeah, absolutely. Give me something I can aspire to and dream for, but also give me something that I can walk away and do right now.

Clark: Great way to put it.

Grant: Yeah.

Clark: Speaking of tactical, how about we talked through some of the tactics that have worked well for you on reaching out to a potential guest and inviting them onto the show, any strategies you can share?

Grant: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I think with the shows that I’ve been involved with, one of the things, even before we got to invites, was almost creating what you might call almost a vision board type thing, which was one part relationships we know that we have, that we know we can reach out to that are easy asks respectfully one part dream list of people who it might be a little bit harder to get to, but we really want to give it a shot. And then also one part of, we don’t know who’s going to fit in this, but we want to talk about this topic. And so it would give you a little bit of a mix of folks I can call and get on the show tomorrow. Folks, I can do some research and figure out how can I get to them and see if I can make it a successful pitch.

Grant: And then I don’t know who’s going to talk about this, but I know we want to have a show about X. So that gave us a little bit of a framework to figure out how we would plan episodes and then who we would make pitches to. I will say that the wishlist part, the middle segment there is going to be a little bit tougher at least in my experience was a little tougher, but you know what, but you do it because you never know, who’s going to say yes, and that’s the fun of it, honestly.

Clark: That’s a great point. And oftentimes I’ve seen a lot of people be surprised on who says yes.

Grant: Yes.

Clark: People love to be on podcasts and that’s a big note that you want to definitely have. I love that you included that.

Grant: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say this once you have your list of here’s who we’re going to go for, here’s who we’re going to plan our episodes out and what we’re going to do, whenever you do reach out to that person, so whether you’re reaching out to the actual guest, their representative, their manager, their assistant, any, any form of that, here’s the way that I would recommend formatting that email, that communication. You want to start by setting the tone. So give a little background on the host on the show, whether it’s you, or whether it’s, if you’re just doing the legwork and producing and getting it all set up, give some background on the show. Some statistics, the audience, any stats on the reach who you know, is listening. If it’s a brand new show, obviously you’re not going to have that data, but you can give some kind of historical data, give social media numbers, give any information on has there been a book?

Grant: Has there been a show? Has there been coverage in the media on this person or this topic, or this brand? So give some contextual tone to your ask to begin with. Next really establish the expectations. So let them know what you’re asking of the. What’s the proposed topic? What is that going to be? What would we be talking about? How long will the interview take? Is it going to be on the phone? Is it going to be over Skype? Zencastr? I’m a big Zencastr fan.

Clark: We love Zencastr.

Grant: I think that actually you introduced me to Zencastr. So, let them know, establish the expectations, create those parameters so they know what to expect. Third, make the connection. Let them know why do you want them on the show? It’s not just that you’re making, “Hey, so-and-so has this podcast. We’d love for you to be on it. It’ll only take 30 minutes of your time.” Beyond that, let them know why do we want you? Why do we value your voice? Help them connect those dots between their voice and your audience and why it’s really important that they come on your show. And I think, is it an issue that is important to the host? Is it because maybe the host has been a fan of this person? Is it because they want to talk about a topic that your potential guest speaks well to? Help them make that connection so that, okay, it’s not just, me using some of my time. This is actually an extension of my voice as well so making that connection is important.

Clark: I love the check box template worksheet you’re creating here. It’s really helpful. And all of that is just on point. One of the reasons I also really like what you’re saying, giving the guests specific reasons why you are inviting them. We’ve found that it helps them from accidentally hijacking the interview because everything you’re saying, you’re telling them why we want them, what the message is and it puts them into that right headspace so they know where they know where their episode is going to go.

Grant: Yes, it creates that expectation and I think and I’ll say this, having worked with both from a production or a brand or broadcast or a content creator perspective, you want to secure the right guests, or you want to get the right topics or shows. But from a guest perspective, be it an artist, an author, a speaker, a CEO, a whoever, their time not only are you valuing their voice with an ask to begin with it’s a “I respect your voice enough to ask you.”

Clark: That feels great.

Grant: Yes. I also want you to know that I respect your time enough to tell you what this is going to be about. And so that gives them, honestly, it empowers them to say, “Yes, I want to do that” or “You know what? I don’t think this is the right thing for me.” Because the one thing you don’t want to do is not communicate that effectively upfront and get someone in an interview partway through and they’re wondering, “why did I do this? Why did I say yes to this?” Because I’ll tell you what, they will never do it again, and they won’t share it. And you will not have created an advocate or a raving fan with that person where you could have with communication.

Clark: That’s excellent. I love that.

Grant: I think just the biggest thing to remember is try to anticipate what questions they’re going to have and answer them before they ask. That’s the biggest thing with all this like with the preparation, the tone, the connection, the expectations. Imagine what this person is going to ask you, and you may not know to begin with, but you can use your best judgment or use some of the things that I’ve said here and just give them those answers so that they are as empowered to make the best decision as possible.

Clark: Also on the front end, especially starting a podcast from scratch, we love getting as many of the guests scheduled as quickly as possible so we can start to build what we like to think of as a Pez dispenser of content. So we get the episode captured, we can go into production and it helps build that cushion. So before you launch, which we would want you to have maybe 3, 4, 5 episodes already completely done and as you’re asking these guests, you’re learning about what these questions that they’re asking. You can start to pivot how you’re doing that to make it as streamlined and easy for everyone.

Grant: Yes, completely agree. If you’re paying attention, you can learn through what your guests are giving you feedback on and make sure that you’re giving your future asks as much information as possible.

Clark: I love that. Any things that have stood out to you–do’s and don’ts for preparing a guest for the interview?

Grant: Sure. I would say I had a pretty good rhythm with the shows that I’ve been involved with so it’s fairly easy to duplicate some of those processes. It’s important first of all to do some research on the guest, the topic, the issue, whatever you’re wanting to discuss, do some homework, don’t just ask super surface questions again. Don’t think white label. What is an angle that I can take with this guest that will really give me some unique content? I also really recommend, I have created a really general info sheet that we sent to all the guests. So it was along with the questions we were going to ask. It was basically a bullet point list of, “Hey, just as reminder, be in a quiet place where you’re not going to be interrupted, silence your phone, make sure you’ve got the technology you need. Is this going to be over the phone or is it going to be on Zencastr or Skype? Here’s the link. Here’s the contact phone number for me, if you have any problems.”

Grant: Because I have been in situations where something has gone wrong and emails were flying or stuck, or some wifi, if something went wrong and they didn’t know who to contact or they weren’t sure. So give them just, because you also don’t want to make the assumption that this person does this all the time. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but give them the tools to be successful. Set your guests up to win. I think the one thing to keep in mind is it comes down to establishing and reinforcing reciprocal value. So just as you want your guests to know how much you value their voice in the mix of the story you’re telling with your podcasts kind of back to what we talked about in the beginning.

Grant: You want your guests to also understand the value of access to your audience. So it’s not only “I value your voice.” You want your guests to come away feeling like as part of the overall just nurturing that relationship is I want your guests to leave feeling like I value the access. And so what you don’t want is just this one-sided thing where you, your guests just feels pulled on and they’re giving, giving, giving without feeling like no, it’s really an honor to have access to your audience so thank you for that. So I think part of that is just how you communicate that and how you communicate who your listener is to your guest.

Clark: Love that. Thank you so much for hanging out in the studio.

Grant: Yeah, this is great.

Clark: This has been so much fun. So what’s a good way for someone to connect directly with you, but also 5by5?

Grant: Sure 5by5 agency, you can reach online on the interwebs at fivebyfiveagency.com and you can find us on all the usual social media channels at the same 5by5 Agency.

Clark: That’s 5 B Y 5 the number.

Grant: Correct the number five and personally I’m on Instagram and Twitter @jgrantjenkins.

Clark: Excellent. Thank you.

Grant: Thanks so much.

Clark: Hey, thanks so much for listening to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for content marketing. And we’d love to hear from you. For a recap and transcript of this episode and to download our free five step guide to building a branded podcast, visit relationarymarketing.com/podcast. And if you enjoy this content, please follow, rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll see you next time.

Clark: Brandcasting is a production of Relationary Marketing. This episode was produced by Darcy Mack and executive producers Clark Buckner, me, and Chuck Bryant with editing support from Dylan Carrow and music by Jess Grommet. Additional production support is provided by Anthony Luciani, A.J. Meyers, Riley Wallace, and Jasmine Meriweather.