This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Should you pay a publicist to book you as a podcast guest? This question comes to me every now and then when I'm out and about doing events and such. And we've got a caller with basically the same version of the question today. She's trying to build her brand as a lifestyle coach. She wants to go on some podcasts.
Should she hire a publicist to book her as a guest? And you know, we're all trying one way or another to reach people, hopefully the right people with our work, our ideal market, our target customer and so on. And there's no single best way to do that. So we tend to flounder a bit. We tend to try a lot of different stuff.
We try things, hopefully we adjust. Maybe we have one strategy in mind, but another one proves effective. You know, there's all kinds of things you could try and you have limited time. You have limited time, you have limited money. So how do you best channel these resources?
Today's caller, as I said, she's trying to build her brand. Should she hire a publicist? And I'm gonna give a pretty specific answer. I do my best to call it as I see it. So I'll do that in this episode.
Stay tuned, you're gonna hear from Bailey, detailed question and my answer. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Bailey from Austin and I've been listening to the show from episode one. Thanks to you and the team for the great content. I'm trying to build my brand as a health and lifestyle coach and a friend suggested I appear on podcasts to gain followers and influence. How would I go about doing this?
No one really knows me yet. I did some searching and I saw that I could hire a publicist to pitch me to various shows as an expert, but it's expensive and I don't have a big budget. Do you think this would be worth it? If not, what else should I try? Thanks Chris, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
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Let me just give you a clear and honest opinion. I don't think you should do it. I really don't think you should. I have so many friends who have gone down this road, not just for podcasts, but for other things. And they often find that the value is not there.
They spend a lot of money, they don't get a ton of results. I'm sure there are exceptions. I might be getting some emails from people in response to this episode, but I also think as a rule, you're not gonna get the value that you hoped for. You may end up getting booked on some podcasts, but ones that have almost no audience, which may still be good practice for you if that's what you're looking for, but I don't think you should expect that it should have much of an impact business-wise. What's better is to build relationships yourself, and that takes more time, but it is far, far more effective.
These days, most people are getting so many pitches all the time from publicists and assistants and agents and managers. And now with AI, it's just so much worse. The way that you tend to get through to people, the actual creators or decision makers, is by getting to know them. So I would go to events where they're speaking or where you know that they will be. I would become a fan and send fan mail rather than pitch mail.
Or if you're gonna pitch, pitch yourself. I actually like pitches that come directly from people much more than those that come from a publicist. And I know that I'm not the only one who feels that way, just because there's so much communication coming in these days. So don't hesitate to reach out yourself to people that you like. I think you should save your money.
Just my opinion, of course. Listeners, let me know what you think. sidehustleschool.com. You can access the complete archives of many episodes, including some talking about publicity, including just, well, just all sorts of topics. Everything you could think of.
It's all there, it's all free. Download, stream, steal our ideas. No problem, I don't mind that. And of course, you can subscribe or follow for new episodes that come out every day, seven days a week. Thank you.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Sidehustleschool. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
