Podcasting for Influence: How to Build Authority Without Ads | Mischa Zvegintzov

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How to Prove You’re a Thought Leader (Instead of Just Saying It)

This episode unpacks how podcast guesting can be a powerful tool to build credibility, expand influence, and attract new business—without relying on costly ads. Learn the strategies that turn conversations into conversions and why the right podcast appearances can elevate your thought leadership faster than traditional marketing.

Are you really a thought leader—or just claiming the title?

Today’s guest Mischa Zvegintzov, Chief Influence Officer at Influence Army, thought he was a Thought Leader. As a sales expert with decades of experience, he knew how to pitch. But when a podcast host bluntly told him, “You don’t look like a thought leader,” everything changed.

In this episode, Mischa shares how he pivoted from traditional sales tactics to leveraging podcast guesting as his primary vehicle for influence. He reveals how appearing on 100+ shows transformed his credibility, opened doors, and led to unexpected opportunities.

Peter and Mischa also dive into the hidden power of podcast guesting—why it’s more than just getting on a mic, how to “hijack” an audience the right way, and why most guests completely miss out on maximizing their impact. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re showing up as a true thought leader or just another name in the noise, this conversation is for you.

Expect candid insights, hard-hitting truths, and actionable takeaways on elevating your brand, proving your expertise, and turning podcasting into a game-changing growth strategy.

Listen now and learn how to amplify your thought leadership without breaking the bank.

Three Key Takeaways

Podcast guesting is a powerful thought leadership tool – Being a guest on the right podcasts allows you to tap into established audiences, build credibility, and position yourself as an expert without heavy marketing spend.

Most guests fail to maximize their impact – Simply appearing on a podcast isn’t enough; thought leaders must engage in strategic pre-show preparation, deliver value-driven conversations, and actively promote their episodes post-release.

Thought leadership is about proof, not claims – Having a strong message isn’t enough; you need visible credibility. Leveraging podcast guesting effectively can create the social proof necessary to establish real authority in your space.

If you’ve had trouble finding the distinction between Thought Leader and Influencer, check out this video by Peter Winick to learn the difference.

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Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome, Mrs. Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you’re joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership today. My guest is Misha Zvegintzov. Did I get that right?

Mischa Zvegintzov Yes.

Peter Winick Misha Zvegintzov. Okay, good. That was the hardest part of my day. Misha is a seasoned sales expert who once retired to teach yoga and be a stay at home dad. Now he’s the Chief Influence Officer of the Influence Army and the host of Table Talk Show. He helps heart centered entrepreneurs amplify their message and build influence without costly advertising. So I want to dive into some of that today. So welcome aboard. How are you?

Mischa Zvegintzov So good. So great to be here. Thank you for sharing your stage with me. I know you’re all about thought leadership, building thought leadership, helping people build thought leadership. So it’s a pleasure to be here.

Peter Winick Yeah. Thank you. So tell me about your journey as a thought leader.

Mischa Zvegintzov Yeah, that’s a great, great question. So really, I and Ernest decided committed to guest speaking on podcast about a year and a half ago. I was like, I’m going to blow up my business. I’ve got a message, a story to tell. I’ll get to that. But I did it right. But I have a history of 25 years of building telemarketing, building telemarketing teams, sending out fliers, and using those fliers to get the phone to ring. All right. And then I did.

Peter Winick You know that guy and that guy that used to call me interrupting dinner all the time? Were you that.

Mischa Zvegintzov Guy for a while? Yeah. I hate.

Peter Winick To admit. Oh, I think I hung up on you, I tell him. Well, I was going to say I apologize, but you interrupted me, so. Yeah.

Mischa Zvegintzov No. No need to apologize. No need, no need. So anyway, I sent out an email to somebody that guest speak on their podcast, and I’m really good at the pitch. Right. So right from all my sales and scripting and all that kind of stuff. So I sent that pitch and it was to Maria. Can’t remember the name of her podcast now, but she replied back. Hey, I love your pitch. But when I went to your website, it looks like you’re not a thought leader. What’s the catch? And I was like.

Peter Winick Ouch, ouch.

Mischa Zvegintzov Ouch. And I was like, well, darn it, I know I’m a thought leader, but how do I prove it? How can I prove it? Some people write books and people, you know, do all these ads, and now you do. Fast forward. I’ve spoken on 50 or 100 podcasts or whatever it is, and I have my As Seen on list.

Peter Winick Yeah.

Mischa Zvegintzov So now I send an email to somebody recently a pitch me said yeah. The reply was, oh my gosh, we love thought leaders like you. We’d love to have you on our show.

Peter Winick So let’s stay. Stay there a minute, because I think there’s a couple of angles to that story. There are one group of thought leaders who are the real deal. But when you go to their site or go to sniff them right, you wouldn’t know it because they’re crappy marketers. They don’t know how to or makes them uncomfortable to elevate their personal brand, speak about themselves, talk about their accolades. And so you just see, you know, John Doe, dude. Whatever. Right. So they got the real goods. But you look at their stuff, you’re like. Then you’ve got sort of another group that’s claiming things that they’re not. I am the world, you know, I’m number one and I’m an Amazon best like and all they do is claim, claim, claim, claim. And then you try to get under the hood a little bit and there’s kind of no they’re there. And I think the reality is as a thought leader, if this is your calling, this is your profession, this is what you do. You need to show the world that you do that in a way that you’re proud of, in a way that’s honest. Oh, and by the way, and if you’re not, don’t call yourself a thought leader, because that’s like, you know, the neon sign pointing. You just, you know, that says jerk, jerk, jerk. Don’t do that. So. Right. So it was interesting how you sort of came back at it, right? There’s a certain way that people expect me to show up or the people I’m trying to connect with, influence, etc.. I want to go back a different way to what you said that you chose to use. Being a podcast guest as one of the primary ways that you demonstrate your thought leadership. I’ll tell you, I love that is I am an awful writer. Occasionally I am a mediocre writer, but occasionally doesn’t happen often enough. And it took me a long time to realize that because we only had blogs, right? And so in order to communicate, you had to use words. And I did, and I did okay with that. And then realized once podcasting became easier from a technical standpoint, like this is so much easier for me. So talk about how you sort of found your lane in podcasting.

Mischa Zvegintzov Yeah, great. Great question again. So I will say to at the time I got that email that said you’re not a thought leader. I didn’t. I didn’t understand that I needed to be a thought leader, right? I mean, I didn’t. I hadn’t heard it in that term. Yeah. So that’s another thing. I was like, oh, wait, people. Social proof, things like that. Influence. There’s lots of terms bandied around. But anyway, what happened was I had retired from home loans, which I’d been doing for 15 or 20 years, crushing it. I’d hit a bottom, burned out all those other things. And so I restarted in online marketing about five years ago, and I jumped into Russell Brunson’s high end coaching group. Yeah, the thought was at the time I was like, man, I want to get good at the one to many selling. That was my thoughts one to many. Like speaking from stages, selling from stages. Get on the stage, selling from a zoom tour webinar. Anyway, I’ve got to try and get to the point here, but what happened was, is I was getting people’s customer video testimonials. Peter. So Peter, someone like you would say, hey, we just had a customer. We helped them pull up their thought leadership, get on the big stages. All those things you do monetize their thought leadership. I think that’s your specialty. So yeah, helps monetize the thought leadership interview. Bob get his story. So I have my customer story arc framework, my perfect video testimonial system. Right. System for getting your customers to gladly do your selling for you. Right. And so I started having successes with that. And I was like, I need to start getting that story out so I can grow my business. I did not want to start spending all this money on paid media, right? I did not want to. I was like fortuitously, I guess, spoke on a podcast and I talked about getting customer video testimonials. It was on my friend Ryan Lipsey podcast. It was called the small business spotlight and he Kidman harassing me. I need you on my show. I need you on my show. You need to teach my realtors how to get the testimonials and repurpose that content. I was like, fine. I finally capitulated back on his show. I had a crappy little Google form as the as the as the call to action, right where somebody could give me their info. And I got this flood of engagement and all these appointments. I was like, oh my gosh, cause I killed it. When I spoke on his podcast, it was like, I need to go on a podcast tour. And that’s how I’m going to say.

Peter Winick Stay there a minute. There’s a couple things that you said that I want to unpack. So one of the great things about being a guest on a podcast is you’re, in essence, hijacking somebody else’s hard work. You’re taking their audience, right? Being on a podcast. Here’s the dirty secret of podcasting. Recording the show is the easy part, hitting record. And, you know, for me, having a great conversation with someone like you today, that’s not hard. Not that I didn’t prep and not that we have calls in advance and all that, but like that, that’s kind of second nature, probably for both of us, right? Yes. That was the hard part for me as a podcaster, was building a loyal following over the last seven years. So here you’re coming into my house and still my audience. But I want you to do that right. I want you to have a great conversation. Be valuable. If there’s a subset of my audience that wants to engage you or talk to you or whatever. Great. That’s a win win, right? Like, so they got something out of that. You’re not coming. You’re all salesy saying, oh, if you click this link buy today, you’re getting, you know, 99 point. Like that’s garbage that people are smarter than that. And particularly in my world, I’m in the B2B world that we don’t play that. Right. So that I think that’s really important is hijacking the audience. The other thing that I think is important, when people choose to use podcasting as a vehicle to elevate their thought leadership, is to be really, really selective, right? Because more often than not, the shows that you’re going to be invited on are irrelevant to you. Right? Because when you think about how does this marketplace work? Well, you could pitch someone like me directly, right? And say, Hey, Peter, here’s why I’d like to be on your show. And here’s the other things I’ve done, and here’s why I’m awesome. And I would look at that and go, okay, that’s cool, let’s have a conversation. More often than not, people are using you to PR firms or podcast guesting agencies and all that. And I think the thing you have to be aware of, there is two things. One, there are good and bad in everything. Make sure you get a good one. Number two is and this is the primary rub is alignment. So most of the podcast guesting agencies are PR firms in one way, shape or form are getting paid per placement that they make for you. Right. And you don’t care about oh golly gee, I got to do nine podcast today. It’s I got to do the right ones. And that’s the key thing. Less is more.

Peter Winick And if you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a five-star review at ratethispodcast.com/ltl. And share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com forward slash podcast.

Mischa Zvegintzov I think that’s a great point. And I will tell you the other thing. I’ve had my podcast, The Table Talk Show, for four years now. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people like you have. I’ve had guest booking agencies, PR agencies booked guests on my show as a consistent theme that I see from people who are using agencies to get them booked. Yeah, they’re wasting the opportunity. They jump on a podcast like yours or mine, and all they’re thinking about is the call to action. Like at the end, you’re going to go, hey, Misha, where can my people find you? I’m going to say go to guesting guide.com, get my free download to go on and execute a profitable podcast guest that.

Peter Winick You sell on. By the way.

Mischa Zvegintzov Thank you very much.

Peter Winick Very good. I did not.

Mischa Zvegintzov I did not go unnoticed.

Peter Winick But let me expand on what you’re saying, though, and sort of flip that a little bit. Yeah, I look at it and say, if somebody is making an investment of their time, their energy, their money, their money, whatever the case may be in hiring a professional hiring agency to get them on podcast, well, what does that mean? They have a desired outcome that they’re hoping for that. And it’s probably not the number of new listeners they got for the podcast host. Right. They objective they want to get in front of this audience to, you know, raise their awareness, their brand or sell stuff or somewhere in between. You’re busy and we’ve got over 600 episodes in the can, and it is somewhere between shocking and appalling to me. How awful the sort of the guest etiquette is, for lack of a better term. And what do I mean by that? People don’t come on here and burp like, well, we’ve had that, but often not. But we make it really easy for a guest was we do a screening call and we want to have a high quality guest. We do the show. This is the easy part. And then after we’ll say to you, hey, this will get published in six weeks or whatever the time frame is from the time that we’re talking. And a week or two before that, I’m going to send you where my team is going to send you a bunch of stuff that we want you to use to share the launch of your episode. Right. So we’ll send you stuff to put on X and LinkedIn and some visuals and great. And that cost me time and money and I give that to you. I don’t charge you for any of that. So do me a favor. We’re going to promote the heck out of it because that’s what we do. We’d ask you to do the same. The compliance rate on that is like, I forgot what the latest data is for ours. Somewhere between 20 and 30%. It’s, like, shocking to me. Absolutely shocking.

Mischa Zvegintzov Yeah, absolutely. I yeah, that’s unfortunate about that too. Is you. You, as the host, take the time and effort to produce that content. Give it to me. Yes. A you’re sharing your stage, which is very generous. B, you’re giving me this content that’s now pre-made. If I take a moment, a tiny moment, and share that content and put it to my email list and all these things, there’s a much better chance that we have an opportunity to work together again in the future. And honestly, those are that’s what I’m trying to do. There’s so many benefits. One obviously is again the call to action. And people got to see me on here. So now I have another card to put into my thought leadership. Check that box. But there’s so much more. Right. And I would go on to continue your line of thinking. Not only do people who come on the shows, we as guests oftentimes don’t do you the service of sharing the content that you gave us, which is super easy. My guess is most people that are getting on your shows have a team that could do it for them anyway, right? So take the moment to make sure that that happens. And then so many times as we interviewed supposed professionals. I’m sure you see this all the time. I’ve got my mic, so I sound good. I know that I look good enough. You might not appreciate my background, but at least it’s a background other than my bed and the bathroom door open or whatever. I because I know we as being a courteous guest.

Peter Winick Sure.

Mischa Zvegintzov We need to show up properly as well. Yeah.

Peter Winick Yeah, I think that’s sort of the basics though. But I think the big piece is the is that post show promotion. Okay. Be kind of nuts. That’s the big piece we’ve had on occasion. Guest that, you know, it’s like five minutes before the show and it’s been booked in advance and we’ve confirmed it three times, you know, digitally and all that, like, hey, I’m going to be in the back of an Uber. Is that cool? Like, what’s not cool? Like absolutely. Like it’s not like I don’t want to hear, you know, can you fix in post? Yeah, whatever. But if you’re so blasé about it, it’s disrespectful. It’s like I invite you over to my house for dinner, right? You’re like, you know, I was going to take a shower and get dressed, but here I am in my robe. Is that. Is that cool? I’m probably not going to tell you it’s not. But it ain’t cool. It’s just not.

Mischa Zvegintzov Hey, as a host, you providing that content to us as a guest, I’m guessing all the time. That is a dream. Like you are the dream host. Honestly. And anybody listening, watching right now that you need to know that if Peter, if you’re on his show and he gives you that content to share, that is a gift because it’s a wasted opportunity for you, the guests are not sharing that across your channels, repurposing it, doing all that. It’s shocking to me. I mean, to have you make it so I don’t have to do you save me time, money, all kinds of stuff.

Peter Winick But we know that our, you know, listen, you’re busy. All our guests are busy. I think it’s the burden is on the podcaster to do all the things that are needed to be done so that you just literally today needed to show up. Hang out with me for 2020 five minutes, have some fun and then go on with your life, right? Like you’re not going to stay up late at night trying to figure out how to, you know, make my podcast better. Other than giving me high quality content in an interview.

Mischa Zvegintzov You’re giving me that pre-made content, which is amazing. It elevates my thought leadership without me having to do any work, because when I post it across my social media channels, when I’ve posted on Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever I happen to hang out and now people search me, there’s the social proof. There’s the thought leadership that I’m fighting so hard to get in the crowded market. So anybody listening, watching, if you’re not, if you’re on podcasts and you’re getting this content from hosts like Peter and you’re not sharing it again, you’re wasting a massive opportunity and you’re flushing your thought leadership down the toilet.

Peter Winick Yeah, well, and I’ve had other guests. If you said to me, what would be the your ideal guest were even before the show is out. Like l even posed a little. Then I could spend a lot but I’ll link to like really excited that later this afternoon I’m going to be on the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast with Peter. I’ve been listening for years and he’s had some cool guests and this will be fun. How long does that take? And by the way, that’s self-serving to you and is a nice little wink to me, you know? So I guess people look for those things. They want someone that understands that, you know, I don’t sell advertising. And this this isn’t how I make a living, right? Like I’m doing this April as I enjoy it be, I can put out high quality content. See, I learn something every day. And oh, by the way, it’s good for my business, right? Like, yeah.

Mischa Zvegintzov Absolutely. And I would say I will call myself out on that. I have, I have what I want to be doing pre-show. The standard operating procedure that I’m trying to build is I book the pre call with you and then I post that right when it literally when I get the calendar confirmation snapped that or take a picture of it screenshot post it. So excited. Pre call with Peter Dari on the show right. Yeah. And then number two is so after that then it’s great. He said yes. Can’t wait to be on Peter’s show. There’s so many different opportunities before I jumped on today in a perfect world. Me or my assistant would have said just about to jump on Peter Shell. It’s going to be epic, right? There’s all these points to do it and I’m building that out. I’m better at the post interview stuff. It’s the pre-interview stuff.

Peter Winick That’s just I think that’s just process, quite frankly. Yeah, right. So cool. So any other parting thoughts if you were to talk to you two years ago, three years ago. What would you say to yourself?

Mischa Zvegintzov I would say, don’t overthink it. And I’m going to go counter to a little bit to what I said If I or someone on my team, my assistant, my admin, someone on my team, I would be looking for volume to guest speaker on podcast. I would be looking for volume and I would say, don’t overthink it. And I would say make the pitches as simple as possible. So when you.

Peter Winick Buy number of podcasts.

Mischa Zvegintzov Number of podcasts for sure. More visibility, more opportunities to prove thought leadership, but more opportunities. It’s the idea of you’re just one interview away. You never know who you talk to.

Peter Winick So you don’t think it matters as much. The who, because I can tell you, I’m a guest a lot as well. And I probably turned down three quarters of the shows I’m invited to, not because I it might not be fun, but I look at and go, that’s not an audience that matters to me quite selfishly. Right? And occasionally I might do one thing because I’m curious or whatever, but I’m like, okay, who are the who’s listening to this show? And how does that line up to my business’s goals and objectives? And if it doesn’t, it’s really easy for me to say no.

Mischa Zvegintzov I yeah. So I tend to prejudge a little too harshly on the shows. I literally was on a show yesterday and it was I would have not thought it was a perfect fit. And I said, okay. And at the beginning of the podcast, I said, I’m about to I’m rolling out my affiliate opportunity. It’s 40% for this, 50% for this. What are your thoughts on that? And he on the spot said, oh my gosh, I’ve got an audience of 5 or 6000 or whatever. It was my email list. He emailed his marketing manager on the spot, CC, and said, right, so that’s the process that I’m for that.

Peter Winick Then I would put that under the secondary sort of outcome or benefit of the power of relationship development through podcasts. I’m like you and I, I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but like, I would take your call, right? Like if you emailed me in four months. Said I got a question. Like it’s the beginning of a relationship based on mutual respect. We get to know each other. I see what you do. I’m like, oh, he’s a smart guy. He’s got a point of view. He’s thoughtful. Sure, I would want to talk to him again, right?

Mischa Zvegintzov Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think for you, though, I know that you are dealing with your offering is very robust. It’s extremely robust. So you would naturally have a smaller pool, I think.

Peter Winick Yeah. Right now you would say this has been awesome. I appreciate your time and your effort and your energy. And thanks for showing up today. Thank you.

Mischa Zvegintzov Peter. Have a fun thank you.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.