Episode 48: Lessons Learned from Pitching and Getting onto 100+ Podcasts with Stacy Tuschl
Many people say, "Experience is the best teacher," but I would like to disagree.
Here's why:
Let's face it—experience alone is never enough.
You may be the founder of several business startups but never got to let these enterprises flourish. You may also have been reaching out to media outlets so that more people will recognize your business. Yet, despite these activities, nothing's really working.
Unfortunately, many business owners remain stuck in the cycle of trying but not thriving, then attempting to start other endeavors, only to see themselves in similar situations.
Worse, many people who want to do PR feel paralyzed because of their fear of inexperience.
But you noticed that some business founders who do PR, followed the same script, and applied the PR methodology you've discovered, and now, they're succeeding.
And here you are, often finding yourself taking one step forward, two steps backward. This cyclic experience makes you ask, 'I've experienced a lot, but why can't I land that breakthrough?'
The answer, my fellow business founder, is that these people have found better teachers. Their teachers’ names are experience and reflection. And I can't separate them from each other because they work so well together.
With all your PR activities, it's easy to be distracted by all the noise and sweat you make just to land that first media feature. You might think that more PR experiences mean more chances of getting featured.
Now, don't get me wrong. A lot of times, you need to experience the PR process for you to grasp its significance. But if you've been doing it for some time to no avail and not seeing any results, then a deep and sincere reflection can help you.
Only then can you find the best PR lessons.
One lesson I learned from my PR experiences and reflections is to learn from the best people in the industry.
That is why in this episode, we invited Stacy Tuschl, also a PR expert, to share with us the most important PR lessons she got from pitching and appearing on over 100 podcasts.
"We've been doing PR. We've been studying PR for so long. We've been working with agencies who are doing other things. But if we can find one golden nugget, and we have, if we can find one golden nugget, it's so worth it for us to be faster, more efficient, better pitching, easier yeses, and all the things."
-Stacy Tuschl
Stacy Tuschl started her own business at the age of 18 in her parents' backyard and turned that company into a multi-million dollar business she still runs today. Stacy is a bestselling author, and founder of the Foot Traffic Formula, helping small businesses around the world get more customers in the door. Stacy was named the 2019 Wisconsin Small Business Person of the Year by the United States Small Business Administration.
Whether you're new to PR or have been pitching for more PR exposure, you can gain abundant PR lessons and expert insights by tuning in. From selecting the right people for your team to tracking your progress to finding nuggets of wisdom from fellow business founders, we’ve got these lessons you can’t skip!
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Strategies for prioritizing PR and business activities
How to build momentum for your PR exposure
Why you should track what’s working for you
The power of the snowball effect in PR
An insider’s look into the inbox of podcast producers
The #1 nugget of wisdom in PR you must know
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Gloria Chou's Starter Pack: PR Starter Pack
Gloria Chou's Masterclass: PR Masterclass
Follow Stacy Tuschl on Instagram: @stacytuschl
Join the Foot Traffic Community on Facebook: Foot Traffic™ Community
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
[5:47] I really think it's just building that momentum. So. what I was doing was I was just making connections, reaching out to people, whether it was saying, 'Hey, do you want to do a podcast swap?' Or utilizing my podcast first as leverage to say, 'Do you want to come on my show?’
[9:20] But you have to get better at your craft. You have to practice. So getting any yeses, even if you're like, 'This is dumb. No one's gonna hear this.' Great! Use it as practice.
[14:01] What are you specifically looking for? So it's a lot of try it, track it. And then, from those numbers, let that data dictate how you move forward and what actions you do moving forward.
[19:30] A lot of us procrastinate, and we're doing nothing like it's just not happening. Imagine if you took yourself an hour a day, Monday through Friday, and you just pitched, and you reached out. I bet you'd get a lot from just an hour.
[21:17] It really is a supply and demand situation. So just don't make up lies in your head about what you think and why this will never work for you. Just send it out and see what happens.
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Stacy Tuschl 00:00
So, I started to hear that the point of where they found me was somebody else's podcasts and I went, 'Okay. This is a big one.' A lot of my podcast listeners originated from somebody else's podcast. How do we do more of that action?
Gloria Chou 00:16
Hey friends, I'm Gloria Chou, small business PR expert, award-winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Now I have someone who you've might have come across before. Her name is Stacy Tuschl. She is a best-selling author. She has a top-rated podcast, which you might have heard called the Foot Traffic Podcast, which now has over 1 million downloads. So that's definitely a goal of mine. She's going to be coming on to talk about how she organizes her outreach to get herself not only the best guests, but also getting herself onto other people's podcasts as well. So welcome to the show.
Stacy Tuschl 01:14
Hi, Gloria. Thanks for having me.
Gloria Chou 01:16
So you are a busy, busy woman. I love how clear and concise and to the point you are. So can you tell us about kind of how you strategize all the different things in your business when it comes to pitching and workshops and speaking and opportunities?
Stacy Tuschl 01:29
Yeah, so I think for me, I always knew that PR was so important, and I wanted it, but I didn't know how to do it. So I would just hire other people to do it. And then I really wouldn't be that happy with these big fancy agencies doing all of this stuff. Like I was expecting more. And I realized, 'Okay, I know how to hire. I know how to train. What if I just brought somebody on my team?' I mean, I don't need a full- time person pitching me and all that. So I thought, 'What if I just hired somebody very part-time as a contractor that would be interested in helping get me on shows and get great guests on my shows?' So that's kind of where it started. It's so funny how it's evolved. I actually ended up calling this like a 'Podcast Producer' when I put out the job description, which is totally not that at all. But I lucked out because the person that applied, she came from radio, so she was very used to the podcasting. With radio, she had so many connections and was used to. She's a relationship girl, like she is somebody who you will meet and have like a quick connection with. You want to talk. She builds rapport. She's great with following up. She came from the world of understanding that pitching doesn't mean necessarily a yes immediately. It'll take some time. So she came on as a Podcast Producer. That is not what I would call her at all whatsoever. Now we realize, whoa! Her zone of genius is reaching out, getting some big names on our shows, and just kind of took it from there. So it's a crazy way of how it started, but that's really what I did and then how I found her if that makes sense.
Gloria Chou 03:12
So I love that so much. I know you said it was very part time. I want to get into that. But first, what has been the result of delegating this outreach? Because we as founders, and I know there's people listening right now that says, 'Well, no one can pitch like I can' or 'Oh, I'm not ready yet.' So there's all these things that keep delaying it to some day, one day. Well, so when did you get started with PR? I'm sure it wasn't just this year.
Stacy Tuschl 03:35
No, no, we've been doing it for quite a while. Here's the biggest thing that came from this, that I would never have expected. So you're right, I probably would have thought, well, she's not going to do it like me. She's not going to know who to do, whatever, who to reach out to. So she says to me within the first 90 days of working together, I'm going to get Suze Orman on your show. Do you know what Suze Orman is? Okay. In my head, this is what I thought I was like, 'Sure you are like Suze Orman is not coming on our podcast.' I didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking. I literally thought this girl is nuts. Okay. So I kind of just forgot that she said that because there was no hopes up. That was not happening. So a couple months later, she goes 'I did it. I got Suze Orman.' And I was like, 'What?' Like, literally confused. I'm like, 'What do you mean?' She's a guest, Suze Orman. She's got a new book out and she said yes to come on the podcast. I was in such disbelief. And here's what I realized: We think of each other, of ourselves, not that highly sometimes. We put ourselves down. We think they'll never come on my show. Why would Gloria want to come on my show. We say things like that, so we don't put ourselves out there. And when this person came in, she had a very different belief of me and of our podcast. She was like, 'Why wouldn't she want to come on your show?' Wow. So that I think was the most unexpected. I even said to her recently, 'Your belief in me is making me believe in myself more.' Because that's contagious. That energy is so contagious. So I actually think it helped me, not just from procrastinating, but reaching out to people that I would never in a million years have reached out to.
Gloria Chou 05:23
I love that so much. I mean, now you have, not only do you have a podcast, but you've been able to make the impact. Now for a lot of our founders who are listening, they don't have the traction and the traffic that you do. That's really your realm of expertise. So if someone is just starting out, what can they do to face this beast of PR that they either don't have time to do it? Or they just need to wait until the right moment? What would you tell them to get started? How would they start?
Stacy Tuschl 05:47
Yeah. So I really think it's just building that momentum. Before I ever hired the person that's running this for me, I was doing it myself. So what I was doing was I was just making connections, reaching out to people, whether it was saying, 'Hey, do you want to do a podcast swap?' Or utilizing my podcast first as leverage to say, 'Do you want to come on my show, build a relationship with them, have them see, 'Okay, she knows what she's talking about. I like her energy'? Then a lot of times, they would say, 'Do you want to come on my show? I have a podcast too.' So that was a really great way of like getting out there. And then from there, it was leveraging those small yeses as I would kind of showcase the biggest 'Yes' when I would go to the next person to say, 'Hey' and maybe I was like, back in the day, like pretending to be my assistant, like, 'Oh, Stacy has been on blah, blah, blah, and featured whatever.' But I just kept leveraging it. In the beginning, it wasn't like big names are saying yes to me. But I was getting volume. I was getting lots of quantity. But that quantity started to help me get better at understanding what they were saying yes to and why they were saying yes, and how I could take that information to keepclimbing that ladder, getting bigger names. That makes sense.
Gloria Chou 07:04
I love what you said about you know, whether it's making the snowball effect, or the domino effect. We just need that first, yes, and we can't delegate that learning. I know, for me, like, you have a million downloads, I just started my podcast, and I pitched to you as well. And here we are, not only are we friends, now, you've been on my show, so. So leveraging those small yeses is definitely a part of my CPR method to where you talk about your credibility. It doesn't mean that you have to have a podcast. It doesn't mean you need to have a six or seven figure business. It could be as simple as, 'I am a mom, a creator, and I've had this problem all of my life where I have a solution. So it doesn't have to be like that. Do you only accept guests who have been on other people's podcasts or have these awards under your belt?
Stacy Tuschl 07:49
Yeah, great question. First of all, I do have standards, but they're not as crazy as people think. I definitely want to make sure we actually have 2 million downloads. Now I have to clearly update my podcast, or my bio because we are getting bigger. We are growing and it is the snowball effect. As people are trusting me to bring great content and great guests, I have to make sure I do my due diligence. So some of my standards, and again, this is nothing crazy. But one of the things we state is we're looking for people, if it's for me to be, let's say on their show, my standard is that their podcast has been airing consistently for a week for, I should say, every week for six months. Okay, this is if I wouldn't know them. It's possible that I have met somebody when I'm like, 'Oh, my goodness, yes. I want to support. I want to help. Let's do this. But typically, 'I'm like, No. I want to see consistency.' Because if I don't know you, I have to make sure that this is going to actually air when you say it's going to air, and you're not going to stop the podcast. Same thing with somebody coming on my show. I'm not necessarily looking for crazy social media and crazy this. I'm just making sure that it's something my audience wants to hear. It's something we haven't done before, or there's a different angle with it. Then, I will go check out maybe some of their videos or their stories to see how are they speaking. Is this something that is the energy of the conversation, something my audience is going to relate to? Sometimes people want to go on podcasts or do things where you can just tell they haven't done very many, which is fine. But you have to get better at your craft. You have to practice. You have, I mean, if you listen to some of the first episodes and you listen today, it is night and day because I'm just comfortable. Gloria, we're just having a conversation. This isn't scary. A couple years ago, I was scared so you could hear it. But that practice really started to get me more comfortable. So getting any yeses, even if you're like, 'This is dumb. No one's gonna hear this.' Great! Use it as practice. That's okay that no one's gonna hear it. You're not ready, maybe for somebody to hear it quite yet. So just really practice that skill set. Oh, I love that. And I know so much of what you do is about the mindset because you've helped thousands of entrepreneurs get over that. It's all about envisioning the future of what you need to be and stepping into that future version. And now that I've built my own business, and I remember when this podcast was just a pipe dream. It's all about like, what would the future me be like? How would I decide to run my business? So definitely getting that one yes, leveraging those yeses, always having a beginner mindset, and starting early. There's no replacement for experience. Absolutely. Well, and when I went to go hire somebody to finally do this to help me, it was really good that I understood what worked and what didn't with me and how I was pitching. I was able to pass that info to her, and I also knew what types of podcast worked best for me to jump on, like, which kinds I enjoyed, which ones may be produced, like, people coming to follow us, that we attracted the right person. So I was able to give her all of that information because I had done the work upfront.
Gloria Chou 10:54
Exactly. And you could train other people. So just tell us give us very quickly some numbers, like how many podcasts have you been on? How many media features have you landed with this pitching that now you've been able to delegate so successfully?
Stacy Tuschl 11:08
I mean, I would say that I stopped counting after 100. Like, I only knew 100. Because I remember, the goal was like for a month, like get me on four podcasts a month, or I want to get in four a month. When I kind of did the math, it was like, 'Okay, I mean, I probably have been on a few 100. Yeah, so one of the things that I do is, of course I'm a big tracker. I track what works, and then I lean in to what's working. So when I get a new client, I say, 'Hey, how did you, what made you buy today? Then I'll say, and how did you originally find me? Those are two very different questions, right? What did you buy? Why did you buy today? You might have said, 'I heard this podcast you did,' or 'Your Instagram story, like, hit me. And it just was like, it's time.' But you might say, 'but I found you three years ago when I was listening to Gloria's podcast. You see what I'm saying? So I started to hear that the point of where they found me with somebody else's podcasts, and I went, 'Okay, this is a big one.' A lot of my podcast listeners originated from somebody else's podcast. How do we do more of that action? So I decided that one of my KPIs, one of my key performance indicators, for my success, for my personal role in the company, was I need to do podcast appearances. So that's actually probably when I realized I need somebody to help me with this. Because if I'm going to be on podcast all the time, I can't be doing the pitching the follow up. So I think I really leaned into. I needed to help. So I can do what only I can do in that show up here today with you while somebody right now is emailing and scheduling it and finding a time that works for both of us and all the things. So one of my weekly goals is to be on at least two appearances of some sorts. Does that make sense?
Gloria Chou 12:58
Per week?
Stacy Tuschl 12:59
Now, per week, and this week, I happen to have four. And it's just because like I had one before you today, right now with you, and then I have one right after you and I had one last night. It just happened to be somebody needed a presentation yesterday and somebody needed a presentation today. I'm like, 'Okay, put it in there.' But the goal is a minimum of two. Now, sometimes there's nothing. Like there might be nothing next week because it just happens. We're recording this after Memorial Day will be next week. It just might be a slow week. People might not be recording. They might be slowing down for summer. So it might just die down. But the goal is how do we try to get two per week? So instead of Julie reaching out to two people a week, she had to figure out, 'How many people do I have to reach out to to get two yeses a week?' And that's where people think, 'Oh, well, I reached out to five people.' Well, if five people yielded you zero interviews, try 10. And if 10 got you one, how many times do you want a podcast? Or how many times do you want that article feature or that news feature, whatever it is? What are you specifically looking for? So it's a lot of try it, track it. And then from those numbers, let that data dictate how you move forward and what actions you do moving forward.
Gloria Chou 14:12
I love how you said that the number of podcasts directly correlates to the health of your business. And you've said it. So many other people have said it. I actually Stacy, I haven't even told you this. But somebody joined my PR program, and she literally said I'm so glad I found you on Stacy's podcast. And I literally was on your podcast a week ago. So I owe you. Thank you for that.
Stacy Tuschl 14:34
So here's the thing. All it takes is for somebody to hear it and hear it the right way and go, where's this person been? And I'm like, I need this person in my life. Sometimes you get hit immediately with a follower or a buyer, and sometimes a podcast has a shelf life of over two years. So you might, Gloria, in two years, somebody's like, 'Oh, yeah, I followed you after Stacy's podcast. And I'm finally ready. Like I'm finally taking this seriously. So again, you watch that and you see and not only do I track that it's coming from podcast, but I track what podcasts? Who do I want to build a relationship with? Who do I want to continue to say, 'hey, let's do this again in a year?' Or 'Let's do this again. Let's do this or whatever that is. Because when you find a really good one that's working for you, it's like, ding, ding, ding, You've got to zone in again on that data.
Gloria Chou 15:26
Yeah, I love it. And now obviously, you know this, because you've pitched so many times. I have my own way of pitching as well, keeping it short. Keep it concise, highlighting what questions the person can ask, instead of being like, here's what I can talk about, making it super easy. I want to shift focus to finding the right person. A lot of founders think it's so expensive, or you need to be at a certain revenue level to delegate this. But what I'm hearing from you is that the most, the shortcut to success, if you will, is delegating this early and often. So can you walk us through how you find the right person for this?
Stacy Tuschl 15:59
Yeah, I really think it just has to, I don't know that they have to have a certain background or skill set. I think the person they need to be naturally is somebody that is extroverted, likes to talk likes to engage, and they're not afraid to start a conversation. Julie probably emailed a million different people to get to Suze Orman to find her. Like she and it was like a hunt for her, and she was excited. She was like, 'Oh, my goodness, I made this connection.' And I'm now, I'm talking to the girl who's doing this on her team. And like she loved it. It was exciting. If you're not somebody who can, I ask the person you're hiring. If they're somebody that needs instant gratification, this is probably not the role for them. Because they are going to hear 'nos' quite a bit. I get on a lot of podcasts, but there's a lot I don't ever hear back from. So you've got to get somebody who's okay with hearing the nos, like still following up and just being okay with not feeling too pushy. People think, 'Well, I've sent two emails in six months, and I don't really want them to think I'm annoying,' We just got Jenna Kutcher on our podcast, and no joke, Julie said, 'I've been working her for two years. I have been messaging them for two years.' And she goes, 'they never asked me to stop. So I just kept following up with them.' And she's like 'and here we are.' I just said, 'How many people do you think would reach out to somebody for two years?' Because I can tell you right now, I would never. Because I would think 'Oh, don't do that. She's gonna think we're crazy. It's gonna look pushy, right? Well, that's my personality. I'm not the girl to be reaching out and pitching. I'm the girl to think like, 'Oh, my goodness, I emailed yesterday, and they still haven't responded.' Like, I'm that girl. Yeah. And that's not the girl you want pitching for yourself. So I think, look for that. I do think this is when you think about what the task is itself, where it's really like administrative. It's somebody who's just emailing who's DMing, who's, and it could be somebody following a script you give them right. So it could be Gloria, you saying to your clients start with this or say it this way, and you just put Gloria's system into place, and you try that. So it's not that and that's the best part. There's people out there, like you, Gloria, who are telling us all the secrets, where we can just buy your course and then say to somebody on our team or hire somebody for five hours a week, could you implement this for me? So you can pay somebody a flat hourly rate and you can also commission somebody on the podcast they book you on. So you could have a dream list of the top 100 podcast or your top 100 favorites and say, Hey, anybody that says yest to you on this list, what is it worth to you? People say, 'Well, what should I give them? I don't know. What would you pay to be on that show? If you could get on a show that had 5 million downloads, what would that be worth to you?
Gloria Chou 18:56
Oh, at least a few hundred or even a couple thousand?
Stacy Tuschl 18:59
Yeah, right. So you might go, 'Man, if you could get me on the top 100 in marketing or in wherever, I pay $100 per episode for that of whatever you can get because anybody in the top 100 has a good amount of listeners that are keeping them at the top. So you may even want to think about going that route of I'm not even going to have to pay unless she gets something right. It could be a commission type job where it almost feels like a sales role.
Gloria Chou 19:23
Awesome. Okay, so now you told me the personality, the pay structure, how many hours do you think is sufficient for this role?
Stacy Tuschl 19:30
Okay, so think about what you're doing right now. A lot of us procrastinate, and we're doing nothing like it's just not happening. Imagine if you took yourself an hour a day, Monday through Friday, and you just pitched and you reached out. I bet you'd get a lot from just an hour. So to me, I think for as little as five hours a week, you could get somebody doing this. You could get I mean, think about it, 10 hours a month would still be probably 10 hours more than you're doing.
Gloria Chou 19:59
Yeah, even five minutes a day. Even adding one editor from the media list of thousands of people on LinkedIn. That's planting seeds. I love as entrepreneurs, we know that success comes from planting the seeds, and seeing it as a long-term thing. Because here's the thing, like I just told you that I pitched to get onto your podcast, I already had someone get my program, so that in and of itself is worth it and just within one week. So even if you're not at that revenue level yet, for anyone that's listening, I encourage you to think about how important this is. This is like the top 5% of activities that's going to result in more than 80% of your growth. And you know this because you coach entrepreneurs, it's all about prioritizing. It sounds like to me, this is something people should prioritize, no matter how early stage they are.
Stacy Tuschl 20:47
Oh, one thing I want to say too, is I always tell people like look at the podcast, and what what they talk about and what their topics are. Now, be careful. Because if Gloria would have come to my podcast, and so I have quite a few PR episodes, she might have been turned off like, oh, shoot, she already has PR. But the reason I have quite a few PR episodes is because everybody wants to hear PR. So it's actually one of the easier things to get out of my show for, not because we have more, it's because the demand is there. It really is a supply and demand situation. So that was another thing. Don't just assume they just talked about this. Well, they might talk about it often because people want it. So just don't don't make up lies in your head about what you think and why this will never work for you. Just send it out and see what happens.
Gloria Chou 21:37
Yeah, another question I get asked often is, 'Should I have my assistant write that it's from her or from me?' Does it sound more prestigious if it's someone else pitching for you?
Stacy Tuschl 21:47
I mean, I thought that too. I'm like, 'Oh, I can't be for me.' I mean, honestly, it doesn't matter. I think a well-written email with a reason why this would be a great fit for my show, I don't really care who signs it. Honestly, I'm not reading the pitches. So now it's not even my opinion. It's the person on my team. Well, I don't know that my team member is going to have a thought of like, Gloria's sent this herself or her assistant, or I don't know that. I mean, I can tell you right now we're not judging from that. It's more of a we skim. We're getting so many pitches a day that we're glancing, we're looking at the topic. If we're somewhat interested, we may go to your Instagram. We are going to social proof, not so much on follower count, but on your content. If I can't find you on video, if I can't find you talking. I'm not interested because I've had really bad interviews on the show, where I'm just going, 'this must be like their first episode. This is not a good conversation. We don't have good energy together.' And again, I have to put out the best quality content I can.
Gloria Chou 22:52
Yeah, I love that. I love that you can give perspective, both from someone who started a pitch with an agency and now ticket in house with success. And why don't you tell everyone like at the most, like the most, the day that you get the most pitches? How many are you receiving per per day?
Stacy Tuschl 23:06
Oh, my goodness. I don't know because I don't read through them. So I'm not the person that's getting the pitches. But I do see I will say, I do see an Instagram because I'm in my DM, so I will see people asking and we just send we're like, 'Hey, great! Here's the email where you can email.' We're definitely getting, I don't know, sometimes maybe five pitches a day. Sometimes maybe five a week, like it really is hit or miss. And that's another thing. Sometimes, it's just your timing. If somebody hasn't had a pitch in a while, and you just happen to be in their inbox, and they're looking for a piece of content or somebody just cancelled and they need an interview, it really is on timing. But you also might have hit them when they received ten, and they didn't even open yours. So you've just got to to be frequent and you've got to be consistent, and those are the people that are winning in this game.
Gloria Chou 23:51
Yeah, exactly. And I teach all the time, too in my PR Starter Pack is: have an email tracking device. It's time. Technology Is there. At least monitor who's opening it. How would you say in terms of the game of follow-up? I know that a follow- up. that's where it all happens. But how much follow-up is right? How much of it is too little? How much of it is too much?
Stacy Tuschl 24:11
Yeah, so this is where I think you've got, and I do this with clients even. Read the room. If somebody you can tell is just not interested, this is not something we can continue to keep going back with. But if somebody is saying things like, 'Yes, but not right now,' or 'We're done recording. But if you reach back out, we reach back out.' We do what they tell us to do. So I would just say, Julie's thing is like if they're not telling me no, I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep checking in and asking and all the things. But I also think too, we're very good on timing. One of the biggest tips we have realized is when somebody puts out a book, that is when you ask them on your show because they are setting up hundreds. They are saying yes to everybody. So Suze Orman brought out a book. Jenna Kutcher launching her book. So I mean, Jenna Kutcher said she's she's only done four podcast interviews, I think, in one year. And then this year, like hundreds because of the book. So do you see what I'm saying? Like the timing was just bad before. The timing was good now, so it worked for her.
Gloria Chou 25:18
Exactly. It's reading the room, but also like knowing that because there's no crystal ball. No one knows your editorial calendar. It's better to just pitch early. Now I want to talk more about your inbox of when people pitch you because now you have 2 million downloads. You have a top-rated podcast. What are some subject line hacks? Or what are some of the best pitches you've received?
Stacy Tuschl 25:38
You can just feel when it's about them and their business. And it's like, this is a stretch. How are you saying that topic is helping my audience? It just doesn't even feel connected. And if you start making me do the work of 'Does this connect?' I'm done. You know what I'm saying? If you haven't set this up for us, we're not going to continue. I also really wish people would send more of their social proof right away. A lot of people were like, 'But shoot, I don't have social proof.' Here's the deal: We're all going to check it out anyway, you might as well just show us. You know what I mean? Get it in that email because some people might not go to check out it. They're just like, that's a no, I'm not looking for like crazy numbers. I'm looking for good content. I'm looking for just really a well-looking feed of not like branded but just good stuff that my audience is going to come to you and go 'This looks good.' This looks interesting. But if I see that they're just not serious, and they're not even posting, and they're not you actually putting out valuable content to me, then it's like how you do anything is how you do everything. So this episode isn't going to be great.
Gloria Chou 26:52
Oh, I love that. Okay, so how is it connected? Don't make it a stretch. What about subject line or something that's like overly gimmicky or forceful?
Stacy Tuschl 27:03
Right now, we're not getting enough to not open something. So as much as people are like, 'You need a good subject line.' Yes, if I was getting maybe 100 a day, but I'm not getting 100 a day. My team is opening every single email we get. So to me, that subject line is so important that people are weeding through just the subject lines. But we are going to open that email no matter what. So when I look at that base of that email, I like a nice one sheet that is clear. I can tell who you are, what you do, what questions I could ask you what topics you can speak on. I can skim that one sheet because I do see, like Julie will pass me things where she's not sure. She's like, I think this might be a good fit. What do you think? And I'm giving that second look. So I will see one sheet of people that have gotten to that next level.
Gloria Chou 27:51
I love that. For anyone that's listening, I don't want to see your inboxes open, but you're reading them. So definitely watch their masterclass and download the pitch template. That's exactly how I was able to get onto your podcast. And I could talk to you for hours you have done so much work around mindset, productivity, time, all this stuff. So what are you most focused on right now in terms of helping entrepreneurs get to the next level?
Stacy Tuschl 28:14
I'm actually writing my book right now. So I'm on book number three, which has been like a long time coming. So yeah, I'm writing my book all summer. It's been gotten started, I should say, but it's like time to finish this and really get it out there. So it really is, for me, I think just a time of like, putting out massive content, really getting like I were grabbing case studies and stories. And the more specific I can get when I share something versus like grow your income, your impact, or it's like so boring. But when I can say, 'Listen, this girl did this. And here's what she did.' Here's how that and I give the actual story. It draws people in. So we are just talking to our clients pulling out stories, I am interviewing them, where you'll never see those interviews. It's just for me to grab that and put it in the book and show people like what is possible in their business. So that's I think my biggest piece of work that's going to be coming out is over the summer doing that.
Gloria Chou 29:11
I love that and how can people find you and kind of take the next step, no matter what industry they're in?
Stacy Tuschl 29:17
Yeah, for sure. And that's the thing. I mean, we help any industry, we're big on getting your business like a well-oiled machine, getting the business to not be reliant on you. So that's what we do specifically, but the best places would be my podcast called Foot Traffic. Otherwise, Instagram @stacytushcl, and then I have a free Facebook group called Foot Traffic Operations. So, any of those would be a great place to come say hi.
Gloria Chou 29:40
Oh, I would love to join your Facebook group. And you're gonna have to come over to the Small Biz PR Facebook group because I know there's a lot of founders in their group definitely use some of their systems and processes and mindset tips that you give.
Stacy Tuschl 29:50
Yeah. Amazing.
Gloria Chou 29:51
Thank you so much, and congrats on the book.
Stacy Tuschl 29:53
Thank you Gloria. It's so fun being here. I appreciate you and one thing I will say to is wrap up is, my team right now is going through Gloria's course. Just because you think you know PR or you think you've gotten this down. We've been doing PR. We've been studying PR for so long. We've been working with agencies who are doing other things. But if we can find one golden nugget, and we have, if we can find one golden nugget, it's so worth it for us to be faster, more efficient, better pitching, easier yeses and all the things so, so grateful to be a part of that community and be in there and I can't wait to come back on and be a testimonial of the house. Like everything is just killing it for us. So thank you so much!
Gloria Chou 30:32
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