Bad Podcast Pitches

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We've all gotten bad pitches from services trying to book guests on our show (usually to sell their most recent me-too leadership book). This time, the bad pitch is from a service that wants me to hire them to pitch me as a guest. And it's clearly just a scrape, copy, and paste with a bit of AI dust.

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Episode Page:

https://serve.podhome.fm/episodepage/bad-podcast-pitches/saw-you-on-the-audacity-to-podcastr-with-daniel

I got an email congratulating me for being featured on The Audacity to Podcast® with Daniel J. Lewis and recommending another show to consider. It was definitely structured as a "Complment, Value, Offer" format (I made that up). But there are a few things wrong.

• I've never been on The Audacity to Podcast® and, to my knowledge, Daniel doesn't take guests.
• The show they recommended is absolutely not a fit (and, to my knowledge, not really a podcast).
• If this is how well they pitch, I don't think I want them representing me.

I received a follow-up a couple days later, and I will likely reach out. I'm not sure exactly how I want to do that yet. But I think it might be interesting to know what they would do differently if they were actually representing me.

Also... this is a bit of an experiment. I'm streaming live (audio only) and publishing without editing. As a podcast host and editor, I don't really do that very much. But I want to try this out to see if I can make things easier for other podcasters who are struggling with either cost or time.

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[00:00:07] Bryan Entzminger:

Saw you on the Audacity to podcast with Daniel.   That's how today's Bad Pitch starts.   This is Bad Pitches. I'm Bryan Entzminger. I'm a podcaster, a podcast host, a podcast editor. I've helped produce a couple of shows, and I get bad pitches. You probably do too. Today, we're gonna talk through one of them that I received recently.   This is not a name and shame show. So I'm gonna go through this.   We're gonna look at this, and I'm gonna point out some of the things that stand out to me as I read it. I'm not gonna name the company or the person that sent it because that's not the goal. The goal here is to see some of the things that are happening   and to try to do better   and also to recognize if you're receiving, for example, a bad pitch that's also a scam.  

So today's,   email starts off with the the subject line, saw you on the Audacity to podcast with Daniel.   Now I'm just gonna read the email. Hey.   I saw that you were on the Audacity to podcast back in September with Daniel J Lewis. Curious,   how did you get on that podcast?   Did the host, Daniel, reach out to you directly?   Or did you search reach out to him yourself?   I did some research on some podcasts that would be great for you given your industry, and I found one relevant podcast in the professional audio niche called   Produce Like a Pro, which is a podcast in the engine audio engineering and production niche.  

I understand that it's important   not just to get seen. You need to be seen by audiences who are actually in your industry,   as well as position yourself as an industry expert so those viewers can be exposed to you and organically want to work with you. That's probably true.   Furthermore,   anyone thinking of working with you is going to look you up and we want them to see you right next to a credible podcast,   preferably one they already know. I have placed people on some of the top podcasts in the world. Can we chat about how I could do this for you as well?   It's actually kind of a nice email. I I'm I'm assuming based on the format that it's probably a form letter of some kind. I can't say for sure whether it's AI driven or something like that. But there are a few things that stand out to me. So I'm gonna kinda talk through those. First,   I saw you on the Audacity to Podcast with Daniel.  

No, you didn't.   Because Daniel J Lewis' podcast, the Audacity to Podcast,   does not have guests. I don't believe that he's ever had a guest. And even if he has, I've never been that guest. So that's the first red flag for me. I've not been a guest on that show and I know that show doesn't take guests.   What I do see is that it's a show that I listen to   and I've provided some financial support for that show by streaming,   a little bit of Bitcoin using a modern podcast app. You can find one at podcastapps.com   if you wanna find out what that's about.  

But he just happened to name me in the episode because I had streamed a little bit of money. It's probably   50¢ or something like that. It wasn't a lot of money, but it is just something that showed up, and it showed up in the show notes. So my first thing is this is probably something that was scraped from the Internet. Okay.   That that's kind of the first red flag. The second one   is there is absolutely   a show in the professional audio niche called Produce Like a Pro.   However, it's primarily a YouTube show, not really a podcast. And   I know that show.  

I don't know the people in that show, but I know that show. It is an excellent show, but it is in no way connected to what I do.   I'm a podcast editor. I'm a podcast host. I've produced some shows.   They're really in the audio production niche, but really on the recording music and music production standpoint. So I know, secondly, that   that show is not a great is not a great fit. And then finally, the thing that starts out to me or kinda stands out to me just overall as I read through this email is it kinda starts off almost as a compliment.   Then then it tries to move into a little bit of a question, and then it's a pitch.  

And for me, it was a little bit   it was a little bit of whiplash to start out with, hey. I saw you run this show, which, of course, I know that I wasn't. And then it's got a little bit of information, and then it's trying to pitch me on a a service. Now my concern with this is   if this is a guest pitching   service, somebody that tries to connect guests with shows that might want to have them on,   this is not a great way to do it because this is   it looks like a spray and pray method where they're just sending out a bunch of these.   I actually got an email later, a couple days after they sent this, asking for a follow-up just and now I'll read that. Bryan, any thoughts on my last email? Really don't wanna be a pest. Just want follow you know, with follow ups. So I'm thinking I may respond to this particular email. I don't wanna necessarily lead them on, but I do wanna find out a little bit about what they're thinking because   there seems to me to be a disconnect between sending an email like this   that's kind of targeted but obviously got some wrong information   and somebody that I would want representing me in reaching out to potential shows that I might be on. And honestly, I'm not really looking for any guest opportunities right now.  

So that's what that kind of is. I do want to mention   this show,   is a value for value show, the   bad bad podcast pitches. And so if you've received some value, I would just ask that you return a little bit. Now that doesn't have to be money. It certainly can be. There's a link in the show notes. But I'm also asking for you as the listener. If you've gotten some bad pitches,   send one to me at pitches at bad at I can't even say the words. [email protected]   because I'd like to see what what you're receiving. I'll I'll, of course, pull from my own archive, but I'm interested in what you are receiving as well so we can kinda look at some of these together. And then just sort of as a note, I did mention that I'm a podcast editor.   However,   I'm trying to approach this show differently because I'm seeing a lot of people in the podcasting space get kind of tied up in the editing, either the cost or the time that it takes. And I fully understand that because   as an editor, I know it takes time and I know that costs money, but I don't wanna see people held back. So I'm actually trying something, kind of, I guess, trying it out like a guinea pig myself.  

I'm doing this live. I'm streaming it straight to the Internet. I'm trying that out for the first time,   to stream it live using an audio only platform. And then I'm not editing this. So I had to do a bunch of work to get the audio the way I wanted it before it goes out. So this is a bit of a new experience for me,   and I'd love to have any feedback from you on   is it loud enough? Could you understand everything? Do you have any questions about how I did it? And if you wanna do that, just send that also to [email protected].   I'd love to hear from you. And I hope to maybe have a follow-up on this in a few more days after I figure out how I might respond to the person that sent this email to find out a little bit more information. So there you go. I don't have a fancy sign off, but if you were here, thank you for being here.