061: The Virtual Book Tour: Building Authority and Attracting Clients with Tom Schwab

In this episode of The Million Dollar Producer Show, I welcome Tom Schwab, author of Podcast Guest Profits: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy and founder and CEO of Interview Valet.

Tom shares his insights on leveraging guest podcasting as a powerful tool for building authority and growing your business.

Tom's Journey: From Engineer to Chief Evangelist Officer

• Career Transition: Tom's journey began as an engineer running nuclear power plants, teaching him the importance of systems and processes. He later transitioned to corporate America and eventually founded Interview Valet.
• Chief Evangelist Officer: Unlike typical CEOs, Tom sees his role as evangelizing for his category, clients, and company, demonstrating the power of guest podcasting in building a brand and business.

Guest Podcasting: A Strategic Approach

• Importance of Authority: He emphasizes the need to build authority in the marketplace before attempting to sell services. He discusses how writing a book and then using guest podcasting to promote it can create a significant impact.
• Effective Marketing: Tom shares his experience that guest podcasting has become the number one driver for his business, providing high-quality, pre-sold leads that are ready for impactful conversations.

Interview Valet: Enhancing Guest Podcasting

• Service Offerings: Interview Valet helps clients by scheduling targeted podcast interviews, optimizing content for marketing, and repurposing interviews for maximum impact.
• Client Success: He recounts stories of clients, like Eric Weinheimer, using virtual book tours and podcast interviews to effectively promote their books and services.

Key Takeaways and Future Directions

• Marketing Evolution: Tom addresses the changing landscape of marketing, emphasizing the importance of pragmatic and practical approaches that build genuine connections and trust with potential clients.
• Actionable Steps: He encourages listeners to visit Interview Valet’s dedicated page for Million Dollar Producer Show listeners, offering resources such as an assessment quiz, a copy of his book, and a scheduling link for further discussion.

About our Guest:  Tom Schwab, author of Podcast Guest Profits: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy and founder and CEO of Interview Valet.

You can learn more about his work at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamtomschwab/
https://interviewvalet.com/

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Welcome to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. I'm your host, paul G McManus. Today I'm here with a special guest, mr Tom Schwab, who is the author of podcast guest profits grow your business with a targeted interview strategy, and also the founder and CEO of a company called Interview Ballet. And I understand from you, tom, that it's not chief executive officer, but it's chief evangelist officer.

Speaker 2: 1:03

That's right. I've got some friends that were CEOs of publicly traded companies. The job they do is different than the job I do. My job is to evangelize for our category, for our clients and for our company, and that's what I'm doing here and what I love to do and really show people how they can do it to grow their brand and their business.

Speaker 1: 1:23

I'm super excited to have you here because we have a very common passion when it comes to things such as authority, marketing, influence, speaking and especially using guest podcasting as a vehicle to create that awareness for your brand and your business. I think I actually came across you originally several years ago when a colleague of mine was looking into the idea of guest podcasting and I recall that she got a copy of your book. That was the first time that you came on my radar and that was several years ago. And it's funny because there's always this thing known as timing right. People don't take action, people don't buy when we want them to buy darn it. But they have ideas, problems that they're looking to solve and they're looking for solutions.

Speaker 1: 2:09

I'll try to make this concise, but our listeners know that we focus in on helping our clients write and publish books as one of those key vehicles for creating authority in the marketplace and awareness in the marketplace. But then the question always becomes I've published my book, now what? And that's what I like to maybe really have as a theme for this overall conversation that we're about to have about guest podcasting and really just creating awareness, trust in the marketplace for things that are not simple services, but tell us about yourself, who is Tom Schwab, and give us a sense of who you are, and so our audience can get to know you a little bit.

Speaker 2: 2:48

I'm an engineer by degree. I graduated from the US Naval Academy. My first job out of college was running nuclear power plants and that taught me the systems, the processes, really how to run a business. I worked in corporate America and then this is my second company. My first company was HubSpot's first e-commerce case study, was HubSpot's first e-commerce case study and it was so different because there we were selling a product right, and selling a product is different than a service. In fact, I believe that you sell products, you buy services right.

Speaker 2: 3:25

It's more that trust, the awareness, that authority, marketing that you talk about. And as we started to test this oh, probably 10 years ago I hypothesized I bet you could use podcast interviews, much like we used to use guest blogs. Get that know like trust. So we started to test that it worked well. I wrote a cheesy little PDF on it. I did a cheesy little course that I never took out of beta and people came and said I just want to be the guest, you take care of the rest. So we've been doing this now for going on 10 years. The first few years people would say what's a podcast? And then it's really taken off. We're working with thought leaders. We're working with high-level coaches, consultants, professional services, nonfiction authors, really to get their message out there. Because, no matter what all the marketing says, I don't believe that we are all just one funnel away. I believe we're all one conversation away.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Yeah, I agree with everything that you just said, and it's interesting. I got started in my current business More Clients, more Fun back in 2015. And it started out as a LinkedIn marketing agency and I discovered financial advisors and, of course, we want to get leads and appointments with high net worth clients. Fair enough, and so we built out systems on LinkedIn to essentially do what at the time, I thought was all that we had to do, which was to master the technology of LinkedIn, learn the ins and outs and then ultimately schedule appointments on their calendars. I thought, wow, mission accomplished, we are done.

Speaker 1: 5:02

What I discovered over the years was that getting people appointments on their calendar, when it comes to a bit of a cold approach, is doable, but the close rate can be abysmal if you've not, in advance, built out what I would call that authority positioning. And so, just again, just to expand a little bit on terms of our evolution and then we'll tie this into your sweet spot is that a few years ago maybe three, four years ago now I decided okay, what's going on here? How do I fix this? I'm not an engineer by trade, but I guess I think analytically when it comes to solving problems.

Speaker 1: 5:42

And it was how can we better position our clients so that when they're having that first conversation with a prospect, they don't have to try to sell themselves as much. In other words, we want to reverse that order. So instead of that push, push sale, it's really much more of an attraction based approach. And that led us to, or that led me to, coming up with what I call the short book formula, which is a way to lead with a book, to establish interest in the problems that an advisor helps solve, the target audience, et cetera, and that positioning we found to be tremendously more valuable than simply just getting people, leads and appointments. I'm sure you have thoughts about this, given what you've done and what you do, so I'll just flip it over to you and, just leading with that premise Maybe, what are your thoughts there?

Speaker 2: 6:31

I was going to say people are either going to agree with us or disagree. Either way, I'm fine with that. I look at that as my own experience, right, being probably your ideal customer, not in the financial services industry, but professional services and I just look in. So many of these tactics that we have are getting more efficient but less effective. Right In the time we've been talking here, you could send out a million cold emails but they're not going to do anything. From that standpoint, you need that authority and sometimes it's not a perfect engineered system. Right, you talked about somebody had gotten my book and had talked about that. Right, sometimes it's more of serendipity, but you know that it works.

Speaker 2: 7:17

And I think often now there's this push to be oh, we've got to use more technology, more everything. I remember reading a book years ago called Click Sand how digital marketing is ruining your business, and Bill Troy nailed it years ago when he said whales don't click and big fish don't swim through funnels. Right, they're not just looking, scrolling on their social media just to see what they can buy from you. No, it takes a conversation and today more than ever, it's easier to do that through a book, a print-on-demand book, an audio book, through public speaking, through webinars, through stages and those could be physical stages or digital stages. And, paul, I got to admit I wrote a book, but my roommate from college swore that he was going to give it a one-star review. He was going to give it a one-star review and say worst coloring book ever. He proofread all of my papers at the academy. He couldn't believe that English was my first language or that I had actually graduated from high school.

Speaker 2: 8:26

I'm not a great writer and I would say that it's come with time, but I'd much rather talk and get the ideas out that way, and I think that's why today, there's no better time to be alive. Right, you can talk and then you can transcribe. You can have a great ghost writer or a great team and a partner put that together in a format that makes it a great book. Even now, with podcasts, right, 90% of podcasts have video. So, while we'll call it a podcast, there's probably somebody listening and watching on YouTube and they're like it's not a podcast, it's a video. I don't care what you call it, just so long as people get to know you Just a lot of things I wanna unpack there.

Speaker 1: 9:11

One is that's always been our process for what we do with our clients in terms of helping them become published authors is that our basic premise is that they're not writers, right, these are experienced financial advisors who have spent years oftentimes doing what they do. They have a ton of stories, they're funny, they know how to build relationships with clients, and they do all this very naturally in person when they're talking to clients and the idea is okay, how do you capture the best of all of that and then package it into a book that can then be and I call it a salesperson in print, meaning that you can put it out there in advance and let your ideal clients judge whether or not that it's a good fit, and then, ultimately, they come to you. I would also want to pick up on one more thing. I heard you say that you're oftentimes just a conversation away, and I can validate that, because, picking up on the story about how I first came across you and just in this big world that we live in, is that someone mentioned your book because it was specific about the topic of guest podcasting, and this was years ago.

Speaker 1: 10:17

And then I want to say, in the last six months maybe six to 12 months I was a guest on a podcast by a gentleman named Matt Halloran, who I know is a mutual colleague or friend of ours, and I was asking him about guest podcasting and say I think guest podcasting is great, I just want to do more of them. And he mentioned your name and your company. I'm like, okay, I'll go check them out. That really underscores getting your banner out there in terms of your expertise and what you do and I would say in this way, in the form of a book, but ultimately being just that one conversation away from your next client, and I shortly after, scheduled my call with your team and I'm now a happy client of Interview Valet. It's interesting.

Speaker 2: 11:02

Well, we say one conversation, as you described it there, we had lots of conversations before we had that sales conversation. Right, you had the conversation with Matt and he had shared that information with you. I would argue it's a conversation that you had. Reading the book, you went to the website, you listened to podcast interviews, so there was these lots of mini conversations, so that when somebody actually calls you for a, if you want to call it a sales call, it's interesting because if they've already read your book, if they've already heard your podcast, they've already self-selected right, they've turned you up or turned you off. It's more of a qualification call and I love that because, at the end of the day, I don't want more leads, right, everybody's trying to sell me. Oh, more leads. We can get you 20 conversations a day. We're not optimizing for more sales or just more leads. We're optimizing for profits. And that's happy clients, right?

Speaker 1: 12:06

Clients that are so thrilled with what you do, the results that you bring, that they gladly give you their money and also give you referrals, also, right, it really comes down to and I just experienced this in multiple ways in this past month the best marketing that you can do, I believe, is word of mouth marketing. And how do you do word of mouth marketing at scale? I think what we're talking about is an example of that. I'll share a couple other quick examples. Six months or so, I have this digital business and so day to day, I'm in my apartment, I don't go outside. I'm a little bit of a shut in. I say that half jokingly, but occasionally I'll go to a conference, and I went to two conferences this month and last month, and they were amazing. I got a speaking slot. I had my book. It was filled with my ideal clients, I had ambitious goals and I hit them and I overachieved them, and the through line to me is that and this has been my experience in running my own business since 2015, but also in working with hundreds and hundreds of financial advisors and it really validates, I think, everything that you're saying the most potent way to create awareness and attract your ideal clients is a combination of authority or subject matter, expertise and speaking can be done on the stage, and arguably that might be the best way in person, especially if you're around your ideal clients, because there's a certain level of energy there.

Speaker 1: 13:31

The second best way in this virtual, online digital world that we live in, I would argue, is guest podcasting. And I'll give you my hypothesis and I didn't come to this just by wanting it to be so, I actually came to this conclusion by experience is that I've done plenty of online webinars. This past year. I even hired a company to fill up my webinar for me and I started that process super excited by wow, all these people that should be a great fit and they're in this webinar. And the results of that were disappointing. That they were okay, I guess, at best, but overall the webinar strategy, which I thought would work really well, was a little bit disappointing. And then, at the same time, over the past I'll say year, plus one to two years I also started doing guest podcasting where I would go on not just any podcast, and I think this is key and really something that was a writer downer, as they say, is that you need to be on the right podcast, so you need to be on the podcast where your ideal clients listen to that host. And over the past year, plus outside of live events.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Guest podcasting has become the number one driver for my business. It's become where I'll go on a podcast and I can predict, depending on the size of the podcast, that within days or weeks, even of it being released, I'm going to have a number of appointments already on my calendar scheduled. And it's just amazing because this is my first time to talk to them. I know nothing about them, right, other than I Googled them five minutes before the meeting and they already know enough about me because they heard me on this podcast. I call it a one-to-many referral because they listen to this podcast, so they already have a relationship with the host and it becomes a soft endorsement because, even though the host isn't saying I endorse this person, implicit they are because they're a guest on the podcast and they want them to look good, they want you to look good, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 15:22

I'm just attracting super high quality ideal prospects who show up and already know enough about me in advance of that call so that I'm able to have a really impactful conversation and we can quickly determine okay, is this something that we should continue the conversation or not? And typically the answer is yes because they know enough. And then by quote, unquote close rate is astronomical it's 80%, and this is within one to two calls and just I think that was that's like my view of the magic of guest podcasting. But I'll just pause there and flip it over to you and just have you build off of that, based on your own experience and thoughts.

Speaker 2: 15:59

My experience and I have seen over the years there's extroverts and introverts and I go to those networking events or the live events, the big ballroom with the hors d'oeuvres and the alcohol and way, way too much noise. I go there and I find that I don't have meaningful conversations and it just draws my energy. It's so tiring for me as an introvert. I look at it and I find that I don't have meaningful conversations and it just draws my energy. It's so tiring for me as an introvert. I look at it and I'm like I love to have meaningful conversations, I love to have one-on-one conversations, and I don't think I'm in my best with the masses there, but I think I can shine one-on-one and so for me I find that doing the podcast interviews is easier, more impactful, I learn more from it and I think it warms up the clients there. I think of all of the live events that I went to and I came back with a stack of business cards and nobody called me and I didn't call them and it was a wasted time.

Speaker 1: 16:58

I can play an extrovert on TV, so to speak, but naturally I'm an introvert and after too many conversations I have to go away and hide and get recharged and just building off what you said. That's where I want quality conversations, that I have a reasonable expectation that this is a good use of my time and that the next I'm going to get certain results from this, and so I totally agree with that. I want to shift gears slightly, so I'm gonna give you my hypothesis around something and then tell me what your thoughts are. I think authoring a book is extremely valuable. I think guest podcasting is extremely valuable. I also think having your podcast, your own podcast, can be very valuable, and the order that I've come up with I think people get this wrong is that in my formulation, I would say that you want to start with authoring a book.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Now why? Part of it is just that credibility. Part of it is formulating your thoughts. The process we take people through it's typically over six coaching calls and we just get them to really get super focused on all the value and the stories and everything they've done, and we encapsulate that into a book so that then they have this thing that they can put out into the world. And secondly, I would recommend people that they look at being a guest on podcasts, instead of hosting their own podcasts, as the next natural step.

Speaker 1: 18:18

And I'll just give a couple of reasons. Why is that? When you have your own podcast, it has its place, but it's hard work. It's really hard work if you do it consistently and you really want to do a good job and ultimately, you're responsible for building the audience for the most part, whereas with guest podcasting and what really what most people want is they don't necessarily want to play the role of the host and the interviewer and be thought, ask good questions.

Speaker 1: 18:42

They want to go tell their story. They wouldn't be like, hey, I just wrote this book and I want to tell people about it. Right, it's all about me, which I love. I love guest podcasting, but you're also leveraging other people's audiences. You're leveraging the work that they've put in for years and building these audiences and building relationship, and now you're tapping into that audience and I think that's one of the reasons that I know I'm seeing such great results is that I'm taking the authority I've built through my book. I'm working with companies like yours to get scheduled on podcasts and then I'm reaping the rewards. How did you react or expand upon that from your experience?

Speaker 2: 19:17

I think you're right in that it's not an either or right. It's not which one should I do, but which order should I do that in. And I think for me, if I had found somebody like you, I think I would have had the book out much sooner, because I had to talk on podcasts to process my ideas, to process my stories, and after I had talked it through enough, then I was like, oh yeah, I can put all of this together. So that's the way I did it. Then, once somebody comes out with a book, they're just like let's, if you build it, they will not come. You've got to go out there and talk about that and reference back. Should you be a guest or a host? I don't think it's an either, or it's almost. Should I be a Uber driver or an Uber passenger? Same platform but different goals. So I think when you're a guest, that's a great way to go out and get new leads, get new exposure, get new followers, new SEO backlinks, new content that you can use in your marketing to nurture your current leads, to nurture past clients, to show them what new things you're working on. So that's a great way to do that.

Speaker 2: 20:25

Now, being a host, like you said that is a commitment. Most podcasts die within the first 10 episodes. It goes from being something you're excited about to something you're embarrassed about. So I always look at being a host is a great way to nurture your current leads, nurture your current clients, but make sure that you commit to it for a year. To me I'm an engineer, right, I always want to get more out by putting less in, and it sounds harsh to do this on a podcast where you're doing all the hard work. Right now, paul is doing the vast majority of the work and I would argue I'll probably get the vast majority of the benefit. So thanks, paul.

Speaker 1: 21:04

Yeah, my pleasure. Tell us about once you've been a guest on a podcast. What should you be thinking about and doing?

Speaker 2: 21:11

When people come to us, no one wants to be a guest on a podcast, so we try to go. Look at that, it's okay. So what are you trying to accomplish? Is it to launch a book? Is it for sales? Is it to get a keynote speaking business? There's so many different ways you can use this. Is it to build content that your marketing team can use in your email and your social media? So we try to look at that first and start with the end in mind of the seven habits of highly effective people. So first and start with the end in mind of the seven habits of highly effective people. So we'll start with that and say what are you trying to do? Who do you want to talk with? You can't say enough of the right things to the wrong people. And then, once we're on the podcast, what do you want to talk about? What are the issues, what are the pain points that your clients have that you can address there? What stories are you going to tell? And, at the end, what are you going to help people with for their next steps?

Speaker 2: 22:06

I hear so many people go on a podcast interview and they've got this wonderful conversation. There's no point to it. There was no intention, right, and there was no calls to action at the end, they didn't make it easy for people to go to the next thing. And then they're wondering why didn't this work? It's like why? Because you went fishing without a fishing pole, without a hook, not knowing what kind of fish you were going after oh and, by the way, you were in a swimming pool, so trying to work back into it. And then, even after you're talking about controlling the crowd, you want to talk to controlling the conversions.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Right, repurpose the episode. You can reach all of those people that didn't even listen to the podcast. And it's interesting that people always say I've got a content creation problem. No, you don't right. You're doing as much content creation as Gary Vee or Tony Robbins any of those. The difference is they're capturing it and repurposing it and putting it out there. So many of us are just I have to write more blogs, I have to do more videos. I got to do more podcast interviews. No, don't do more with what you have, and that's something that we help our clients with too. Slice it and dice it. You can get a month's worth of content from every interview.

Speaker 1: 23:44

I'll share one more tidbit from my experience, in that as part of my sales process whether it's on my podcast or in a guest podcast, oftentimes in addition to my book, I'll take, I'll curate, a couple of key podcasts that I've done and I will send that to a prospect as part of the, as part of the steps.

Speaker 1: 23:57

So we typically will have a first call, we'll make sure there's an opportunity for both of us to move forward and in between, I'll typically send the person a copy of my book but also curate maybe one or two podcasts as like extra bonus homework, if you will. I ask the person to read my book, which can take maybe an hour, but I also say, hey, here's some more material. And what I find is that the best prospects are the ones that are learners and they devour this material, and so this is part of the magic behind my own sales system in terms of getting 80% higher close rates in one to two calls is that they're out there consuming this content that I've created and it's just a, you know, tie a bow on that. How have I created it? It's either through being a guest on certain podcasts or having my podcast, whichever one, but I'm taking that and now I'm very strategically putting it out there's part of both my marketing and sales process, so love to have you expand upon that anywhere you'd like to.

Speaker 2: 24:52

You're doing the right things on that right, Doing more with every interview as opposed to just doing more interview and leading with value. And you say personalization and AI personalization. When I get those, hey, Tom, we noticed you live in Kalamazoo and are the CEO of this. You just scraped my LinkedIn and I think people have this. I heard somebody refer to it as trust deficit disorder so their guard is up from the very beginning that we all think it's AI and a scam. Search engines do, and so do people. So what can you do to make sure that it's really individuals? And I love how you talk about that. And then, after this interview goes live, I can see going through my database in LinkedIn and looking for common connections between Paul and myself, and chances are they're probably in the financial industry. They may not have caught the podcast, but to be able to say, hey, I was just had the honor of being on Million Dollar Producers.

Speaker 2: 25:54

We talked about how financial professionals can leverage targeted podcast interviews. I thought you'd be interested in this right. They know that that is a human right. It's two humans talking about this and it's the difference too between, I think today, information and knowledge. Right, If I want an answer for something, I can Google it, I can ask chat, GPT that's information. But knowledge, the thing that's happening now opinions, experience shares you're only going to get that from two people talking and I think you're doing the right things. The other thing is that often now I'm the chief evangelist officer and I got to say we've got a team that does things better than I do. Right, my microphone makes me sound good, my team makes me look good.

Speaker 2: 26:41

So often it's Lucina, our senior customer success manager, that's talking to people and so when she sees someone comes in and they're like oh, they're a financial advisor, they're in the financial professional services. She knows all of my interviews. So before she even talks to him, could say our founder wrote this book, right. If you'd like a copy, I can send it to you. He was on Paul's podcast. Send that to him. The things we can see, what they click on, all the rest of that, and it's amazing that they listen to that and come pre-sold right. You've already had that conversation with them.

Speaker 1: 27:18

I think that's it Pre-sold. I think that's it pre-sold. I think we started with, or you started with, a premise that people buy, or tell me in your own words they buy services, you sell products, and I think that's a big problem, right?

Speaker 2: 27:30

We're taking what works with products and saying, oh, we can do the same thing. It doesn't work that way. And I always point to people if selling professional services works so well, then how come Ernst Young, bain Capital, mckinsey, all of those, how come they're not all doing Facebook ads and funnels? I realized that it's not all about selling it. It's about building up that authority, marketing to draw people towards you.

Speaker 1: 27:59

Exactly In the time that we have left and, again, I could probably speak to you for several hours and a very enjoyable conversation, but I want to make sure that we're hitting anything that's important to you in terms of guest podcasting or just from your years of experience in doing this. What other things should we be talking about in the time that we have left today? Is there anything that we haven't?

Speaker 2: 28:18

discussed One of the things that's really on my heart right now, and here we're talking early summer 2024, there's just been a flood of information out there about marketing and it's changing drastically. And you can point to AI, right? Is AI changing at all? Is it search? The people aren't searching anymore because they're just going to chat GPT to get the answer. I would even argue are these big companies working for small business or working against small business? There was just a big data leak with Google on their search algorithms, and the stuff that they were saying, compared to what Rand Fishkin shared with leaked documents, is drastically different, right?

Speaker 2: 29:06

So I'm looking at this and going marketing. Maybe, like Warren Buffett said, if you don't understand it, don't invest in it, and so I'm just looking at that now. I just don't want to throw my money at something that doesn't make sense and chasing this algorithm that they promised me will work. I've been trying what they say works for years and just throwing more money at the big companies, and I look at it as what works, what is pragmatic, what is practical. That being an author gives you more authority than having a PhD.

Speaker 1: 29:43

I'm glad that you said that. I recently just saw some research somewhere that said 70% of the market values or ascribes more authority to an author than they do a PhD, which is just your typical person, doesn't realize that, but in my experience it's so true.

Speaker 2: 29:58

But continue, please, your typical person doesn't realize that, but it's in my experience, is so true. But continue, please. Yeah, we've had, we've worked with institutions Stanford, unc, georgia Tech where they're getting their professors out on podcast interviews because that gives them authority, no matter that they've got PhDs and everything they realize. Oh, we got to get them on podcasts and get them authority. So, going back to that with, where are you going to spend your marketing dollars, your marketing time? I'm looking for things that are pragmatic and practical.

Speaker 2: 30:25

All right, I always say that my grandfather was one of the best business owners I ever knew. God rest his soul. He wouldn't understand the internet today, but he would understand how to use it. He built his business by talking at the Chamber of Commerce and at the Country Club and he would come and say what is this? I can go on podcasts and talk to all of these people over time. I don't have to drive any place. All the rest of that. He would be like I don't know how it works, but let me talk and leverage other people's audience there. I don't know how it works, but let me talk and leverage other people's audience there. So that's the big thing that I'm looking at right now is what marketing can I understand? What's pragmatic? What's practical? What do I know is going to work, no matter what big data and the big companies say yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:13

As we start to wrap up, I have a couple more questions, but I wanted to ask you what is the virtual book tour?

Speaker 2: 31:19

Yeah, you've spent so much of your efforts to bring a book out right Now, how are you going to get it out there to the world? And it used to be go on book tours everywhere. That doesn't work. Nobody's, there's not bookstores anymore.

Speaker 2: 31:32

There's something called a virtual book tour that we started years and years ago and I can think of one client we worked with, eric Weinheimer, right, the first blind man to summit Mount Everest and go down the Grand Canyon in a kayak, solo, right. He did a virtual book tour pre-COVID because it was easier for him than flying around from place to place. Now it's still easier, but it's also more effective. And so we work with a lot of authors when they bring their book out to talk on targeted podcasts about the book, about the ideas, and they're using that not only to promote their book but then also as content to repurpose. Today we're only limited by our creativity and, as I see, we've been doing it almost 10 years now with 1,500 clients, had over 400 nonfiction books that we've helped the creative ways that people are using it to get more out of every interview as opposed to just doing more interviews. It's becoming more and more powerful with time.

Speaker 1: 32:33

I totally agree. Final question so I've enjoyed this conversation. Question so I've enjoyed this conversation. I'm a huge fan of guest podcasting and then, of course, the marketing that comes as a result of it. Ultimately, I just ties back into the couple of the themes we've talked about. One is that I want to have more quality conversations and I want to attract people to me versus chasing people, and I find that both the process of being a guest on relevant podcasts and then remarketing the podcast is one of the highest ROI marketing activities that I've ever done, and so I fully embrace it and promote it. Do you have any final thoughts or anything, any final advice or words of wisdom for our audience before we wrap up?

Speaker 2: 33:22

A couple of things. One, first of all, thank you for having me here. I know the work that you put into this and people appreciate that, and I would say if this just was entertaining, all right, that's okay, but the idea is to make it educational and it's got to be educational with taking action afterwards, and so made it easy. There's a page on our website. Just go to interviewvaletwithavcom forward slash MDP and there's an assessment there. Right, 10 questions Will podcast interview marketing work for you?

Speaker 2: 33:58

Paul mentioned the book. Right, I sell a lot on Amazon. I give more away. If you want a copy of Podcast Guest Profits how to Grow your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy happy to mail you a copy if you're in the States or email you a copy if you're overseas. And then, finally, if you listen to this and this makes a whole lot of sense I can see how this marketing channel would work for me. If you want to talk about this, I'll put my calendar scheduling link there. All at interviewvaletcom forward slash MDP for million dollar producer.

Speaker 2: 34:34

And I guess the final word that I would have is that our mission at Interview Valet is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders to millions of people they could serve for the betterment of all. The people that should be heard are not the ones that are the loudest or throwing the most money at it. Too often I see that it's the loudest people are out there, not the best, and people are being led astray by them. So that's one of the things that I'm passionate about is to take these humble, heroic people and get them out there in front of their clients, because I know it'll make their life better and it'll make their clients' life better.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Great note to end this on. Again, thank you so much for your time today. I've learned a lot from you both in from your book as well as if I always enjoy doing these podcasts is why I have them. I get to have great conversations with people like yourself, so I appreciate your time. Thank you, paul.