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In this episode of Podcasting 101 with RSS.com, with speak with Josh Elledge, the CEO of UpMyInfluence, who has been in the podcasting industry for more than seven years. He’s lectured about the growth of podcasting at events like Podcast Movement, PodFest, FinCon, and a dozen more.
Josh is the host of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and has made over 2000 media appearances, and 300 podcast guest appearances. Today, Josh offers some helpful advice on how to leverage podcast guest appearances to build your brand and business.
About Josh Ellege
Josh Elledge 0:49
Yeah, my name is Josh Elledge, and I am the founder and CEO of upmyinfluence.com, and I have been an entrepreneur for decades, and been a podcaster when I was hand coding my own RSS feeds back in, I want to say, March 2007.
Josh Elledge 1:08
And I was taking my radio segments – chopping them up – the very manual process. And, you know, I’d hand code my own RSS feeds, create that, get that submitted, and, you know, and I’ve fallen in love with podcasts. As a matter of fact, I was just looking through the numbers, Ashley – I have now produced over 1500 episodes. I have been a guest on over 300 different podcasts. I am such a fan of this platform. And I can just tell you to any business owner that’s listening or someone who’s responsible for growth, it is absolutely a life changing platform. If you use it right, and I suspect that we’re gonna be talking about that in this conversation.
Ashley 1:51
Absolutely. And the reason I wanted to bring you on is because of the fact you have done so many podcasts interviews. Because they say that podcast guesting is the new guest blogging. And so I’m kind of curious, how is it that you choose which podcast you’re on? How do you even pitch people? Tell me all the – spill all the tea!
How to Get Started Guest Podcasting
Josh Elledge 2:11
Yeah, in the beginning, right. There’s a lot of outreach that you have to do to get the momentum going. Here’s what I want to let people know, in terms of like, you know, if they’re kind of thinking about their long term business model. It gets easier. In fact, it gets so ridiculously easy. We’ll talk about this from two different directions, right? Because you talked about being a guest and then being the host, right?
Josh Elledge 2:38
So, um, as a guest, we’ll talk about that, because that’s pretty quick – is that, in the beginning – yes. What my recommendation is, is that you aim for small shows, people that are at your level of authority or smaller, okay. And, there’s so many reasons why I think that that’s just good business practice. Number one is that bigger shows, they get hit, well they get hit up a lot. I get about 15 inquiries every single week, for the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, and I have a pretty tight requirement in order to be a guest.
Josh Elledge 3:15
But that said, when you aim for smaller shows, number one, is you’re going to get practice. I know you know this, Ashley. Every podcaster will tell you this – your first 10, 20, 30 shows – they’re gonna be, eh. They’re gonna be good, not great. And you will get so much better as you go. So what I don’t want you to do, is I don’t want you to pitch a big, bigger show. And let’s say you do get placed, right? Number one is just like in media, right? Because my background is in media consulting and training and PR. And so people would come and say, “Hey, can you get me on the Today Show?” And the answer is like, yeah, it’s gonna take us a year or two. But if you’re really committed to it, we can aim for that.
Josh Elledge 4:05
And so they’ll say, “Hey wait a minute, a year or two? No, I want them to book me next week.” Like, yeah, well, tell me about all the media that you’ve done already. They’re like, “None.” And, I’m like, well, there you go. So you have to honor the path. Right? So you either have to, you have to earn your stripes somewhere, right? So if you want to be a guest on a podcast, be prepared to share. When you’re presenting yourself as a guest to be a guest on a podcast, be prepared to share: Here’s where I’ve been before. Here were the results. Here’s how I promoted that episode very heavily to my own audience, and we could create a great win-win together. And here is what is…
Josh Elledge 4:43
Anytime I pitch the media, it’s always about, here’s what’s in it for you. Nothing to do with what’s in it for me. And that’s a really good philosophy when you’re reaching out and you want that visibility. So, yeah, so that’s it. So, start small, please, please, please, please, start small. And then my recommendation is you can either work with agencies, you can work with an expert, you know, you can work with someone that knows the ropes a little bit. They can certainly speed up the process. But I think really, it is just about authentic one-to-one communication.
Josh Elledge 5:18
Resist the urge to send out email blasts to podcasters. Please do not do that. We know what you’re doing. We don’t like it. So I’ll just speak on behalf of other podcasts. Maybe other ones, maybe some podcasters do like it. I don’t! My recommendation would be spend more time with fewer people. Spend quality, authentic time in your communication. It’s absolutely worth it. You’ll get way more bang for the buck, rather than just trying to blast everybody. So ignore any guru out there that tells you to do that. Don’t do that.
Ashley 5:50
So basically, it sounds like what you’re saying is before you can go after the big fish, you need to up your influence?
Josh Elledge 5:55
Yeah, that helps! That helps. So here’s the thing, right – is that any podcaster worth a grain of salt, is going to check you out a little bit, before they book you. Now, not everybody does some, you know, some are kind of more open – it’s like open mic night. You know, to be a guest on their show, and that’s fine. But most podcasters, they’re going to check you out. So knowing that, right? What do you want them to see? So in marketing today, in sales today, I can tell you this, having studied and led on consumer behavior since 2007, is that consumers today are pretty darn skeptical.
Josh Elledge 5:56
Consumers are empowered, and everybody’s a consumer that includes podcast hosts, right or other media. They’re going to do a quick Google search on you. They’re going to check out your LinkedIn. They’re going to check out your website and see if you have a media page, right? If you don’t have these things, I’m not saying it’s going to, you know, prevent you from anything, but why not? Right? Because they’re going to look for it. So what I like to do is I like to head them off at the past and say, “Oh, hey, you’re looking for Josh Elledge, let me show you what I would like to show you.” So I’m gonna lead with my authority.
Josh Elledge 7:12
So authority is one of the key three things that you need today to truly succeed in business – is what your perceived authority is online. And everywhere that you know, people might your name might come up, control that narrative, control that message. So podcasts, being a guest on a podcast is a great way to fill up Google with lots of great stuff about you, right? And then what you want to do is you make sure you make it ridiculously easy for Google to find all those podcasts, you want to make it ridiculously easy for future podcasters to find out where you’ve appeared on.
Josh Elledge 7:12
So when you go to UpMyInfluence.com, and you hover over about, you’re going to see one tab that says 200 Plus or 300 Plus podcasts that I’ve appeared on. I indexed all of them, right? And I also have a separate media page that shows all my traditional media placements – everything like – I want to make it brain dead easy for people. So to someone who’s listening to us, and you want to just go copy what I do, go for it. Go see what I do, because I can tell you, it works.
Josh Elledge 8:21
And then to answer your question, Ashley – In the beginning, yes, you are going to have to push really, really hard both as a guest, and as a host. You’ve got to just wear out the shoe a little, and you’ve got to do the manual work. I hate to tell you [this]. Gurus who want to sell you their stuff will tell you, you know that there’s no work involved. And you know, they’re the ones making a lot of money there. It’s just going to take a little bit of effort. But that said, if you’ll do the work for about 3, 4, 5, 6 months, you will start to develop a lot of organic activity. A lot of inbound activity where you just don’t have to work that hard.
Josh Elledge 8:59
So you put in the work you put in the work now, and then you get the results later. I like that because I mean even if you wanted to do like – If you did want to get on the Today Show, if for some reason – for some miraculous chance you were booked – you wouldn’t be ready, and you could totally bomb and ruin it. And so I like what you said about the idea of practicing and getting good at it. Honing in your craft, honing in your message, and honing in who it is you’re talking to. So that when you do finally get the Today Show answering your call, you know what to say and what to do and you don’t look like a bumbling idiot.
Josh Elledge 9:30
That’s right. Can I share a dirty little secret too? And that is.
Ashley 9:34
YES!
Josh Elledge 9:34
No, no, no, keep your dirty little secrets, Josh. Okay, so here’s the thing, right? Um, and I can tell you this, in hindsight. Having been on, and I’ve been to some big shows. And I’ve had some big media placements. I can tell you that the typical podcast guest experience from a “Whoa Boy! They’re gonna promote me to their audience! I’m gonna make all this money!” Right?
Your Presence is Vital to Establishing Authority
Josh Elledge 10:02
It’s pretty underwhelming. Authority, the authority you gain from your media placements, whether that’s being a podcast guest or whatever it is, is generally less valuable. You get more value from the authority of being in that podcast than you do from the visibility of being on that podcast. So in other words, you’re going to get way more value from your own audience seeing you in the interview chair than this podcaster’s new audience. This new audience is hearing you for the first time.
Josh Elledge 10:39
Actually, I recognize that there are people listening to our conversation right now. They’re hearing me for the first time. They’re like, “Okay, cool. I don’t really know Josh that well. I’ll keep listening, you know, and so, you know, the jury’s kind of out for now. I mean, he seems kind of excited about what he’s talking about, but I don’t know.” So they’re, they’re not gonna buy my stuff. Yeah, honestly, you’re not, we’re at the beginning of the relationship.
Josh Elledge 11:04
The best you can hope for is you can get people to follow you somewhere and kind of start paying attention to what you’re doing. So let’s have realistic expectations. But that said, when you appear as a guest, how you use that – when you appear on TV, for example, it’s what you do with that, that matters. Can you repurpose that, you know, a dozen, two dozen, three dozen different ways to your own audience? It’s a great win-win, you know. TV stations are thrilled that you’re promoting the segment. You know, it’s totally symbiotic at that point, right? But again, in terms of people taking action, it’s going to come from your own audience. And so I share that to say, do as much media and podcast guesting as you possibly can. Because it’s the greatest opportunity out there for getting your own audience to take action, and to introduce new people to you.
Ashley 12:02
Absolutely. And you know, the other good thing about it, is that the more podcasts that you’re on, the more that you’re boosting up your search engine results. You’re boosting up, like you said, your authority. You’re showing people, I know what I’m saying, I know what I’m doing. And I’m giving more people the opportunity to see that that is true. And that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on is because I have been watching you and what you’ve been doing. And I think it’s amazing how many podcasts you’ve been on. And you know, you said that anybody listening to this might not buy from you. But they should, because everything, everything that you do, it just makes sense. Like you break it down in a way that makes sense. And so I have to ask you, okay, so I’m a baby podcaster, I come to you. And I tell you, you know, I want to start a food podcast, I want to talk all about food. So what’s the first thing you would tell me, I know that you gave us some ideas of like, of tips and things like that. But walk me through what you would say to the person who comes to you and says, Alright, I do want to get on the Today Show? What’s the very first thing I do?
Josh Elledge 13:03
Yes. Okay, so we’re gonna talk about – Are we talking about being a host now and like, because I like that. I think I’m a huge fan of that. And for a number of reasons. There are so many benefits to being a podcaster. And as long as you know, you’ve got some great advice kind of going into it. Because you know, you don’t want to make too many mistakes on this thing. You don’t want – you certainly don’t want to take forever. That’s why I’m a big fan of like, you know, really working with a guide or someone that can get you launched pretty quickly.
The Pitfalls of DIY Podcasting
Josh Elledge 13:33
Here’s what I see, when people just try to DIY it themselves. They spend forever in inaction, worried it’s not gonna sound right. Worried about this and that, and worried about the technology, right? Someone has done it a bunch. Is there gonna be? Oh, no, it’s super easy. Here. Let me show you. And you’re gonna learn from their mistakes. I like that. Alright, just to get just so I can get you in the world quicker. And I hear this. And actually, I know you’ve heard this too.
Josh Elledge 13:57
What’s the – anytime you ask a podcaster? “What’s the number one piece of advice you would give to a new podcaster?” It’s almost always getting started. Right? It’s not, “Oh, save up your money and get a really good mic first.” No, that’s not usually the advice, so just get started. Right.
Make Content for the Right Platform – Then Repurpose It
Josh Elledge 14:16
So if, like, let’s say that you want to become known for being an expert in, let’s say, French pastry, for example. Now, that would be a little bit more of a visual type level of expertise. So I would say listen, it’s cool if you want to do a podcast, right, but I would probably create your original content for YouTube. And then repurpose and repackage that very simply, for a podcast. What you can do, right, so now what I would do. Here’s one piece of advice, right? Is that if you’re going to produce something for YouTube, produce content for YouTube
Josh Elledge 15:02
If you’re going to produce content for podcasts, produce content for podcasts. So that means you’re going to need to be aware of your language, right? So put on YouTube, “Hey, YouTube, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And then you have a certain point that you edit. So you can recut that intro for your podcast outro. Same thing, because you’ve got to have all that YouTube stuff in there.
Josh Elledge 15:24
But you don’t necessarily want that on your podcast, because you don’t want people to feel like it’s repurposed for them. But again, all of that said, right, I’m a huge fan of creating something one time. Like, I love actually that we’re recording this right now. We’re recording it in video, that gives you and I the opportunity to get video clips, right. And so we can repurpose this dozens of different ways and get it everywhere.
Josh Elledge 15:51
And so when you keep working on the platform, on the right platform, it’s like it’s greased the track right there. It just makes your rise to greatness just so much easier. Just grab a platform and start giving, start serving, stay in your zone of expertise, you know. Hammer that everywhere you go. It’s like you’re the evangelist. That’s like advocating for a certain idea, right? But use that.
Josh Elledge 16:25
And so as you go, you will become the content creator yourself, that will absolutely make it easier for you to get booked on other stuff. Right? So when you have a platform, and you say, “Yeah, listen, you know, I’ve been doing a show about blah, blah, blah, you know, for six months,” it makes it easier for the media who are going to check you out before they book you to look at your stuff. Or like Ashley Grant is TV ready. Or she’s radio ready, or she’s, you know, clearly an expert. Because you’ve owned that mantle of expertness.
How Josh’s Business Model Has Changed
Ashley Grant 17:04
Now, before we actually started recording, before we started discussing all the things that we were going to chat about, you had said that you have changed your business model to be more podcasts friendly. So tell me a little bit about that.
Josh Elledge 17:17
Yeah, quite unintentionally. And that is, um, start with this, right? When the car is in motion, it’s so much easier to turn the wheel when you know that the wheel needs to be turned. When you’re sitting in park, and you’re not really going anywhere. It’s really hard to get to where you need to get.
Josh Elledge 17:41
Okay. So, Savings Angel, which I launched in January 2007 was an unintentional company, right? I had a problem. I needed to save money. Because I was spending way too much money at the grocery store. I created a solution for myself. Wow, maybe this could be a membership type thing. And we ended up becoming a seven figure year company with that.
Josh Elledge 18:07
Now, while I was doing that work, you know, in business, life was good. I started serving in our local community. So I started doing pro bono mentoring workshops, served on boards for minority owned, women owned, veteran owned businesses, just doing what I can to give back. And I was talking about how I built everything with zero paid ads. That was a seven figure company with zero paid ads.
Josh Elledge 18:35
So obviously, people want to know, “Well, how’d you do that?” And I talked about, well, here’s how you get media attention, it’s pretty easy. And let me break it down for you step by step. Now, in the course of that work, where you plant your seeds is not necessarily where you reap your harvest. Right? So when you’re out there just doing the good work- don’t be surprised if opportunities become presented to you.
Josh Elledge 18:57
So that’s what led to unintentionally starting Up My Influence is people who say, “Wait a minute, you’re pretty smart with this media stuff. Can I just hire you? And I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. Yes.”
Josh Elledge 19:10
And so, lo and behold, while we were helping people get tons of media coverage, and we had developed, we had a problem. And my problem was that I was getting good customers, you know from showing up at events speaking at events you know. I spoke for the Tony Robbins organization. I spoke to you know, all kinds of podcasting conferences like FinCon, Social Media Marketing World, etc … Right now we get some good business there.
Josh Elledge 19:35
Mainly from the green room, right? When I talk with, and network with other people, they’re just kind of at the mixers and stuff like that. But then the inbound was up and down. Like we’d have good months, we’d have bad months. So I’m like, “How can I level that out?”
Josh Elledge 19:50
And so, we, you know, really had the brilliant idea. Like wait a minute, let’s take this podcast we’re doing the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, and why don’t we just open up the floodgates and say, “Listen, if you are doing six figures in business, come on in, I’d love to interview you with the intention that I’m going to cultivate a relationship with this person.” And we’ll see where it goes. Maybe we end up doing business together. Maybe something else. Right.
Josh Elledge 20:17
But I believe, you know, Michael Gerber said in “The E Myth,” right, for us business owners, we are charged with growing the business. That’s our number one job. And so I believe that the best activity that we could be doing is networking. High level networking just leads to amazing stuff – collaborations, joint ventures, strategic alliances, you know, cross post promotional opportunities, client work, right.
Josh Elledge 20:45
So, um, so yeah, that’s what we did is we opened up the floodgates now. It was an investment of effort, for sure. And we didn’t know if it was going to work out. Well, it did. So what we find is between 10 and 30% of people that I interview, I end up doing business with in some way. Sometimes I’m hiring them, sometimes, you know, they’re, hiring me to help solve a problem.
Josh Elledge 21:08
So, I believe, Ashley, if we’re just talking about revenue, profit center, potential profit centers, this is gonna blow anyone who’s in the podcasting world, it’s gonna blow your mind. And I’ve taught on this a lot. Over the years, I believe that most podcasters are tripping over big stacks of cash to pick up pennies, to try to get value from your audience, and get an audience member to, quote unquote, buy your stuff.
Josh Elledge 21:37
That’s a lot. That is a grind. It’s just, realistically, if you think about your own behavior, as a podcast consumer, don’t worry, we really don’t do much. Most podcast listeners – some people are not gonna like me saying this – but most podcast listeners are pretty passive, right. Now that said, they’re building relationships for sure. But what I discovered is that, if I can cultivate a relationship with whomever I want, why not [do it]? So I use a podcast to build relationships.
Josh Elledge 22:12
And then I get to do a ton of business. And here’s what happened. One of my clients, I’m getting to your original question here. Sorry, we had one of our clients who said, “Hey, you know, the PR is all well and good Josh. But I know what you guys are doing on the sales, and can you hook me up?”
Josh Elledge 22:34
Okay, sure, because it was working for us. And so she had a $25,000 mastermind. And so like, we thought well, who would be like the perfect member of that mastermind? So she described him and I said, “Great, let’s start inviting them in.” So I think I want to say she did maybe about 23 interviews, ended up with seven of them that joined her $25,000 mastermind, and she made $175,000 in 90 days. Now, that was spread out over a year. But, you know, for, you know, essentially was about 90 days of just, you know, talking to a couple of people a week, it’s a good gig. I cannot believe I get paid to do what I do. I just get to meet awesome people. And you know, produce content. And I get paid for that. It’s crazy.
Josh Talks about the Podcasts His Company Produces
Ashley 23:26
It’s the best way to do it, though. I think. So, okay, so you’re doing a whole bunch of podcasts through your company. I can’t remember how many you said you run right now. How many shows are you producing?
Josh Elledge 23:36
Yeah, about 70 to 80 podcasts – that’s actively producing. We have about 125 active clients that we work with. And so our job is to help them build relationships with their dream customers. Through leveraging their authority, generosity – you got to be generous. – and then finally, number three, leverage platform. We’ve tested a lot of stuff. How can you be generous, and a really good book I recommend almost every day is Bob Burg’s book “Go Giver.” And particularly “Go Givers Sell More.”
Josh Elledge 24:11
If you want to know philosophically what we do. That’s it right there is we lead with a lot of generosity. We ask ourselves, listen, what does my dream ideal customer really want today? If they don’t know me, what’s something I can give them that they would say, “Yeah, sure, I’ll do that?” And so we’ve tested that with a lot of stuff. Being, um, you know, investing in that relationship and saying, “Listen, I would love to promote you, I would love to celebrate you. I would love to learn from you. I would love to, you know, blah, blah, blah.”
Josh Elledge 24:39
Like that works with our audience. So that’s what we give away. And I’m not afraid of investing into those relationships rather than just – I don’t invest in ads. Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. That wasn’t my quote. That was from the founder of Geek Squad, Robert Stephens.
What Makes a Bad Pitch?
Ashley 25:01
I like that. Well, with doing that many podcasts, I’m sure you get a bunch of pitches of, “Oh, I really want to be on the show. I want to be on this show. I want to be on that show.” So tell me, what makes a bad pitch?
Josh Elledge 25:14
Oh, Robo pitching! Yeah, okay. Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy to tell if someone just, you know, they don’t get the facts right. It’s like, let’s, and what I generally tell people is like, you don’t need to email me. You don’t need to email. I don’t need to see your email. What I want you to do is I want you to go to a guest link that we’ve got, and it’s UpMyInfluence.com/guest. And hey, if you qualify, then by all means schedule. If you don’t qualify, please don’t schedule because I, what I do is I just have everybody book.
Josh Elledge 25:53
Now that said, you’re gonna have to wait 60 to 90 days before I can get you in the queue. I’m always booked out, generally about eight to 10 weeks in advance. And then the show takes a while. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. And then the show takes about eight weeks before it gets published.
Josh Elledge 26:14
So as long as you don’t mind being patient, and that’s a daily show. Ashley, I record about 12 episodes on average, every single week. And that – some podcasters listening to me right now – that’s blowing their mind. They’re like, “What, why?” Because I just explained, the more people that I talk with, the more business I end up doing.
Josh Elledge 26:36
If I’m going to do business with 10 to 30% of those people, do I want to? And my goal is to talk with 50 people, and I ended up doing business with 15 of them. Do I want to talk to those 50 people in one year, or within two months, or within one month? I’d rather talk with them within one month. I can do it.
Josh Elledge 26:57
If you have great systems, a good team, and you use great technology, you can crank out episodes. The reason why, you know, it’s like someone who’s never run a half marathon might look at running 13.1 miles and go, “Oh, I could never do that.” You might well, I mean, nonetheless, you know, physically it’s possible, right? You can run it. You just have to work your way up to that. And I’m speaking as a formerly like obese dude who ended up running a couple of marathons. It was impossible at the beginning. And then I just started doing the work. And I’m like, oh, okay, I can do this. If I can chat with 45 people a month, you can chat with 10. It’s not that hard.
Josh Elledge 27:38
Okay, I learned. And like I said, it’s fun. I get to talk with really smart people. And I get to pick their brain. And I get to let them know very transparently. Man, this is what’s going on. Like, what would you do? If you were me? Like, how would you fix this problem? And guess what, I got someone super smart, that normally might charge, you know, $200 or $1,000 an hour for their time, and I get free coaching. It’s a benefit of being a podcaster – you get coached for free.
Josh on Guest Swapping
Ashley 28:08
So now I’m curious, do you do? What do they call it? Guest swapping?
Josh Elledge 28:13
Oh, sure, I’m open to that. I don’t do that if they don’t fit the qualifications, just out of fairness. Because I do get a lot of people that reach out and they say, “Well don’t I meet your qualifications. But I’m a financial planner, and I really want to be on your show.” I’m like, “Sorry, you know, you have to be doing six figures, you have to be in a b2b. You know, the kind of situation where you’re selling something, maybe bigger ticket or whatever.” That’s just our requirements we’ve got to do.
Josh Elledge 28:40
Otherwise, we got to where we were at a point at one point where I was getting 20 – 25 pitches a week. That’s way too many. Yeah. So I have to start drawing lines. And this is what will happen to my aspiring podcasters out there. When you start doing more and more shows, right? And this is how you’ll have it. You get more and more people that are coming inbound. So in the beginning, that’s why if you’re a guest, find brand new shows, because usually they’re pretty flexible on who they let in. And then what ends up happening is they start tightening the requirements. So it used to be a lot easier to be a guest on our podcasts now. I mean, I have so many people in queue, that, you know, I kind of have to be tighter and tighter and tighter on that. And it’s a bummer. Um, you know, when I have to say no to somebody. But I mean, it’s like what do you do? I mean, you could only do so many.
Ashley 29:30
That’s solid advice, though. And I actually really liked the fact that you said that because, you know, people that are thinking, “Oh, I’m just gonna start pitching, you know, these big podcasters.” You can’t! Not yet! You have to earn it. Pay your dues.
Achieving Your Goals is Inevitable – If You Put in the Work
Josh Elledge 29:45
Yeah, and listen, I share that. It is an inevitability. You will get that. You will earn that. So don’t feel like “Oh, that’s a far off thing.” Right? It’s just going to take a handful of months, and if you’ll just do the work, I promise you’re going to get into the promised land – where it’s an easy thing. Being a guest as well – you will get to a point where, you know, with very little very little effort, you will have plenty of shows. And Ashley, we would love to feature you. Just keep showing up. Be a good guest. Get good at being a guest, you know, and be yourself.
Josh Elledge 30:27
And I’m not saying that there’s a perfect model. Some people listening to me don’t like me at all. They don’t like my delivery style. That’s okay. And I’m into it. And that’s okay. Right? So what you want to do is you want to know who your audience is, and appeal to them. And, and quite honestly, like this, this gets into a larger conversation about branding and like who you are. It’s like, be authentic to who you are. And that will be a natural filter, so that you can make sure to work with people that are aligned with you.
Ashley 30:56
I love everything that you’ve said. And if people aren’t taking notes, they better rewind this and start taking them. Because everything that you have shared is exactly what I think people need to hear. Because like I said, just so many people, they get into this business, and they’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna start podcasting. And I’m doing it because I want to make money. And how can I make the fastest cash?” And like you said, they’re tripping over stacks of cash to get to the pennies. I love that analogy. That is so good. Well, where can people find you?
Where People Can Find Josh
Josh Elledge 31:21
Yeah, so a couple things. If you’ve been listening to me, and you’re like, “Wait a minute, how does this guy do this?” Again? If you hurry up, I’m going to give you a URL right now. And if you type this in, you can go through our high ticket, lead generation training, and I’ll just teach you everything. And it’s free. You don’t have to buy anything.
Josh Elledge 31:51
Like we’re really cool. We’re cool. So, um, specifically, if you’re making under a quarter million dollars a year, this is designed for you. I’m happy to give, and that’s it. UpMyInfluence.com/free. So UpMyInfluence.com/free, and scroll down to where it says scholarship. And you’ll be able to enroll for that. I’d be thrilled to have you there. If you’re doing six figures, and you’re in the b2b world, I’m always looking for great guests.
Josh Elledge 32:27
Just go to UpMyInfluence.com/guests. And you’ll see exactly where you can register there. Or you could just go to my main website, you’ll find it. I make it pretty easy.
Josh Elledge 32:42
That’s awesome. And everybody that’s listening, you need to go to his website anyway, because his blog is filled with amazing content. Your YouTube channel’s filled with amazing content. I mean, it is definitely a place to go to get all the ideas on how to build authority in your business. And I’m just so glad you could be here today. Thank you so much for your time.
Josh Elledge 32:59
Yeah, thank you to RSS.com too. I mean, I love the model. I love the work that you’re doing. Ashley, you’ve been a longtime friend. You are truly someone who cares for the success of other people. You’re good people to know. Ashley, thank you so much for having me.
Ashley 33:15
Ah, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. Now, I’m gonna ask you one last thing before I let you go. Is there anything I didn’t ask you, you really wish I had?
Josh Elledge 33:24
Um, you know, listen, it’s I think – I underlined this a couple of times. Um, yes. I want you to read Bob Burg’s book, “The Go Giver” or “Go Givers Sell More.” I want you to anytime you hear any guru out there that is saying you can have fast and easy money, you’re one funnel away… Take all that with a big grain of salt. Right? If you’re trying to shortcut the system, and all you care about is getting sales from people, we all know it. We all know what you’re doing, and we don’t really care for it.
Josh Elledge 33:59
So whatever your intention is, we all know. And so you may as well just give up on the idea of trying to treat people like dummies, and instead treat people like you would want to be treated as adults. And just be generous with your time. Be a giver. Make it ridiculously easy for people to get to know you. Build that proximity because that proximity will lead to familiarity. Familiarity then gives you the know, like, and trust. That is who we do business with.
Josh Elledge 34:33
Oh, that’s so good. Fantastic stuff. Well, thank you again.
Josh Elledge 34:37
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much.
Ashley 34:40
Well, my fellow podcasters I hope you’ve gleaned some really good insights from Josh’s interview. To learn more about launching and growing your own show, visit us at RSS.com/blog. And if you’d like to start your show, you can start for free at RSS.com and get your first episode on us. Thanks for tuning in.
Josh’s Links
Websites: https://upmyinfluence.com/ & https://savingsangel.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshelledge/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshelledge
