92 | How to Create Your 2025 Visibility Plan with Christina Lenkowski

Have you created your 2025 visibility plan?

If not, you’re in for a treat! In this exciting episode of The Organized Coach Podcast, I sit down with Christina Lenkowski, a dynamic expert in pitching and visibility, to help you create a visibility strategy that works.

Christina shares ideas beyond pitching to podcasts to grow your reach in 2025. She breaks down the concept of a “pitch sprint” and explains how to consistently get your message in front of new audiences—yes, even if you’re an introvert!

Learn why tracking your visibility is critical and a super simple way to get started today, and how to make small, regular efforts that add up to big wins.

Of course, I ask many specific questions to help you immediately start creating and executing your visibility plan.

[00:00:00] Tracy Hoth: Do you have your 2025 visibility plan all made? This is such a fun topic. I don’t know if it’s fun because I want to be more visible in 2025. When Christina pitched me, she actually pitched me. I did not know her before this and usually with podcast pitches, I delete them. But what stood out was this topic 2025 visibility plan – how to make one and create it and ideas for it.

I responded back and I had her on the show. We made a really fun connection. You’re going to love her. She’s very energetic. She gives us really specific pitching tips. Christina talks about the pitch sprint, which is what she recommends and gives us really tactics on visibility, not just pitching the podcast.

She gave me lots of other ideas. The last tip is so good. Make sure you listen to the end and then create your visibility plan and let me know what it looks like. I can’t wait to see it. Okay. One last thing – it is New Year’s Eve! Who knows when you’re going to listen to this if it’s in the new year, but I am keeping Organized Life Academy.

This is where we focus on your home and life. Implementing routines. Decluttering. We’re implementing the 12 week year with our goals this year. I’m leaving that open the first week in January just so people have a chance after the new year when they’re ready to get started. Get in now. Jump in now. The links are in the show notes.

You can get in. Go to the show notes under this episode and it will link you to my blog post that has all the correct links for you to get the very, very best price on Organized Life Academy. And I’ve even thrown in a really great deal on Organized Coach Academy and a combo deal. If you have a business and a life at home, you can get both of them and really make this your priority in 2025.

Okay, let’s get into this week episode and happy new year. I’m excited and so grateful to have you listening to this podcast and being a part of my world this past year and going into 2025. Are you ready to work less? feel more organized and productive, streamline repetitive tasks, and implement systems that allow your coaching business to run smoothly, even without you.

If so, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the Organized Coach Podcast, your go-to source for practical tips and solutions. I’m your host, Tracy Hoth, professional organizer, certified life coach, simplifying expert, and most of all, a down-to-earth fellow coach, just like you. No matter if you think you’re missing the organizing gene, have ADHD, or just love anything organizing, I’m here to help you become an organized coach with a business that works for you.

Pull up a seat and let’s get started. I get pitched to, I get emails with pitches to have people on my podcast. And mostly if I don’t know them, I hardly even read it. I just put it in the trash or just delete it. And so I got this pitch and it was really good, but the thing that stood out to me is one of the topics.

I was like, okay, I know the people that listen to this podcast want that topic. That’s what made me keep it. There was a follow up and then I was like, oh yeah, I need to take action. It was so good.

[00:03:08] Christina Lenkowski: Yeah. Hi. I’m so glad to be here today, Tracy, just talking to your audience. What I do at my agency, Publicity by Christina, is we get our clients booked on podcasts that are full of their ideal audiences.

Whoever it is that they want to get in front of, we are doing that work. And, you know, I like to say what we do on the outside is get people booked, but what we do really is keep people accountable to their visibility goals.

[00:04:19] Tracy Hoth: Mm hmm. That’s interesting. Okay, we’re going to talk more about that and more specifics.

It’s kind of funny, I asked you before we started to record, I’m like, okay, that’s one of my goals next year. I mean, my goal is to be visible and, and I like to teach in groups and do stuff like that and be on podcasts, but I haven’t had to necessarily work hard. And I was thinking like I could double that or triple it if I actually work toward it, but I don’t really want to do it.

We’re going to talk more. We are. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But okay, I want to talk about visibility because that is a big thing and all the coaches that are in my world that I work with, you know, visibility is something we’re all wanting. When you say your visibility plan, just tell me generally what you mean.

[00:05:08] Christina Lenkowski: I firmly, strongly believe in having a visibility KPI in your business. So meaning you are getting in front of new audiences on a regular consistent basis. One thing I like to say about this is like, I’m an any room 7 y’all. I live for the fun. I live for the like, what’s, what’s going to give me that dopamine hit?

You know what I mean? But I realized a long time ago that when it comes to business, the success is in the consistency. And a lot of people don’t, I know, you know, that, you know, you’re in the organized, you do the 12 week, you know, kind of basing it on a 12 week year, et cetera. Like you’re very into that consistency mindset and a lot of your listeners are as well, but I also know that there’s a lot of people out there that were just like, I just do what I want to do when I feel like doing it, you know what I mean?

I definitely am a person that can get in that mode. What I did for myself, and I did this a while back and I officially named it and tracked it this whole past year of 2024, was set a visibility KPI of, I am going to get in front of a new audience at least one time a week on average. Okay? Knowing that there are weeks that I’m going to have a couple opportunities that are going to pop up, right?

Some weeks where there’s not going to be any, right? We all totally get, that’s kind of the ebb and flow of how this goes, right? But really setting that intention. I want to be clear that yes, podcasts are a wonderful way to fill up a lot of those visibility KPIs, but there’s a lot of other ways to be doing that too.

You can be attending events and speaking at events. You can be having a one on one conversation with someone that could potentially be a client, right? There are all kinds of different ways, but the point of it is that you are speaking about your business to new audiences. Okay, so new people, the big thing that us as business owners do as we just get so caught up and working on our business and fulfilling the work that we do for our clients, etc, that we forget to work on our business a lot.

[00:07:14] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. Okay. Well, let me stop you there because first. KPI. That’s a key performance indicator. And we decide in advance what we’re going to track and what we’re going to look at. So that, just to clear that up.  I like how you said consistency. Yes. I mean, I know that’s what we’re, we probably all know we need to be consistent and it’s like execution.

[00:07:37] Christina Lenkowski: Exactly. Exactly. I actually have a quote. I’m looking at my wall behind me. It’s vision without execution is just hallucination. Yeah. 100 percent that is it, right? Yeah. Exactly. First, we are business owners. We’re always thinking about that big picture and what the big goals are that we have, but what are those steps we’re going to put in place?

I can tell you right now, if you are not getting in front of new audiences regularly, your business will grow. It just. You know, that’s not the way this works. A lot of people come to me and hop on a discovery call with me because they’ve realized this, you know, they’ve maybe built their business on referrals or they built their business, you know, potentially on social media even.

Right. But now they are finding that they are not getting in front of new audiences. Like they’re, they’re just kind of stuck in these ways of doing business development that are no longer serving them, at least at the level that they want. To be getting new business, right? Yeah.

[00:08:33] Tracy Hoth: I was just listening to someone and they said, I have made a lot of money.

I have a good business, but all of a sudden I’m not because they let that go. And so now they’re refocusing on that. I think we have to have it at some, to some extent in our business at all times. Maybe we’re more hardcore focused on it sometimes, but we have to have some sort of thing there all the time.

[00:09:00] Christina Lenkowski: Yes. That is why I say with that KPI, I mean, I recommend once a week, but you might decide once every other week, right? Is what makes sense for you to be getting out there and getting visible. But that’s why I do think it’s clear to say on average, right?

[00:09:15] Tracy Hoth: That made me happy when you said that.

[00:09:17] Christina Lenkowski: It’s like, I’m going to be doing this every week.

For instance, for me just personally this week, I have two different podcast interviews that I’m doing. Right. So for me, that’s great. That means that that’s next week when I’m in Christmas mode. I’m not thinking about this other stuff. I’m not falling behind on anything there, right? So, on average, we’re looking for that KPI.

Meaning that, again, you’re going to have more times, to your point, that are going to be busier, and then times when you’re going to kind of pull the pedal back. But you will notice a difference. You will absolutely notice a difference when you are putting yourself out there and being more visible. Versus when you kind of do take your pedal off the gas and you start to see less calls showing up, you know, less opportunities coming into your inbox.

[00:10:02] Tracy Hoth: Yes, so that makes me think I’ve been studying the 12 week year the last couple weeks a lot and really going to be intentional about implementing it. One of the things they talk about is leg and lead goals. And so when you say, we’re going to be on one podcast or speak somewhere new or do something like that once a week on average, that’s our leg goal.

Then I think, okay, what are the tactics? What are the lead goals that we have to have in order to do that? And I don’t know if we want to talk about that right now, but I’m like, yeah, because In the past, I would think, okay, that’s what I’m going to do. But then I would just be like, hope it works out,

[00:10:45] Christina Lenkowski: I think this is a great time of year. Like, as you’re thinking about how you want to plan out your, this next year, 2025, start filling in those blanks. And what I mean by that is literally you can just print out or literally number something one to 52, right? Or one to 26, you know, whatever, what is half a 50?

I’m sorry, guys. I was in English. This is, it was 26, right? 26. Yeah, I thought. I look at me, my coffee is hit, scale, uh, you know, write that on a piece of paper and just start putting down things you already have booked, right? Like if you know you’re going to an event, right? Write that down, put that in there.

Like for me, I know I’m going to an event in January, so I’m going to put that in there. I know I’m going to an event in March, I’m going to put that in there, right? It’s okay that I’m not speaking at those events. That’s fine. The whole point of that is I’m going and I’m going to be meeting new people and talking about my business to people.

That’s, that’s what we’re looking for here, right? That can be one on one conversation. Like I said, so putting some of those things that there’s local networking events that you’re going to go to put those in, that’s great. That’s an awesome opportunity to be getting out in front of folks. Right. So these are all different ways.

If you already have some podcast interviews booked, like if you’re like, Oh, actually, you know, I am going to be on a podcast interview or two, or, Oh, you know what, my friend asked me to be on her podcast and we haven’t booked that yet. Let me reach out to her and let’s get a, let’s get an actual date on the calendar.

Right. And you can be putting that in this list and seeing what do I still need to plan? You know, think about some events that you might be able to go to again, locally, or maybe not. I personally, this last year, as part of my Visibility KPI work, I traveled on average one time a month to an event. That was a goal that I set.

That doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that’s right for everybody. But for me, I was like, I love going to events. Again, that Enneagram 7, we get that I’m an extrovert, energy from people, you know, et cetera. I’m an extrovert. So it’s very exciting for me. I want to go to events and it’s a great biz dev opportunity for me.

For me, that was something that I’d be able to fill out in that, in that sheet, right, is be able to say, okay, well, I know at least 12 of these are going to be me going to events. Some I already have plans. Some I didn’t have planned at the beginning of the year. Right. It was kind of also leaving my schedule open to see what popped up.

That’s okay too. Understand that you don’t need to have it already right now, but you do, it would be a great idea to start getting some things on there that you can get. You know, locked in solid and then be able to think about, to your point, how am I going to get some other stuff in there? I mean, I sign up for this local event.

Does that mean I book a coffee date with that person that we’ve been putting off for three months? Right. Does that mean I go ahead and start pitching myself to some podcasts? What does that look like?

[00:13:30] Tracy Hoth: Yeah, that’s so cool. I like doing the way you said that because it’s motivating. You’re like, okay, I do have some ideas.

And even the way you said, okay, go to a networking event like that could count, you know, it doesn’t make sense. 100%. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So then. I’m not following whatever script, but I’m like thinking We’re gonna get to the best conversations anyways. Go ahead. Yes. Yeah. So then, when do you decide? Like, let’s say you’re on in the first quarter.

You have 10 things on the 12 lines on your piece of paper. One through 52 or whatever. But you still haven’t, nothing has changed as far as revenue or whatever. When do you decide, do I need to double that, do I need to switch my events that I’m writing down or counting? Like, what do you think about that?

[00:14:27] Christina Lenkowski: That’s a great question. Honestly, I think once a quarter would actually be a really good, uh, time to kind of be looking back and saying like, what has happened, you know, to be able, you know, like once every 12 weeks, AKA once a quarter, being able to say, what has come from these and what can I do to nurture them further?

What I mean by that is like, a lot of times people, I noticed this, this happens a lot. I was saying, I go to these 12 events, right. Or I went to 12 events this last year, but you better believe the next week I book, I book a whole day. Where I’m doing follow up a whole day after events where I’m doing follow up with people, booking calls with them, et cetera, so that I can make this an actual business development event that I went to, right?

Like meeting people. But we have to have the follow up on the back end. Maybe that’s me pitching myself setting up their podcast. Maybe that’s me, you know, getting, having them book a discovery call with me to see about working with our services, right? Whatever that is. But when I am at events, you best believe I’m taking notes.

My friend, one of my friends, Tameka makes fun of me cause she comes, she’s at events with me sometimes and she’s like, what are you doing? And I am literally like, I meet someone and I have a genuine conversation. And if it felt like it was a great, you Connection that I’m going to make a note, like, Oh, they have a podcast that I know, you know, they do X, Y, Z that, and nothing big.

I’m not saying I write down a paragraph, but I write some words down. When I reach out to them the following week, I can recall who that is, right, what it kind of talk about very briefly. And that’s not because I’m just looking to like suck up to them or something like that. It just is giving me this like.

Remember, you know, reminder of like, this is what we talked about. This is kind of what they do. In my mind, I’m like. Now, what makes the most sense for them for me to follow up on, right? It me seeing if one of our clients would be a good fit on their show. Is it me seeing, you know, they would be a, uh, a good fit for our service, or is it just a connection call with someone that I hit it off with, right?

Because you never know. I think that’s kind of the key about why I would say like one times a quarter is a good time to look back as opposed to like once a month, because you’re going to do a podcast interview and it’s not going to air for a month, two months. You know what I mean? Right. Meaning there’s a lot of opportunity that’s going to come a little bit further down the road.

We went over this quarter? What needs to be followed up on? What do I need to pursue for the next quarter as well?

[00:17:04] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. So you, being a seven, like you said, I had no idea.

I’m not, besides my own, I don’t even know what they mean. But I can see you’re super outgoing and fun. So what, how do people decide, like, what are good things to do for them?

[00:17:22] Christina Lenkowski: I want you to think about what truly lights you up. You know what I mean? And I understand that I’m an extrovert. I do. But I want to say that almost all of our clients are introverts.

Introverts thrive on podcasts, y’all. And the reason for that is it’s just a one on one conversation. This isn’t out in front of a whole group. This isn’t you talking on a stage in front of 500 people. Like right now, me and Tracy, we are just having a one on one conversation. It just happens to be recorded and other people are going to listen to it later on.

For a lot of my clients, that’s what they really love is they’re like, Oh, I can have a conversation with someone all day.

[00:17:59] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. Right.

[00:17:59] Christina Lenkowski: It’s like, they’re like, that’s not the issue. The one on one thing, like that’s all good. For them, it’s more so scary to think about getting up in front of a lot of people, having to travel, having to do whatever, like that’s what they’re not necessarily interested in, right?

I want you to think about what works for you. Is it going to these events, traveling, you know, is it doing all that type of stuff? Or are you more like, you know what, I’d rather double down on podcasts. I’d rather double down on maybe doing, uh, pitching myself to do guest blog posts on people’s websites or on people’s blogs, right?

Things like that. Those are, that’s a great. Visibility thing. Really think about those things that do feel comfortable for you. Now I want to be clear. You do have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, right? Sometimes too, but be thinking about those things that feel realistic for you to do.

What feels like you actually want to make that spin. And then those are just a couple of the tactics, but I guarantee you can think of even more ways that you could be getting out in front of your ideal audiences and in front of those, you know, getting visible in front of those people.

[00:19:06] Tracy Hoth: Yeah, and I heard someone say that the other day.

They’re like, Oh, you could pitch writing for big magazines because they’re always looking for something. You can even put it in AI, like, Look at this magazine and tell me how to write an article for them based on whatever of your own stuff.   I didn’t even think about. I mean, even though in the past, like I’ve been on the local news or in a local newspaper, and I do remember one.

[00:19:32] Christina Lenkowski: That’s great too. That’s absolutely a great visibility thing too. Local press.

[00:19:36] Tracy Hoth: Yes. Yeah. I do remember because back in the time I worked in people’s homes organizing and I do remember I had got a client from the newspaper article, but. Do you think you help people first look at what they, where they already got clients?

Is that where you start or how do you start with someone thinking about creating their visibility plan?

[00:20:01] Christina Lenkowski: I do think that it’s important to look at where you’ve gotten clients in the past. You know, I, a lot of people that come to us and work with us, they’ve gotten clients off podcasts before. If they bid on a podcast.

It worked really well for them. And so that’s something that they want to continue. Right. That makes sense to them. They’re like, yeah, this is a total, I absolutely see the ROI of being on podcasts because I’ve done it and I’ve gotten clients off of it. Right. But for me, I, for me, that has, that’s very true.

Podcasts are a big biz dev thing, but again, showing up live at events is, that’s where I, that’s where I get a lot of clients too. So it is thinking about that. Absolutely. But with that in mind, if you kind of haven’t done any of this work before, you know, if you haven’t had that experience yet, if you’re kind of like built your business on referrals or you’re just getting started, you know what I mean?

Stuff like that. Then try these things, see what, what works like throw out there that you are interested in being on a podcast, right? See if it’s even one of your friends show or something like that, see what that experience is like, and if it’s something that you enjoy doing, although I will give the caveat, everyone sweats and stumbles their way through their first couple of podcast interviews.

Do not be like. I don’t want you to think your first couple of podcast interviews are like what it’s going to be like, you know, I’m, you know, I’ve been on over 70, I don’t even know at this point how many podcasts I’ve been on and so now it’s very comfortable for me to go on in front of the mic. Our clients feel that way once they’ve been on a few shows, they feel a lot more comfortable.

Please know you’re going to be uncomfortable at first, but then see if it’s something that, that you enjoy. You know what I, what I mean is it’s something that you like. And, you know, one thing you mentioned about the writing articles is a fantastic thing to do. You can also write them for your local papers, publications, et cetera.

But also blogs, you know, reach out to blogs that have your ideal audience that would be reading that and see if there’s an opportunity there for you to do a guest blog post. The other thing that I think is just amazing is if you can do a guest newsletter post or some, not a post necessarily, but you know what I’m saying, like a guest newsletter article again in someone’s newsletter that has your ideal audience.

To me, both podcasts and newsletters are quite frankly like some of the best forms of marketing because people are opting in. To get that information, right? Listening to a podcast. It’s because they are hitting play on that podcast. When someone is getting a newsletter, that is because they have signed up for that newsletter legally by law.

That’s the only way that you should be getting newsletters. Right. It’s a very different experience than someone just happening to scroll across something on social media, right. Or something like that. They are asking for that content. Yes.

[00:22:47] Tracy Hoth: That’s something we wouldn’t even think about, but here’s what just happened to me.

I’m so glad you brought this up. Someone pitched to me a long, a while ago, like three times, sent the three emails to me. He’s in my same, like, we do kind of the same thing, and so I was interested, I actually went and listened to the po, the blog, or the podcast that he included in the link, and I was like, oh, he seems cool, so, but I never took action.

Then, like a month or two later, I got another email from him saying kind of the same thing, but they listened to a different episode or whatever. I reached out to him and then in that reach out, like, if I’m going to have someone on my show, I want to, you know, also either be on their show, so I’ve asked people to do a swap, but he doesn’t have a podcast, so.

I said, what else is there? Like, what could we do? He said, you could take over my newsletter. The fact that you said that, but then I’m like, I hate writing. Ew, that doesn’t even sound fun. But now I’m like, oh, I’m for sure doing that. Yeah. But okay, so that’s so fun. You could ask for that, especially if you have a podcast and they’re pitching to you.

If it’s someone that would, your audience would value, that’d be kind of a cool thing to do.

[00:24:10] Christina Lenkowski: That’d be a really cool, like, swap for sure, you know, for instance, I don’t have my own podcast. Yeah. I just guest on other people’s shows. You know, that’s, that’s what I’m all about. That’s what I do, et cetera.

I think that that’s a really great way to kind of make that happen. I also want to reiterate to people, because I think it’s important, you do not have to have your own show to pitch yourself to podcasts. Yes. Okay. A lot of people get hung up and they’re like, Oh, but I don’t have a show or I need to start my own show first.

No, you don’t. In fact, I would recommend you guest before you start your own show. Because Tracy can tell you, having your own podcast is a lot of work. It is a lot of work to get it edited, to promote it, to get it out there, etc. So, guesting is a little bit, it’s a lesser of a lift. Okay, you’re still, now you’re still going to be researching beforehand, etc.

But, you aren’t having to do the week in, week out, consistently be putting out these episodes over and over and over again. Right? If someone’s kind of asking me first, like, what should I do first? If you don’t, if you already have a podcast, wonderful. But if you don’t already, and you’re interested in getting into this world, I highly recommend guesting first and seeing how you like that experience.

[00:25:23] Tracy Hoth: Yeah, that’s what I did. For a long time, I didn’t have one and I would pitch to guest on people’s podcasts. So good. It’s fun to just brainstorm different ideas that you have, because some of them I wouldn’t even think, why am I such a rule follower? I’m like, I wouldn’t really think that counted, you know?

Visibility. Let’s just talk for a moment to someone who’s just starting their business. Like what, I mean, I know they could start pitching to people. But in their mind, they’re like, I don’t even know what I’m doing. You know, maybe that’s what they’re thinking. What would you say to them?

[00:26:00] Christina Lenkowski: I would honestly say to them, start pitching.

I know you’re I know you’re like, well, they’re thinking this. I’m here to tell you, I want you to think this. What is the worst that can happen? What do you think is the worst thing that can happen by getting yourself on some podcast, pitching to some podcast? If anything, in my opinion, if you’re not quite sure what you want to do, it’ll help you get clarity real quick.

When you see what people are responding to and what hosts are responding to, etc. Um, I, I say this to people all the time. It’s like, what do you truly think is the worst thing that’s going to happen by putting yourself out on some podcasts? And you know, people have valid responses, right? Like, they’ll be like, I say something wrong, right?

I just totally mess it up. Cool. Well, I’m here to tell you that 99 percent of podcasts, at least in the world that I’m in, are recorded ahead of time. Meaning that if you really mess saying something up, you can just say to the host, Hey, I’m sorry. Can you ask me that question again? I’m just going to start from the top, right?

Hosts are not annoyed by doing that, upset by doing that, okay? Like, they want to have the best quality show that they possibly can too, all right? That’s something I just want to get out of your head is like, this is not live, you know what I mean? Like, this is something that, that you can be doing in that way.

The other thing that people will say is like, well, people are going to think I’m not the expert and like, I shouldn’t be the one that’s talking about this. First of all, I’ll tell you who say this, women. You never hear a man saying, I’m worried that people are going to not think that I’m the expert or whatever.

I’m here to say you are an expert. You are, if you know about this topic, you are someone that can be talking about this topic. Okay. So get out of your head about it. People. I have, I have honestly never, I’m being dead serious here. I’ve never listened to a podcast and thought, why do they have this person talking about that?

Okay. I truly have never, ever thought that. I just want that to be out there. What I really think is the worst thing that can happen is that you do not put yourself out there, your business will not grow. It won’t, it just flat out won’t. If you are not getting in front of new audiences regularly, in all the ways that we’ve talked about, podcasts again, are one of those avenues, but there’s a lot of different ways to be doing it.

That is where you really see your business growth.

[00:28:19] Tracy Hoth: Mm hmm. Okay, so we’ve all realized that we want to pitch more. What do you recommend as far as someone pitching? Are there certain tips that you have to make sure they do right?

[00:28:34] Christina Lenkowski: Absolutely. One of the biggest things that I really recommend is having a pitch template.

Meaning that this is a document and we actually save them as, as Google templates, like in Gmail of our clients, once we develop it, where I’m not joking, 90 percent of the pitches done, right? Basically everything is written out and then we are just customizing it after we listened to an episode, after we’re really able to say, these are the topics we think make the most sense for this host and this audience, et cetera, so that it’s easy for us to just hit.

Go, right? Hit send and, and send it off. The reason that I’m saying this in particular is because I think people get very caught up that I think they have this thought that like, this is like 1920s newspaper. What I mean by that is like, you gotta have a scoop, right? Or you gotta have like an exclusive angle or something like that for a, for a show.

I’m here to tell you, no. And in fact, in podcasts, like you are actually trying to get the same messaging out of all of the different shows that you are on. You might be talking about it in different ways. But you are trying to get the same messaging across. Like I will have clients there, I have to remind them this sometimes because they’ll be like.

Well, I’ve just been talking about the same thing a lot and exactly, you know, should be.

[00:29:50] Christina Lenkowski: They’re like, well, I just feel like I need to spice it up. I’m like, the person that heard you on that podcast interview is not hearing you on this other podcast interview. They’re not hearing you on this other podcast interview.

Right. You need to be getting out there and again, getting that same messaging over and over again. That doesn’t mean that you’re pitching the exact same thing to each show, but it does mean that like, We’re not trying to recreate the wheel every time we pitch, right?

[00:30:15] Christina Lenkowski: You mentioned how this topic of talking about 2025 visibility plans stood out to you.

That’s another thing that I would really mention or that I would like to point out is like have really great topics. Topics are where we get our bookings. People ask me that a lot. Like they’re like, well, what’s the one secret, you know what? And I’m like having great topics. Like that’s, that’s really it.

That you’ve done the heavy lifting for the host. By saying, this is what I think your audience could really benefit hearing from me on. I think sometimes people think they’re like doing the host a favor by just like saying what they’re an expert in. And then kind of host, like, and you just tell me what you want to talk about.

[00:30:55] Tracy Hoth: I delete those immediately. If they start talking about all the stuff they did, I’m like, I don’t even care. It’s obvious that you are not thinking about my audience because I don’t want to know anything that you did. You just tell me how my audience wants to hear from you. Why do they want to hear from you?

[00:31:08] Christina Lenkowski: What are we going to, what are they going to hear from you about? What are we going to talk about? I think that’s a really important mindset shift for everybody that’s listening to hear is like, I think we’ve, so you know what, I give us an example of my daughter has autism and it is kind to be clear.

Okay. What I mean by that is me and my husband, we’re both kind of like, We can just do whatever, you know, this one. We’d be like, do you want to go do the, we would, we would phrase something like, do you want to go to the pool knowing damn well that we’re going to go to the pool? Right. And so then she would be like, no.

We’d be like, well, you know what I mean? Like, we’d be like, well, it’s happening. Then she would throw a fit. Because she didn’t get a choice, right? Or she didn’t have any kind of say in this, even though she loves the pool. That doesn’t matter. You guys, that doesn’t matter. Well, you know, even though we know she’s going to love it, when she’s there, it doesn’t matter.

She still, her immediate instinct is to say, no, no, I don’t want, you know? And so now we, we shift our, you know, we shift how we would, okay. Do you want to go to the pool in 10 minutes or do you want to go to the pool in 30 minutes? Right. Because we are going to the pool. Yes. The matter is, you can have some control over when that happens.

I know that that’s kind of like a, a silly example to a certain extent, but it’s like it is kind to be clear. That is exactly what you’re doing by setting topics that you know are the right fit for a host. Instead of saying, you tell me what you want to talk about. Because you have only given them another chore that they then have to do.

It’s like, oh, now I need to go figure out what we’re going to talk about. Like, no, thank you. You know what I mean? They’re bringing those topics to them directly. Of course they can say, Hey, I’d love to combine these two topics or I like this topic, but maybe we can do a little different angle on it. Abso-frickin-lutely, like 100%.

But you have given them those ideas for them to be able to be like, yes, let’s talk about this. Yes, let’s talk about that, right? You never need to worry. I have never had this happen in the whole history of doing this for the last five years and a thousand podcasts we’ve worked with of someone like taking a topic and using it with another guest, okay?

Never ever worry that that’s going to happen. I have never, ever had that happen and never see that happening. They’re going to be like, Oh, this person sent me this. Cool. Let, this is a perfect topic. I definitely want to get them on.

[00:33:40] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. Do you recommend then to. Someone that they come up with to give them more confidence. Maybe they come up with 20 topic ideas or five, five, solid.

[00:33:53] Christina Lenkowski: Yeah. I love your time. Like, no, I absolutely not. I mean, you could, what you could do is use AI to see if it can get you 20 different ideas. You narrow down what five and then you expand on those. You know what I mean? Like you could be like, I’m an expert in this, you know, here’s what my experience is, here’s who the audience, the audience I’m trying to get in front of lovely chat, GPT, what do you, what are 20 different pitch topics I could give, right? They’re, and it’s going to spit some out for you. Now, I’m not saying you copy and paste those. No. How I love using ChatGPT or AI is for inspiration. I love to be like, Oh, that’s a good idea. Let me expand on that. Or let me tweak that a little bit. And then I’ll write my topic from there.

Okay. So like, that is a really, really great way to do it. We use that with subject lines all the time. We use AI all the time for subject lines. Like that is a big thing for us. Like we’re always like, Oh, I wonder what ChatGPT So I think it’s a great idea to ask it for 10 topics, 20 topics, and then narrow that down to five that you’re going to have on your pitch template.

When you send your pitch, you are going to pick the two or three that make the most sense to that host. That’s what’s going to go into your pitch. Okay. But having five solid ones, that’s what we do for our clients. We’ll have like anywhere from five to seven really solid topic ideas that we then narrow down to typically like two that we’re then sending off to the host.

[00:35:18] Tracy Hoth: Okay, so then is there some sort of process as an organizer, like a process that someone should use? That you found successful, like you send a pitch and then you follow up one day later or a week later, or how do you guys recommend?

[00:35:34] Christina Lenkowski: I love this question. I love that I’m talking to organizers because y’all are Enneagram ones for the most part.

Okay. I don’t know. You said you, you do know what you are. Do you know what you are? I’m a three. You’re a three. Okay. That’s another really common. A lot of members of my teams are one and three. Okay. That is like the two numbers. People that are, in my opinion, really, really great at pitching, really, really great at doing this work.

The reason that I, that I’m saying this is because you all love a system, right? You know, you want it down. You’re like, this is how I want it to be, et cetera. What I think is very realistic or how I really like to teach people how to pitch is one time a quarter to do a pitch sprint. What I mean by that is you’re going to block off a full day, one time, a quarter, like no other calls, no other meetings, no other, anything that’s going to take you the whole day.

But you are going to block it off and you are going to research and pitch 15, 20 podcasts. What I want you to do is to schedule some time in, let’s say two weeks later, Where you’re going to take like an hour and you’re going to do a bunch of follow up. Then what I would do is I would even schedule one month after that, put another hour and do a third follow up or a second follow up, I guess I should say a third email, and that’s going to be the final one that you’re going to send if you haven’t heard anything and what I actually like to do pro tip in that second follow up.

Is I throw a new topic idea in, I say, Hey, none of these resonated with you. Here’s actually another one that I think could be a really good fit for your audience. And guess what? You already got it on the template. Like you don’t need to, you know what I’m saying? You don’t need to like recreate the wheel here again.

You’re just taking one that you didn’t pitch, maybe personalizing it a little bit to them and then putting it in there. Right. That has definitely resulted in bookings for us, for clients when we, when we’ve done that before. I actually, this pitch sprint, as I call it the one time a quarter, That to me and to my clients that do the pitch work themselves, that feels very realistic.

Like that’s something they can do. Yes, there are people that, and God bless them. They are so good at like pitching every week, right? Like, and, and by the way, like we pitch every week for our clients, but that’s our job, you know what I mean? But like, when it’s just you, if you’re pitching yourself, that is very easy to put to the back burner.

You are doing client work. You are doing this other stuff. That’s very easy to be like, you know what? I just don’t have time to pitch this week. I got other stuff I got to do. But when you set aside this one day and you hold yourself accountable to like nothing else can be booked on that day.

I’m going to go maybe for me, like I’m really good when I get out of the house. I set myself up at a coffee shop. I’m going to spend the whole day sending pitches, researching shows, sending pitches. And then doing the follow up later on, because it’s like batched like that, it’s way easier to keep it tracked of like when to do follow up, when to do these other things, because you’re not just like kind of in that constant mode.

[00:38:22] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. What, as far as research shows or programs or events, like what do you, what are your tips for attending events?

[00:38:34] Christina Lenkowski:

[00:38:35] Tracy Hoth: When you say, I’m gonna research the show, do you listen to a whole episode, and then you pull out something you liked about it, and kinda lead with that?

[00:38:46] Christina Lenkowski: I mean, that’s generally it.

Yes. Here’s the real background of like what we do as publicists, because we do listen to some of each show that we ever, that we pitch, right? Because a, we want to make sure it’s the right fit for our client. We always want to get the vibe. We always want to be like, is this the right vibe for what we’re looking for?

What I really recommend is listening to the first 10 minutes, the last five minutes, and then five minutes somewhere in the middle, and that can be wherever you literally just drag the cursor, you know, to the middle. Hit play and just listen in on what they’re talking about. The reason that I am very sharp on the front a lot, the front end, is that is where you learn how the host talks about their audience.

Okay, mirror that language back to them, whatever they call their audience, mirror back to them in the pitch, meaning if they’re like, Oh, my audience is a self made business owners, right? Whatever, if they literally use that verbiage, you need to use that verbiage in the pitch, right? You are showing them, Hey, I know who your audience is.

I paid attention. Yeah, I put it in the niche and they see that and maybe it’s subconscious. Maybe they don’t really think, Oh, I can see that they whatever, but they know, Oh, they’re paying. This is, they know my audience.

[00:40:05] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. They know who it is that I want to get in front of.

[00:40:06] Christina Lenkowski: Right. There’s a lot of that kind of work that we do. There are a lot of coaching that we do with our clients on how to be showing up the best they possibly can for the interview by doing some of that almost like subconscious work as well on, on the front end, the pre work essentially before they get to the interview.

[00:40:25] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. Oh my gosh. So many good tips and I could talk for another 30 minutes and ask you more questions, but our time’s going to run out.

If we’re going to make a visibility plan, what does that mean? Like do we, yes, we’re going to be on a podcast every week, but like, what do we have to do to get to that? I love your idea of the pitch sprint. We’re going to do four sprints this next year. We’re going to book in our calendar two days, follow up from those pitches.

Then do we, I mean, what else would you recommend? I’m looking at researching events.

[00:41:00] Christina Lenkowski:  I would recommend looking at stuff locally and being like. Is this, is there anything that I want to commit to? You know, if there’s local events, if there’s anything national that you really wanted to go to that maybe you haven’t pulled the trigger on, right.

That you’re like, okay, I’m ready to commit. Like, I know this is something I want to be at. Like, let’s go, like, let’s do it, you know? To your point, like I would get those pitch sprints into my calendar. You can always take, I have a training called, Hey bitch, let’s pitch. Yes. That’s the name of it.

That is all about how to build out that pitch template, but also how to research shows as well. You can find those shows that are the right fit for you, but also you can be sending out to your audience. What shows do you guys listen to? Right? What is it that you guys are listening to? That’s a great jumping off point for finding that your ideal audience is already listening to.

Not that maybe that e newsletter, that blog route was something that really made sense for you or pitching an article. Start to research how you can make that happen, right? How, who am I going to pitch? How am I going to pitch them? Right? Et cetera. And get that out there. I really think it’s just. Setting that intention.

Actually if you’re like me putting it into your calendar of like, okay, you know, and maybe it’s more of, I talked about podcast pitching once a quarter, but maybe once a quarter you also set aside a day that’s like visibility planning, right?

[00:42:18] Christina Lenkowski: Yes, that’s thinking about what am I going to do over this next year and what are the steps I can take today to get that stuff locked in?

Right? Is it, this is the day that I’m gonna make the decision on the events that I want to go to. This is the day that I’m going to research the blogs that I want to pitch about me doing a guest blog post, right? Like It is all about setting that time intentionally and then just getting it done. Yeah.

Taking the, and like, I mean, I said at the beginning, but you know, vision without execution is just hallucination. How do we actually make that stuff happen?

[00:42:54] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. Oh, so good. I love all those tips too. The word that stood out to me is commit. I’ve been. Negotiating with myself and considering. Yeah, I’ll negotiate with myself, I get it.

For this one networking group, do I want to do it? Do I not? Like, it’s just that commitment. But I like how you said, this is the day I’m going to decide what I’m going to do and commit to it.  I love that. Okay, Christina, tell us how people can work with you and find you.

[00:43:24] Christina Lenkowski: I would absolutely love to have people head over to podcastpublicityquiz.com is a really fun quiz that I have that’ll take you kind of through. First of all, it’s my face. It’s like a video quiz. You get to actually see me after hearing me, but it helps to direct people to what might make the most sense for them in their business. Whether that is creating their own pitch template, pitching themselves, whether that is a VIP day where we get all their assets ready for them.

I have one tomorrow. I had one earlier this week. They’re a lot of fun. Or is it having our team actually pitch on your behalf and be doing this work for you? It’s just a really great quiz that’ll, that’ll help you know where, what makes the most sense for you. Ooh, I’m going to go take that.

Okay. What is it? What was it again? I will have it in the show notes, but yeah, we’ll have it in the show notes, but it’s podcast publicity quiz. dot com. B the way, while I’m on that note, one thing that’s very important at the end of each of your interviews, make sure you know where you’re going to direct people to capture them.

I love having that as a vanity URL, obviously, you know, podcastpublicityquiz. com. You can buy something like that too. It’ll be in the show notes and, you know, they can just link, but it’s nice when it’s easy for you to say too.

[00:44:31] Tracy Hoth: Yes. So good. Thank you so much, everybody. DM me, reach out to both of us and tag us on our social media.

[00:44:40] Christina Lenkowski: I’d love to hear what podcasts you start getting booked on, if you’re feeling inspired, you know, as you head into the new year. Seriously, it makes my day when I get notes like that, so please don’t be shy.

[00:44:49] Tracy Hoth: Yeah. I want to see your visibility plan for 2025. Thank you so much, Christina.

Thank you. Wait, if you’re finding this podcast useful, you must check out the Organized Coach Academy. It’s my course where I walk you through every step to get your business organized, to get yourself organized, to see what’s going on. Save money and time to prepare to hire someone to do all the things that you want to do in your business with ease.

Check that out at simplysquaredaway.com/oca. Also, I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, but I would love it. It’s my way of knowing podcast. If you leave a written review, I have lots of freebies for you. They’re linked in the show notes. You can find him in my bio on Instagram at @TracyHoth and until next week, have a beautiful day.