Pitching For Rejection: How Failing 100 Times Will Scale Your Visibility

Are you holding your business back because you are terrified of the word "no"? Most business owners actively avoid pitching themselves for guest spots, speaking gigs, or collaboration opportunities because they view a rejection as a deep personal failure. This fear creates a massive visibility bottleneck, leaving your brand stagnant while your competitors take center stage. In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Alesia discusses her current quest for 100 rejections and explains how having a strong pitching strategy will yield more yeses than you may think. This week, episode 291 of Podcasting Unlocked is about pitching for rejection and how failing will scare your visibility!

In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, I’m sharing the importance of having a strong strategy for pitching your podcast or business and actionable steps you can take right now to start your own 100 rejection challenge. 

I also chat about the following: 

• Gamify Failure for Intentional Progress: Discover how setting a personal goal to collect 100 rejections completely detaches your mind from the anxiety of the outcome. By using a physical tracking system to celebrate a "no," you build the confidence needed to pitch massive, top-tier opportunities.
• The "Yes" Inevitability: Learn why chasing a high volume of rejections naturally guarantees a high volume of client wins and media features. When you increase your input, you inadvertently collect life-changing approvals that scale your platform visibility.
• Build a Systematic Pitching Strategy: Move away from sloppy, unorganized outreach. Learn how to map a clean workflow using a data-tracking system like ClickUp, Airtable, or a Google Sheet to manage host names, show criteria, and current pitch statuses.
• Respect Host Infrastructure and Boundaries: Stop spamming podcast inboxes. Discover why submitting pitches via a host’s designated website form or asking for their preferred pitching protocol creates a stellar first impression and instantly prevents your email from getting blocked.
• Deploy Automated Follow-Up Systems: Understand that a lack of response is not a formal rejection. Learn how to build a 10-to-14-day automated reminder check-in that assumes the host is simply handling a busy production schedule, keeping your pitch top-of-mind without causing administrative fatigue.

This month, I challenge you to step completely out of your comfort zone and collect just 5 rejections. Send that bold email, pitch that dream podcast, or ask for that high-level collaboration. You might be surprised by how many "yeses" are hiding behind the fear of a "no". 

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. 

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ 

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LINKS MENTIONED:

Feminist Podcasters Collective

PodMatch

What are Common Podcast Pitching Mistakes People Make?

How to Create an Effective Podcast Pitch with Michelle Glogovac

Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Transcript

Alesia Galati: 0:00

Most of us business owners fear the word no. We are avoiding pitching ourselves into guest spots or speaking gigs, because a rejection feels like a personal failure. Believe me, I have been there and done that in 2026 I have been actively participating in chasing those rejections. I set a personal goal to collect 100 nos this year. Today, I'm going to be talking about why gamifying this failure has been the most effective visibility strategy for not only my podcast but also my business. Welcome to Podcasting Unlocked, the show for purpose-driven podcasters. I'm Alesia Galati, founder of Galati Media, and I'm here to share actionable strategies to help you amplify your message and grow your audience. Hey friends, it's Alesia. So excited to have you back. You've probably heard of the concept of 100 rejections, or a 100 rejections challenge. Right now I am doing one hosted by Becky Mullencamp. I'll have the link for you to check that out in the show notes. Highly recommend joining one if you have not done one ever. This has been quite honestly a bit life changing for me this year. The whole concept is that you are trying to go for 100 rejections in a year, and I started gamifying it to the point where I have a chart that I have in a file behind me that every time that I get a no, I put a sticker on one of the 100 slots or circles that are on it, and this has helped me so much with pushing myself for that rejection, but even beyond that, it has done so much for growing the visibility of my podcast and my business. I really feel like last year was stagnant, and I am sure if you're a business owner, you probably feel that we had a bit of a downturn in the last year, but this year I wanted to really find other ways that I could grow my business without feeling like I'm chasing my tail in circles, because quite honestly, that's how last year felt. So I was thinking about what to do, and I am part of the Feminist Podcasters Collective highly recommend if you are someone who is a podcaster and you're looking for more community, you're looking for more connection. This is the number one membership that I have ever been involved in, and that's saying a lot, because I've tried a lot of memberships over the 10 years that I have been in business online, and I highly recommend this one if you're looking for community, if you're looking for connection, if you're looking for collaboration, if you are looking for a space where you can learn more about podcasting. This is the place, and what I love about it is that even though I've been in the podcasting space first, so stinking long. I started my first podcast in 2018 started guesting in 1617 Then this is the one community that I actually learned things in. Every other one, I tend to be the most senior person in podcasting, or know the most about the industry, or marketing, etc. But this community is so incredible, so go join if you are someone who has not found a community of podcasters, and there's a wide range, so it's not just business podcasts, it's everything under the sun, so go check that out, and we'll have a link for that in the show notes as well, but having people where you can collaborate with or have community around is so important as podcasters, but not just that, as business owners as well. So, if you are someone who is struggling with getting out there, this 100 rejections might just be the key for helping you get outside of your head and chase those rejections. Now, why does this work exactly? The reason that gamifying this works is that if I'm aiming for 100 rejections, it is inevitable that I'm collecting a lot of yeses along the way, and I'd actually be curious to see how many yeses I have gotten versus how many nos, because I'm only tracking the nos at this point, maybe next year I will do that, and I will track the yeses and the nos, because I thought, oh, let me go ahead and pitch myself to 10 podcasts today and see if I can get 10 new nos to add to my list, I maybe got two because all the rest were yeses, so you are inevitably going to get some yeses along the way, and I think that that helps make this a lot more doable. It helps you sometimes pitch outside of what you think is possible for you. I think that it takes the focus out. Of the outcome as well, it allows you to focus on what you're putting into it, and the actual act of sending the pitch, or sending the email, or asking for the collaboration, instead of worried so much about, oh, they might say no, you're already almost expecting them to say no, but you're putting in your best effort anyway, hoping for that yes, but even if it's a no, I still get a sticker at the end of this, and I don't know if that is just my neurodivergent mind that really appreciates this, but I am finding it so much fun and very easy to follow along with, which I think is a really important part of doing this kind of project throughout the year is I don't have to do it every single day, I can think about and say, "Oh, I haven't gotten any rejections recently, let me go ahead and pitch to x amount of podcasts, or let me go ahead and pitch to x amount of projects, or speaking engagements, or maybe I want to be part of a collaboration in the near future, and so I'm going to go ahead and pitch myself to be part of this, or oh, I really want, like, I read a lot of books, and so sometimes I will pitch myself to publishers of, hey, I would love to have this person on my podcast, and I'd also love a copy of their book early, so that I can read it in preparation for the interview, and usually I'm getting yeses for that, even though I'm like, I know I'm great, but also, Who in the world am I to be getting these interviews with these USA Today best-selling authors with these people who I look up to and admire who are saying yes to me, like that is crazy banana pants to me. Anyway, I love the project. I love the idea of having that rejections goal, and I honestly think I'll probably be done with them. I 100 nos by September, which maybe I just really need to double down in the fall, and make this like the thing that I focus on is just all of these pitches and collaboration, especially as you guys know, this podcast will be sunsetting at 300 episodes, which takes place around the beginning of August, which means I'm gonna have all of August through the rest of the year as I'm ruminating on what I want this space to be, if I want the podcast come back, maybe in the new year, or just to kind of maybe fall back in love with it. I don't know, we'll have to see what happens, but this will give me space to pitch myself to be on other podcasts, to get my name out there, to get that visibility strategy, to still redirect people back to this show, because even with 300 episodes, this show has so much incredible content, so much incredible value that my audience can still use, and that I can still be repurposing every single week to push people to my content. So one thing that I think is important when it comes to using this 100 rejections challenge specifically for a project, so you can use it across everything. That's what I'm currently doing, but if I wanted to do it for just podcast pitches, then I would recommend having a very easy workflow for pitching podcasts. Maybe you use something like Pod Match. We'll have the link for my affiliate for Pod Match in the show notes. I use it. I love it. I think it's a great way to easily have a workflow for pitching yourself on shows that actually want guests and are looking for guests. They also are incentivized to have you on their show, so that helps to kind of increase the ability for you to get picked from that platform versus outside of the platform, but if you are someone who's not using that system, I highly recommend using something that is a tracking system, whether that is Clickup or Airtable or something like that. Even a simple Google sheet is a great strategy, and we have episodes around pitching yourself to be on podcasts, but just to kind of give you a quick idea that you would want to have somewhere that you can manage host names, the podcast criteria, and the current pitch status, so whether you have pitched yourself yet or whether you're working on creating that pitch, having something in line that allows you to easily navigate where you are, and then you're going to want to automate the follow-up. This is where I think a lot of people get stuck, and I also want us going back just a smidge, when you're pitching podcasts, be really strategic about the podcast pitch. If you don't know where the person would like to be pitched, usually their email is not a great place, because their email is where everyone else is pitching their expertise, or any of those things. So, I usually recommend, if you are going to email the person. Person, then ask where they would like pitches to go. Check their website, see if they have a pitch form that you can fill out. That's also going to help. I have one on my website. I can tell you it is a one to 20 the number of people that actually use my pitch form versus the number of people that pitch in my inbox. I don't look at pitches in my inbox. They get deleted if they are outrageous and make absolutely no sense for my podcast. Sometimes I will block those people. So follow the flow that makes sense for that podcast host. So number one, please do that. Go back, look and see if they have a place that they like to be pitched. If you aren't sure, or you can't find that information, then make sure that you go into their email or into their DMs with the intention of I'm not here to pitch right now. Where is the best place to do this? Usually, you're going to get a better response from that, showing that you're actually intentional, you actually care, and you want to make sure you're doing this the right way that makes sense for them. Okay, moving forward a little bit now, we've figured that out. We've got our Air Table or our Google Sheet, or whatever, that we are keeping the host name, the podcast criteria, maybe a bit about the audience, the pitch status, maybe you have a link to the pitch that you sent them in a Google document or something like that, and then next you want to make sure that you have some type of automated follow-up system that could be a setup reminder for 10 days after you pitch or 14 days after you pitch, make sure that you are clarifying that it is not a rejection, sometimes it's just people get busy. I am actually in the middle of working on, so right now I'm recording this in June, and I am working on getting guests lined up for November, October, November, for my podcast, so anytime I'm talking to publishers, I'm like, hey, I love that that person has a book coming out soon. I'm actually working quite far ahead right now, so if you can get them on my calendar for that time frame, that's going to be better, or if you can get me the book early, then I can get a chance to read it, whatever that might look like, but just informing the person, hey, you might be busy or you might be booked out, that's totally okay. I just want to make sure if you saw this email, whatever that follow-up system might look like for you, but know that not everyone is just saying no just because they didn't respond, sometimes, especially if it's a good pitch, and you gave it your all. Sometimes it's just that people get busy, and life happens. And right now, we're in the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, and so it can be a little busy anyways for us. You might want to use AI if that's something that you want to be using at this point, where you can have a tool that looks at your pitches, maybe can research podcasts. I actually don't recommend these tools for researching podcasts, because most of the time the information that it gives is outdated or incorrect, but it might at least give you an idea of what those bigger podcasts are, and then on your podcast apps you can then look and see what are some of those smaller podcasts that would make sense for your pitches, that it would be a good starting point for you, wherever you are at in your pitching and podcasting journey. I'm not going to go into how to create an effective pitch here, like I said, we have episodes on that you can go back and listen to those, make sure that you are not just copying and pasting for every single podcast. You're going to get more rejections that way. Be intentional. Actually, listen to a few of the episodes, maybe leave them a five-star review and rating if you can. Just find a way that you can connect. Maybe you even leave a comment on their YouTube channel or something like that, just just show that intentionality of you actually caring about the content, not just there to pitch. So, my challenge to you is to do five rejections in the next month, see what that feels like, pitch some podcasts, get your message out there, grow your business, grow your podcast. These are great ways to do this, and that rejection and that gamification of the rejections has been so much fun, and I highly recommend it. Like I said, we'll have links for all that stuff in the show notes, and if you are unsure of how to use podcast guesting as a way to grow your business or your podcast, you're looking to figure out more about how you could be very specific in that kind of stuff. I recommend booking a strategy session with me. We can talk through what your current pitch looks like, we can tailor it, tweak it, make sure it's working for you, and then also talk about the kind of. Content and call to action you need to be having within that podcast episode when you finally get it to make sure that you are achieving your goals specifically for you. So you can go to helpmypod.com We have strategy up at the top, you'll see strategy, and you can go ahead and book one of those to get an idea of what's going to work best for you, your podcast, and your goals. All right. Until next time, happy podcasting.

Unknown: 15:38

Bye.