When pitching for a speaking gig, don't lead with your personal history. Event planners care more about the value for their audience. Lead your pitch with the tangible takeaway or transformation the audience will experience. Use your personal story as the supporting evidence of why you're credible.

Redefine the ROI of content and public appearances. Instead of aiming for mass appeal and vanity metrics like follower counts, focus on the profound, life-altering impact you can have on a very small number of people. This reframes the purpose from acquisition to impact.

When using guest appearances to grow your podcast, prioritize smaller, niche shows. Their listeners often have deeper trust and engagement with the host, making them more likely to follow a recommendation and subscribe to your show than the broader, less-committed audience of a top-chart podcast.

Instead of reactively trying to please algorithms, proactively identify the best 'doorways'—specific platforms and content formats—to reach your ideal audience. This shifts the focus from chasing reach to strategically choosing where you appear and how you present your brand.

Mentalist Oz Perlman landed more airtime on CNBC than any CEO by tailoring his performance to the network's world: stocks, bonds, and markets. By making his craft relevant to their audience's interests, he became indispensable. To capture attention, obsessively focus on the other person's context and needs.

If your podcast has built brand equity but now serves the wrong audience for your business goals, don't scrap it. Instead, pivot by changing the guest mix. Drastically shift the ratio of guests to reflect your new target demographic while retaining a small number of original-style guests to keep existing listeners engaged.

Podcast listenership data shows that high-profile guests like former PM Tony Blair may draw fewer views than a niche expert like a YouTuber tour guide. This suggests unique expertise and novelty can be more engaging to audiences than sheer fame.

Podcast listeners have higher average household incomes and greater purchasing intent. A small, dedicated audience built through the intimacy of audio is more valuable for monetization via courses and consulting than a massive but disengaged social media following.

To attract a new audience, create content that explicitly calls out your target demographic's specific situations and identifiers. This is more effective than broad content because it makes the audience feel seen and understood, prompting the algorithm to find more people like them.