For most podcasters, guest sourcing is the hardest part of the workflow. It doesn’t have to be.
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For some people, finding guests for their podcast is absolutely hands-down the easiest part of their workflow.
Most podcasters are not like this.
Sometimes, finding a guest or enough people who are going to be appropriate and interesting and professionally relevant for your show, it feels like it can take forever, and you never get anywhere, and you are constantly running behind your production schedule because somebody canceled and you didn’t have anyone to fill that slot with.
It’s frustrating, and it can be difficult, but to have a relationship-building podcast, you have to have guests to talk to.
Those two things, they absolutely go together.
They are not mutually exclusive. They are mutually inclusive.
So if you’re in the position where you’re not sure where to source these new guests, the first thing that you should try is probably the podcast matchmaking services.
PodMatch is one that I really like.
It’s designed to be Tinder for podcasters, where you get new matches every day, and you can connect them through the infrastructure.
This is not a sponsored post. That’s not an affiliate. Just go look it up. The guy who runs it is really awesome.
Other ways you can find guests, though, because not everyone is on PodMatch, not every guest. There are lots of experts who do not really deal with multimedia at all, who are still going to be perfectly delighted to get a podcast invitation and appear on your show.
So one of the strategies I recommend at first is to find similar podcasts to yours.
People who have similar businesses doing similar things, and look at all the people they’ve interviewed over the last year or so.
These are great because they’re going to be relevant. They’re going to have something to say.
You can preview their episode and see if they’re a good guest, and they already know how a podcast works, and they’ve agreed to be on one before. So these are really hot leads for new podcast guests.
And most of the time in podcast show notes, the host is going to ask the guests, “Where can people get in touch with you? How can people reach out?” Their contact information is going to be right there. You are allowed to use it and invite them to a podcast episode.
Other places you should look is in your clients, people that you work with, people that you’ve helped. Ask them who they think you’d be able to talk to.
Do they know anyone who would make a really great guest? Would they themselves make a really great guest? That’s a great thing to do with a client.
Any professional networking groups that you’re a part of in person or online – inviting someone to be on a podcast is one of the friendliest things you can do on the internet.
So don’t worry about reaching out to someone if they are further ahead in their business or if they seem like they have a little bit more status or authority than you online. You can still ask. The worst they’re going to say is no, but nobody is ever angry to be asked if they’ll be on your podcast.
Don’t worry if you feel like you’re running behind on guests a little bit. It’s just a matter of finding a new strategy, finding new sources for where these people already exist or where they’re already hanging out, or the podcast that they’ve already been on. And you can do it.
And once you build a workflow around that, you can start filling out your pipeline a little bit further in advance and relax a little bit more.