Dustin Riechmann went from traffic engineer to marketing consultant to meat stick entrepreneur to founder of 7-Figure Leap.

Yes, meat sticks.

After COVID wiped out many of his local consulting clients and stopped the in-person trade show strategy that had been growing his e-commerce brand, Dustin got on a podcast. That one move helped him grow the meat stick company to seven figures, get into Walmart, and eventually build a coaching business around strategic podcast guesting.

This conversation is not about “getting your name out there,” which is one of those phrases that sounds useful until you try to pay your mortgage with exposure.

Dustin makes a much more precise claim: podcast guesting can become a real revenue channel for freelancers, consultants, coaches, and agency owners who treat it with consistency and intention.

His basic math is simple:

If the right podcast interview produces an average of $2,000 in sales, and you do one good interview a week for 50 weeks, that’s $100,000.

But the more interesting part is what happens after the interview.

You build relationships with hosts.

You get introduced to other guests.

You create repurposable content.

You sharpen your stories.

You become easier to trust.

That’s the flywheel.

Dustin also breaks down his five-part framework: purpose, plan, pitch, perform, and profit. We spend time on why “purpose” comes before choosing shows, how to write a pitch that doesn’t smell like AI-generated oatmeal, why smaller podcasts can be wildly profitable, and which three stories freelancers should prepare before showing up as a guest.

If you want a more predictable way to build authority, start better relationships, and generate opportunities without relying entirely on referrals or social media, this episode will give you a practical place to start.

Key Points

• Podcast guesting is not just exposure: Dustin argues that strategic guesting can become a measurable business development channel when freelancers treat it like a system.
• The $100K math is simple, but not magic: One relevant interview per week, multiplied by an average of $2,000 in sales per interview, creates the basic path to $100,000.
• Consistency beats dabbling: Showing up on one or two podcasts and hoping for fireworks is not a strategy. The results come from repeated reps, better stories, and compounding relationships.
• Smaller niche podcasts can outperform bigger shows: Dustin explains why a small, trusted, highly relevant audience can be more valuable than a massive but less targeted one.
• Podcast interviews compress trust: The long-form, conversational format helps listeners get to know you faster, especially because the host has already earned their trust.
• Purpose comes before the podcast list: Before pitching shows, Dustin recommends getting clear on the transformation you provide and who you provide it for.
• Your pitch needs a relational anchor: A good pitch is not a spray-and-pray email. It should show real familiarity with the host, explain what’s in it for the audience, and make a clear ask.
• Great guests prepare three stories: Dustin recommends having an origin story, an authority story, and an “average Jane” story that proves the method can work for regular people too.
• A clear CTA matters: Freelancers with custom offers do not need to sell everything from the interview. Dustin recommends one clear next step, such as a playbook, quiz, assessment, or other opt-in that can help sort people after they raise their hand.
• Relationships create the real upside: The direct leads matter, but the host relationships, guest networks, partnerships, referrals, and repurposed content can become even more valuable over time.

Notable Quotes

“If you're viewing this as, ‘I might do this once, maybe twice, I’ll take it as it comes,’ you're not going to make a hundred thousand dollars. The way the hundred-thousand-dollar math works on podcast guesting is you have to do it consistently and you have to do it intentionally… On average, we see when people get on the right podcast with the right story, with the right call to action as a guest expert, we see an average of $2,000 in sales as a result of that.”

“The types of opportunities we’re looking for are interviews with established hosts. Those hosts have already done all the work to build an audience and, more importantly, a trusting audience. So you as the guest get to borrow a large portion of that trust. The moment you open your mouth on the podcast, people already kind of believe you.”

“One of the key questions you need to be able to answer is: what is the transformation you provide, and who do you provide it to? Maybe you’re like, ‘Duh, I’m selling stuff. Surely I have this figured out.’ You probably don’t. I think a lot of us, especially as freelancers, shortchange or overlook the fact that we actually provide transformation to people’s lives. If anyone’s ever paid you money, it’s because you gave them a transformation.”

“Every podcast appearance that you do makes the next one that much easier.”

Resources Mentioned

• The Premium Podcast Guesting Playbook
• Dustin's Website
• ‍Dustin Riechmann on LinkedIn‍
• Freelance Cake Community

Watch This Episode

Transcript

00:01

Hey there, welcome to the Freelance Cake Podcast. I'm your host, Austin L. Church,  founder of the Freelance Cake community. The goal of this show is to help full-time committed freelancers get better leverage. As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire whatsoever to see you work harder. So I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices  you can use right away to make the freelance game more profitable and satisfying. So chill out, listen in, because the best is yet to come.

00:40

Welcome to another episode of the Freelance Cake Podcast. Most freelancers think of podcast guesting as a branding and positioning move. Maybe it's good exposure. Maybe it helps you build authority. But what if it could become a predictable business development channel that directly contributes to your revenue. My guest today is Dustin Riechmann. Dustin is the founder of Seven Figure Leap, which helps coaches, consultants, agency owners, and freelancers grow their businesses through strategic podcast guesting. Before that, he built multiple businesses, including a seven figure e-commerce brand  using many of the same principles we discuss in this conversation. One of the big ideas we explore is why podcast guesting works differently from most marketing channels.

01:39

Dustin explains how it compresses the no-like-trust cycle, why smaller niche podcasts often outperform larger shows, and how a single interview can create opportunities far beyond the audience that hears it. We talk about what separates freelancers who occasionally appear on podcasts from those who turn guesting into a repeatable growth system. Dustin shares his framework for choosing the right shows, crafting outreach that actually gets responses and showing up with stories  that build trust and drive action. If you've ever wondered whether podcast guesting could really move the needle for your business, you'll appreciate our discussion about relationships, referrals, authority, and the long-term flywheel effect that happens when you approach guesting strategically instead of randomly.

02:39

If you're looking for a practical way to grow your network, strengthen your positioning, and create more opportunities without relying entirely on social media, this episode is for you. All right. Enjoy my conversation with Dustin Riechmann.

02:57

Welcome Dustin. I have been looking forward to our conversation because I learned something every single time we talk. For folks who don't know you, will you explain briefly how a person can go from being a traffic engineer to owning a seven figure business called Seven Figure Leap that has nothing to do at least I don't think with traffic at all

03:30

Or jumping and actually… So, yeah, let me let me clear the air. Austin, I'm really grateful to be here to be part of this experience. Yes, I was a traffic engineer for 17 years. So it's like a civil engineer who helps people not run into each other in their cars or kill pedestrians. And partway through that, I actually got, you know, into the freelancing world. And so there was this entrepreneurial itch inside and I wasn't sure what to do with it. And so I started to create small online businesses and start taking on hourly work and various different side hustles for about half my engineering career. And then eventually I got pulled really deeply into digital marketing and actually had some value to add. And so I ended up leaving engineering, became a marketing consultant, basically all freelance work, right? Like a bunch of different types of online and offline businesses and one of my clients in that period had a butcher shop and he said, Hey man, can you sell stuff online? I said, I'm sure I can. Like that a lot of weird stuff. And so we, or I spun up a Shopify store and this, this whole meat stick chapter opened up. And then we started doing wholesale, which meant we traveled to a bunch of trade shows and figured out how to sample toe to toe and get in the retail stores and then COVID happened.

04:47

And so we COVID happened. I lost lot of my local clients from the consulting and I could no longer travel and sell meat sticks the old fashioned way. So I got on someone else's podcast, actually Nick Loper in the side hustle show.  I, was my very first podcast. I think it might've been how we actually originally met, but summer 2020 first podcast as a guest. Then ran with that, actually grew the meat stick company to seven figures and beyond got into Walmart and did some pretty cool stuff with that and then people inevitably start saying, how'd you do that? And so I started coaching people a few years later. And so for the past four years, I've stopped all the other stuff. And I just do 7 Figure Leap where we work with coaches, consultants, agency owners, freelancers, and we help them ultimately try to build a seven figure brand by telling their story. And we help them do that primarily through podcasts, guesting as a marketing and growth channel. Does that, does that kind of close the gap?

05:44

That was excellent. I mean, that wasn't even a couple of minutes and you took us from traffic engineering to market marketing consulting to meat sticks to more of a training company that helps people scale. So you've clearly had a ton of business development opportunities, speaking opportunities, revenue-producing clients come directly from podcasting. That's just a huge part of your world now. But I want to back off that for a second and just recognize that a lot of freelancers will hear that term podcast guesting and think, oh, it's free marketing. It's nice exposure. Maybe it would be fun if I can get on the right show, but you make a much more ambitious and precise claim that podcast guesting could add a hundred thousand dollars to your, a person's freelancer consulting business. So why did you pick that number 100K and oh why should a freelancer believe you and not attacking you?  I know your character very well, but like why should we think that's possible?

07:16

Yeah. For the reason, the reason you shouldn't, take it face value is I've seen it with 300 different people as clients that I have firsthand  intimate knowledge of their business and their sales and their finances. And they've all, they'll be across that threshold. The other, I think more relevant reason is just some basic math. So I'll kind of run through a math exercise for folks. And I think what you said there also is really important. If you're viewing this as I might do this once, maybe twice, I'll take it as it comes. Like you're not going to make a hundred thousand dollars. You can't do anything that way and make a hundred thousand dollars. Right. The way the hundred thousand dollar math works on podcast, guessing is you have to do it consistently and you have to do it intentionally. And so there's, there's no actual magic here, except I think the forum and the opportunity and the marketplace for this is a really special opportunity. So we'll kind of save that for like, why is this work well, how does this work? But I think to start with the hundred thousand dollar question on average, we see when people get on the right podcast with the right story, with the right call to action as a guest expert, we see an average of $2,000 in sales as a result of that. Obviously sometimes it's $20. Sometimes it's $20,000. I've had one show that was over $200,000 from one podcast that actually wasn't very big. So it's a wide range, but if you graph it out, I'm gonna have an engineering background, but if you back it out on the bell curve, 2,000 is kind of right in the middle. And so you're like, yeah, 2,000, maybe that catches my interest. Maybe you're like, dude, I already make 200,000 a year. Like 2,000, it's not really a big deal. Well, the 2,000 is important because that's the average per interview.

09:08

What I always recommend is at least as a initial target. Like think about this as what if I was on one interview a week, right? And so then you think about over the course of a year, now you have 50 interviews, you know, taking a couple of weeks off for vacation, you got 50 weeks in a year. So 50 times 2000, if anyone's not catching on there's a hundred thousand. So that's the very basic math. And so how does that work? Well, you're on the right podcast, you're doing it repeatedly. And of course, what actually happens is you get way better at it as you start to do it multiple times.

09:39

And the other huge X factor here, and I didn't want to make too big of a claim in the title. I often say how to make six and I'll put in parentheses or seven figures for your business with podcast guesting and the six figures I think is extremely straightforward and predictable. You just have to be on one podcast a week and have it be a pretty relevant podcast and do a decent job. That's the 50 times 2000. I dispute that as a linear line. Like it will happen. I will guarantee it. We do guarantee for clients. But the more exciting part that I'm sure we'll get into is after you're on 50 podcasts, you have to think about the ripple effect of that because now it's not just 50 interviews. You have 50 hosts that you have great relationships with. There's 50 guest lists that open up to you we can talk more about that. But every show you're on, you have access to all these other influential people with platforms and audiences who might want to partner or be clients.

10:36

You have 50 sources to repurpose content. You just build so much authority and so many relationships that there's… it truly becomes exponential, right? Because it's not 50 times 2000. It's really 50 times 2000 times X and the X factor is the human to human relationships that get built by doing this this way. So I'm going a little philosophical here, maybe out of the bat, but what I want people to hear is a hundred thousand dollars is extremely best. It definitely be the floor. Like that should be the baseline. And if you do it well, you should be able to well exceed that. But that doesn't happen by doing it once. It happens by doing it consistently.

11:11

An objection I hear is it can work for other people. I'm not sure it will work for me. And yet you started our conversation by telling me that you sold meat sticks on a podcast. And I don't think most people show up to a podcast thinking, I'm going to  take action with what I heard today and go buy some meat sticks. So I think you've already kind of answered this, but who does podcast guesting work for well? And  sounds like you would definitely put freelancers and consultants in the bucket of  business owners and entrepreneurs for whom guesting works well.

12:00

Yeah, I would say the big distinction is this going to well if you have an online business or you can sell things through the internet, right? And maybe that sounds obvious to someone listening to this summit, but you know, if you run like a local plumbing business, podcast guessing doesn't really make sense, right? Cause it's a medium that is broader in geographic appeal. But if you're selling freelance services through online delivery or you're selling a meat stick that you can deliver through the mail, pretty much anything as an online business can work.

12:32

And I say that wholeheartedly, I'm a walking example of that in a couple of different businesses that we've grown substantially through this. Like I said, we've had about 300 clients in, I think literally every industry. If ever, if you guys ever have to do like S Corp stuff, you have to like pick a category in the federal code of like, what is the industry that you represent? I haven't done that, but I don't know how many codes there are, but I feel like we've hit pretty much every industry.

12:57

You could check off a lot of those NAICS codes.

13:00

And so we have people that do, we have lawyers and doctors, but we have like  people who do email welcome sequences as like the thing they do. We have marriage coaches and health coaches and parenting and counselors and therapists. And I mean, you name it, we've pretty much worked with it if they sell things online. So I think that is, you know, maybe it's a... I don't know that's a short answer, that it's, it's basically if you sell stuff online and, you can have a story to tell, right? Like the way that this medium works best is if you can teach or you can tell a story about your own journey or a client journey, or an external source, that will provide credibility to your work. But that's kind of it. I mean it's very broadly appealing. There's 3.2 million podcasts, about 750,000 of them sort of fall into the category that we'd be pursuing of interview based and active. That's a big number and there's room for pretty much anyone out there. It's something you to be creative about which topic you want to, you know, which audience you want to address, like which target market you want to address, what topic you want to be known for. Cause it's not often right on the nose, but you do it's usually like adjacent to it, which I'm sure we'll get into Austin, but yeah. I don't know, works for everyone is kind of a generic answer. So I kind of over explained it there, but we've seen it work for a very broad base of talents.

14:31

I want to talk briefly about why it works in part because I've seen you say elsewhere, and I'm going to quote this, the ability to close the entire or compress the entire know like trust cycle in a single sitting. Like that's what podcasts do for you, unlike other marketing channels, social media, SEO, even newsletters, you get that entire cycle in  one  sitting. What is it about a 45-minute interview that enables you to put in that entire know like trust cycle that is so important if someone is going to buy something from you?

15:17

Yeah. And just the people aren't quite familiar with that. You know, the idea of You build this intimacy of know, like, and trust. And there's all kinds of numbers out there, 60, 77, whatever… the number of times someone needs to like interact with you and the number of environments they need to interact with you. It's a big number generally at to develop enough awareness and trust in you that they would actually want to buy something, especially something fairly expensive, like freelance or consulting services. So why does podcast guesting work to do that much more quickly than very, very micro dose, you know, hits of dopamine and oxytocin that you get from like social media or direct mail or billboards or email marketing even. Well, podcast guessing is really unique for a couple of reasons. One, is it's long form and educational, right? And so the whole point of someone listening is cause like they want to learn something and they're usually committed to 30, 45 minutes, fairly distraction-free. So that's really unique. Like where else do you get that? Maybe some very long YouTube videos, but for the most part it's about it as long as someone is willing to listen to one sitting to one person.

16:22

Two, trust is a huge factor here. And so the types of opportunities we're looking for interviews with established host. Well, those hosts have already done all the work to build an audience and more importantly, a trusting audience. Right. So you as being the guest to that audience and the host inviting you there, you get to borrow a large portion of that trust. So the moment you open your mouth on the podcast, people already kind of believe you. They're excited to learn from you because they already listened to that podcast. They already trust that host for the most part, right? Like people find some random interviews, but for the most part, you're getting sort of loyal listeners who already trust the host. And that's really unique. When you get on, I don't know, Instagram or whatever, like no one's endorsing that, right? You you're on there, you're interrupting people, it's a real quick hit, either like click, take the clickbait or clickbait or they don't. There's really no one endorsing that.

17:24

Well, podcast guessing is much more analogous to like a long form TV interview, right? Except you don't have to travel to a TV studio and do makeup and all that stuff. But like, you know, if you're on 60 minutes and they say, Hey, we're going to feature Dustin as an expert on this topic, we're going to sit down and do this expose for 30 minutes. Like that's a lot of trust. people understand that and they understand that that's not easily gained. Yeah, I'd say long-form educational… you're borrowing trust from the host and probably the the third part of this is it's also story-based when you do it right. And that's really important. So long-form educational could mean I sit here and just like spit out quotes and teach you things as if you're reading a book like an audible book. This is different because it's conversational and you're often telling stories, right? People will remember me probably as like a meat sticks guy, and the fact that I'm in here, why? we told a story right out of the gate here that that feed for people. And they immediately gave me a context. And if they if they think engineers are smart, they're probably going to think I want to hear more what he has to say. I trust him. And I think if they think they have a weird business and they're like, I'm not sure if this would work for me. Starting out the gate, telling obviously true stories, but telling a story about how we build a seven figure brand selling meat sticks, like a little insight baseball here, but there's a reason that the story is part of that.

18:52

And why story? Because story is how our brains  make sense of the world, right? The story is how we retain information, access information, process information. And so, you know, if you want a little proof of that, like we communicated as a species through story before we even had written form and every ancient written form of passing on wisdom and knowledge is through story and parables, right? Like the Bible and the Torah and everything that preceded and came immediately after that. So anyway, I'd say stories, long form educational content, and probably the bigger one I'd say nowadays and sort of this trust recession we find ourselves in is you have the endorsement and implied trust of a leader who's inviting you on. And people are showing up on purpose to listen, right? That you were not interrupting them. They're like seeing the name, the title of the episode. They're downloading it. They're probably in a semi hypnotic state with earbuds in while they walk or do something. And it's just like a very intimate experience. And maybe that's a weird word for people to hear, but it really is. It built intimacy really quickly.

19:55

So you already mentioned this earlier when you chose the words consistently and intentionally. You you're implying there that I can't just show up on a show and wing it. I need to be intentional in how I'm showing up or I'm not going to get the results. I know to that end that you teach a five step framework that you call the five Ps. Very creatively named. I have a framework called the six Ps. Just, you know, everyone loves Ps, right? But before we get into the framework, which we're going to do, I've heard you say in my community, when you did a guest expert session, that most people who come to you have already been doing podcast guesting wrong. Can you explain what wrong looks like from your point of view? We've already kind of quantified the cost of doing it right. Maybe the cost of doing it wrong is just the inverse of that. But talk about the cost of doing it wrong. What does that look like? What does it cost?

21:12

Yeah, I'd say there's two camps where I usually encounter people, right? And keep in mind that I'm the quote unquote podcast guesting guy. So a lot of times when people hear, that's what you do, then they'll kind of come up and open up and they're kind of a one or two buckets or camps. Bucket one is sort of what I was teeing up earlier when I was talking about, you got to do this consistently. They'll say, Hey, I was on a podcast. I met this person at a conference and they invited me on. It was a lot of fun and I didn't really know what I was doing, but I got a client out of it and it's pretty awesome. And, but I don't know how to do it. Like, I don't know how to do it on purpose. I don't know how to do it like a system, right?

21:50

But, you know, so there's belief, they've experienced it, they liked it, and they got results even, but they just don't know how to do that consistently. And then the other bucket, which I actually hear more often, is, hey, Dustin, and there are people real excited to tell me, like, I've been on 100 podcasts this year. And I'm like, holy crap, I don't think I've ever been on 100 podcasts for one topic. You have a business? Yeah, I have a business…

22:18

Like well, what had this what has this done for your business? A lot of times there's this sort of like deer in the headlight look of like I don't know, like not much like because they are very good at connecting and showing… Like they're good at getting on a lot of sort of random or low-level podcast. I don't mean low level by anything about the human behind the microphone, but like low reach low intention kind of a low bar of entry, if you will. But to their credit, they're getting on a lot of those and they're probably a very pleasurable person to listen to. Like they probably are fun to listen to, but what they're lacking is they have very low intention on which shows they're getting on and they probably, in most cases, actually aren't doing a very good job as a guest at being effective. Because it's one thing to be like conversational and friendly. It's very different to be effective where you're positioned in a certain way. You're telling specific stories and most importantly, in the big missing ingredient often is you don't have a call to action or you don't have a call to action that like makes sense for the listener who actually wants to take the next step and ultimately pay your money for your business, right?

23:31

And so those are the two big buckets that I hear. Of course, there are also people that are like, I'm curious about this. I've listened to podcasts. I've never tried to be on one. That's like the third bucket, but I'd say the primary two that I get in my seat are I've done it, but I don't really know how to do it consistently or I do it a lot, but I don't know how to actually make it profitable.

23:53

So I think that's a perfect segue into the next question, which is about purpose. And that is the first P in your framework. Most people don't spend nearly enough time defining their purpose. And for freelancers who want to see a hundred K come out of this, what does the purpose step actually involve and what does it reveal about their  businesses that they may not already know about their businesses?

24:32

Yeah, I love that question, especially for freelancers. As I told you… I would have identified as a freelancer a couple of different chapters in my entrepreneurial journey. And what that usually implies is kind of do a lot of things for a lot of people. I know, and so this purpose step actually becomes very critical. It's really important for everyone. And it's the step that most people skip. And I'm going to say real quick, the second step is plan, which is basically which podcast you go on.  And I'm sure anyone listening is like, I thought that would be the first step. Like you're in new podcast guesting you need to know which shows you're going to go on. But there's a very important reason we start instead with this what we call purpose and purpose is answering the question Why would you want to be on a podcast in the first place? Like what is the purpose behind this opportunity and this marketing channel? Which is kind of a simple question because you probably like money or like leads. But there's some other underlying questions that we really have to answer. This is where we always start with people with every client and it's always super helpful, not just to the podcast guesting efforts that follow, but really to their business fundamentally.

25:41

And so one of the key questions is, that you need to be able to answer is what is the transformation you provide and who do you provide it to? Then maybe you're like, duh, like I'm selling stuff. Like surely I have this figured out. You probably don't. And I would say I'm four years into this business. I still refine this, right? I think a lot of us, especially as a freelancer, short change or kind of overlook the fact that we actually provide transformation to people's lives.

26:12

Like we do, if anyone's ever paid you money is because you gave them a transformation. And I'll even go back to this extreme example of a meat stick. It's like, do you really transform people's lives with the meat stick? Yes. Otherwise it wouldn't give me two bucks for it. Right. And now a transformation could be like the easy way I like to think of transformation is like you take them from something and to something. Like we create this whole sort of like a visual for people like before Island and after Island. So like on before Island, there's this, these people…

26:42

And you obviously it depends on your market and what your services are, but you can really describe the people stuck on before Island. Like what do they have? How do they feel? What's an average day? Like what's their status? And then they got these people on after Island that they just so desperately want to be. And like, what do they have? What's their, what do they feel? What's their average day? And we call this like a before and after matrix. And the whole idea is your transformation is the bridge between those two islands. Right. And so for a meat steak example, I make it literally be, I go from hungry to like satiated. That's a transformation. That's why people spend money on it, right?

27:14

Ours, I felt like had a deeper meaning and transformation. That's part of the reason we use podcast guesting and that it grew out of my business partner, the third generation family butcher shop owner. He was extremely frustrated with the industry because he had two, he had twin boys. One of them had a food allergy and one of them didn't… And his wife… at the grocery store. She's like, my husband's been, his family's been doing meat for a hundred years and there's not an option that I can feed both my kids at the same time as like a mom, you know? And so he created like a better for you version. And so I don't have to go into all that now, but you can start to see that's a very different story than it's seven grams of protein and it's two bucks. We painted a through story, we showed a deeper transformation, right? For that grocery, by mom and for that mom of a kid with food sensitivities, allergies, or gluten intolerance. That's who our product was really speaking to. Now, would someone pick it up at a gas station because it was red and it looked like meat? Yes, but he was seeking a different transformation. He's like, I'm hungry, this looks decent, I'm gonna eat it. But on a podcast where we're selling in bulk and we're trying get people to subscribe, we're selling a much deeper experience. So anyway, we could spend the whole interview about this. But if you're a freelancer, I want you to get really clear on What is the transformation your services provide to your clients? And if you're like, how do I know I've got it? If you can describe in detail how they feel before they ever meet you and after you're done, like that is gonna do most of the work for like pain and transformation. So we do that because that's gonna give us the messaging and it's also gonna kind of allow us to get some clarity on who would be most receptive to this message. Like who is the real ideal client that we wanna provide this transformation for?

29:02

So that's all in step one. And the other thing in our program that we do in step one is we set up like KPIs. So we set up like goals for each of the subsequent steps so that people can clearly see if they're winning. Like how many podcasts do I want to be on? How many are saying yes? And how many interviews am I doing? And how much money am I actually making? That's how I know it's 2000 per episode on average, because you know, our clients track that. And so again, you don't have to go through my program to do this. But my point is treat this like an actual quantified measuring, I mean quantifiably measurable marketing channel. If you're spending money on paid ads, you'd be tracking how much I'm spending. What's my ROI? What's my ROAS? What's my click rates, all that stuff. You have metrics for podcast guesting too. And you can know if you're winning, but you obviously have to get some reps in to get it going. And that's a very long answer that, but hopefully that gives you the idea of what this is deep value of purpose because all of that is going to help you in your business, even if you never get on a podcast.

30:03

Well, you already kind of answered the next question. I will just underscore that briefly. I know intent targeting is important in terms of your overall framework. And because you already answered it, I'll just sort of call it out. It's very different understanding someone's identity from the demographic standpoint. Like you can know something about their where they live  or their gender or their job or their title, certain things about their identity, like bullet points… knowing their psychographics or knowing their motivations is very different. And I can see how if you spent some time with your own intent targeting, you may end up with a meat stick company going after a very different group of podcasts where you know, Hey, parents with kids who can be finicky eaters and yet kids who are always hungry and always want snacks. Like that's a really good intent. And if you identify that intent, you're going to go after podcasts where the audience might have that intent. And so I just wanted to call that out because it's like if you only got that step right,  you're a lot more likely to succeed with this. But there's another counterintuitive thing that I want to talk about just a little bit before we move on. You mentioned that the second P is plan and you've even already touched on this. Sometimes the  smaller podcasts, smaller maybe in terms of reach, can actually be very promising or very profitable. Can you explain that a little bit more and then maybe give a concrete example if you can think of one and if you can't, that's okay.

32:10

Yeah, I have lots of them. The big idea here is if you looked at all the podcasts available that do interviews and would potentially welcome you as a guest, kind of think about the other small, medium and large podcasts. The large podcasts, I've never really been on. And I've already told you, like we built a seven figure meat stick business and this is, this is where it really blesses is a seven bigger coaching business that we run here too. All using podcast, guesting, and then other more advanced forms of partnership that come from it. But the point is I have never even been on large podcasts and, I've helped, I've coached some people that have been on some cool podcasts. Like I've been behind the scenes coaching people on Ali Abdaal and Amy Porterfield and hopefully I got to have an opportunity to coach someone soon as going on Diary with a CEO. It's like, I understand that world, but what I want people to really hear clearly is you like, you don't need that. Like it's great. Like I view it as like, it's a bonus if a relationship ends up getting you onto a platform like that, like you want to super prepare. And that's what people are paying me and helping prepare, but you don't need that. Like I've buttered my bread, so to speak on small and medium sized podcasts. And that's exactly where we tell our clients to focus.

33:22

And if you're like, what does that mean? The simple way to think about this, just to give you guys a easy button is look at Apple podcasts and the listing for a show that you're considering. And if it's  under 300 ratings, I would consider it medium or small. And if it's under a hundred, I'd say it's on the smaller end. So zero to a hundred, small a hundred to 300 medium, just to give people really rough idea.

33:47

If you look at like Dave Ramsey, it's like they like 35,000, right? Like there's a huge spectrum here, but that's a very, very, very large podcast. In other words, but there's, you know, podcasts that have 500 ratings that I would consider large that some people wouldn't, it's all relative, but the point here is you can make a great living, you can definitely earn six figures plus on small and medium sized podcasts that are, when I say small medium, they don't have massive audiences. They're not for everyone. They're very niche, but they're also established and people like the host and they trust them. And so they have a very niched, dedicated following without breath. There's a lot of depth, not a lot of breath to their audience. And as an example, I mentioned the $200,000 thing earlier. I was personally on a show less than a year ago called the Nathan Barry show. And some people may know Nathan from Kit. You know, he's the CEO of Kit and kits an amazing company and Nathan has lots of influence, of course, but his podcast, if you ask him, it's not huge. This is not for everybody. Like he is like, I cater to professional creators. If you're not making six figures, like I'm probably not the guy for you to be listening to. Like that, because that's who he wants to speak with. And he's made a very conscious decision about that. Last time I checked his podcast has 78 ratings. Iit's like definitely on the smaller end of the spectrum that as I was talking about earlier. So I got on there. Had an amazing time. I use this, I point, I said everyone this interview because like it's my favorite interview. It was in person. It was very well done. And their primary channel is YouTube. And at least the last time I checked the YouTube video has like 2,700 views, which is like, yeah, people would be like 2,700 views. Like my cat video has 20,000. Like that's nothing.

35:42

But this is the point that Austin, I think you're bringing up. That's 2,700 of the right people listening to a 45-minute interview about podcast guesting. Like it is very specific and Nathan's hosting me and they like Nathan, they trust Nathan. So only 2,700 views. And we have, I can tell you for a literal fact, it's probably more like 215 at this point. We've had 215 ish thousand dollars in sales in less than a year from people listening to that podcast, opting in for the call to action at the end and basically going and getting the free thing and offer at the end of the interview, booking a call and saying, I heard you on Nathan Barry's podcast and then buying our programs.

36:24

Not difficult to attribute, in other words.

36:28

Extremely straightforward. is like direct sales from that interview and that's it. And now there's whole, maybe we'll get into this, maybe we'll have time today. There's all these other flywheels that have spun off of that core opportunity because really cool people have been on that show, really cool people listen to that show. So Justin Wells, Pat Flynn, Pamela Slim, Barrett Brooks, I can name a bunch of people that because I was on that show, I was able to develop relationships with people that now feel more like peers. So there's a lot of power in that. And those have become in many cases, multiple five figure opportunities of training and their audiences and things like that.

37:10

So I don't want to confuse people. The point I want to make is 200,000 is like literally of that 400 X people listened, opted in and booked a call and bought stuff. Plus there's at least, at least that much in, you know, secondarily secondary effects that have come as well from a very small podcast in the scheme of, in the scheme of, what's out there.

37:36

So there are so much more that I want to discuss. But in order to keep this interview inside of five hours, right? I want you just to start by telling me what the other Ps are. I want to hear about  how you think about  pitching, like sending an email pitch specifically the relational anchor, which I think is important. And then I'd also like to hear you talk about why you think it's important to have three precrafted stories before you just show up to do an interview.

38:17

Yeah, perfect. I'll go quick. So five P's: purpose, plan, pitch, perform, profit. And we just talked about purpose. I just talked some about plan, which is podcast selection. So we go pitch, which is what do you ask that? What do you send to the host to get them to say yes and have you on their show? Perform is going to be about the stories. So that's like, what do you say on the show? And then profit is all the ways you can leverage one interview to grow your business and get more leads and create these flywheel effects that I kind of alluded to with the Nathan Barry example. So with the pitch, I'd say the big idea here is these are not cold pitches. We are not playing a quantity game. We're playing a quality game and an intentional game. So  if you're anywhere on the internet, you probably get these emails. If you don't have a podcast, I do have a podcast. So I get a ton of them.

39:07

And you know that they're sending out 10,000, you know, through an AI agent or whatever. It's like, everyone's getting the same one. And they, you know, they're playing a numbers game out of 10,000. I'm sure they do get one or two yeses, right. And the cost of sending those out monetarily is low. I'd say relationally and reputationally, it's high, but that's not what we're doing. So the way that we like to think of pitches is they kind of come in three parts, relational anchor, which I'm going to focus on… what's in it for the host in the middle of this message. And then the closing is like a very clear ask, like what do you actually want from the host? So just imagine you've done some research, you see a show, you're like, this seems like the right topic, the right size. And I'm going to ask them if I can be on. And that's really how this works, at least to start. So when you send this message to them, the good news is you can create like a master pitch. So even though we're not doing spray and pray, we are going to create a template. Basically, we're going to create a structure of like what's in it for the audience. Just think about that as like a bullet three to five bullet points summary that's well written. It's kind of copy written. Um, and it talks about the things you want to teach and stories that you want to tell, right? And then the ask is basically, are you interested in having me on? So those parts of the message basically are recyclable.

40:31

Critically, the opening part is not. So the opening part we call relational anchor, but it's personalization and it's not like generic AI personalization. It's spending a little time seeing who that host is, seeing what their business is about, seeing what their podcast is about. Not a ton of time. We train people's virtual assistants to do this on their behalf ultimately, but it does take intention. And our whole thing is like, let's send out 10 pitches and get five of them to say yes, instead of trying to send out a thousand and hope that five say yes because the ones that we're being much more selective about which ones are try to be on. Even if they say no, we want that host to like be like… We're backlogged we can't take you right now but you seem like a cool dude Austin like let's have a conversation anyway. We wanted to just feel like you're a person up to is service, you're smart. You're an expert at the thing you do and we all know how it feels to get the the mass generated stuff. So I'll stop there, but that that sort of gives people a quick crash course and pitch.

40:34

I was emailing yesterday with a friend and a woman I consider a peer and her name is Shannon. And years ago, I emailed her and asked to be on her podcast and she essentially said not right now. But here's the thing, because I spent some time crafting the pitch, I didn't ruin my reputation with her before we even had a relationship. Yep. So I have been on her podcast, I think maybe twice at this point. I met up with her for coffee last time I was in Columbus where she lives. She taught a guest expert session inside of my community the same way you did. And she's a peer. And like that, I think is something that the folks who, who use the spray and pray method, forget about or ignore is that if you go to a conference and someone remembers that you sent just a terrible pitch to them, they're not going to be eager to go out to lunch with you or grab coffee or get on an intro call or do a virtual coffee or any of that. So that's what I about. Yeah… say what you're going to say.

43:02

I didn't mean to interject, but  what I want to say here is to, and this is really relevant to the pitch part… to get this flywheel started, you will send out what I just described, which effectively a cold email, but very personal and warmed up as much as possible with the person receiving it that actually doesn't know you. What happens if you get a few reps in and you're actually doing some podcast interviews and this ties back to what you just shared Austin is we build off that momentum in multiple ways. One of which though is like, we asked the host, you know other hosts? And the thing about the podcasting world is even though there's 3.2 million of them, it's a really small world. And so Shannon, not only are you a peer and you get to have coffee and even if she told you no, she will inevitably at a conference, you know, be next to another podcast host and their peers in a different way.  And I guess the whole point of this is the relationship is everything. Don't jeopardize it by sending a crappy pitch as the starting point of the relationship. Be a person of service. Give praise to the person, thank them for the work that they do and, make a direct ask. Like, yeah, I'd love to be on your show. And the reason I want to be honest is I really think I can serve your audience. And the whole point is if you develop great relationships with hosts, even if they say no initially, that is a major shortcut to getting on more podcasts, right? Like hosts refer to hosts and guests that are on shows, many of them have podcasts and we're able to shortcut this process. So one thing I think when I start talking about this, people are like, Oh my gosh, sounds like a ton of work. I'm like, well, like the first 10 pitches are a lot of work, but once the five of them say yes, and you get those under your belt, a flywheel effect kicks in here. And I've written a, I've written an outreach email in three years, but I'm on about a podcast a week, I do lots of guest training. Why is that? Because I build relationships, you know, by doing it the hard way, quote unquote, for the first six to 12 months. But anyway, your Shannon example just kind of triggered that, it was like, well, yeah, like Shannon, we recommend you to all kinds of podcast hosts now, even though the first time you reached out, she said, not right now. And you were cool about how you dealt with that, and it wasn't rejection, it was just not right now. And you still were being a person of service to her, so.

45:17

That's right. I can't help but think about shortcuts and the fact that they usually don't work. And meanwhile, if you're willing to put in the work and get the flywheel moving, even if it's takes a lot of effort at first, you know, you already kind of alluded to this. Every podcast appearancethat you do makes the next one that much easier.  Yes. But before we end, I do want to hear you talk about precrafted stories and then, I also want to ask this question  because I think it's kind of the pink polka dotted elephant in the room. What needs to be true about a freelancer's business  before  podcast guesting can actually add a hundred thousand dollars in profit. And then just to put everybody at ease. I know that you have a playbook that you can offer people at the end, because now that some people are salivating, they're like, no, this interview is too short. And I'm like, I agree. But Dustin has something for you. So everyone calmed down.

46:45

OK, he's waiting and will definitely not leave people hanging on that. So yeah, real quickly on the what do you say when they say yes to the interview and you show up? Like, how do you actually do it well? Well, the thing that really helps is what you said, Austin, three precrafted stories is what we like to coach people through. First one is your origin story. The second one is what we call like authority or credibility or authority or celebrity story. And then the third one is sort of an average Jane story.

47:17

So real quickly, at the beginning of an interview someone's gonna ask you tell me about yourself and we don't want to launch into our whole origin story with that… We're gonna do a quick sort of one-line introduction. The next question is almost always gonna be some version of tell me more. How'd you get into this, right? You asked me that today on the center of it here. And so your origin story is you showing empathy and authority and is telling a quick version two to three minute version of your origin story, but it's very important that you start with empathy.

47:47

So you very likely to go back to the beginning, you very likely started your journey on before Island and now you're on after Island and everyone else that's listening or not everyone, but the right people who are listening want to follow you across that bridge. You have to meet them back up before Island. So you have to be like talking about what it felt like to be in that state, right? And then you talk about the journey that you went on to find help. And now you're a guide to other people who want to cross this bridge. So that, but that's the origin story. That's actually pretty easy for people. With a little structure, most people have a very compelling origin story. The second story, called the authority or celebrity story, basically right before you start to really teach your framework or teach the thing that you're there to focus on, it's really helpful to tie your credibility to some external source that they already believe.

48:42

Basically, for me, I'll just use quick example would be make this easier to understand. If I'm on a marketing podcast and I talk about podcast guesting and they're like, tell me about the five P's. Many times you'll hear me say something like, yes, I'd love to. Before I do that, just to give, just so people know I'm not like, this isn't just a Dustin thing. Many of your listeners have heard of Donald Miller. Like he wrote this really cool book called Building a Story Brand.  And if you don't know Donald Miller, you probably know James Clear or all these like nonfiction, Tony Robbins. They all do podcast guesting, right? And they're all telling stories as like one of the primary ways that they do marketing. Well, just by saying that it's like, okay, that's true. Like, so now someone that's not named…

49:28

This is a proven strategy and there's even the subtle halo effect of if you mentioned those people, you now get associated with those people.

49:39

Yeah, just pick one and it could actually be a celebrity if that makes sense in your, but usually it's an authority within your niche. So like most of the people listening would have heard of this person. Typically they're an author or speaker, right? And, you don't need to have worked with them at all. It's just like, look, they do some portion of what I'm about to tell you because it makes it more believable because there's an external authority. And then, and that usually happens kind of in the middle of the interview. And that's a simple story to put together. You just want to need one good example. And then the third, which will probably be the easiest for most people is what call the average Jane story, right? The average Joe story. And it's basically saying normal people can do this too, right? And it's just a case study. So if you think about an interview, you introduce yourself, you tell the origin story and how you really get what it's like to be in the before world and before Island and how you made it to after Island. And that's why you're passionate about what you do. And then they're like, cool, teach us how you do this. You're like, great. Let me tell you about someone, anyone listening probably has heard of this person who does this really well.

50:37

And or maybe I learned from that person or maybe that person was a client however, however you want to tie to them. And then to close out it's gonna sound like Well, it's cool. It worked for you. It works for Donald Miller. One for our listeners which is kind of where you went with your final question about what must be true, right? The way to answer that is like, let me tell you about Jill. Jill is someone no one's heard of right and you kind of want to emphasize that she's just a normal person She has flaws just like all of us. But here's what she was able to do with the thing I teach or here's the thing that she was able to do as my client. And it just kind of closes things down by saying, ah, this works for normal people like me. And then the final thing is usually, well, how do we get started? If someone's really interested in knowing more, it's like, be like Jill, go start over here. That's where Jill started. And you kind of give your call to action at that point. Right. But those are the three stories. They're really useful in lots of different ways, but in a podcast interview, that's typically how they lay out.

51:33

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense when I think about marketing framing and about how we often think about objections and how we think about being strategic and marketing enables us to preempt objections before they even happen. And like an origin story is like, why should I pay attention to this person? Why should I care? And then the authority building story is like, well, does this work  or is this just snake oil? Is this real? And then the last one is like, would this work for me? I'm not sure I believe that because I don't have these advantages or this experience or whatever.  

52:17

Perfect summary. Yep. That's it.

52:20

So with freelancers listening who are like, okay, Dustin, I need to hear your sort of every man or every woman's story about how this can work. I may actually be able to… can I give you one?

52:38

Please. I'd love to hear it.

52:41

So I sent a podcast pitch to a guy named Ed. He did not respond. I was a little bit embarrassed. And then I followed up, like with my wobbly knees because I hadn't sent a whole lot of pitches and I wanted it to be easy. He apologized. said, I'm so sorry. Your original email got caught in my spam filter. So I'm so glad you followed up. I'd love to have you on my show. And I was like, Oh, like, okay. Really glad I followed up anyway. He had me on his show. And I think if I recall the episode actually dropped in August and then he maybe three or four weeks later emailed me and he said, people are losing their minds over this episode. And I want to be very clear on something. When I pitched the topic to him, I actually pitched three topics  and I just picked three kind of randomly and I didn't actually know that the topic he picked would be the one that would land really well. I don't think he knew that either, but he said, I have gotten a more enthusiastic response to this interview than just about any other interview I've ever put on my podcast. Would you be willing to show up to my private boardroom, like his top tier coaching program, and do a private training on the same topic? Which was how do you sell strategy as a standalone offer as a freelancer? And I said, I'd love to. And would you consider  selling some sort of program on this teaching this to your audience?

54:46

He was like, I'd love to discuss that with you. And I'm like, really? And again, I was like, just trying to be bold, right? But anyway, my point in bringing all that up is I do not know the number off the top of my head, but we sold that program three or four times to his audience. Tens of thousands of dollars in direct revenue. That podcast interview produced probably four or five one-on-one coaching engagements, each of which is worth about 10K to me.

55:24

Wow. So you had my Nathan Barry record beat. It’s awesome.

55:28

Well, so the reason I bring it up is I was nervous about sending the pitch. I was nervous about following up. I was nervous about asking him to deepen the relationship. He has become a friend. We've met up multiple times in Chattanooga cause he lives in Atlanta. So we'll meet halfway. And we do sort of like this co-mentoring sort of two person mastermind. I got a friend out of it. And so I just would encourage anyone listening to try it and don't listen to your fear at first because you could end up connecting with people who become… like those relationships become deeply meaningful to you. You know, their spouses, you know, their kids, like you care about them as people and about seeing their businesses thrive long-term. So don't make this artificially smaller than it has to be. And certainly don't let fear about what might happen make your decisions for you because I am that every man or, or average Joe, I am that person who was frankly scared to do this at first. And then now looking back, I've probably been on 50 plus podcasts. And every time I talk to you, Dustin, I'm like, dang it, why aren't I getting more podcasts? So anyway, I am so thankful that we got to chat again. Would you tell people how to get this five P’s framework because I really know it can transform some people's businesses.

57:07

Yeah, so it's 7 Figure Leap with the number seven, 7 Figure Leap dot com slash playbook. Real simple. And it will come to you in five days. It's a quick email course, but it's way more than that. Each day has an action item to take and you'll complete at least the initial version of the P right. The five P's. So like just to tie back to what we talked about earlier, the very first day is purpose and I'm giving you the before and after matrix that you can fill out to go from to name your transformation and to get much better words. We had mentioned I'm a story brand guide, so I actually have some affiliation with Donald Miller. But the words are so powerful. And if you only do the first day and only get some better words to describe the work that you do, it'll be free. So it's worth it anyway. I promise that alone will be awesome. Yeah. So 7figureleap.com/playbook.

57:58

Enjoy the 5p framework. Our whole business model is giving everything I know away and then some people want some additional support and a community around it that's the thing that we sell so go and prosper on your own. And if you want to go deeper have questions, obviously Austin knows where to find me

58:15

Brilliant. Thank you again friend. It's always a pleasure and may this year be your best year yet.

58:24

You too, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on.

58:27

Hey, before you go, let me invite you to join our community for more established advanced freelancers. It's called the freelance cake community. One member named Michelle had this to say, I'm just so impressed by the quality of the conversation that's happening in the group. The in-depth questions, experiments and thoughts being shared are just so refreshing. And the other communities I'm a part of, it's all beginner questions, which is fine, but it's awesome to find a more advanced space  where it's okay to ask  more advanced questions. Thank you, Michelle. Here's a little more about the community. Each week we do live group coaching and live coworking. You get access to a massive resource library and obviously the community itself, which we host using Circle. Of course, the people are the best part of all this. It really helps to surround yourself. with smart, accomplished,  and optimistic people who are out there taking risks and building the businesses  they really want. If that interests you, visit  freelancecake.com forward slash community to learn more and apply. You can find that link in the show notes. I hope to see you there.

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