Erik Jacobson of Be My Guest

November 13, 2019
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Today, I’m talking with Erik Jacobson, the Founder and CEO of Be My Guest, a podcast PR and production agency that helps brands like Freshbooks, HubSpot, and Four Sigmatic grow through podcasting.

Erik and I first crossed paths a couple years ago when he was starting Be My Guest and had somebody he thought would be a good fit for my show. His email stood out to me because it was truly personalized; not just putting in my name and the name of my show, but making it clear he had done his research on me.

There are tons of podcast booking agencies and I’d be surprised if any of the others out there spent more than a minute or two personalizing their emails, let alone actually seeing if their client is a good fit.

It’s so frustrating getting these emails when it’s clear the sender has no idea what the show is about or when I get dozens of cold emails a week from some SDR who has no idea what my business is about.

Erik’s preparation and attention to detail made him stand out to me and is why I’ve continued having clients of Be My Guest on the show over the years. What has been most impressive to me though is how Erik has been able to build a team that places the same amount of value on doing the job right.

I’ve personally tried to hire people to do similar roles and know just how hard this is to get right so I’m excited to have Erik on the show to learn how he did it.

In our chat, we dive into what it’s been like building Be My Guest while maintaining the quality of the service, everything from his successes to his failures and how these lessons can help make you a better founder.

This episode is about much more than podcasting and cold email–it’s about how to build a high quality team, so you don’t want to miss this.

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Topics covered:

  1. Company background
    1. What exactly is Be My Guest and what does the business look like today?
  2. Founder’s lessons
    1. How would you describe your role today?
    2. What unique advantages do you personally bring to the business?
    3. How have you been able to keep the personalization high while growing your team?
      1. Did you make any mistakes with early hires or with onboarding?
    4. What is one position you wished you hired for earlier?
    5. What is your next hire?
  3. Behind-the-scenes
    1. What has been the hardest part of building the business for you personally?
      1. What resources have helped?
    2. What does success look like to you?
      1. How has that evolved?
  4. “Rapid Fire” questions
  5. Where can listeners go to learn more?

Resources mentioned:

Where to learn more:

To learn more about Be My Guest, just head to BeMyGuest.fm