The Design Business Show 234: Using Podcast Bookings to Increase Visibility with Anastasia Lipske

Anastasia Lipske knows what it takes to book speakers and podcast guests. As the founder of Access Speakers, a full-service speaker, and podcast booking agency, she has booked more than 1,500 engagements for her clients.

Anastasia speaks the language of speaker chairs, event planners, and podcast hosts who seek great speakers and podcast guests for their meetings and shows. Additionally, her unique skills help business owners brand themselves as speakers, spread their message, and attract clients.

As a co-author of the book, Business Success with Ease, Anastasia emphasizes how to use speaker branding to generate influence, awareness, and clients! Her readers learn strategies of public speaking and podcast guesting as effective marketing tools.

Anastasia motivates audiences with her energetic personality and passion for the speaking and podcast guesting industry. She inspires business owners to use one of the most powerful tools in existence…the voice!

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Anastasia Got Started as a Speaker Agent

Anastasia’s speaker agency, Access Speakers, focuses on platform and marketing speakers – people who speak for free to grow their business
Before getting into the speaker world, Anastasia worked in luxury tourism, which involved event planning, PR marketing, and sales that gave her a lot of the tools she needed when deciding to become a speaker agent
In 2008, when the economy took a turn, tourism was down, and Anastasia dabbled in social media, which led her to get connected with a sustainable farmer whose business coach said she should be speaking to grow her business and asked Anastasia to help
Anastasia shares the different speaking engagements she booked for the sustainable farmer that helped her get clients – speaking became her number one marketing tool
In 2020, everything Anastasia had booked for clients went away due to covid-19, which is when she decided to pivot and dive into podcast bookings for her speakers
Anastasia explains how traditional speaker agents will usually not represent a speaker who is not commanding fees of at least 5k per talk
The difference for Anastasia is her people aren’t speaking because they want to get paid; they’re using it as a marketing tool to grow their business
What’s nice about podcasting is its digital footprint, which is much deeper and evergreen

Start Booking Podcasts

When starting podcasting, Anastasia says it’s important to have clarity of who you want to get in front of – find out what podcasts they’re listening to, and put it out there to everyone that you are looking to be a guest
Anastasia explains why it’s important to review the podcast before you propose to be on the show
Every single proposal is handled individually at Anastasia’s agency so they can be certain that they are offering the host something of value that is aligned with them and their show
Anastasia walks us through the process of booking a podcast at her agency
When it comes to finding podcasts, the agency has a book of past podcasts they’ve worked with; some clients have their own list of podcasts, and they use Listen Notes as a podcast directory
If you are looking for a different representation than what Anastasia offers, she suggests checking out Tom Schwab and Interview Valet
Apple is not putting weight into ratings and reviews as it used to because there are so many bots leaving fake ratings and reviews
Anastasia explains how Listen Notes works and says if you are just starting, you want to stick to shows that have a 5-10% rating in their industry because that’s where you will have the most likelihood of success
When you start getting on more and more podcasts, people will recognize your name, and it will give you more credibility
It’s important to think about how you can add value for the host of the podcast – one thing you can do is be visible and share the episode in multiple ways
One thing Anastasia suggests all podcast guests do is to have one place for people to go to connect with you
Visit accessspeakers.biz/thankyou to connect with Anastasia, register for her ebook, and get a 15-20 min consultation