$100K From Podcast Guesting | The Complete Blueprint

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Dustin: this is a model that creates predictable growth. So even if nothing extraordinary happens, even if there's no unicorn moments,nothing outsized really goes your way, you just show up consistently.
Dustin: The math does its job, and you can count on a six-figure result for your efforts. And I think that's super important because most entrepreneurs are looking for magic bullets,
Intro/Outru: You're listening to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Riechmann
Dustin: as a guest on other people's [00:01:00] podcasts. And what if I could show you the exact math that makes this not just possible, but highly predictable? Well, I'm Dustin Riechmann, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do today on this episode of 7 Figure Leap.
Dustin: So before I get into the math, I want to provide appropriate context. So I really want to create a vision for you, if you haven't, been in this situation before, of what a podcast audience actually is, and then we'll get into the numbers, and it'll all start to flow together. So most marketing puts you in front of strangers, right?
Dustin: So most marketing is unfortunately based on interruption. so cold traffic, you're scrolling through a feed, you're driving by a billboard, you're opening a cold piece of mail. there's lots and lots of examples. But in the online world, cold traffic, scrolling, interruption, and the people receiving these marketing messages, and you've certainly been on the receiving [00:02:00] end of them, spam, cold outreach, all these things, that we encounter all the time, it creates skepticism, right?
Dustin: So skeptical is sorta like the default posture of people when they're interrupted with marketing messages. Podcast guesting is completely different, and I don't think I can overstate this. So what I want you to do right now is sort of put all of what I just said aside. Close your eyes. Unless you're driving, keep your eyes open, but,go into a place in your mind where you can imagine a scenario.
Dustin: So imagine tomorrow that you've been invited to speak, and you've been invited to speak to 1,000 people in a stadium, a very friendly, cheerful stadium, that puts you at ease and, you're really delighted to get to go. But there's 1,000 people there, and these aren't 1,000 random people. Everyone in that stadium chose to be there.
Dustin: They saw the title of the talk right there on the [00:03:00] marquee. It was on their ticket, in fact, because they were given a ticket, and they were invited by someone they trust to come and hear you speak. And that person just came with everyone there. There's 1,000 people in the room. They've all redeemed their tickets.
Dustin: They've all read the promise. They know exactly what they're coming there for. This host has already invited them into the room, and as they sit there and anticipate what they've chosen to listen to, the host stands up, says, "Hey, friends, you know I only bring the best people for you. I'm super delighted today to introduce to you Dustin, and Dustin is here to teach us on this really important topic that I think you should really be paying attention to.
Dustin: Dustin, take it away Right? So that is very much the dynamic of podcast guesting when you do it strategically. That is the power of borrowed trust, right? And I think now more than ever, that [00:04:00] is the most valuable thing in marketing. This is why a podcast with 1,000 listeners can generate way more revenue than a social media account with 100,000 followers, right?
Dustin: 100 to one ratio, I'd still take the 1,000 because we're not interrupting them. We will actually reach them because they are choosing to listen. They're downloading, and they are putting in their earbuds, in the actual podcast scenario, and they're tuning in a semi-hypnotic state while they're, really focused on you, close to their brain, absorbing your information.
Dustin: And they chose to be there, and they are believing and trusting you because this host invited you there and highlighted you as the guest expert. You're not interrupting anyone. You're being welcomed in and imbued with trust. So why do I go through all that before I start talking about math? Because the context really matters, right?
Dustin: The context absolutely matters before we can get to the math, [00:05:00] 'cause the math only works if you actually understand what a podcast audience actually is. All right. Putting on my engineer hat, let's get into some math because I think this is super fun, and I think you'll find it really insightful.
Dustin: So I'm gonna go through this pretty slowly, although it's pretty simple. We don't have the benefit of, a whiteboard here. If it makes it easier for you, you can jot these numbers down, but I promise it's really simple. Our clients, 7 Figure Leap, in our main program, which is called Podcast Profits Accelerator, so I'll just call that PPA.
Dustin: PPA clients on average generate more than $2,000 in direct revenue per podcast interview, right? So 2,000 bucks in revenue per interview. That's, like, really simple summary. some generate less than that, some generate way more than that, but that's the average. So important to point out here is we're not talking about big shows.
Dustin: We're actually talking about [00:06:00] small, maybe medium-sized shows. So that's a per appearance revenue rate on a very approachable show, and it's the average across all the appearances. So obviously there are, you know- Bigger and smaller. So if I said, "Hey, 2,000 bucks, you gotta show up for 30 to 45 minutes and talk about this thing that you love, and everyone's gonna be there 'cause they wanted to be there, and the host is endorsing you.
Dustin: Could I give you 2,000 bucks to do that?" I think most people would say, "Heck yeah." Like, "That's a really good use of my time." But $2,000 is not $100,000, which is where I opened this episode to say you should be able to generate, for sure, as a floor, as a baseline, $100,000 in new revenue for your business using podcast guesting.
Dustin: So how do you go from 2,000 to 100,000? You multiply it by 50, right? So, why do I say 50? Well, our recommended pace, at least to start, I know many people will [00:07:00] throttle down 'cause they get overloaded, or maybe they throttle up if they're launching something. But in general, a really healthy pace for your marketing, if you're gonna use podcast guesting as a primary channel, is to do one interview per week, and there's 52 weeks in a year.
Dustin: So if we take off, Christmas and, Fourth of July, there's roughly 50 weeks a year. And obviously, you can batch these, and we're not talking about doing this literally one a week. But 50 a year times 2,000 is, drum roll, it's $100,000. So that is the basic math, right? So if you can do an average job on decent shows, I'm gonna, a-as we close out, I'm g- I'm talking about the bigger opportunity, and then I wanna talk about the criteria that make this true.
Dustin: But, if you meet the criteria and you're doing th-the things that we teach in PPA, if you just do that and you just get average results and you just do it consistently, it should be $100,000, right? And [00:08:00] this is really a game of singles, like talking about baseball, right? We're just hitting a lot of singles in this.
Dustin: This is not a home run strategy. We're not going big, which I really like 'cause I feel like this is a model that creates predictable growth. So even if nothing extraordinary happens, even if there's no unicorn moments,nothing outsized really goes your way, you just show up consistently.
Dustin: The math does its job, and you can count on a six-figure result for your efforts. And I think that's super important because most entrepreneurs are looking for magic bullets, right? And it's like all or nothing. I'm gambling more or less, right? We don't need to gamble. We can get predictable results, right?
Dustin: So we're gonna do some basic foundational things to make sure we're getting on the right shows and we're taking the right action with that. Again, I'll close out today's episode with that so you can have that fresh in your mind. But just know that if you do the right thing on the right shows once a week, $100,000 should very much be your minimum [00:09:00] expectation.
Dustin: It's a system that works even on boring days and even when you're not a lucky person. And here's the better part. if you do this consistently, you don't just get $2,000 per episode times 50 because we are in a very unique game. We're not in a game of, one in and one out. We're not in a linear game because we are working with humans.
Dustin: And humans, for all of our faults, create exponential opportunity because humans have networks, and whenever you tap into a network, there's a network effect, there's a flywheel effect, and you get exponential growth sometimes, right? And that's kind of the fun part of this. I like to call these the unicorn moments.
Dustin: So If the $100,000 is basically the floor, right? That's sort of the baseline. What that doesn't capture is inflection points, right? So if you can kind [00:10:00] of draw this in your mind's eye and you think of like a linear graph, you just draw a straight line up and to the right, like that's what... If all the interview did was average results and you just did it consistently, you do it once, you get 2,000.
Dustin: If you do it 10 times, you get 20,000. If you do it 50 times, you get 100,000. Like that would be a straight line, right? But what's really cool about podcast guesting, and one of the reasons I'm so passionate about it, is that is not what happens. What actually happens is one of these interviews, typically about 10%, right?
Dustin: but several of these interviews, so the more consistent you are, the more reps you take, the more likelihood you're gonna hit one of these home runs. But these inflection points happen where maybe interview four or interview seven or interview 17 doesn't stay on the straight and narrow and keep going straight to the right and up a little bit.
Dustin: It actually takes a step change. Like it goes straight up and then goes to the up and to the right, right? And we call that an inflection [00:11:00] point. And so these inflection points happen where there's one conversation, one experience, really one relationship that compounds into something that totally changes the trajectory of your business completely.
Dustin: So here's the crazy thing. if you have 50 conversations on the right podcast, you're in front of 50 different audiences. You have 50 different hosts that you've built relationships with. There's 50 different sets of guest lists for you to build relationships from, and you just have this massive surface area for luck and for being in the right place at the right time in front of the right human.
Dustin: And any one of these 50 humans, times all the different humans involved, but even the 50 hosts alone, any one of them can create an inflection point, right? Because they say, "Oh my gosh, I gotta bring you into my mastermind. Oh my gosh, you need to speak at my next event. Oh man, I'd love to have, this as an embedded training in my community.
Dustin: I [00:12:00] wanna hire you. Hey, I would, I wanna license your stuff to my community." Right? Or just like, "My audience is absolutely perfect for this, and I already know they're, you're gonna get so many clients from this." Like these things happen. The crazy thing is we can't predict in advance which of these podcasts are gonna create these events, but we can very predictably know that unicorn events will happen if you do the podcast guesting consistently because you're getting exposure to so many humans, right?
Dustin: so a couple examples. I have Probably at least a dozen, honestly, examples personally where these unicorn relationships have happened, and they've created these crazy exponential growth flywheel inflection point events. but a couple of just real specific ones, the Nathan Barry story. So if you've listened to me for a while, you'll know that Nathan was on my podcast last year unpacking a story about me being on his show as a guest.
Dustin: And at the time that he came on, which I think it was like [00:13:00] six, seven months ago, we had generated $140,000. yeah, I think that was the number at that point in time, in direct sales from one interview on Nathan's show. That's a lot more than two, right? That's 140 in one episode. And what's really cool is as of today, it's 230,000, and it's gonna continue to grow.
Dustin: Like, that-- it's exponential growth. And that's only from people hearing that episode and downloading the free gift and booking a call and enrolling in our programs. So, so much more, has come from that. So many other relationships have created their own, revenue and, results and, kind of their own flywheels, their own new graphs, There's way more. I mean, at least double that in total, like, impact of that one interview. But for sure 230,000 that we can just track straight to people putting Nathan Barry interview on the, the application when they booked a call with [00:14:00] us. So I had no idea that show would have that effect, right?
Dustin: I just didn't, I just didn't know. I figured it'd be a good show. Like, otherwise, I wouldn't have pursued it. But wow, it's like, 23X return from... or, I guess half that, whatever it is, 10X return, over the average just in direct revenue, not counting, all the rest. So it is probably twenty to thirty times more valuable than an average episode, and it continues to compound, and that's awesome.
Dustin: So how does that happen? Well, it happens 'cause I do Consistent interviews with a variety of audiences very intentionally, right? Like, I do this intentionally, but I just can't predict in advance which of these things is gonna kinda go wild. and that was one of them. Going way back in my story, back when I had the meat stick company, circa 2020, 2021, I was on a podcast talking about the story of that [00:15:00] brand and COVID and all the stuff we were going through, and this young guy reached out and he said, "Hey, I work as a finance guy," like a, like brand new, h- here in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Dustin: I work at Walmart. And he's like, "Can I introduce you to someone, here in the company if I can find them?" Like, he didn't even know who to introduce me to. And I'm like, "Yeah, that'd be cool." I mean, it planted a seed in a series of conversations that two years later resulted in our company, that company, being on the shelves of Walmart, like literally the largest retailer in the world.
Dustin: We had no business, like having that level of attention. And the reason it took two years is in part because we had to grow into the opportunity. But the Fact remains that the invitation, the unicorn event 1,000% happened because I was on a podcast and someone heard it, and they set the wheels in motion, right?
Dustin: There's zero chance ever that we would've ended up in Walmart had I not been on that [00:16:00] podcast. But that podcast had nothing to do with Walmart, right? It was simply the exposure to an audience, and someone in the audience happened to have this connection, which led to this amazing opportunity. there was another episode.
Dustin: It happened like three weeks later, which was a little more intentional, but I interviewed about that brand with the vice president of a subscription box company that was in kind of an interesting growth moment in their trajectory with COVID, and built a relationship there and sent him samples, and he kind of fell in love with what we were doing, and we did a sample run, and, we ended up being their exclusive vendor for protein snacks, for a whole year.
Dustin: We had a $550,000 purchase order from this company 100% because I was on this podcast, right? It's a very small niche podcast. So that's three. I could keep going, but my point here is whether it's for the meat stick company, for this company, and of course hundreds of clients, we see this [00:17:00] all the time in our community.
Dustin: There are absolutely opportunities for you to hit the jackpot, right? but you gotta be in the game to do that, and the best thing about this is it's not a game of hit the jackpot or lose, like paid ads typically is. It's a game of like, "I'm going to win. Like, I'm going to win, consistently as long as I'm doing things the right way," and that's where that $100,000 floor comes in.
Dustin: But, if I do this consistently, and I really am diligent about building relationships, and I really pay attention to the signals as they come back, there's no reason to believe I'm not gonna have multiple opportunities a year To have crazy outsized results, right? These really cool inflection points.
Dustin: And that's what's most exciting to me. So you may have heard me talk before about, like, podcast guesting should be a six-figure marketing channel, and sometimes I'll put it in parentheses after the six, I'll say, or [00:18:00] even seven. And it totally is, right? it totally can be the foundation of a seven-figure business.
Dustin: But it should at least be six figures, which is the math I wanted to mostly focus on in today's episode. But what I wanted to show you is, yeah, $2,000 an episode on average is good. Are there $0 episodes? Are there $100 episodes? Absolutely. are there $5,000 episodes and $20,000 episodes? Of course.
Dustin: That's why there's an average of 2,000. But it's these outliers that I think makes it most exciting. but you don't have to depend on those to make the math work, because the math works at sort of the foundational, repetitive, consistent, predictable, level, and then you get all the upside because there's humans involved, and humans have networks, and humans, again, have, the ability to create really crazy exponential unicorn outcomes.
Dustin: So the baseline math gets you to 100,000. The unicorn math is why some of our clients look back at, [00:19:00] like, a single interview as the moment that everything changed in their business, and that brings me such joy. so Why don't we just, like, have all unicorns? Well, the bad news is we don't know in advance which of these are gonna be unicorns.
Dustin: Otherwise, yeah, we'd just do unicorns. But, you find the unicorns by doing the repetitive, consistent, dividend-paying episodes, and then you- you'll hit the, you'll hit the crazy ones, along the way. I think that's the best way to think about this, and I think it's actually what makes it so, appealing to most of us.
Dustin: if we can show up, do our thing, be experts, and have that consistently generate leads, that consistently generates the revenue that we want in our business, knowing that we're gonna also hit these really cool opportunities with relationships that are gonna grow even more, like, to me, that's music to my ears, which is why I'm so passionate about this medium.
Dustin: So, I do wanna kinda close out here with the how, right? Like, you may be listening to this and you're [00:20:00] like, "Look, man, I've been on three podcasts. there wasn't a $6,000 check in my bank account. Like, I don't know where this 2,000,episode comes from." Again, it's an average, and our clients are doing this consistently, and they're also doing it with excellence because they're learning from us, and they know exactly how to do it the right way.
Dustin: But there's a few key ingredients. So you need to be on the right shows. you need audiences that contain your ideal clients. Not just big numbers, right? Like intentionally selected niche audiences. So right show. Number two, right message. You gotta actually show up and deliver value, and you've got to do something that moves people from just being a passive listener to being a lead.
Dustin: So that's number two. Number three, you gotta have the right follow-through, right? Most guests leave 80% of the value on the table by doing absolutely nothing when their episode airs. So if you're listening and you're like, "I've been on like 10 podcasts this year, and I'm not sure what it did for my business," well, the fact that you're not sure shows me you're not [00:21:00] being very intentional.
Dustin: And that's not, a slap or, talking down to you. It's just the reality of how most people do most things, including podcast guesting. But I can promise you that 80% of the value of the interview happens after the interview, right? That's the majority of the time we spend with our clients is how do you leverage these interviews to actually grow your business with it, right?
Dustin: There is a foundation, which is the first, two things. You gotta have the right show and the right message. But then you've got to do the right follow-through, and that's where a lot of the, that's the 80/20 of this where-- that most people miss out on. But that's really it. It's, with that, obviously, there's a lot of details with that, and we're happy to, to help you with that 'cause it's what we're known for, and there's lots of episodes of this podcast that break down our five P framework and sort of the process.
Dustin: But the big idea is get on the right shows, deliver the right message, have the right follow-through. That will create the math that I've been talking about since the start of today's episode. The math is really [00:22:00] simple. It's the execution that most people need help with. So this hundred thousand dollar marketing channel isn't hiding anywhere.
Dustin: It's sitting around the other side of a process that most people just never learn. So think again about being in this stadium. So not one time, but every single week. So every week, there's a stadium, a small stadium, but they're full of people that are choosing to be there 'cause they wanna hear what you have to say.
Dustin: They're interested in your topic. There's a host waiting to welcome them and you in, introduce you and endorse you to that audience. And the question is whether you're the guest that's The one in the stadium and the man in the arena, the woman in the arena here, are you that person who's standing there waiting to be introduced by a host that people trust and care about?
Dustin: Are you still sitting at home posting on social media, trying to be anonymous, shouting into the void and hoping that someone accidentally stumbles upon you and your stuff? So you're listening to this podcast. You've made it through [00:23:00] here, 23 minutes in. I hope you're in the former. and I just want to encourage you that there is small stadiums all over your country, all over the world, of people who desperately need your unique message, your teaching, your frameworks, your story, your inspiration, your case studies.
Dustin: they need this like unique value that only you can provide. And the really cool thing is if you go provide it and you're proactive and you have a good system to do this consistently, you can definitely have predictable revenue as a result of those efforts. And then you get the unicorn math on top of it to make it all the more fun.
Dustin: So if you want to explore, what this math looks like specific to you, your offer, your audience, this is what we do and this is, why we offer strategy calls. So we would love to have a conversation with you, learn more about your business, your goals, like who you serve, what your offers are currently, and we will map out, a strategy specific to you.
Dustin: If it makes sense, it'll look like podcast guesting and we'll talk about how [00:24:00] that would work and some audiences that you should be in front of. And then, if it's a good fit, we'll obviously tell you how we can help you with that as part of our Podcast Profits Accelerator program. And if it's not a good fit, you're going to walk away with, a lot more insight and a lot more clarity than you have currently.
Dustin: But regardless of all that, I hope that you find today's math encouraging, inspiring, motivational. and if you do want our help with that, you can just go to sevenfigureleap.com/call. we will be standing by,eagerly awaiting a conversation with you to help you make this a reality for your own business.
Dustin: But that is the simple math behind adding $100,000 as a podcast guest to your business this year [00:25:00] [00:26:00]