Get Radical With Your Business

Ep. 89: Monetize Podcast Guesting to Grow 6 Figures and Beyond (Guest Christine McAlister - Queen of Podcast Guesting) [Stepping Into Your Authenticity Series]

March 22, 2022 Heather Zeitzwolfe Season 2 Episode 89
Get Radical With Your Business
Ep. 89: Monetize Podcast Guesting to Grow 6 Figures and Beyond (Guest Christine McAlister - Queen of Podcast Guesting) [Stepping Into Your Authenticity Series]
Show Notes Transcript

Through podcast guesting, you’re able to achieve a massive impact on your business.  In this episode, we are joined by Christine McAlister, deemed the Queen of Podcast Guesting. She joins us to bestow her knowledge and experience so that we can effectively monetize podcast guesting. You can also grow your business from six figures and beyond by guesting on other people's podcasts through her strategies. 

Just like marketing, you can take a spaghetti approach to your podcast appearances. However, you can waste a lot of time and energy. Being deliberate is key. Also understanding the audience, the host, and the show. Be considerate and stop using podcast guesting for selling.  Listen to this episode,  as we dive deeper into this and much more. 

SHOW NOTES:

Contact and follow Christine McAlister: Facebook - Instagram - LinkedIn - YouTube - Twitter
Life With Passion: WebsiteLinktree - Powerhouse Entrepreneurs Facebook Group
Christine’s FREE Podcast Guesting Checklist
No One's Ever Asked Me That: Podcast

For more info, see complete show notes:  https://www.getthebalanceright.net/blog/episode89

CONTACT HEATHER:
Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn
Get the Balance Right Coaching: Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Click Here
Heather & Get the Balance Right - Link Tree
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook

Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn - Email: heather@GetRadBiz.com
Get Radical With Your Business: Facebook - Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Schedule
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook

THE INTERVIEW

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Christine McAlister, welcome to Get the Balance Right Podcast!”

Christine McAlister: “Thank you so much Heather. I've been waiting for this for months now!”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I know. I am super excited because I would say that I am a podcasting nerd, I love to nerd on a podcast, and you are deemed a ‘Queen of Podcast Guesting’. I'm gonna assume that there's no award for this.”

Christine McAlister: “People started calling me that maybe partially because it rhymes with ‘Christine’. I know some guests on your show have been on way more podcasts. In the circles that I was running in, having gone on over a hundred over a period of a few years, made an impression on people. And so they started asking me to teach what I did and started calling me the ‘Queen of Podcast Guesting’.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That's awesome. Okay, I was wondering where that came from. If it was like something like, ‘I'm just gonna call myself that’. Usually we get nicknames from other people. 

Let's just jump into the topic of podcast guesting. We’ve talked about podcast pitching on the show. We've talked about the importance of getting yourself out there and being visible on podcasts.

But you actually have a program where you talk about really using podcasts as a way to elevate your business into six, maybe even seven figures. 

Why podcasting?”

Christine McAlister: “I was a business coach for about six years. Very, very purpose and impact driven. And I also started this business. I was running another business before. Been an entrepreneur for 17 years and I started this business. It's like my most fulfilling mission driven business in honor of my late daughter. 

So like no pressure, but this business is very important to me. And I was also building this business, not only in the wake of losing her, but then going on to have and raise some living children. I was looking for a way to leverage my visibility, that aligned with my gifts, and that didn't require me to live on social all day because it wasn't even available to me. Even if I was someone who was built to put Instagram stories up all the time. I don't know. That was not my reality when I started marketing the business, I had a little baby.

Somebody invited me onto their podcast and I love to connect with people, and I was like, ‘This is really fun’. And then I remembered that I had had a podcast pitch template sitting in my downloads folder for like a year. Which is, I like to say, ‘Where all good intentions go to die’, the downloads folder. I was overwhelmed. I was intimidated. I didn't do anything with it. 

So gracious gift I got of someone interviewing me, realizing I loved it. And then was something that I wanted to explore more, to actually put some effort into. I just kind of went in and just did it over and over and over. And then people started asking me how to do it. And I was like, ‘There's nothing, like just being a good person, like just go do it’. And they were like, ‘No, you do it differently, Christine’. And I went, ‘Do I?’. 

And then had a reverse engineer what I thought was just being a good person that came naturally to me. And people started asking me for it to the point where I then got these endorsements and these things. It became a pivot in the business after doing something I loved. Then the next iteration of it was podcast guesting.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “When people are thinking about, ‘I wanna be on a podcast’, maybe they think, ‘Well, I could talk about a bunch of different subjects’. They just tell people like, ‘Okay, well you can have me on, I'll talk about this or talk about that’. 

Should we actually have one important message and utilize that until we get really strong with it? How do we elevate ourselves as really good podcast guests?”

Christine McAlister: “That's such a great question. There's stuff to do before, during, and after the interview. You’re speaking to like, a little bit of the before. How do I position myself in a way that gets me on these podcasts? That gets me known at as an expert.

You're probably going to have a handful of topics, all revolving generally around the same thing. Unless one of your pillars of your brand, one of your hooks or whatever is like your personal story. Which for me, it is, I started this business because I lost my daughter that comes up in just about every interview.

And sometimes that's all people wanna talk about. They just wanna talk about’ ‘How the heck did you go through this loss and make something good out of it?’. Cool, I'm down have that conversation, it needs to be had. 

Sometimes it's just talking about the strategy of podcast guesting — and that's cool too. But I think, my friend and one of my mentors, Dana Wild, taught me — she's a podcaster too, she studied with like the guys that trained Jimmy Kimmel and like Ryan Seacrest — how to like create a celebrity for yourself. And what she taught me, which I think is so useful is that you can choose like three positive things, that people might perceive as positive, about things that you love, things that you love to talk about, personally or professionally, and one “negative” thing (even if you consider it an asset). For me, my own negative thing would be losing my daughter. For hers, it was that she never graduated high school and she's created multiple million dollar businesses.

It's these things that make us memorable. And I think the most important thing is that you can tie it back to what you're doing in your business. If I say, ‘Well, one of my pegs is gonna be: I love horses’, well how in the heck does that relate to podcast guesting? Well, podcast guesting is a really leverage way for me to reach people so I can go ride my horse rather than living on social media all day.

If you're earlier in the stages of refining your message, you might only have one and that's okay. You might ask a friend to help you come up with three different angles to say the same thing. 

If you have one topic, like for you Heather, it's helping these amazing, creative entrepreneurs to understand their money, to make more of it, to keep more of it, all the things. What would be, if you are early in your business, the one thing that you would say, ‘Well, that's all I like talk about… The end’, and your brain might freak out and be like, ‘What else can we talk about?’, right? 

Where someone's gonna ask us a question we don't know the answer to, cause this is what we all do when we're new. But you're much more established. 

Just because I know everyone here listening loves you, let's use you as an example. If you're okay with that, I'm totally putting you on the spot.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Sure, okay!”

Christine McAlister: “Okay. I think this will be more useful than talking about me because everyone knows who you are. I'm the new kid around here. What would you say would be like three different topics that you could, let's say speak on my podcast if I were interviewing you and I say, ‘Okay, Heather, I see you're about money’. What are three different topics that you think would be useful for my audience?”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “The three things that I probably would talk about is: mistakes that I see people make in their business that they could easily avoid, ways to make more profit in their business, maybe plugging up the leaks, gaining more revenue in different areas that maybe they haven't thought about. And then I have to admit that I do love talking about being a vegan, I call myself the vegan CPA, and that is a really important thing to me. 

How I would tie that back into my business is that I really feel that you can eat a very healthy, have a very healthy lifestyle, on a budget. I would tie it in with that.”

Christine McAlister: “Oooh, I love that. And I listened to your episode with Kathleen Gage and I heard you all geek out on being vegan. And I'm definitely vegan curious so that's, it's very memorable.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That's the idea, to get to just plant the seed and you know, people, even if they went vegan for one day a week, that would help the planet.”

Christine McAlister: “Exactly. So you have this one umbrella and then you have these different spokes, if you will. And then what you get to do is you get to talk about whichever a host would select and you get to test your material. Just like a comedian, right? You can see what resonates with the host. You can see what the listeners reach out to and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I never thought about this’ or ‘You were in my head when you said this’. And then it's like: okay, make a note!

And you get to refine your message over the course of these interviews and make it stronger and stronger. And use what resonated in social posts or in emails and repurpose it. One interview can be content for a month and also lives online forever. It's algorithm proof, it’s a huge credibility asset. And it's something that you can take to your world as well, not only getting in front of new people.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I love that. Now I've got a question for you. 

I talked about this, the podcast that just came up, where I was on a podcast, I was ill prepared. It was one of those general things they were like, ‘Oh, I'll just ask you about your business, ask about being in your fifties’. I didn't really have anything in particular in mind. And I found myself grappling for stories because I didn't have them handy and ready to go. 

And it started making me really nervous. And then I sped up my talking and then I started get rambling. And then, knowing that it's gonna be living out there…Oh my God! How do you overcome that? Knowing that you did a bad interview, they release it, they don't even edit it. 

How do you come back from that?”

Christine McAlister: “Okay, two answers. Number one is: what to do for now. Number two is: what to do for next time you have an interview like this, before it records. 

So the first thing is probably gonna be a little painful, but I would say when it comes out, you like, you'll listen to it. You have somebody else listen to it and tell you, 'Hey, it's not as bad as you thought’. Or, ‘Hey, here were the strong points’ or whatever the easiest entry point is for you. 

And you can be honest with your audience when you share that, cause I'm still gonna recommend that you share it to honor the host. And say, ‘Hey, you all, I was really nervous going in, to be honest, I didn't prepare as well as I could have. I'm still so grateful to have had this conversation with Heather and it's worth a listen, cause here's some of the stuff that we talked about.’, right?” 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yes. Being upfront and honest, that’s what I was with my audience. Because I wanna own the fact that I know it wasn't my best. Yeah. And I'm gonna learn from that and it's just gonna put more fire under me to like, be more prepared. 

To be a really good guest, how prepared should we be? I mean, it's one thing to be able to talk off the cuff, but you do wanna make sure that your answers are succinct, that they don't ramble, that they are helping the audience. Like what are some ways that we can prepare as guests to be really good guests?”

Christine McAlister: “Yeah, that’s such a great question, and it like harkens back to my days of media training people. Cause I helped to broadcast the Olympics and I did a documentary for PBS. And so I've been on the other side of the camera and the other side of the mic, helping people go, ‘This is different’, than just talking. 

On one hand, take the pressure off for yourself because it is a two-way conversation, not just an interview where you have to be a talking head answering questions. We don't want you to be like a politician reading talking points. 

On the other hand, if you are somebody who is used to being on stage by yourself, for example, you probably are gonna ramble in an interview. And we need to sound bite you a little bit and have you create more of a conversation than a like everyone's listening and the host is like you know, ‘When is she gonna get onto the next thing?’. 

One thing that I like to do is to perform what I call expert topic extraction. And what that is, is like taking a piece of paper, a sticky note, and envisioning yourself being the expert. Yes, if that freaks you out, just set that aside, set your ego aside for a moment. And going if somebody came to you and they had to, let's say, like hike up a very serious mountain, to the top of a mountain in a hut where you are sitting there. It’s like, Heather is the expert on this, and you have 10 or 15 minutes with her before you have to turn around and get back down that mountain because oxygen. And Heather, what are you gonna say to impart to me the wisdom, what are the five or seven things I have to know, asssuming I'm gonna take them, study them, embody them because you said them to me, in order to get the outcome of having a balanced view of money in my business?

And so just sit there or you can talk into your phone, voice memo it, and be like, ‘All right, the first thing that they would need to know is that they need to look at their numbers…’. I'm making this up. ‘The second thing that they would need to know…’. I guess, again, it probably makes more sense to have you reiterate that, like, just put you on the spot again and say like, if I'm like, ‘Heather, fix me. I love my work and I'm just not making any profit. What are the things that you're gonna bing, bang, boom, tell me that are gonna make my life better?’.” 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “First, I would wanna look at your finances. So like you said, knowing your numbers is key. And really digging in there and analyzing it and looking at, are there patterns, do you have recurring revenue that you can count on? What are your cashflows? Make sure that you actually understand what's going on because there's tax implications. And being more proactive than reactive, those types of things.”

Christine McAlister: “Yeah, oh my gosh. It's so interesting, I have a lot of like money trauma in my history. So I'm like feeling this stuff rise up in my body as you're saying it. I’m like, ‘All right, we're breathing. This is good. This is healing’. 

Thank you. Then what I would say to do Heather is like take sticky notes and write like a phrase short enough, just to jog your memory and stick them on either side of your monitor; sticky note exercise.

And then you can also put the names of some of your favorite clients’ or your own favorite stories to tell. So that when they ask you a question, you can embed what I call: those stories that silently sell.

Like you ask me a question and I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, so I had this amazing client who had a business that looked like this. She was making several million dollars a year. Then her ad account, which her entire business was based upon, got shut down and she got permanently banned. And so she was like, ‘how the heck am I gonna grow my audience reliably? Okay. I need to be a podcast guest, etc.’.

But if I don't have her name right here, that might not occur to me because that story was however long ago. Have both of those in front of you, that way you go blank, you get flustered, classic example is like you go on a podcast to talk about your book and you get to the end of podcast, you realize you didn't talk a single thing about your book or anything in it — happens all the time. 

If you have these sticky notes next to you, then someone asks you a question and you can just glance without looking like you're reading, without rustling your papers, like you gotta flip through your journal of notes. And you can appear to be more present in the conversation because you've prepped just a teeny bit ahead of time. 

That would be like the minimum you could do. You could also listen to a little bit of an episode, which ideally highly recommend that you do before you pitch, which I know you all have talked about that before in your awesome interviews with Kathleen and with Angie and others. 

So use that research from ahead of time, refresh yourself, and then you are going to go into the interview less in fight or flight, more in certainty; grounded into yourself and able to have a conversation outside of your nervous system losing it. Does that make sense?”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yeah, I can all already see, like, if you have certain things that are your key talking points, like maybe you're gonna talk about this angle versus this other angle. You could have set sticky notes for each one of those and then just pull 'em back out and put 'em up again.

Okay. I love that idea. I love sticky notes. You can see, I got some sticky notes right here. 

We wanna be a great guest. We wanna bring value to the audience, that’s important. But we are also there to serve a purpose, which is probably to spread more awareness of our business to increase our own profits.

We have an agenda, they have an agenda. How can we be. A good podcast guest and incorporate all of those things?”

Christine McAlister: “Ooh, sexy question! We’re both hosts, I guess my question for you would be: have you ever had somebody come on to just read talking points?”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yes.”

Christine McAlister: “Okay, and how did that feel?”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Well, it was one of those things where I was asking questions and they weren't even really listening to my question.

Instead, they do this thing where they would tweak it and then change it into their answer. Like it was like, ‘Wait, I, you didn't even answer, you didn't even address the fact that I asked that question’. 

It's less like a conversation and more like they’re just there to sell something.”

Christine McAlister: “A hundred percent. Okay and the great, like, this is so easy to study in micro doses by watching any interview with a politician. 

This is like the classic way we're gonna see this, is literally can be defined by: no matter what question a host asks me, I'm going to answer my own agenda. We may expect that there, but when somebody shows up in this platform, in this medium that way, it feels really gross. It feels really off. Also, it doesn't work because we feel that. 

Okay? So, maybe people have been trained to do that, but like, the host feels it. And the audience loves the host, that’s why they're there. They love the host. They're there for the host. Your job as a guest is of course, you know, and the host knows, that you're getting in front of the host’s audience.

But the thing to remind yourself of is: what a privilege. What an honor it is that you, Heather, are having me on your show. You are essentially endorsing me and transferring know like and trust to every single person who will ever listen to this interview. Just by virtue of you saying like, ‘Come on my show’.

And if I show up anything short of, ‘I'm super grateful’, this is where most people get it wrong. Whether or not they know it, they’re showing up as a transactional vampire. To suck what they can out of the audience and then move on. This is not how you create long term relationships. 

On the flip side, when you show up, yes. Value driven and also there to rise to the cream of the crop uh yes. Because you're gonna do things that like maybe a handful of guests have done ever. Even if they've interviewed hundreds of people or thousands. You're gonna be memorable. This is the entree into a longer term relationship that could lead to referrals, JV partners, asking you back.

We call it being a guest for life, because you're there to be, to help the host really shine and not just to be interviewed. And that stands out. Stands out to the host, stands out to the list listeners. So of course you're gonna get what you want. It's like that cheesy, old quote like, ‘Help enough people get what they want and you'll get what you want’.

Like go care about what the host cares about. Find out, it’s not hard. And then freaking, like include it in the conversation. Have a real dialogue, be curious, care. Think about the things that you would care about if you were that host and do them. Like, the end.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I like that. And you know, those people with that agenda, they're usually the ones that don't really share the podcast either.

That's been my experience. They come in, they swoop in, they utilize you and then they're gone. So some of those I've actually not even released because I'm like, I could feel it. I'm like, this is not even worth it. It feels kind of icky. 

And I like that vampire term that you use cause that’s, that is how it kind of feels; you feel like you're getting used. Like, I'm not a sex worker. I'm a podcaster.”

Christine McAlister: “Exactly. And why would you pay in time or money or resources or all, to promote something and endorse someone that feels icky? Like that's even ickier. Like, ugh, you don't wanna push “publish” on that one. Like every time you look at that, get like this gross feeling and no… 

So they're being protective of their audience. There's no even energy exchange there. You get to be different. You get to do it differently and show that you're here for the long term. This is not a one night stand.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Exactly. Besides the sticky notes on the computer, I love that suggestion, what else can we do to be a really good guest? 

I assume it's things like help promote the show, show up prepared. What are some other things that we can do as guests?”

Christine McAlister: “So those should be at a minimum, okay? Show up prepared, having listened to the show. Review your notes, if you listened to it a couple months ago, when you first pitched. Leave a review. How important are reviews to us? Like liquid gold. Things that we can't buy. 

I've gotten to see behind the scenes of Entrepreneurs on Fire, which is one of the biggest business entrepreneurship shows out there. And I've been on that show two times. And what I saw that, this is such a great reminder for me, is that both times I got multiple requests to leave a review. Individual emails in their follow sequence from the team, ‘Please leave us a review, here’s why it matters, here’s exactly how you do it’, step by step. 

Last time I checked, he had several thousand reviews. Like, it's not like one is going to be a 20% increase. It's still that important to them. So if it's important to somebody who gets a million or more downloads a month, like success leaves clues, people.

If he notices, when I leave him one review, do you think the person who has 50 reviews is gonna notice when you leave one? Do that — that's currency that as podcast hosts, we can't buy. It takes you three seconds, in addition to listening to a part of the episode. 

And I also recommend sending a gift afterward, which is something that almost no one does. It doesn't have to cost a lot. I send a $25 box of tea because I love tea; because look at me, I'm clearly from the UK and you know, my DNA and past life. And I found a local entrepreneur that I can partner with and support someone here locally. 

And it couldn't be easier and nobody does it. Cause I hear from people that I get the tea all the time, they’re like, ‘What you sent’, I'm like, ‘It was $25, I know you spent more than that to edit and promote me’. You know? Again, it's like ‘Thank you’. 

I think it's also important to find out where this episode fits in to their overall cadence of their show and to the overall cadence of their business. Because this might exist in a vacuum for you as the guest, but it doesn't for the host. This is like a long play of building an audience, of building authority, of building all of the things. 

Where do I fit into the world of Heather and of what you're doing? How can I improve what you're doing? How can I share what you're doing? How can I endorse what you're doing just as you are endorsing me.

So I think those are some of the big ones." 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I love this idea of getting the gift too. And in fact, I just got a gift from one of my friends who, I was on her podcast. It was just a notepad, but it's so fun. And she wrote a little note on there. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It's just like, ooh, you got something in the mail.

Like how often does that happen? I love that idea. I love the idea of supporting a local business too, that’s really cool. 

When we are a guest, if we want to use this to make more money in our business, what are some of the things that we need to be thinking about? Like which podcast to apply for? What is our message? What's the follow up? What are the things that we need to be concerned about?”

Christine McAlister: “Okay, first thing is do everything I just said, cause that all matters for getting ROI. 

The second thing is when people come to me and say, ‘I've been on podcast and I really enjoyed it, but I haven't seen any return from it’. Okay, typically it's two things that I see. 

Number one: it's the wrong shows. Like they might be doing it very haphazardly where they're like, ‘Well, my friend invited me on and that was fun, but I didn't see any ROI from it’. Okay, cool, there’s so much value in that. And if you're gonna be proactive about this, it's important to know who you're getting in front of. Right?

That you can speak with expertise about the topics, figure out what to say, what examples to give that would make sense. Like if I came on here and I was like, 'Well, so I had this old white man, who's in finance and this is how I helped him with podcast guesting’. You guys would be like, ‘Why am I listening to this? Like, she obviously doesn't know her audience at all. This does not relate to me in any way, shape or form'. 

But if I talk about my client who's a creative and an artist and she's multi-passionate, then you're like, ‘Okay, hello, my ears are here’. On that side, it’s knowing who you're speaking to and actually speaking to them. Which is fun because then if they follow you around on a podcast tour, like from show to show, they're not gonna hear the same thing every time.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Oh yeah, okay.”

Christine McAlister: “Right? Like, ‘Man, I really like her energy' or ‘I really like what she had to say, I wanna learn more. Okay. Let me go find the thing’. And they're not like, ‘This is boring, I heard this before’ — binge over.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “You're tailoring it for that audience. Is that what you mean?”

Christine McAlister: “Exactly, yes. And that requires some practice and that requires some nuance. And how do you do it? By doing it. 

Then let's assume you're finding the right shows, the other big piece where I see people going wrong is the call to action at the end.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Okay. Tell me more. Tell me more on that one, call to action.”

Christine McAlister: “Are you up for me using you as a guinea pig again?"

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Sure, I need to learn more about call to action.”

Christine McAlister: “Okay, perfect. 

If I'm interviewing you and I say, ‘Heather, this is amazing, obviously I knew it would be. Thank you so much. Where can people find you if they wanna learn more?’.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “This is the tricky part for me. 

My last name, Zeitzwolfe, is very difficult. My business is Zeitzwolfe Accounting. So what I've been telling people to do is find me through the podcast. On Linktree, I've got Get the Balance Right on Linktree, which is the easiest way. I have all kinds of links on there for free workshops, discovery calls, the podcast, my Zeitzwolfe Accounting.

They can find me through that. So that's usually what I say.” 

Christine McAlister: “Cool. And we know that the number one way to grow your own podcast, for all you podcasters listening, is to be a guest on other podcasts. I didn't make that up because I'm in the industry. So my bigger mentors told me that I heard enough times. I was like, ‘Okay, it's not just me who thinks this is great’.

So the one distinction or opportunity I would say here is like, is your podcast always the best entry point into your world?

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Not always.”

Christine McAlister: “Okay. What I would do, because you do have multiple opt-ins and freebies and things in addition to the podcast. I would have those in front of you, in like a screenshot or print out of your Linktree. And I would choose the one that creates the most podcast offer alignment between what you just discussed and whatever you've got going on when this airs.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I like that cause I do have different downloads and things. I could reference that one PDF or whatever, and that does have an easier URL, so okay.”

Christine McAlister: “Yeah. To your point, either making a really simple URL, like a Bitly or a 301, redirect, it doesn't matter. Whatever's easiest for memory and only saying one thing. 

I know you have this awesome Monday meetup thing happening; the Monthly Monday Money Mayhem Makeover.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Ooh, you got it. Wow.” 

Christine McAlister: “I did, I did. I had to breathe a little bit in there, but I got it. the M5, M^5.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “It's called M5, that’s URL. The URL is /M5.”

Christine McAlister: “Okay, perfect. You've got this coming up and if that's the best way for people to get into your world, then that's what you offer. And you sell it. 

You say, ‘Listen, what we talked about today, we really helped you get an idea of how to take responsibility for your finances and your business. And the best way to take the next step and get some customized tips would be to come to this M5. It’s free. We can interact in person and you can register at: getthebalancerightpodcast.com/m5'.

That's it. Everybody go there right now. The next guest is spot you have, if that's what makes the most sense, offer it. All of your show notes, your Linktree, your social stuff, all that could be listed. But what they heard you say was one next right step.

If you give them four, they’re gonna do nothing. They might follow you on social somewhere or whatever. But if it's like you just said, they just fell in love with you for half an hour. They're hanging out with you in their car, on their walk or the gym. They're not distracted by all the other things, they're learning from you. This with one touch that goes very, like gives a lot of depth and quality, you have helped them self select, ‘Yeah. I wanna know more from Heather. She is somebody that I want to take the next step with, for free’. And then they heard you say, ‘Well, this is how I can best help you’. 

‘Okay, thank you for identifying that for me’. And then if they want to dig into your world on the inner webs, they can. But they have that one clear aligned call to action that makes sense with what you actually just talked about and is gonna help them move into your email list, into your world, and then you can pick it up from there.” 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I love that. That's great. Yeah, cause having too many options makes people freeze. I love that. 

Cause I'm a fan of John Lee Dumas, ‘Boom, shake the room, fire nation’. How in the world did you get involved with that guy?"

Christine McAlister: “Oh gosh. I would say like, simply looking back, it was just doing all this stuff that I didn't know was a thing.

First went on his show, I think it was 2018, which is around the time that my book came out. And I did my research and I'm pretty sure I submitted an application. First of all, I followed his application. Like I didn't go, ‘Oh, he has an application, well, I'm just gonna do my own thing instead’. Which a lot of people do, I know it's crazy. Why? But his application included like a one minute video and da, da, da, da, da. I did some research about what he liked, cause I knew he got hundreds and hundreds of submissions every month. And I, so I did my research. I was proud of myself. Sent it off. Of course I checked my email for a couple days, heard nothing.

And I was like, ‘Yeah, I didn't get it’. Well, a few months later I got an email like, ‘You've been accepted’ and I was like, ‘What? I forgot’. I did this interview with him. And I did the process that we just talked about. We wound up coming like a, have some, having some interactions afterward. 

A little over a year ago, it was like Sunday night, just sitting there, thinking and I had this thought come to me like, ‘Yeah, I should really go back on his show’. And by this time he is charging several thousand dollars. And I said, ‘You know what, I've been on enough podcasts that I am confident this could be the best money that I could spend because ROI’.

And so I emailed him late that night, I sent in the application. And within 12 hours, early the next morning, I had a response being like, ‘Come back, yes’. And what I found was that we were able to talk a little bit more about this method I've developed. And I also learned what mattered to him. 

And so in the process, I like supported his book launch, which was happening at the time, wound up getting in a room with like a dozen, really high level entrepreneurs that he was leading a mastermind for. He gave me an endorsement for the podcast guesting approach as like the best he'd ever seen as part of that mastermind, gave me permission to use it. We wound up meeting in person. He invited me to his house in Puerto Rico, it’s all like very surreal. I got to know he and Kate in person. 

And it was all the result of just going, ‘Oh, I care about what this dude cares about’. Instead of going, ‘You have a big audience, what's in it for me?’. And apparently that was enough of a shift for him to really recognize me and call me up. Which I'm like still shocked by and so grateful for. And I think it's a power, like a testament to the power of not being transactional and really going in to create a win-win-win.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yeah. And you made a human connection with them rather than just be like, ‘Oh, it's JLD. I'm gonna be in front of fire nation and…’ yeah. Wow. That's very cool. 

Did you actually go down to Puerto Rico?”

Christine McAlister: “I did. So I was down there for another work thing and I was like, ‘Hey’, you know we had a call coming up, the two of us. I was like, ‘Would you be okay if we did it like, please no pressure, but you know, would you be open to meeting?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, come on’. I sat on his back deck and drank a Perrier, I'm looking at the ocean. I'm like, ‘What is this?’. 

And I mean, of course recorded the whole thing so that I could listen back to it later. Cause I knew I wasn't gonna remember any of it. I got to spend an afternoon with he and Kate at the house and then meet up with them again at podcast movement and just an honor.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Wow. Very cool. I love that. All right. Well, how do people get a hold of you and work with you?” 

Christine McAlister: “Well, thank you for asking. Hopefully the next best step is to grab, I have a free podcast guesting checklist, which includes like everything. Stuff we didn't talk about here, before, during and after. And you can print it out and have it in front of you when you're going through this process and, you know, check it off. Which I like those dopamine hits if I'm being very honest, of checking things off a to-do list.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I’m like that too. I wonder what Myers Brigg you are.” 

Christine McAlister: “ENFJ.” 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Oh, okay. We're close. I'm an ENTJ.” 

Christine McAlister: “Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, that's like a really fun mix. I dig that. 

My checklist is at lifewithpassion.com/checklist. Well, I know you've heard this from Heather and her previous amazing guests around this topic. I think just this idea that like it's not too early and it's also not too late to use this strategy for your business. I find that it's really attractive to people who not only don't want to like churn on social media all the time, but also who just like, you're just like, ‘I just like to do business through connections and real relationships with people’.

Like this is the number one most leveraged thing that you could do, and you can enter it at any level of your business. You're not too new to business. And also like imposter-syndrome comes up, frankly, I had some knowing the other people that you'd interviewed about this topic. Coming on here, talking to myself about it right? 

And, like just being honest, it exists, even when you're called the queen of something, it's fine. You can go on not having ever been on a podcast before, or you can go on having been one that you pitted out on, depending on one that you know, you sweated it out and you think you did terrible.

You could keep going. And like more people are listening than ever. This is a billion dollar industry now. Every level of podcaster exists. And so there's, there's plenty to match up your topic and where, where you are in business right now.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Thank you. And for the audience, can you tell them the name of your podcast?”

Christine McAlister: “Ooh, yes. It's called No One's Ever Asked Me That.”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “And how did, I do wanna ask you, where did that title come from?”

Christine McAlister: “Oh, okay. Apparently, like I just turned 40 this year and I've been in media since 1999, the name of my company came out of a documentary that I did for PBS in 2005, which was also called Life With Passion.

So when I started my company, a decade later, it was like, this is the next version of living a life with passion that I need to tell. And then when I thought about the podcast, it was the thing that people said to me most often when I interviewed them. I was known for asking people questions they've never been asked before.

Even people who are famous in our world. And so that was just, that stood out to me so much. Whenever I could get someone to like, take a breath and stop the repetitive talking points that they had prepared in their head and go, ‘Hmm, that’s a good question, no, one's ever asked me that before’, like I've done my job. So that's how it came with it."

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Wow. And what are some ways that people can work with you?”

Christine McAlister: “Hmm, thank you. My goal is just to meet people where they are. We have ways to help people who wanna do it themselves. People who wanna have us train or coach their team and people who just wanna hand it off to us. 

It’s all the same method, you get a feel for it in the checklist. And then from there, it's just, what do you need help with based on where you are in business right now?”

Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Awesome. Okay. Well, we'll have all of that in the show notes as well. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast!” 

Christine McAlister: “Yes. Well, thank you so much for having me. You are a delight.”