#150 – Podcast Guesting for Web Designers with Jenn Zellers

Shannon Mattern (00:02.002)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. And today I am joined by Jen Zellers from Visibility Ecosystem. And we are here to talk about all of the ways that you can market yourself without social media. Jen and the Visibility Ecosystem team help business owners just like you create sustainable, stressless marketing systems that help you grow your business and generate sleaze.

free sales and you know that I'm all about that here at the profitable web designer. So Jen, welcome to the show.

Jenn (00:40.334)

Thanks so much for having me Shannon, I'm excited to be here.

Shannon Mattern (00:43.43)

my gosh. Okay. So let's start off with you sharing a little bit more with our listeners about your background and really what led you to create the visibility ecosystem.

Jenn (00:57.742)

Yeah, so I've been in online business for about 10 years now. Gosh, that's scary to say. And I've been speaking on summits and podcasts since 2015. And I am actually in process right now as of this recording anyway of hosting my sixth summit. So I've kind of been around the block on speaking and collaborations and that kind of thing. And I've just realized that it is the best way to market your business, not just.

in the moment but also using it for your marketing assets so that you don't have to be tied down to social media as your main marketing platform.

Shannon Mattern (01:33.666)

I love that and we were chatting before I hit record or in our first take, cause this is take two of our interview. We were chatting about how like you've never been a social media person. I've never been a social media person. It just doesn't.

Jenn (01:40.366)

You

Shannon Mattern (01:52.306)

Like I know the way some people feel about Instagram, like it's second nature for them to create content there. And it is absolutely not second nature for me to create content there, but for me to do a podcast or have a conversation or like speak on a summit or anything like that just feels so natural to me. So I love that you're here to talk about this. And I want to take, go back to 2015, like,

What kinds of things were you speaking about back in 2015? I know we have been in each other's orbits for 10 years at least, but what types of things were you speaking about when you discovered, this is the way to market?

Jenn (02:40.002)

Yeah, so back then it was a couple iterations of my business ago. My husband and I were running a business for creatives and so like kind of how to be creative in limited amounts of time and resources and stuff. And so I was talking about stuff like that and that was also morphing into like how to create a creative business and that kind of thing. So back then that was what I was talking about. Business is always as a whole been kind of my thing.

I guess you could say.

Shannon Mattern (03:12.666)

And so you like, how did you even stumble upon speaking at conferences and summits or anything like, what was that journey like for you back then?

Jenn (03:26.52)

So that's actually been like speaking and performing, so to speak, is something that I've always done. Like I was an Irish step dancer as a kid. I loved doing plays. Like acting's kind of my side hobby. And my husband and I, actually funny story, met as co-hosts of the evening radio show at college. And so speaking's been part of our story for literally as long as we've known each other.

My husband is actually a public speaking coach. So he teaches at the university level and he's coached competitive public speakers like that go to nationals and stuff like that. And so he's got a really deep knowledge of speaking. And since I've got the business side, that's all kind of come together. And that's how we've ended up kind of honing in on speaking and that kind of thing as our main.

main thing and I just love speaking. It's conversations are such a better place for me to start a marketing campaign, not campaign, but like to create my marketing assets. I guess is the better way to say it because you're going to ask me questions that someone else isn't going to ask and I'm to be able to take those and put them out there and answer questions that someone else doesn't even know that they wanted to ask. But then they go, my gosh, that was the answer I needed. And so that's what I love doing for

all my clients do is giving them those kind of questions that they can get the answers to and turn them into marketing. hopefully that answered the question.

Shannon Mattern (05:02.33)

Yeah, no, I was just thinking I love that so much. And I find it fascinating that like you're like, I was a performer as a kid. you know, like I do these things. My husband is a public speaking like a competitive public speaking coach because and we both love this like channel of communication marketing. But I would say I am the opposite of that. I did not.

want to be on any type of stage in any kind of way whatsoever. I was forced to take a public speaking class in college for my communications degree. And I remember being so nervous. And when it was time to stand up in front of the class, and I'm not talking like a lecture hall, I'm talking about like, maybe 25 people in like the breakout room. I don't remember.

like the speech itself, think I blacked out for that part of it. remember standing up, remember sitting down and that's it. When I got into corporate and it was like I had a present in a meeting or do something, I would over prepare for weeks and months ahead of time and be so nervous. And so the fact that now I'm hosting a podcast that I speak.

at virtual summits, I spoke at an in-person, I've spoken at several in-person events, but it had been like, took a little five year hiatus with COVID obviously. And like, well not five year, but you know, it was just, you got used to doing things, things online. I spoke at an in-person event recently and all those nerves came flooding back.

but way less intense than it used to be. But it's so interesting because I'm curious if a lot of the people that find you and come to work with you are like, yes, I don't want to do social media. I don't want to do intensive content marketing things. But also I am terrified of like being visible, public's like quote unquote public speaking.

Shannon Mattern (07:17.626)

So what's your experience been with that?

Jenn (07:21.102)

Yeah, I've had a lot of folks who say, okay, I I need to be visible and like not just for marketing as a whole, but for that confidence piece. My husband actually, when he teaches, cause he teaches that speech class that you had to take that you didn't want to take. And he likes to do something with his students where he makes them do a speech every single day, but it's not a full speech. It's literally a 20 second talk and he gives them a very simple prompt. So it might be like peanut butter or jelly.

which one is the one that needs to go thicker on the sandwich or dogs versus cats. And they just talk for 20 seconds. And his students have said that has been one of the most impactful things that they've gotten out of the pre or out of the class because they've built that confidence muscle. So like that's one of the things that we like to do with our clients. And that's one of the things that I find the podcast tours do is give you that chance to be in a casual setting and build your confidence muscle.

And the other thing is like, I'm an extrovert. I love being in front of people. I love talking. I love being in like big groups of people where I know that we have something in common, but a lot of my clients are introverts and podcast guesting actually works really, really well for them because they're having that one-on-one conversation. It's not intimidating. It's not scary. They're just like, I'm just talking to Shannon, but I'm also talking to you, the listener. And so when you're able to kind of just ramp down the

stress levels and the pressure, you're able to kind of find your flow and enjoy it a lot more. And you can forget that you're talking to the podcast listeners because you're just talking to the host. yeah, whether you're an extrovert or an introvert or you're terrified of public speaking, but you know you need to do it, you can kind of build that muscle up slowly and find your rhythm and what actually works for you.

Shannon Mattern (09:15.256)

I love that. you know, full disclosure, Jen has a, offer called the no fuss podcast tour. And when I've been on your email list for a hundred years, I don't, I don't even know. I've been on it forever. get your daily emails and it must've been last fall or winter. You sent out an email about this like podcast tour that you're doing. And I'm like, what is this? I need to know more about this.

because it's always on my to-do list to make a list of podcasts that have web designers as listeners or that could potentially have web designers in their audience and like do all their research and write the pitch and reach out and just start being on more podcasts because A, I love podcasting. It's my favorite. I feel like it's so selfish of me to get to be like, I get to.

talk to basically whoever I want for an hour and pick their brain and ask them all the things that I'm curious about, but I also know that my audience is curious about, and just have a conversation and meet cool people. It's kind of my dream life, and the fact that I get to do this all the time is awesome. I also love the flip side of it, of letting the host just ask me questions and I just get to talk about whatever.

I want to talk about and then I get to meet that person and we get to like, we know that we're both serving the same audience and how can we collaborate and it's like, I just made a new friend because I spent an hour with someone. So I love it, but I never prioritize it because it just sounds like so much work to like pull it all together and I'd be like, well, just like find one at a time and then not make the list and you know, whatever happens then I just don't.

I like, that's a no brainer. Let me sign up for that. And then like you delivered my podcast tour and I'm just, and I'm still working my way through sending all the pitches. Cause I don't want all of the podcasts scheduled all at once. So I'm like working my way through it, but

Shannon Mattern (11:32.568)

Yeah, it's just, I just want you to know that it has been like amazing. And I want everyone listening to this who's ever considered pitching themselves for podcasts to work with you on that because you just take so much of the load off. So tell me more about how that offer came to be. Like what were you seeing in with your clients, your students, the community, the landscape?

all around that you're like, this is what people need.

Jenn (12:06.242)

Yeah, so that actually came about because we originally had a VIP experience where I did the kind of the strategy side of things and like, here, let's find your profitable speaking topic and dial everything in before they then go work with my husband Lucas to do the speaking skills and create the presentation outline and stuff like that. And then we would take everything that we kind of learned about them and curated during that part and turned it into a podcast tour VIP day.

as the last part of that experience. But especially going into last year, I was recognizing people want done for you, but they don't necessarily want the giant packages as much anymore. Like there are still people who want to meet that, but there are also people who need something bite size. And I said, okay, how can I like, what I needed was all of that information that we gathered during that first part of the VIP experience in order to make a really effective podcast tour.

But how can I actually make it more accessible and something that they can do a bit more easily without having to be on two to four hours of calls with us? And it kind of just came together that I was able to say, okay, this is the information I really need. can let the rest of it go. And now we just have that one form that you filled out.

that usually only takes about 10 to 15 minutes if you've got everything together. Some folks are like, hey, I'm going to come back to it after I gather up some additional stuff, but it's not a big form. And then you fill that out and we're able to take it from there. And I've been so pleased because every single podcast where I'm like, okay, this feels really dialed in and I'm able to deliver that instead of, like you said, a price that I feel like is a pretty no brainer. And I've just loved being able to do that because yeah, there's so many people who've said,

I've been meaning to do this for three months, six months, whatever. And I just don't have the time or I really, I could do the podcast tour research, but writing all the pitch emails just sucks and I hate it. And I don't want to be the one who has to hit send because I get nervous. And so it's been able to just kind of fill that gap that's been there. And I don't see, like there are other people doing podcast tours, but not quite in this way. So yeah, just kind of came together out of what I was hearing people saying and what I knew that we could deliver.

Jenn (14:23.982)

And it's been great.

Shannon Mattern (14:25.298)

it was, it truly was a game changer for me in terms of just like, just took so much off of my plate to be able to pull it together. And, the questions you asked to put it together were ones that I wouldn't, I would not have like considered a lot of the things that you thought of in putting together the tour. So it was just, it was really amazing. And, you know, all on this podcast.

all of you who are my loyal listeners, thank you, I love you. You know that I'm all about like relationship marketing and building relationships and making connections, not only with people who could become your ideal clients, but more importantly, people who serve your ideal clients in some capacity. And I invited Jen to come on this show because I'm like,

podcasts are an incredible way for web designers to meet, to get in front of their ideal clients. And I hear one of the things that I hear all the time from web designers is that they're like, okay, well, Shannon, I've done everything that you've said. I made a list of all of the people that I know. I'm sending the outreach emails like you tell me to, and I feel good about that, but I have...

hit the end, like, I don't like, this is it. I've exhausted my list. I don't know anyone else now. And I'm like, well, now it's time to kind of go outside of people that you already know to people that you want to know and connect with them. And that's one of the reasons why I was like, you need to come on the show because a podcast, like being a guest on a podcast, I think it's like one's like a few steps lower of a lift than being a summit.

Like speaker for sure. There's not nearly as much preparation that has to happen, but can you share like your perspective and thought process on like, if you were working with a web designer to get them on more podcasts, what would that look like?

Jenn (16:38.328)

Yeah, so I actually have worked with folks who are web designers on the No Fuzz Podcast Tour, so I can actually speak from direct experience. The other, I do want to say one thing though, you mentioned it's a lot easier, like a lower lift than a summit speaker. The other reason that I recommend starting with podcasts is because one, they can help you become a summit speaker because a lot of hosts will end up looking at podcasts for their speakers, but it's also proactive. Most of the time, if you're getting invited to be a summit speaker, it's because

Shannon Mattern (16:43.962)

Love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenn (17:07.982)

you know the host already or the host knows somebody that you know or they found you through another speaking opportunity. But podcasts are an ongoing thing and you know typically whether they're continuing or not as much as you can until they post a like, we're ending the podcast episode. Summits you never know if the host is going to do it again. So that's one reason that it's also it's a lower lift and as a proactive way to actually get those speaking opportunities. But.

Shannon Mattern (17:34.488)

Yeah, like podcasts are way more evergreen to like a summit happens at like from a start date to an end date. It's all it's available for a short period of time. Still really amazing like opportunity, but also not like evergreen forever ongoing until that podcast comes down, depending on how structured.

Jenn (17:55.406)

So sometimes I actually also work with clients still on evergreening their summits, because that's something that when I co-hosted with Krista Miller, I started doing that for all of mine and I'm still doing that. And so, yeah, we still evergreen them. but yeah, whether or not the summit goes evergreen, you can still use those assets. So I will say that even if it doesn't feel evergreen, you can still use them even if it's not pointing to that summit.

Shannon Mattern (18:01.17)

Wow.

Shannon Mattern (18:08.102)

We're gonna have to talk about that.

Shannon Mattern (18:20.506)

Okay.

Jenn (18:25.74)

But when you are, as a web designer, when you're going on a podcast, you're not looking to target other web designers like I did for Shannon's podcast tour. You're looking to get in front of actual people that you want to work with. So one of my clients, Sam, she is a web designer for typically not just health and wellness professionals, like chiropractors and dentists and massage therapists.

other kinds of therapists like that kind of person. And so she had a really specific type of podcast that she wanted to get onto and she had been trying to find podcasts in that space before this and she was having trouble. She could write the pitch emails but like she didn't really want to and so she actually ended up having me do our podcast tour and I was able to go and find a good chunk like

I think it was almost 30 for hers. I always aim for 20 to 30 because that's a really good sweet spot. It's not too many that is gonna be completely overwhelming, but it's enough that you can typically get booked on at least five podcasts through that. Cause my folks usually have a 25 to 50 % booking rate with my pitching mills. So we went and we pulled all of those podcasts for her. She did opt not to get the pitching mills, but came back for them because she found three months later, she still hadn't written the pitching mills because she had so much else going on.

but I was able to find podcasts that she was like, I don't know why I couldn't find this. So what we always do is we look first at the audience that you want to target. And then we not only look at the audience, but the types of topics that they're covering on that podcast. Because if they are targeting the audience, but they're not talking about something that can dovetail with what you do, it's not going to be a great fit. So that is something else that people often do is they go and they find a podcast that's targeting their audience, but

is not going to be a match for them and what they can bring onto it. Cause it needs to be a win-win for both the host and you as the guest. So yeah, when I'm working with web designers, we also try to get creative because let's be real. Most people don't want to hear about web design. They don't want to hear about their podcast. It's a big project. It's overwhelming. It's kind of scary. And they put it off. So what we do instead is we don't give them what they need, which is a new website. Because like for Sam,

Jenn (20:47.31)

She's like, okay, what my clients are telling me they need is more clients, but their website looks like it's from 1995. And for her audience, that's pretty typical, but they don't think about the website as being the first point of contact with somebody. They don't realize that when someone goes to a massage therapist website and it looks so clunky that it's actually going to drive them away from going to that salon.

in order to get their massages. And so what we do instead is we focus on what do they think they need. And so rather than giving them what they actually need, we give them what they want. And then during that interview, we take those interview questions and we flip them so that that script goes from, need clients to I need a new website in order to get clients. So that way they get drawn in by the title of the episode because the title says,

here's what you need to do to get more clients. When they listen to it, you start off with that and then start turning them so that their mindset shifts and they recognize, okay, in order to get clients, need to do website. So that's typically how I end up working with my NOFLESS Podcast to our clients who are web designers.

Shannon Mattern (22:03.856)

That is so brilliant. you know, one of the things that we always talk about is that like, you know, you're not selling a website, you're not selling yourself, you're not selling your skills, you're not selling SEO, you're not selling any of that, you're selling the outcomes and results that people really want, which would be getting more clients and even further than that, so that you can, you know, have the freedom, flexibility and financial independence that you want that you're like,

running this business for or whatever their mission and vision is. And I love, I think that you're connecting some dots for people in terms of like some objections that they would have to going onto a podcast to be like, who wants to hear about like web design on a podcast or, or on the flip side, like, what if they asked me a technical technical question that I don't know the answer to?

and I look like an idiot and then no one wants to hire me because I couldn't answer this very specific like question in the moment on this podcast interview. And it's real stuff that like we know holds people back. mean, your person who wasn't sending pitch emails, yeah, probably because they're busy, but also probably because there's that like fear of like,

putting yourself out there in a risky public situation that we don't always realize that that's actually what's stopping us and it's not that we're too busy because if we really wanted it, we would make the time. And so I love how you really help them through the process shift from like figure out here's exactly who we're talking to, who we're targeting, what we're talking about and you don't

have to talk about the stuff that they don't even actually care about.

Jenn (24:01.806)

And one other thing is you mentioned that like, if you get a question that you don't know the answer to, and I've actually like, I've been gathering some case studies for the speaker success stories podcast, like private podcasts that I'm working on. And I've been interviewing some of my podcast or clients and a couple of them have actually specifically said I had questions in interviews that I didn't know the answer to right off. And

The way that I always recommend handling it is to say, that is a really great question. I don't have the answer ready at the top of my head, but I would love to get back to you and we can add it to the show notes later. Or if there is something that you do know that is related enough, you can go and say, that's a great question. I don't have the exact answer for that, but, and then flip it over to what they do know. And so that way you don't.

Like you don't look stupid and you don't have to worry about looking stupid. Be willing to acknowledge that you don't know, but you're going to go find out. And that actually can really build trust with the audience because you don't look like some robot who can rattle off everything. And like, maybe you can. Great. Awesome. Then you look like the expert, but it makes you look like a human being who, if you don't know the answer to something for their web design project, you will go find it out and make sure you're delivering the best thing that you can to them.

Shannon Mattern (25:26.736)

I love that so much. I think that, you know, I think from where I sit as a podcast host, when I'm in the host chair, I feel like it's my job to like lead the person through like making them look the best that they can possibly look. Like that's what we want when we're sitting in this chair. We want it to be like a win-win-win. I want it to be a win for you. So.

if as the host, I asked my guests something and they're like, you know what, that's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I would so quickly like pivot, move on, you know, not put it all on them to like, I don't know, be like, come up with an answer. It's not a test. It's a conversation. And so it's more like I'm curious about something. And I might ask you a question that you don't have an opinion on that or you don't

know how to do it or it's irrelevant to what you do. And like, it's my role to like help you pivot away from that too. So I think if, if you've never been a podcast guest before, if you can just think like, like the host wants me to succeed too. This is actually like a very low pressure situation. Then you can just kind of like, take that out of your mind and just relax and like, let it flow.

Jenn (26:55.278)

Yeah. And you can always ask the host to it. And I will say there are some hosts who are not the greatest at steering interviews. You're a great podcast host and you can steer that and you want to make sure the guest looks good. Some podcast hosts don't think about that and that's okay. But you as the guest can actually steer the conversation. Like that's one of the things Lucas tends to work with our clients on is how do you actually move the conversation the way you want it to go as the guest who isn't the one steering it. But that's also something that the podcast tour, like the NoFest podcast tour,

we aim to help with that because when we're writing those pitch emails and even for folks who don't opt for the pitch emails, we are giving them 10 interview questions that are customized to that podcast. And so you can kind of steer the direction that you want the host to go by picking those two to three interview questions that you put in the pitch email. So the host immediately goes, this is the direction that we're going to go. These are the kinds of questions I should ask. And they go off of that rather than you giving them a

blank slate they have to figure out what in the world do I ask them and so you as a guest can actually take control of that and make sure it's going the way you want it to.

Shannon Mattern (28:01.106)

I love that. I love that you're like, I love it when people do my work for me and make it easy. That's beautiful. those are the truly like, those are the pitches that I say yes to even if I don't necessarily always follow the questions, when I can tell someone actually, like, researched the podcast, whether they're a listener or not, but typically they'll like listen to an episode or get an idea.

Jenn (28:08.344)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (28:30.866)

Um, and then they're sincere about like wanting to be on the show. It's not just like, Oh, you have my audience. just want to like, you know, use, use you and move on. It's like, they see a real synergy there and they send a great pitch. Like I will prioritize responding to those and you know, and it doesn't.

It doesn't take that much to send a good pitch because there are so many bad ones. There are so many terrible ones out there. My favorite are like, saw your work on LinkedIn and I'm just like, you didn't because I'm not there. Delete. So yeah.

Jenn (29:12.867)

Yeah.

That's the other thing is standing out as a podcast guest really isn't hard like both during the pitch process because like like you said we focus in our pitch emails that we write for clients on the value that they provide and the fact that they are going to promote it to their audience because most people don't do that. So literally just going and sharing the podcast episode with your audience even just one time but with my clients and recommending put it into your content bank rotate it out every so often whether it's once a year once a quarter.

and tag that host, like they're gonna remember you and they're gonna recommend you to other people too.

Shannon Mattern (29:50.63)

Yeah. And, what would you say to someone who's like, I don't have an audience. I'm just a web designer. What would you say to that person?

Jenn (29:57.794)

That's totally fine. Yeah, that's absolutely fine. You don't have to have an audience. You probably have more of an audience than you realize, but in that case, just focus on other ways that you provide value and you can go and provide value in multiple ways. It might be that you connect the host to somebody else and you say, okay, so after this interview, I have someone I think would be a really great guest. Would you like an introduction? And...

you can do other things. Maybe you go and recommend the host as a speaker on a summit or something else. There's so many ways to provide value that doesn't have to rely on your audience. And if you do have an audience and it's just not big, that's okay. Like it doesn't need to be huge. That's usually good podcast hosts anyway. That's not what they're focused on. Like there are some podcast hosts. I had one client who emailed me back after she started pitching and said, I just sent out one of

the podcast pitches that you wrote for me and they said, yeah, we'd love to have you on. The fee is $1997. Those are not the podcasts you want to go on. Those are not the hosts that are focused on the value, but if they're truly focused on providing value for their audience, you coming on is doing that for them as long as you're presenting the right kind of topic. So whether or not you have an audience or anything like that, then you can still provide a lot of value.

Shannon Mattern (31:19.048)

my gosh. And I was just thinking if it was me and I was a web designer being interviewed on a podcast for running your dental practice or whatever, you know, growing your dental practice. And I, once that interview was published, I would use that and reach out to all of my clients to be like, Hey, I was on this new podcast.

I know you're not necessarily in dental, but a lot of the things we talked about might really resonate with your business. Check out this podcast. if you know any dental owners, please feel free to share this episode with them so that they can go check out this podcast. The host was great. And you can just use that as a way to like...

Give something to your clients. That's one of the strategies we teach in the Web Designer Academy all the time with outreach. It's not always asking for something. It's just adding value to your current network and giving them a podcast that you have been interviewed on is an amazing way to provide value.

Jenn (32:29.932)

Yeah, especially if it's something like, how do you use it in order to grow your practice? Because yeah, there may be some stuff specific to dentists, but your chiropractor practice can probably use that too. And like you said, going and having them share it with friends, it makes them look really good. so that way, and you can say, if you share this with a friend and they happen to end up deciding to book me, I get to give you a referral fee. And so it's a

Double win for everybody involved. The host is happy because they're getting more downloads You might potentially get a new client or that client goes actually, you know, it's been three years I really feel like my website could use a refresh and they reach back out to you and So yeah, there's there's so many ways to do it that it doesn't have to be email a list as a big broadcast

Shannon Mattern (33:22.138)

I love that. And I think that that's kind of one of the why, you know, podcast guesting is, I don't know if it is, but it feels like an underutilized strategy for like service providers who have like need a low volume of clients. They don't need to build a big audience. They don't need like that many people listening. And so they don't even think of it as a strategy because they're like, well, I'm not trying to like build, like I'm not trying to.

get in front of that many people all at once, but it's such a huge opportunity to position yourself as an expert to get people to hear what it's like to see you in your element and talking about what you're passionate about. then you don't have to get that many people listening to it for it to have a big impact.

Jenn (34:12.494)

you

And other thing is, as you're sharing it, one thing I've been hearing lately from lot of podcast hosts is that if they have a mix of solo episodes and guest episodes, a lot of the times the guest episodes get lower download numbers. So if you are able to actually get higher download numbers by sharing it with directly with clients or their friends or sending that to your email list, I even have some clients who, because like you said, it builds that authority and that trust with people, they put podcast episodes that they really think showcase them in the best

light in their email nurture sequences and things like that. And so if you're able to increase those download numbers on a guest episode it's also going to stand out. So there's that too.

Shannon Mattern (34:55.25)

my gosh, it's like someone like we're creating like, uber professional free content for you to like go market your business. That's what I love about being on other people's podcasts. But it's like, here's an asset that like the podcast host created for you. That makes you look like an authority that you know, just, it's just amazing so many ways around. So I know I can't say enough about how much I think

All of our listeners should consider being a podcast guest. Tell us more about how you work with people, how you can help them and where's like the best place to get started with you.

Jenn (35:38.466)

Yeah, so I work with clients typically we start off with a no fuss podcast tour and that just means literally you go, you book it at the checkout and then the system automatically sends you that intake form link. You fill that out and.

I take it from there. And that's literally all you have to do is fill out that form. And then I go and I take everything that you sent in that intake form, synthesize it so that I go, okay, these are the exact kinds of podcasts that we're going to look for. These are the kind of topics that we're going to be including. And then I go and I find those 20 to 30 podcasts so that you have that base to start with, whether you do like Shannon's done and do it in smaller batches. I have some clients who send out all 20 to 30 in a week and just do like four or five a day.

Some people do a larger batch, like 10 of them, until they've booked a certain number of podcasts and they hold off. So there's a whole bunch of different ways that people do it, depending on their schedule and their capacity and things like that. But it's a really low-lived way to get started with that and to...

to jumpstart your visibility because it's proactive, like I said before, and it does start getting you those invites. Sometimes the host will get off and say, hey, I need to hire you or, hey, I would love to have you come in and go even deeper in my program and talk to my clients about it. And then they may end up hiring you. So there's so many ways that it can expand beyond just that one podcast episode. And then.

One thing that I also thought about as we were wrapping up that last little segment is you can also ask the host for the embed code for their podcast player and create a little blog on your own site. No one ever does that. So, and that can go and then turn into even more collaboration opportunities. Cause if they see that you're putting that much effort into a podcast episode, they're going to want to do more things with you.

Shannon Mattern (37:29.51)

That's brilliant. I love that idea so much. so when you were sharing that and you're talking about like, you know, we'll ask you questions, we'll go away and find the best podcast for you. I know another objection people are going to have is like, but what if I don't have a niche? Because one of the things we talk about here at the web designer academy is that you really don't have to have a niche to get clients and, you know,

Create a really profitable, sustainable web design business. So what would you say to someone that's like, okay, yeah, but I want to be on podcasts, but I don't have like, I don't just work with one type of client.

Jenn (38:09.646)

So there's a few different ways you can approach that. Sometimes I'll say, you may not have a specific client, but maybe we focus on this particular type of thing, like a particular topic, or maybe we focus on this particular segment of an audience, and then you can actually go and rotate that out. So you focus on this segment of people in this podcast tour, and then we come back in the next quarter, we do a different segment, or we focus on a specific topic. So...

Maybe you want to talk about how to use your website to build trust with people. And then in the next podcast tour, we talk about how to use your website to book more clients and things like that. like those are just really super general topics, but you can go and you don't have to niche down super hard. I've had clients who have a really, really broad niche, like women and like usually I get a little bit more details than that from them, but

I can take the different things that you're saying in that intake form and we can find kind of a focus for that particular podcast.

Shannon Mattern (39:13.744)

I love it. And then what happens then, how do you help people when they're like, crap, this is working. People are asking me to do things. They're asking me to speak at events. don't have, like, didn't, I'm not, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to speak in public. I don't know. I want to participate in these things, but like, I need help. How do you help people in that, when they get to that point with their visibility that they're being like sought after to,

contribute in a bigger way on a bigger stage for lack of a better term.

Jenn (39:49.167)

Yeah, so I mean we do one-on-one consulting and coaching and stuff But we're also as of this recording that isn't publicly launched yet, but we're working on

bigger VIP experience that we're calling the everywhere effect. So makes you look like you're everywhere, even though you're actually able to sit at home in your comfy PJs with a great book because you recorded your podcast episodes and your summit presentations and your guest expert appearances and you did it once and now you get to keep using it. So we...

We're able to work with folks on their public speaking and their interview skills, creating a content hub. So like that is one of the biggest things we create that visibility ecosystem hub. And you can do this on your own. Like I prefer your table. You can use Trello or Asana, whatever platform that you prefer, but creating that hub where you keep everything so you can refer back to it. If you have an interview, like someone comes to you with an interview proposal and you're like, okay, that's great. There's certain questions I want to ask, but I don't remember what they are.

They're all in there for you. So there's a lot of ways that you can go and make sure that you're honing your skills and creating the systems that are going to support you to make it feel easy rather than overwhelming.

Shannon Mattern (41:05.414)

I could talk to you for another hour about this. I'm like, there's so many things that we like kind of scratched the surface on, but we didn't quite get to get into like evergreening. Like if you're a summit host evergreening your summit content, which I am a summit host, that's probably like a really selfish topic that most of our listeners would not, would not be, they might be into hearing about that, but also just like,

you know, creating the opportunities to go get in front of other people's audiences. But then like the next level of that really is this ecosystem that you help people create to not just have it be like a one and done kind of thing, but have that stuff really keep working for you. So can you tell everyone where can they go to connect with you and get their no fuss podcast or scheduled like yesterday?

Jenn (41:54.926)

Yes, so I am everywhere at Visibility Ecosystem. I have an Instagram. If you DM me, I will get back to you, but I don't really post on there right now. I need to get my nine grid up. I'm most active on threads at the moment. And so I'm technically on LinkedIn sometimes. And but usually threads is going to be the best place to find me.

And yeah, NoFest Podcast Tours, really easy to find, just visibilityecosystem.com slash nofuspodcasttour, and I'm sure we'll have Shannon's affiliate link down in the show notes. But yeah, I would love to chat and whether you're thinking about booking a tour or not, just hit me up, DM me, email me, whatever you want to do to chat and talk more about what podcast tours and visibility could do to help you grow your web design business.

Shannon Mattern (42:43.352)

Amazing. Jen, thank you so much for being here. It was so good to talk to you. And yeah, I just really appreciate the work that you've done for me on my podcast tour. And I think it's just like the first, the first thing of many feature things that we're going to get to like talk about on the podcast and how well they work to help you meet strangers in a really authentic, natural way. So thank you so much for being here.

Jenn (43:11.023)

Thank you so much for having me. This was great.