Hey, Charlatans: Don’t send me multiple invitations to be on your phony pay-for-play business podcast.
Look, I get a lot of invitations to be on a lot of podcasts. But you know as well as I do that there are so many podcasts out there that this doesn’t even qualify as a humblebrag. It’s like bragging that “I get a lot of spam emails.” Because it’s just a by-product of my name being out here on the Internets and that’s all my fault.
I never accept these invitations, but I do read them – and sometimes I go to their websites if the hosts have one. Because I am in their corner. As a lifelong startup founder and a C-list creator, I am absolutely intrigued by the business-meets-creative vibe of these folks and their endeavours. I’ve tried podcasting. I was pretty good at it (just... go to YouTube, I’m not linking). But it’s a lot of hard work for, let’s face it, not a lot of payoff.
Like writing. Am I right, editor?
So anyway, it was pretty easy to see that this phony podcast invitation was not a scam, but something a businessperson should never consider unless they’re just about to put the match to their money.
I mean, if you’re a pyromaniac, fine. Otherwise, paying to be a guest on a (expletive) business podcast is probably a better return, emotionally speaking.
Burying the “lead”
Yeah, I know. It should be “lede.” It’s a pun. And not a good one.
I just humblebragged my constant stream of elite podcast invitations and then virtue-signaled my super altruistic decision to spend time reviewing their vibes – all to get to the fact that I read a lot of those invitations. And 99 out of 100 of them are personally written by nice people who seem passionate about what they’re doing.
Respect.
But out of every hundred of them, one smells. (And you have to go by smell because they’re never upfront about wanting your money.)
The first giveaway was that they told me how impressed they were with what I’ve done with the company I’m using as a placeholder in my LinkedIn while I figure out what I want to do when I grow up. Actually, I am getting a ton of (expletive) directed at that company these days. It’s now just a corporate home for my writing and (fast-growing!) private newsletter, but whatever I guess. My writing guaranteed business leads and offshore developers and trees planted in its name.
Not making that last one up.
You’ll pay. Oh...you’ll pay
The second giveaway was that there was no “get-to-know-ya” conversation necessary. Reply back YES and I’m booked.
Or am I?
I did my thing and looked them up. Weird. No website link in the email, and the URL for the emailer’s address was a server that just did email, no website. I think all that was just an oversight.
Or was it?
I had to hand-find the website and then scour it, and it was mainly a bunch, a bunch, of lovingly crafted but depressingly similar descriptions of each of the episodes, with (mostly) professional photos of the guest and (definitely) obscure and buzzwordy topics.
I went to “About,” “Contact,” and in fact every section of the website. And I thought, ‘Huh, that’s weird, why would there be a section for podcast guests to review the podcast if – oh there it is.’
It wasn’t a price list or anything. And again, if I give you the exact wording, you’ll find them and they don’t deserve the juice. It was just more of a quick thanks to the folks who “contribute” to their podcast.
There are the dots. I’ll leave the connecting to you.
Legit exposure versus the echo chamber
When I brought up the podcast invite to one of my kids, a senior in high school, he immediately connected it to the vast number of invitations he gets to be included in one publication or another – usually the word “honour” is included somewhere. And they’ll give him a plaque and a free hard copy for like US$100 (RM470) or whatever.
Oh yeah. I remember that now. Like all the disappointing parts of life, it starts in high school and never ends.
And that’s probably a better example of “the catch” of this kind of thing. You pay for exposure in a publication which no one ever reads. Dude, not even the other people in the publication. They receive their copy, open it to their name, get a feeling of satisfaction, and put it on the bookshelf
This is fine. I’m not bemoaning buying the naming rights to a star or whatever. That’s cool.
But. You know. Tell people that’s what you’re doing. Tell them it’s all just a big ad buy.
There are definitely tons of legit ways to get exposure for your business. If there weren’t, this kind of thing wouldn’t be possible. And it infuriates me because it makes it that much harder to bring trust and honesty into the legit paid-sponsor-alongside-worthy-content-creator relationship.
Which, as a lifelong startup founder and C-List creator, I am obviously invested in.
So to leave it very simply: Pay to sell your product, yes. Don’t ever pay to be the product. – Inc/Tribune News Service