Turning Challenges into Speaking Opportunities with Anastasia Lipske

What if you had the power to pivot your business through a pandemic, create a digital footprint that lasts, and authentically connect with your audiences like never before? Anastasia Lipske, founder of Access Speakers, joins us to share her journey from the vibrant world of tourism to the era of guest speakers and podcasting and how she's helping her clients navigate the ever-evolving digital space.

Anastasia's story is one of resilience and innovation, as she navigated from a successful career in tourism to find her unique niche in the speaking and podcasting world. During a time when everyone was grounded and unable to travel, Anastasia discovered creative solutions to keep her speaking business thriving. She reveals the secret of leveraging podcasting as a marketing tool, its evergreen appeal, and the lasting digital footprint it creates. Anastasia also emphasizes the importance of remaining professional under any circumstances and how the pandemic has opened doors for authenticity in our interactions.

Anastasia imparts valuable insights, from connecting energetically with hosts to ensuring that your guest fits the show perfectly. She shares her unique model of podcast guest-booking and consulting, and the importance of feeling comfortable in discomfort. Anastasia encourages us to trust that every challenge comes for a reason and to leverage our uniqueness to craft something special in the podcasting sphere. Don't miss out on Anastasia's wisdom as she leads us through the vibrant world of podcasting.

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Transcript

Anika Jackson: 0:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. I am super thrilled to have somebody I've been communicating with. We finally get to see each other and be together on your Brand Amplified. On Astasha Lipsky. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, it is such a pleasure, truly, and you are the founder of Access Speakers. But before we get into what you do now, let's go back, because you had a whole other lifetime career and you made it like many people do or many people are looking to do. So I'd love for you to talk about what's your background and what prompted you to make such a big pivot.

Anastasia Lipske: 0:49

Yes, well, first off, it's got to be a good thing, because no one in their right mind would ever think that people would pay me to book them to speak for free. That's the thought of business model that exists out there. So it really has been many, many years of leading me towards this. But my former career, what I always did, was tourism. I mean, I started when I was 18 years old and worked with many tourism companies and ultimately was Nellie Four and most involved with working with international ground operators for a very high end luxury consortium or of the top luxury travel consultants in the world, and I worked with the people on the ground. So if you wanted to have to try with the Maharaja, which I've done, you can do that if you pay my people right. So because their boots on the ground, they're there Instead of going through, say, a tour operator that's then turning around and contracting them. So that was kind of what I had been doing for a long time and through that process I had a lot of experience with conferences, a lot of experience with just PR and marketing. I put on a very loudish event as part of this, you know, all around the world, and had a lot of that type of experience under my belt. Everything was great and I had been wooed away to another company and, after being there for a couple of years, realized that I was not in alignment with how they operated in life, and that really matters to me. So I actually walked away from a very comfortable living because I'd never been unemployed in my life and I knew all the movers and shakers I mean, I'd been doing this for 30 years. Like I knew the presidents of Cruise Lines and the GM's General Manager is a five-star hotel all around the world. Like these were my people. And so I literally would call, say, cruise Lines and say, hey, guess what? I'm a free agent, I would love to work for your company. And they'd say you know what? We hire you in a heartbeat. So we just laid 50 people off yesterday because when this happened was April of 2008. 2008, that economic crash devastated tourism. Tourism is discretionary. It's optional. If your plumbing goes out, you got to hire the plumber. You can postpone a holiday. Yeah, oh, everybody was just slammed and I spent two years looking for work in tourism. I sent out over a thousand resume. Now, granted, I was not relocatable, which is often important in tourism because I had children, but it was brutal. So what do I do with my time? While I'm trying to find work, I discovered Twitter and I got very actively involved in Twitter in the 2008, 2009 period. In the earlier days I was actually part of the Twitch Hiker experience. I'm in the mood, like you know, just this whole thing. It was my world. And while I was doing that, there was a gal in my town that was putting on a social media conference. I wanted to go, but I was broke as a joke by then. So I reached out to her and I'm like, hey, I have all this event management experience. I'll volunteer at your conference if you'll let me attend. Once she found that out, she had come with me and she offered me a job right away. I mean, I literally came in in the 11th hour. She had never put on a conference before and I say her oh Kali, as it was saying Hawaiian. So once that happened, then the second conference she did, I was involved in the earlier stages of it and I started vetting the speakers for her conference. So now, even though I had all this event management, now I'm vetting speakers. I know what it's like, what a person needs to look for when you're considering a speaker for your conference, your meeting, your trainings, et cetera. Meanwhile, that position didn't quite work out to what I had hoped for and I ended up working for a sustainable farm and, ironically, this whole connection happened through Twitter Because, for those of you who were not involved in Twitter in the earlier days, people laughed at us, they thought of us ridiculous, and we wanted to connect with people and have social connection. That this is the real thing, because this is the beginning stages of social media, and so we would have tweet ups is what they were called and so we would meet. Like someone would do a tweet up in town and say okay, we're going to meet at this place, everybody show up. This new sustainable farmer that had just moved to Petaluma, she did a tweet up at her farm. So I took my whole family. She met my 16-year-old daughter and her best friend and she just said to the girls girls, you work for me because my sons are worthless on the farm. I can tell you love animals. You look like hard workers. And so she offered these two 16-year-old girls. Then she ended up hiring my older daughter, then ended up hiring her boyfriend, who's now her husband and the father of my grandchildren, and then ended up hiring me just part time to help her with their sales and marketing. So I was working at this sustainable farm Only did that for a short while. And then she ultimately comes to me and she says my business coach told me I should be speaking to grow my business. I don't know where to begin. I don't have the connections in town. You've been in Petaluma forever. I'll pay you for every gate you can line up for me and I'm one of those people like I'll do anything once, twice if I like it. I also am a fur believer that I don't ask God to open doors for me. And then there's an open door and I don't walk through it. So I did it and I just started reaching out to rotary clubs and various groups and organizations and offering the sustainable farmer to talk about agriculture. She wasn't pitching anything, she wasn't selling anything, she was just educating people about sustainable agriculture. She would invite them to their farm to do a tour and when they did that, they would follow their operation. Sign up to become a weekly CSA Community Sustained Agriculture. That means you get a box of beans and vegetables every single week. That was like a $250 per month per client business and it was her number one marketing tool. So she started telling everybody about it. To this day, every client I have has come to me through referrals. Nice, because there's nobody doing it. So that's all good and great. It's a powerful marketing tool If you do it well, you do it with integrity, you don't do it to pitch your stuff, you don't abuse that form, but you offer value. And if you do that, there's gonna be a certain amount of per people that are they're gonna resonate with you and they're gonna wanna meet with you in the back of the room or follow up with you if it's a virtual talk or something along those lines. So that was great and groovy and I was feeling in niche, because normally if you want to speak, you don't have a traditional speaker agent to represent you because that model is their booking. You paid engagements and taking 20 to 30% of that fee. If you're not making five grand a talk, there's no money in it for them. So people who wanna be platform marketing speakers or speak to sell speakers, they've got no representation. So I was an anomaly. There was one other person that had a similar business model to me he was in Dallas. She would actually refer people to me because we had our own niches. Well, we're going along, doing our thing. And then March of 2020 happened.

Anika Jackson: 8:04

Yeah, that's definitely changed the way we did everything Right. In fact, that's when you started your podcast. Yeah, I mean, that's when we quickly moved to virtual events, and it's interesting because now I do see people coming back and wanting to have that in-person interaction. What you do is a very specific part of PR. So, as a publicist, I will look for speaking opportunities, cast opportunities for my clients, but I can't spend all of my time doing that when I'm also pitching them for other things for blocks, protocols. So I'd love for you to talk about how you've helped your clients. And then also, what did you pivot to or how did you make that pivot during the pandemic?

Anastasia Lipske: 8:46

Yeah. So what happened was every single thing that I had booked was canceled, so I lost everything overnight. That one other person closed her doors in April of 2020. So I had a choice Do I find something else or do I embrace the pivot word of 2020? Well, I had clients who had asked me if I would book them on podcasts, and I had always said no because I didn't have the bandwidth for it. They are two different animals. And so there I am, I'm stuck. I'm like, ooh, what about this podcast? Because all of my clients, mind you, they're paying me to get them to speak for free, because they're using it as a marketing tool and clearly it's working for them, or they wouldn't continue to pay me. Now, all of a sudden, they're grounded. They don't have that marketing tool. It was just taken away from them. So I thought, what if? What if I were to book my grounded speakers on podcasts until this thing? Whatever it's going to the way, surely it'll all be a few weeks, right, right, oh?

Anika Jackson: 9:45

no, we all died.

Anastasia Lipske: 9:47

Well, the interesting thing is. So I went out to all of them I said look, I want to beta test this. I've never done it before, but I never did what I did before either, right, so I just jump into things. Sometimes I've learned as I go, yeah, and that's what I always said First the test and then the lesson. And that's how I learn. I learn in the trenches and I'm a very creative thinker, so I do things differently than anybody else. I was known as the worker round queen in pretty much every I ever, and it was like do we slap you or do we praise you? I mean beta test, you're creating habit for our programmers, but you're finding those loopholes and inspiring us to fill them. Right, so I would always have these workarounds because it didn't meet my needs. So that creativity has helped me kind of create this and I do things differently than anybody else that I know, because I didn't know what I was doing. So I just started booking them. To this day, every one of my clients who said, yes, I'll pay you to book me on podcasts too, they're still doing the podcast workings, even though they're back to speaking full time. They're in person, they're virtual, but they see the value of doing both. And what I love about the podcasting world is that it always was and always will be virtual, so it doesn't matter what might come down our pike. Do you remember at the beginning how it hit us? We closed the world down and then we just started to creep out of it. People started to meet in person again, and then Delta, and then it's shut everything down again, and then we finally start in person again, and then Omicron and it shut everything down again and I'm just like I don't even know if I want to book speaking anymore.

Anika Jackson: 11:20

And now I mean, I'm still hearing about people get COVID all the time and in other countries it's crept back up in my parents live in Thailand, in Thailand. It's crept back up in China. In Europe there's a new strain, so it's not going to go away. So figuring out how we navigate both ways is so much better. And I had an in-person show before. I had my podcast when I lived in Texas and while we filmed in person and we had sets and what was radio and a Facebook live and we pivoted a little bit after I moved because we had to do my part virtually, but then the world shut down and the in-person studio went away and all of that stuff. So the same kind of thing. I said, okay, what's next? Hot casting.

Anastasia Lipske: 12:02

Exactly, and what I think I most love about it is also it's the digital footprint. So, from a marketing, pr perspective, you can't beat all the backlinks, all the Google juice that you get from every episode Speaking, you get a little bit because they'll promote it online, you know, promote it via newsletters and on their sites and things like that, but it's not the same as the digital footprint that podcast guesting does. In particular, if you've got a good host that's doing a lot of promoting and the guest doing a lot of promoting, it's incredible the visibility that you can get, and I love the evergreen factor. So people literally can hear your episode three years after the back. And I don't know if you've ever done this, annika, but I certainly have. My hero, hal Elrod, was the first podcaster I ever listened to, and when I discovered him like oh, I want to say seven years ago, once I did I literally went to episode 001 and played it from the beginning. That's how much I loved him. So anyway, I'm just kind of saying this to any of your people who are using podcast guesting or podcasting I'm going to let you learn something from an experience, and sometimes you have no control. You do the best you can. So I close my blinds so my dogs cannot see squirrels outside. I take their collars off. Well, within that, I pick up every single chew toy that exists and I put it up high. I put a sign on my door that says podcast in progress Please do not knock or my dogs go far. I do all of that, but what I can't control is an unexpected arrival of a granddaughter who just got dropped in to pick up her sister's stuff. So forgive the background noise, but even if you use a thing, what I love what happened with the pandemic is we got to be authentic about everything. You know the BBC guys that would be out there. They would be on live BBC television and their children would run in the room and the wives would come and pull them out, or the cats would walk across their keyboard or having them forbid. They stand up, but they don't have their pants on. By the way, I always wear a skirt, like I dress. I dress nicely, put my makeup on and everything, even if it's not visual, I still do it because that is how I show up as a pro. But our world has come to a point where it's authentic. We get to let things go. Sometimes we do the best we can and we roll with what life brings us, because any moment it can happen to you too Fire engine just pulls up right next to you. How can you control that right? And yes, you can edit out some of the sound, but there comes a point where we just get to let it go and have grace. So that was an example for all of your listeners on how to have grace when your granddaughter walks in and the dogs go crazy and make noise, even though we don't have the color zones.

Anika Jackson: 14:54

Yeah, I relate to all of that. What I'd love for you to talk about is the process, because one thing that I've also found is, oftentimes people say they want PR but they're still scared of speaking about themselves and their product. And, to your point, we want authenticity, we want to see who it is. Who is the person, what was their motivation for bringing this to the world and what do I resonate with in their story? So how do you vet people? I know you said that people come into referrals, but how do you vet people to make sure they're ready? And then how do you work with them? Or what do you recommend for strategies to help them get ready to public speak? Because it's a muscle, yeah, just like riding a bike or doing anything else Practice, practice, practice and you get better. And I'm about tonered episodes in. I've always loved public speaking, but my first few episodes were rough because I was figuring out what this podcast was going to be and I had a very certain idea and then I was like threw that out the window and now I don't have to do I virtually don't do any preps, because I wanted to be an authentic conversation. I obviously connected to that. Linkedin, I, your socials. I look through your profiles, everything you send me, but I try to keep it a really authentic conversation. But I also am very comfortable speaking and it's not hard, cindy for everyone.

Anastasia Lipske: 16:05

So here's the honest to God truth I honestly would rather chew on glass than do a speaking presentation. Really, I'm good, but I do not like public speaking at all. Wow, I never would have guessed Right. However, podcast guesting is different, okay, so I'm going to say for the people who speaking you know, doing a presentation is terrifying or uncomfortable for them, podcast guesting is a great way to start getting in essence, stage time, but in a different way, because it really is conversation. Most people, even if it's a dry analyst most people that the person's asking the right questions, they can be ignited about that subject and become passionate about it and if they can learn to do that through podcast guesting, then they can learn to take that same passion and put it into a prepared presentation. I think what happens is that we worry too much sometimes about how we're going to be seen. This is when imposter syndrome sneaks in and it can rear it's ugly head and no matter how amazing you are, you can still have that issue Right. It can be huge. Your episode with Jeremy Jeremy Ryan, he's involved with the podcasting world and podcast guesting. He was some time ago that you had him. He quoted actually Steve Martin that I had never heard this quote about is saying it on the lines of when you're as good as you are, then you don't have to worry about anybody else, because you're the best right and what you do. So if you know what you're about and you believe in it, you just want to share that, and I always like to think of the fact that if you have something that's a value for other people to hear and you are not sharing it, you are doing the world of disservice. Okay, because we now have the potential of reaching so many people, right, and who knows, even if there's just one person who hears us talking right now, hello to that person. Whoever you might be. If you're thinking, I have a message, maybe something personal, not related to a business, but if it's a business message to whatever it might be, I've got a message to get out there and share it. Don't hold it in, because you are a value. Everybody has value and no matter what that message is, I guarantee you there's a podcast about it, everything that you can think of. There's a podcast about it, if not many, but you go about it from the viewpoint of blessing the audience. Don't go in and thinking what am I going to get from this, you know? Am I going to get sales? Am I going to get pickup? Let it go. This is valuable time, this time that anybody is listening to us right now. I want to make certain that anything that I share is something that when they've listened to this whole episode, at the end of it even if they don't really resonate with it or they don't want to do podcasting themselves or speaking or whatever it might be that they might think that was interesting, that was worth my time. I'm glad I listened to that An audience member. You want to make certain that they walk away saying that was worth my time, because we can't give them their time back, so we want to be respectful of that at all times. So how can I be a value to them? I'm a huge believer in the relationship with hosts and I am so frustrated with the people that are and you're going to relate to this. They're kind of a slam-bam. Thank you, ma'am guest. They don't listen to an episode ahead of time, they don't do an Apple review for the host, they don't share it socially. They get on the episode, they don't know anything about it and then they walk away and that's it Host ghosting. It's a real thing and it's terribly unfair because hosts who are putting all the time, money, effort to create a platform for people to get their voice out there. The least you can do is be respectful of that and do your part. Come prepared, make sure you're familiar with that show. And I'm going to toss something else out there, if you don't mind me just sharing a little bit about the vetting process that a person should go through when they're considering a show. This is why it's important to listen, and this is one thing that's very unique about my agency. My agency doesn't just book our clients on shows and then tell them to show up. We actually run the shows by them first and we ask them to vet the show and listen, and only if they feel they can be of value do we want them to come back and tell us why they would be of value for this particular show, and then we will propose them to the show. So it's gone through two vetting processes before it even gets to the host, who then might still say, yeah, not really feeling it and that's okay, right, but it's not just some random thing. So we want to make sure that there's alignment there. But to go further with it, you have to connect energetically with the host, because sometimes we don't. Sometimes chemistry is off. You hear someone and they just grate you. So the litmus test is ask yourself the question Would I want to sit in a cafe and have a cup with this person? And if the answer is yes, move forward. If the answer is no, I don't care how big the show is, let it go, and I'll say that to you as a host as well. Listen to that guest, that potential guest, at least for a little bit, on an episode or two, to make sure that energetically, you jive with them. Because anybody who would listen to a lot of podcasts which you and I do because this is our space I certainly have listened to episodes where it feels strained. You almost feel like it's awkward, right For the guest of the host, like they're just not jive.

Anika Jackson: 21:48

I mean, I will say I've had a few episodes where I was like with, like, pulling teeth. There are a couple of examples of people who've been on lots of different podcasts. They're just not aware or they haven't honed those skills or they just are on to wrote themselves to your point, which is their authenticity, but it's not giving real value to my listeners. But at the same time, I feel like, okay, well, I already made this contract, but this person, I'm going to still release this episode. It's not going to be one of my favorites, it might not get as many listens and downloads, but that's okay and it's part of my journey. It's part of this person's journey. I also pitch clients. I work a lot with workforce development and education and sector. So I have to go through what are the educational podcasts? I need to listen to them, but are they host-led? Do they do interviews? Do they do solo and interview style Right? Is this the right? Is it K through 12 focused? Is it technical? So which of my clients should I pitch to it? So I have to listen to the podcast and when I reach levels, I am letting them know. I listened to an episode, I left your review and I'm also open to swapping. If you have my client on your podcast, I would be happy to have you on my podcast and we're going to do an offshoot of my podcast that is focused on marketing and PR and communications for workforce and education at some point with my CEO. But it's a process and I have sometimes sent requests to my CEO and like, oh, I think this looks interesting. And she's like, yeah, how about I seem very new? Or I listened to an episode so I realized I wasn't giving this. You know, like our clients, I was doing all this vetting, but for us internally I wasn't doing as much and like well, I have to treat us like a client as well in the process. It is time. It does take time, it was totally late, but it is exactly what you need to find the right audience. And then I'm like exactly.

Anastasia Lipske: 23:36

And so many people who have said, oh, I tried podcast guessing, it didn't do anything for me. Well, that's when I started asking the questions. Because number one are they even all the right podcasts? I'd say the biggest mistake that people make. They think that they just want airtime. And I get that. Okay, because there's, you know, welcome gladwell outliers. 10,000 hours serves mastery. The more often we do something, the better we get at it. And coming back to your question from like 10 minutes ago about you know, vetting people, for me, if they can speak and carry on a conversation, that's good enough for podcast guessing, because then you have that authentic dialogue. If there's a match speaking, it does take a little more practice and presentation. There's so much support out there, so many people that can help people with their presentations, and so you know it's really just building up that time and utilizing it. But, man, people, there's just so much opportunity to get this and get it right and share in a way that's reciprocal value. And then it's kept so like those awkward conversations. They're there forever. So that's not serving you or the client, right, or I mean the guests, either one. So it's important, it's very important that they do that. And then the other thing is is that too many people they aren't getting them most out of every episode. In fact, right now, really quick, change my usual speaker view and put you side by side and do me a favor, because I want you to smile and I want to do a screen print, okay, of the two of us, because, even though this is not live which, honestly, is my preference, especially if you have dogs so what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be sharing on LinkedIn, which is where I like to hang out. I'll do any other social media channels, but I will be sharing today that you and I had this conversation and I will use this image because I don't have anything that is, our episode that I can share yet until it airs Right, and I'm going to start drawing attention to your show. I'm going to tell people how much I enjoyed you as a guest and, in fact, I'm probably going to link to that episode that I was referring to about podcast guesting, because meanwhile, they can listen to this dude, jeremy, who he's been in the industry even longer than I have, so learn from him. Check out Annika's show and, while you're at it, do a solid subscribe, give her a rating and review, like I want to like rich people to start paying attention to your show now and then after it comes out, then of course, I'll share it again with the link. I'll drop the link on my profile of my site so that my list of podcasts I've been on gets longer.

Anika Jackson: 26:11

You get the backlinks right and my team will be sending you a static graphic and some video grams We'll share. Tag you Now, depending on what platform. The tags don't always go through every platform, so sometimes I have to go back in later and, you know, do all that. But yeah, it's a whole process and we had all the time in the world. This is the only thing I was focused on. I have to do it all even more. Can I ask and I usually don't ask this question, I don't know if you want to share, but do you have specific packages, price points that people can work with you at? Do you customize the packages? What does it look like? Because I'm also thinking of who do I know? I've actually had conversations this week with people who are like I need to get more speaking engagements for my client so I can send them some stuff that I have, but certainly all the bigger font of information?

Anastasia Lipske: 27:03

Absolutely, I don't mind. In fact, all my fees are actually on my website. I'm so transparent it's crazy. So you know, there's really three components to what I do. One is I do book the speakers the speak to sell speakers, in essence but I have a very small niche. I'm really only representing people that are in the San Francisco Bay area for in-person engagements, because that's where my black book is. So, and that's the thing, I have a lot of experience Okay, not my team, me alone. I personally have booked more than 1600 engagements, close to 1700. So I know what it takes to get people booked, either to speak or on podcasts, and so that experience helps me in my consulting services, because that's where I can help almost anyone. In fact, I've never found anyone that I couldn't help somehow, some way, because I like to talk about branding, how they're showing up, to greatly increase their chances of getting booked. Because I see things differently, I have a unique perspective because I am in the middle. I know what it's like to work with podcast hosts and what they're looking for. I know what it's like to work with podcast guests and what they're looking for because I work with hosts too. I help them with their branding, how they can grow their show. But different than all the other people that are out there, I just have a unique perspective, thanks. So the speaking is limited on where I can support a person Podcast guessing, you know, unless they are so niche that I wouldn't be able to find a lot of shows for them. You know, like they only want to talk to shows that have children that were abducted by aliens in the years of 1984 to 1986. You know, is that niche, I'm not going to be a good fit for them. I can help them with consulting, but the fee structure is simple. I do it different than anyone I know so far and I've connected with a lot of people. We're not in competition with each other. This is like the wild wild west. I love the podcasting world. Everybody shares everything. I talk to so many podcast agencies. I refer people to other podcast agencies because they do things different than the way I do. I'm one to one individual and I charge on production only. So if someone wants to work with me, we do have a setup fee. That's kind of to get them started. Set up their profile on our site. Blah blah, blah blah. Got a lot of pings. We send them our emails etc. They pay 500 dollars to come in. After that they only paid 50 dollars per month, which is kind of like an admin kid who likes on theme. We do a lot of research and reach out and if we don't get the booking, that's on us. We don't get paid, so it's. And then what happens is that we run the shows by them. Again, we want them to listen and vet and make sure that they're a value. They tell us why they're a value for that show and we promote them. If we get them booked, we charge them $115 for that one podcast and that's it. If we don't get the book, they pay nothing. So it's a very different model than every other agency. I know that charges a lot of money per month, but they also, I'm sure, do more. I want to make it really clear to all your listeners. You got to compare apples to apples. What we do is unique and I don't know of anyone that runs the shows by the people first, so that they're literally collecting their shows as opposed to just being booked, and then they show up and the other thing is we actually introduce them to the host. So once it's booked, we want them to start a relationship with that host. Now, for the people who they don't have that time, they don't want to build their relationships and all that kind of stuff. They literally just want an agency to do everything for them and they just want to show up and be on the show and that's it we're not the right fit. But for those that they want to work it and really develop a relationship because here's the thing when you become a guest the type of guest that a host loves, that's going to help them tell other people about I want to be the guest that when people are sitting around having cocktails at pod fest and they're talking about their favorite guests, I want to be one of those people. I do not want to be one of the ones where they talk about their nightmare guests, right, yeah, right, or the host goes through, you know. So be the type of guest that you would want if you were a host. You know, put yourself in the other person's shoes, so actively promote it. One of my clients I was a guest on the show. I was a guest on the show and then I started booking my clients with the kids and then he comes back to me and he's like you know what I want to be doing more podcast guesting, because too many hosts are so caught up in their show they're not guesting a lot and therefore they're not getting new eyes and ears, and that's what you need. So when you have your own show, as you know, you develop the relationship, you build your community. These people are coming in every time to hear your episode because they like you. Yeah, hey, they don't like you, they're not going to listen to a second back of saying it, right, but they like you. You're connecting, you're building influence with them. That's deep, that's powerful. But if you want to get beyond them, you get on more show, and so a lot of the hosts aren't doing enough of that. Even John Lee Davis, he's on shows all the time, all the time. And I mean, like what I would give for people who are, by the way, judging A show, saying, oh, you know, they only have X amount of ratings and reviews. It's a new show, blah, blah, blah. Cool boy, you are selling yourself short. You've got to pay attention to the vibe and the quality of that show, because what I would have given to be an early guest was someone like Johnny Dewis, right, yeah, right. So you never know when a show is going to take off Exactly. You're going to be on anything podcast guesting. You get out of it what you put into it and that's the critical thing. If you're going to be surface level, you're going to get surface results. But if you're doing it to really bless the audience, you have a good call to action, a reason for them to get in touch with you after the fact and you develop that relationship with that host. That's going to help you grow and you're going to help that host. It's like a big love fest.

Anika Jackson: 33:04

It really is, and I also often find that whatever guest I have on is something that I've been thinking about or dealing with or a question I've had in my mind. So it's actually, while my listeners are getting a lot out of it, I'm also getting as much or more out of it by making this action and getting to have this dialogue with you, absolutely yeah. So, anastasia, you have an e-book about speaking to grow your business? Yes, correct, so we'll put this in the show notes For your website is accessspeakersbuzz forward slash. Thank you for people to be able to download that e-book. Yes, and get to also see what's on your website. You also offer a. Do you still offer a monthly virtual Q&A? I?

Anastasia Lipske: 33:47

do I do, I do, yes, and that's a lot of fun. It's basically the chance to pick the brain of a speaker and podcast booking agent. We literally just talk about anything and everything. Whatever people want to talk about, they just ask questions. I will never answer a question I don't know the answer to. I will always be honest about that. Now, if I can get the answer, I will. But I'm very honest and upfront. It is not a pitch fest. I don't take 20 minutes out of that hour telling everybody to do consulting with me or whatever. However, if people attend, I do Wheel of Names and I spin, and one lucky person does win a $250 consultation with me. So this benefit is showing up. But more than anything, it's just to learn and so you can come with questions. I do that every month, ironically, with the exception of this month. Now, here we go again with the Evergreen factor. So if you listener right now are hearing this three years after the fact, this is long coming gone. But next week I'm going to Sicily for an entire month. Ooh, nice, and I don't trust the Wifi.

Anika Jackson: 34:48

I tried doing work slash holiday trip to France and yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Lipske: 34:54

Yeah, exactly. So for the first time in two years, I am not going to have my Q and A, but it is the third Thursday of every month and it's all information. So I do recommend that people have one place. If you're using podcast casting and even speaking, you have one place that you can send people to, which is the site that you addressed. It's just my web address. Access speaker stop is slash, thank you. That's the page where everything is. They can get my ebook. They can find my social media. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I love to connect with people that they introduce themselves, and then I'm happy to give people a 15, 20 minute consultation for free. I love to just be able to talk with them, see if I can support them. If I can't be a value to someone, I'm so honest because I don't want to work with somebody if they're not going to praise me afterward. So I cut bait and I'll always just say like, yeah, I just don't feel like I'm the person you need, but maybe this person can be of support, right, so I never know when I might refuse someone else that would be better serving for them. So, yeah, it's just fun to connect with people afterwards. And the Q and A is a lot of fun. It would be great to have any of your listeners come and join us anytime, just not August of 2023. I'm skipping that one month because I'm going to be working for my laptop, overlooking the Mediterranean. So and you, by the way, in three days we get to find out if you won the female podcast award. Oh, I thought we don't find out until the end of September. I looked it up today and they said August 6th. Oh, okay, well, at least what I read. I could be wrong, but I'm going to. I mean, I'll have to look. I think I don't know. But people here this, it will have been after the fact, so I hope that I will thank you on it.

Anika Jackson: 36:34

Thank you, and yeah, I didn't even know I was up for a podcast award until Anastasia tagged me. I'm like, anastasia, do you have a favorite quote or mantra or any last words of wisdom that you want to leave for the audience today?

Anastasia Lipske: 36:48

Yeah, I would say my favorite thing. Well, I love is kind of a fun thing. It's just. Mother Teresa was known for saying I know that God will never give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn't trust me with so much, and that kind of is a mantra in my life, because I have a full life, a very full life, like many of your people do, and so sometimes it can be overwhelming to think I can't handle this. This is just too much. I'm trying to run my business how I'm going to add podcast guesting on top of it, and now you're telling me you want me to connect with the host ahead of time and you want me to share about them and blah, blah, blah. I really do believe that people can handle more than they think that they can if they just continually find brace for themselves and just have trust that the things that are being brought to them whether you're a believer or not, or it's to find source or whatever it might be it's coming to you for a reason. And so when we ask for things and they show up, step through, be curious. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I would never have created a speaker agency for people to pay me to book them to speak for free. Never in a million years would I have thought that model up, but yet a door was opened and I decided to walk through. And how often do we not? Because it's uncomfortable, it's unfamiliar, and so this world of, especially the podcasting world, is very unfamiliar for a lot of people and it's changing every day. It's never too late to start. That's the other important thing. It's never too late because I could look back and say, oh, you know these people, they've been at it for so much longer than me. Where's my space in this? My space is that I'm unique, I'm different, I do my business different, I show up differently and we all get to be ourselves right, but it's never really more than we can handle if we just breathe through it and trust that it is brought to us for a reason. So I love that. Yeah, thank you.

Anika Jackson: 38:44

Yeah, thank you for that, and thank you to our listeners for listening to another episode of You're a Brand Amplified, as Anastasia mentioned. It would be great if you can leave us a review and a rating on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. Both of them help a lot and with that, I'll be back again in a few days with another amazing gift. Want more? Check out AmplifyWithAnikacom or follow me on socials at Amplify with Anika.