Impact Equation Workshop with Bill Sherman – PitchWell

Source: Impact Equation Workshop with Bill Sherman

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems and kept them in a locked chest in a bedroom in Amherst. Barely published in her lifetime. Then her sister refused to burn them. She found an editor, paid for the printing plates herself….. and those same words have been read for more than 150 years.

The poems didn’t change. What happened next did.

That’s where Bill Sherman opened our PitchWell workshop. It’s also why we wanted him in the room. Bill co-hosts Leveraging Thought Leadership with Peter Winick (740+ podcast interviews since 2018). He also co-wrote The Thought Leadership Handbook with Peter + Naren Aryal. His show now gets 60+ cold pitches a month, so he knows exactly what a host sees when your email lands.

In this replay he walks through The Impact Equation. It has four factors, and they multiply instead of adding up:

→ Idea simplicity: can someone repeat your idea back after hearing it once?
→ Audience relevance: does it solve a problem that keeps them up at night?
→ Velocity: what could carry your idea without you in the room?
→ Audience share: are you trying to reach everyone, and therefore no one?

If any one of them sits at zero, your impact sits at zero, no matter how strong the other three are. Then comes my favorite part. Bill shows three sample podcast pitches the way a host reads them, and you do a five-minute exercise to find your own zero.

Show / outlet: PitchWell
Host: Rebecca Cafiero and Katie Passarello

Date: 2026-09-29