How Techno Granny Finds Guests?

A listener and fellow pod caster asked me recently about how I find people to interview. Well, you know how someone asks you for directions to a familiar place and you know how to turn left and right instinctively, but when you are giving directions sometimes you can’t remember the name of the street but you can remember a landmark? Okay, guys, maybe it‘s a girl thing.

Well, I really had to sit back and think about how I found all of these people to interview. On the Techno Granny Show alone, I have had 24 shows so far at 7 AM and had 22 guests. Occupational hazard of being on at 7 AM, two interviewees slept in. I have done 13 thirty minute episodes on Professionals with Impact, http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33431 so that’s another 35 and my Positively Pittsburgh Live Talk cast http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/18520 is roundtable style with no less than two guests on each show and sometimes as many as five for a total of 80 guests in 33 interviews. 115 guests since March 19, 2007; 115 guests in 7 months, that is pretty phenomenal and I did not realize it until my fellow pod caster questioned me.

I must tell you that the guest format came about quite by accident, no success secret here. Like so many people when I first got on to Talk Shoe, I thought I was going to make thousands of dollars even though I recognized pod casting as more of a marketing tool and it was free and if I made postage for the month, I would have been happy. Early on, hosts were told that live callers and listeners made you more money. Well, since I did not have a track record, I decided to bring my own attendees by inviting guests on the show so that way I would never be alone on the line. Also it’s a lot easier to ask people what they think than always spout off what you think as a show host.

So I began with the premise that if I wanted to educate listeners and convince them to use technology, the language had to be simple. So most of the time, the guest is not an expert in the industry so much as an individual business owner or professional who uses the technology. It’s easy to get guests in that way, because they get a chance to promote their business by being on the show and it serves the purpose of giving listeners practical examples of how to use the technology. Occasionally I do have a guest who has developed a particular product or who is an expert as in the case of Jo Ann Forrester of SI Business Associates who is one of the developers of Price It Perfect Cost Control Program or Joe Reinhardt of Config.com who owns a Search Engine Optimization Company.

An example of how I find guests is these two individuals. Jo Ann Forrester is a marketing client of mine and Joe Reinhardt I met through ITEX, the International Trade Exchange of which we are both members. That’s a national barter group. You can actually listen to an independent Talk Cast that I have done on the International Trade Exchange to find additional information.

For Positively Pittsburgh Live, I initially tapped into my National Association of Women Business Owners associates and also found guests through the Pittsburgh Women’ s Networking Group which is a constantly growing on line networking group. Also as the word gets around I constantly receive referrals from other people. I have also become recognized in the Pittsburgh area as a media source so I do receive press releases.

In addition, I network, I find out what people do and just by meeting people I get ideas for additional shows. If I meet an interesting person that is doing something positive in Pittsburgh, I find like-minded individuals that have synergy to the topic and build a show around them.

I guess you might say that I find my guests while I am out living my life; I have never found anyone yet while I was sitting in my living room.