Turn One Interview Into A Podcast Marketing Ecosystem with Natalia Zacharin

00:00
Natalia Zacharin
In the past, words like resilient and, you know, powering through and like all of these power words. And I realized that's not where I'm at now, that my word now is thrive. I just want to thrive. Welcome to the Podcast Interview Marketing show, where we explore big ideas with leading experts on how to grow your brand and business with targeted podcast interviews.

00:27
Tom Schwab
You often hear me say, don't just do more interviews, do more with your interviews. And today, Natalia Zakarin is going to show us exactly what that looks like in the real world. Because in a world where AI can create more content than any of us could ever consume, the most valuable thing you can bring to the market is not more noise. It's your voice, your perspective, your humanity. Natalia has used podcast interview marketing not as a one and done activity, but as an entire marketing ecosystem. One interview becomes clips, quotes, social posts, website content, credibility with hosts, visibility with AI and Google, and even a way to attract the right team members. What I love about Natalia's story is that she's not optimizing for more activity. She's optimizing for the right clients, the right conversations and the right relationships.

01:31
Tom Schwab
And the results, they speak for themselves. More visibility, more trust, and more than 100 new clients in the last six months. So as you listen today, don't just ask, how can I get on more podcasts, Ask, how can I make every interview work harder for my brand and my business. You often hear me talking about, don't just do more interviews, do more with the interviews. And the example that I often use is Natalia. She's here with us today, and we really want to dive into how she has used podcast interviews for her professional services business and how she thinks about it more than just the interview. Natalia is so awesome to have you here.

02:16
Natalia Zacharin
Thank you so much, Tom. I'm really happy to be here too.

02:19
Tom Schwab
So tell me more about how you think about the interview and how you think about it, you know, in a overall marketing perspective.

02:29
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. So I know that especially with AI, it's very hard to. To come up in a Google search or in an AI search, ChatGPT, or all these other searches. So it's gotten even more important to have a voice out there on multiple channels. And one of those, one of the best channels is to be in a lot of different podcasts as a guest or even have your own podcast, because then you have a lot more content that goes out there. And you can also break up that content and put it on all of the other channels to keep putting that information out there over and over again. And for me, podcasting was not only so that people can find us or that we are the authority in the field.

03:15
Natalia Zacharin
It is also very helpful for me personally to be able to refine my message as well.

03:23
Tom Schwab
And I'm going to add something to that. It's not just content, but human content, because the world is awash in generic blogs and stuff that it's just like nobody uses semicolons and em dashes. Right. You know that is all AI content, but what you're creating, there is no doubt that is human. Right. When I hear you talk, when I see you on LinkedIn with a video. Right. There's no doubt that there's a real person behind these ideas and behind this business. How do you think that plays out in the trust side of it?

04:02
Natalia Zacharin
I think it's fairly helpful. So I, I do a lot of content in different ways. I have ghostwriters, I have reels. All of those are written by someone else. And I'm just. They are my ideas, but someone else is putting that into a nicer format that sounds nicer. And so it probably sounds either even more. More professional or even a little bit cold. Whereas I don't have that opportunity to do that on podcasts. It's just me. I stutter, I ramble. I'm human. And I forget what I'm saying in mid sentence sometimes. But I think that humanity is what people want. They want to know who you are, what you stand for, because that's what your company is. That's the culture.

04:46
Natalia Zacharin
And I think that really draws people, the right people to you, the people that will understand you and like you and want to work with you.

04:54
Tom Schwab
Yeah. It's like in professional services, there's this whole thing of you can sell a product, but you buy a service and people are really, you know, buying the trust, they're buying the relationship there. And that's really hard to get that through just on a spec sheet.

05:11
Natalia Zacharin
Yes, exactly. And the other thing is the people that won't vibe with you, that won't really get you, they probably won't do business with you. And that's good too, because not everybody should be your client.

05:25
Tom Schwab
Thank you. Is that everybody's like sending me emails. You know, we can get you a thousand new leads, we can get you 50 new sales calls. This today. And it's like, that's not what I'm optimizing for. Right. I want perfect clients that value what we do so that it. It drives profit. It drives value, not just activity.

05:46
Natalia Zacharin
Yes, exactly. And I find that it's been really interesting on the podcasting side. I have found really good employees that have decided to join our team because they've seen the podcasts, because not only does it attract clients, but it also attracts the right team.

06:05
Tom Schwab
Is that something you were focusing on or was that just sort of a spinoff?

06:08
Natalia Zacharin
That's a spinoff that I didn't even consider would be something that would happen.

06:12
Tom Schwab
Wow. I was. I. We have worked with companies before that. Well, Lockheed Martin.

06:17
Natalia Zacharin
Right.

06:17
Tom Schwab
Was using it for. For attracting clients, but I never thought about that. We talk about repurposing the content, but man, repurpose that content for prospects, prospective team members. Right. Because if. If they won't listen to a. An interview and give you feedback on it and don't resonate with them, they're probably not going to be great team members.

06:41
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. I once had a team member that felt overwhelmed. And I mentioned something to the fact that I'm sure your wife doesn't like me very much, he said, because he felt overwhelmed. There are times we're at an accounting firm and we have times where it gets a little busy and then it calms down a little bit. So there's a little bit of seasonality and fluctuation in how chaotic it might feel sometimes, especially for a new employee. But it was so interesting when I said that, and he said, oh, no, my. My wife loves you. She's listened to all of your content. She watches all your podcasts.

07:17
Tom Schwab
The next. Next question is at what speed? Right.

07:20
Natalia Zacharin
But how do you.

07:21
Tom Schwab
With seasonality. How do you work that into your marketing activities then? Because, yeah, there is seasonality to that. So how do you think about when you're scheduling and recording versus repurp?

07:36
Natalia Zacharin
So I schedule. The nice thing is that most of the time, being a podcast guest, there's a calendar link, and there's. There are a lot of options. So I can really schedule not only around my busy time, or maybe I have a really busy day, or that's a week that I just, you know, I want to focus on something else or even vacation. So I have a lot of opportunity to be able to schedule out for when it's very convenient for me. But for seasonality, I have a little secret. So everyone is looking for an accountant in January, February, usually February to March timeframe, because tax season is upon us.

08:19
Natalia Zacharin
The interesting thing is they may not be searching for an accountant, but they remember their most recent communications and most recent experience in April, May, and when almost all of my competition is going on vacation, that is the best time for me to put out more content because that's when everybody has that experience that's really fresh in their minds. So if they didn't have a good experience, now my content is out there. Meanwhile, all my competition is taking a rest.

08:50
Tom Schwab
And the flip side there, too is like, do you really want a new client in February or March when you know it's going to be under the gun? Right. They have a better onboarding experience, a better lifetime value there. If you catch them after they've had a bad experience with someone else.

09:09
Natalia Zacharin
Usually, yes, we're prepared to onboard anybody even and get their work done as quickly as possible. Even a week before tax season, we're prepared to do that. But it is a much better experience, not just for the client, but also for the team. It feels we have a little bit more time. And also if they did come from a bad experience, because unfortunately in my industry, everybody thinks that accounting, tax bookkeeping, even fractional CFO services, they feel like that's more data entry or things that they information they can get from AI and they don't know that's not true unless they have a bad experience and they don't want to pay for it until they need it.

09:49
Tom Schwab
Bad experience. And it could be a costly experience, too. So talk to me more about how you repurpose the interviews, because that is one of the things that amazes me. Right. I always tell people, don't do more interviews, do more with your interviews. And the way you have repurposed that 45 minutes of content to get this. This content that is timely but timeless, that you can just put out there at any time.

10:17
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. The great thing is that you can repurpose the same interview in many different ways over and over again. So you don't really, like you said, you don't need that many. You can repurpose them as little clips. You can repurpose them as a quote, which is nice too. So you can have a reel, you can have a still picture with a quote. You can remind people of a playback like, oh, this is a really good time to listen to this interview, because this is exactly what's happening right now in the economy or in the seasonality of a business. So there's a lot of things you can do. There's. I love doing a combination of all those things on all different platforms because some platforms like the reels and some platforms like the pictures or they want just a lot of words.

11:04
Natalia Zacharin
Like LinkedIn likes a lot of words. And Facebook I think is a little bit more like that too. But whereas Instagram and what is it, YouTube and TikTok, they like the reels, the content. So I, what's been great is we also use that. And this is from your team. So I've signed up for like all the services that you offer. Because why not, why would I not do that? But we, what we also did was they created a one sheet that really helped me create a one sheet so that really great podcasts would want me on their podcasts. Then we created giveaways. So you can actually find every podcast that I was on my website. And if you click in, you can listen to it, you can download Some free PDFs on there, some content.

12:03
Natalia Zacharin
And then we have that, those links also in the podcast. So all of that information, Google and AI really love that because it's just constantly being recycled. So every time someone hits my website, they can see I've been On, I think 30, 29 podcasts, something like that. They can see all these podcasts, which is also really unusual in my industry. So it sets us apart.

12:31
Tom Schwab
It's amazing because you're doing all the right things here. And not only is your clients are seeing this, not only is AI indexing this, but other podcasters are seeing this too. Because before a podcaster invites you on, they look back and say, well, what other podcasts have they done and what have they done with them? So if they look and say someone has been on podcasts and it's like they ghost the host afterwards, it's like, why would I have them on my show if they're going to do the same thing to me? What makes me special? But when they see, oh, Natalia, she promoted those, the previous shows, right? And it's not just on LinkedIn. She's on YouTube, Instagram.

13:17
Tom Schwab
You go to your website and she's promoting that a host is not only saying yes to you, they're saying, yes, I would love to have you on and have you co promote this show with me.

13:28
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. And it's been really interesting. I'm actually getting recognition and being asked to be on other podcasts because they've seen podcasts and I'm now popping up on their feed everywhere and they're finding me. And I got on a podcast that some very famous people have been on. I think it's because I've been on a lot of podcasts. And like you said, in promoting them and using them.

13:54
Tom Schwab
Yeah, and we've seen that the flip side, too. We had a client that came to us that had done a different strategy. Right. The people that they were working with said, oh, just go out on all of these podcasts. And I think they did 50 podcasts in like two months. Right. And nothing was working. And then they came to us and, you know, we vet our clients. And so went to some of the podcasters and said, what did you think of them as a client and to a person, they said, I would never have them on again because I felt like it was a icky first date and they ghosted me afterwards. Right. And so they did more harm with that. So it's, you know, that relationship capital that we have in business. Right.

14:41
Tom Schwab
It not only applies to your clients, to the people you work with, but also to the podcasters you interact with. And Natalia, you have done amazing with that.

14:51
Natalia Zacharin
Thank you. I did also realize. So I used to try to get on my own podcasts because there are groups on Facebook and everything for getting on to podcasts for free. The problem with that is you don't know the quality of the podcast. You don't know if it's even going to be aired. Sometimes they kind of trick you and they're only interested in doing business with you or they want you to pay to be guest, which is, you're a guest. How. Why would you pay? So it was, I. I don't want the. My brand to be associated with a podcast of poor quality or podcasts that get no visibility whatsoever.

15:33
Tom Schwab
That's true. Because every relationship reflects back on you. Right. And it's either going to raise your profile, raise your credibility, or destroy it. And so it's more is not better is better. As you look back on this, what lessons have you learned? Is there anything that you would have done differently from the beginning? Now, looking back at it, I think.

15:58
Natalia Zacharin
I would enjoy it more instead of being nervous because at first everybody is a little bit nervous. It's been a lot of fun. I have met some really amazing people. Many of these hosts are so. They're just incredible people. It's been a lot of fun. We've sent each other business since, which is fun also. It's so I think I just have more fun now. I'm having a lot of fun. I really enjoy it. I don't really need to prepare anything in advance. I just show up. I just have to make sure I put a nice jacket on and that's about it for the preparation.

16:38
Tom Schwab
My kids call it the podcaster mullet, professional up top, party down below. Nobody knows if it's the middle of summer and you work and flip flops, but you look professional from the shoulders up.

16:50
Natalia Zacharin
That's right.

16:51
Tom Schwab
So how long did it take you to get comfortable and, you know, what kind of things did you do to overcome that and really to enjoy it and let yourself shine on the interview, your true self come out.

17:07
Natalia Zacharin
I think it was maybe shortening some of the dialogue because I tend to ramble, getting more to the point remembering who the audience is and thinking about what they would want to hear. And usually the audience for me would be other entrepreneurs. So that does make it kind of easy because I am an entrepreneur as well. But remembering who the audience is really important and it helps. And just remembering this is kind of. It's fun. It's talking about your story, your business, what you've built, what you see, the experiences you've had. I have a lot of fun with it. And then seeing the reaction of the host sometimes when we're talking about certain things is also fun. We've had some really great experiences.

17:56
Tom Schwab
And I think the word interview is almost a misnomer, right? Because we call it a podcast interview, but it's really just a conversation. It's not like somebody's peppering you with questions. There's no gotcha questions. It's like just come and share your insights, share your brilliance and let people learn from you.

18:18
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. And I like it more when they don't even send me questions. If they send me questions, I'll read through them and kind of mentally prepare a few topics. But I think just being relaxed and knowing what you want to portray, the information that you want to come out and to whom you're speaking is just as important. And having a casual conversation is very important. Just enjoy.

18:45
Tom Schwab
Have you ever been stumped by a question or surprised by any questions?

18:50
Natalia Zacharin
Was shocked that last time someone asked me a question. It was actually this week. I was on another podcast as a guest this past week, and he asked me what would my word be for this year? And it came to me actually really quickly. I wasn't expecting it. I didn't know and I thought I would be stumped. And I remember scrolling through words because I do like having a word of the year that I. That I focus on scrolling through words that I've done in the past. And I realized I never really did one this year. And in the past, words like resilient and you know, powering through and, like, all of these power words. And I realized that's not where I'm at now, that my word now is thrive. I just want to thrive. And so I wasn't stumped.

19:36
Natalia Zacharin
It took me a minute. And I think that actually that natural pause is even more important because it's natural and it helps to set the tone of, okay, something's coming, and it's very thoughtful for that person. So that was really helpful. So I don't think I felt stumped, but I just wasn't expecting it. And it did come to me because I was. At this point, I feel pretty relaxed and I'm excited and I'm enjoying it and I'm having a good time.

20:06
Tom Schwab
And at that point, there's no wrong answer, right? Nobody's gonna fact check you and say, no, that's not your word for this year. And I love how you made the point there of stopping to think before you answer the question. I used to have a problem with this, and my team, when they would give me the feedback, would actually point that out because, you know, there's so many times where we know something, we know the right answer, and somebody asks the question and boom, we want to answer it. And at times it can be rude if somebody doesn't even finish asking the question and I jump in and say, oh, I know what the answer is here, let me tell you that. Or it's like, you didn't even think about this. Is this just a canned answer?

20:56
Tom Schwab
So I think there is something interesting about conversations there. When you stop and you think. And sometimes those questions that make you think can be the ones that are the most powerful ones, not always the best clips. Because I might ramble, but at least it makes for an interesting conversation.

21:16
Natalia Zacharin
Yes, it definitely does. And if you listen to some of the best podcasts out there with actors and people that really know how to do public speaking, they take the time to pause and they think through things also. So it's actually, it's very natural and it's a lot more impactful.

21:35
Tom Schwab
Michael Port used to call it, he did heroic public speaking. And he would say, so many people will try to get an hour's worth of content into 30 minutes by talking faster. And he's like, you could do the same thing with the book, right? You could get a 200 page book into 100 pages. All you have to do is get rid of the margins, get rid of the returns after paragraphs, all the rest of that. And he's like, you get it all in there, but it would make no sense. And that's one of the things my team helps me with, is they always remind me, Tom, you talk 20% faster than the host. Right. You might want to slow down a little bit.

22:16
Natalia Zacharin
Yes, yes. That's my problem too, is I talk fast and I want to. Sometimes they'll ask me one question and I feel like I have five answers. So that's still something that I'm working on.

22:31
Tom Schwab
Well, it's part of that whole conversation there. Well, as we wrap up here, what advice would you give to someone that is thinking about how are they going to market their business, how are they going to find ideal clients here? And you know, I'll date this, right? In the summer of 2026, the world is changing. How do you see best to do that going forward?

22:58
Natalia Zacharin
I think it's becoming actually more important as AI is becoming an everyday function of most people's lives. People are wanting and being remote also. At the same time, people are wanting more human connection. And having a natural conversation satisfies that need. I think it builds a lot of trust. So, you know, that's a real human being behind that business, behind those ideas, behind that brand. And it's not a one to one where you can tell exactly that you got a client from this podcast. It doesn't do that. It's an ecosystem of, you know, it bounces off of your website and off of Spotify and off of Google searches. And then if you do email campaigns and you know, send, hey, I just had this great podcast, I'd like, you know, all of my clients to listen to or prospect emails.

23:59
Natalia Zacharin
So there's a lot of ways to use it. And it bounces off of all these different channels and outlets and it becomes this big ecosystem of marketing. So marketing is not one to one where here's an ad, I'm going to book a call and then I'm going to say yes or no. But it helps that too, because if they look at your ad or if they look at your website, or if they see, you know, your office and then they look you up and they see all of this content, it really is extremely helpful and it makes you sound a lot more human. I think your culture and your values come through so that people are looking to work with people with the same values. I think it's really helpful also.

24:43
Natalia Zacharin
And we want to work with people with the same values because we want those people that hear us and know what we do and who we are. We want to attract people that value the same Things that we do.

24:54
Tom Schwab
That view of the ecosystem is so powerful. Right. It's because marketers often we want attribution. Right. Well, where did this come from? Right. Did they become a client of yours because they saw you on a social media post? Was it a video? Was it that AI also mentioned you? Right. Which one was it? Well, I don't know that you can always say with 100% certainty this was what did it. But it's definitely clear that if you didn't have the courage to go out there and evangelize for your company, for your clients, how you see the world, that they never would have seen any of that.

25:32
Natalia Zacharin
Yes. I'll say one other thing. My impressions. So impressions doesn't mean clients. Likes doesn't mean clients. Comments doesn't mean clients. However, my impressions went from about a hundred or less than a hundred on LinkedIn to now an average post of mine gets about 40,000 impressions. Yes, I know. Crazy. And I don't know where it's coming from. We have ads working, but we onboarded 101 new clients just since October.

26:10
Tom Schwab
Whatever is working, keep it working. Double down. And it all starts with you going out there and talking on podcasts.

26:18
Natalia Zacharin
Yes.

26:19
Tom Schwab
Well, Natalia, thank you so much. What's ordinary to you is amazing to others. And thank you for sharing your brilliance with us.

26:27
Natalia Zacharin
Thank you so much for having me. It has been one of my best decisions is to work with interview ballet.

26:36
Tom Schwab
Thank you. What a great conversation with Natalia. The big takeaway is this podcast interview. Market marketing is not just about getting heard. It's about getting known, liked, trusted, remembered and referred. Natalia reminds us that your interview does not end when the recording stops. The conversation can live on your website, in your social media, in your email marketing, in your sales process, and in the mind of your ideal client who may not be ready today, but will remember you when the time is right. She also gave us a powerful reminder that more is not better. Better is better. Better shows, better fit, better follow up, better repurposing better relationships with the hosts. That's how you turn podcast interviews from an appearance on a calendar into a business asset. So here's your action step.

27:41
Tom Schwab
Look at your last interview you did or the next one on your calendar and ask, what are five ways I can use this after it goes live? A clip, a quote, a LinkedIn post, a resource page, maybe a follow up email. Don't just do more interviews, do more with every interview. That's where the prophet is.