Podcasts have become an incredibly popular medium in the coaching and personal development industry, offering a unique platform to share ideas, promote products and services, and connect with a global audience.
However, it’s clear that there’s a lack of racial diversity and inclusivity when it comes to guest experts on podcasts. This is something I support my clients with when it comes to building an intentional guest list in advance so they are ensuring the information they share with their audience includes diverse perspectives and thoughts from people who are underrepresented.
The benefits of including racially diverse guests on your podcast are numerous.
Here are just a few:
1️⃣ Diverse perspectives bring new ideas
Bringing in diverse guests means introducing your audience to new and different perspectives that they might not have heard before. This can bring fresh ideas, innovative strategies, and unique insights to your podcast, making it more interesting and engaging for your listeners. And when I say diverse, I mean racially diverse perspectives. And please don’t mistake this to mean only bringing in a racial equity coach like myself to talk about DEI. There are experts, thought leaders and contributors who come from other professions such as business coaches, financial advisors, copywriters, graphic designers, virtual assistants, online business managers and so many more who are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour who you can interview. You don’t have to pigeon hole BIPOC into only contributing to DEI work.
2️⃣ Attract new audiences
One of the most frequently used call to action on a podcast is “please rate this podcast by leaving a 5 star rating so we can reach more people.” And that’s great but if you genuinely want to reach more people, especially when you know that people of colour are the global majority, then diversifying your guests should be a top goal for you.
By featuring racially diverse guests, you can reach out to new audiences that you might not have reached before. This can help you grow your listener base and expand your reach, ultimately leading to more opportunities and potential clients. Think about the different countries you could be adding to your listenership and what this could do for your business.
3️⃣ Foster inclusivity and diversity
By including racially diverse guests on your podcast, you are making a conscious effort to promote inclusivity and diversity. This sends a powerful message to your listeners and shows that you are committed to being a positive force for change in your industry.
It signals, you are not just ticking the box of having taken that course or reading the books but you are taking consistent action in one area of your business to be inclusive. This will no doubt have a knock-on effect on other areas of your business as you diversify your way of thinking by tapping into the expertise of the different thought leaders who are guests on your podcast.
I bet you are wondering, so how can I ensure that my podcast is more racially inclusive?
1️⃣ Expand your network: Reach out to a wider network of experts and professionals, and don’t be afraid to look beyond your usual contacts. You can also use social media platforms like LinkedIn to connect with people from different backgrounds and industries.
But please, do your homework first. Take the time to get to know them and their work. Understand their thought leadership and their values. Ask yourself if they align with yours and if they’d be a good fit for your audience. Remember you are not getting racially diverse people on your podcast just for the sake of it. You want to be genuine and take the time to actually build a relationship with them.
You can do this by subscribing to their newsletter, consuming their freebies, buying their products and services. This will position you so much better when you reach out to them AND will make the questions you ask them in the interview so much more engaging.
I’ve been interviewed on several podcasts and I now know those who have taken the time to get to know me and my work prior to our interview and those who haven’t done anything at all and just ask the usual generic questions you’d ask a racial equity coach.
2️⃣ Be intentional: Set a goal to feature more diverse guests on your podcast, and make a conscious effort to seek out individuals who can offer new and unique perspectives. This requires planning in advance and patience so you can get to know them first rather than throwing pitches to as many BIPOC people as you can.
True inclusion takes time so ask yourself, 12 months from now, how do I want the voices on my podcast to sound? What views are missing? How can I include them? Then get to work. Remember you can always enlist the help of a DEI expert to help you build an incredibly inclusive podcast that will have people downloading your podcast from all over the world.
3️⃣ Offer a platform: Show potential guests that you are open to having diverse voices on your show, and offer them a platform to share their expertise and ideas.This is where you can get really creative with how you reach out to more BIPOC experts. Using your platform as a force for good promoting often underrepresented voices and perspectives. It begins to position you as an inclusive leader which builds trust. And when you build trust, people want to listen more and even transact with you. They will want to buy from you because they feel seen and welcome.
4️⃣ Educate yourself: Take the time to learn about the experiences and perspectives of people from different racial backgrounds. This will not only help you better understand the perspectives of your guests, but also the perspectives of your listeners. One of the many takeaways I get once I’ve been a podcast guest is how much the host has taken away from our conversations. Ideas, concepts and ways of thinking they’d never have imagined because of the lack of exposure to diverse perspectives.
5️⃣ Make it a priority: Make it a priority to have diverse representation on your podcast. This will not only benefit your listeners, but also your business as a whole by helping you attract new audiences and build a reputation as an inclusive and diverse brand. A good place to begin is by asking yourself, how will you prioritise this? Who are the guests you have lined-up or have reached out to? Unless you prioritise this, it will simply go in the too hard basket and guess what…a year from now you’ll still not have made the impact you want to because you didn’t prioritise it.
So as you can see, having racially diverse guests on your podcast is not only the right thing to do, it’s also good for business. By making a conscious effort to be more inclusive and diverse, you can attract new audiences, bring new perspectives to your show, and foster a more inclusive and diverse industry as a whole.
Here’s what you can do now:
👉🏾 Book some 1:1 time to discuss diversifying your podcast
I hope this week’s content on podcasts has been valuable to you. Leave me a message in the comments section and let me know what resonated most with you.
With love,
Annie
P.S. Here’s a snippet of the latest episode I’ve been featured on.
P.P.S. What to hear more podcasts where I’ve been interviewed? Grab a cuppa and have a binge.
