Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to do a recommendation swap. If you
Speaker 1: have friends with similar interests or tastes, exchange recommendations so
Speaker 1: you can point each other to things you'll enjoy and
Speaker 1: have a fun time sharing the experience of that enjoyment.
Speaker 1: I have long been fascinated by holiday cookie swaps. The
Speaker 1: basic idea is to invite let's say six people to
Speaker 1: your house. Each of you shows up with five dozen
Speaker 1: of your favorite type of holiday cookies. You exchange the cookies,
Speaker 1: and I'll go home with a dozen of each of
Speaker 1: the other five people's baked offerings. It's a lot less
Speaker 1: effort to bake one kind of cookie versus six, and
Speaker 1: in addition to a joiga party, you get to try
Speaker 1: a variety of sweet treats that you might never have
Speaker 1: begged yourself. A recommendation swap would work in the same way.
Speaker 1: Figure out a genre of thing that you all are
Speaker 1: all interested in, get together, bring a list of your favorites,
Speaker 1: and share details. You all go home enlightened and with
Speaker 1: more stuff to try. This concept could work for all
Speaker 1: sorts of things. Maybe you host a recipe swap. Each
Speaker 1: of you brings copies of your favorite recipes for weeknight dinners.
Speaker 1: You already know all about grilled cheese, but maybe there's
Speaker 1: a way of preparing chicken breasts that you haven't thought
Speaker 1: of yet. Now you've got a ticket out of your
Speaker 1: Wednesday night rut, or perhaps on your email or text chain.
Speaker 1: With a circle of friends, you all decide to recommend podcasts.
Speaker 1: No doubt there's at least one or two in your
Speaker 1: feed that your friends haven't tried, and they may have
Speaker 1: found some winners that you would enjoy. Two you could
Speaker 1: recommend Netflix series our favorite romantic comedies. The Patreon group
Speaker 1: for my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds recently had
Speaker 1: a virtual gathering devoted to summer reading. We all exchanged
Speaker 1: book recommendations, and as a result, plenty of folks have
Speaker 1: a lot of new stuff in the queue on their
Speaker 1: library holds list. Now, of course, some of this happens naturally.
Speaker 1: I am always asking people to tell their friends about
Speaker 1: my books and podcasts. Word of mouth is one of
Speaker 1: the most persuasive forms of marketing. I know when I
Speaker 1: love a book or a destination or a podcast. I
Speaker 1: want to tell people about it because I want them
Speaker 1: to experience what I have experienced. But I think that
Speaker 1: for normalizing it boosts the benefits for starters. People can
Speaker 1: think about the question more systematically and prepare. Just as
Speaker 1: you don't randomly show up at someone's house with sixty cookies,
Speaker 1: you probably aren't walking around with a ranked list of
Speaker 1: your six favorite podcasts or your five favorite historical fiction novels.
Speaker 1: When you know that you will be exchanging recommendations, you
Speaker 1: will think beyond what you just experienced. And second, when
Speaker 1: you formalize the swap, you vastly increase the chances that
Speaker 1: people will be in the mood to try out the recommendations.
Speaker 1: I mean, why participate in a podcast recommendation swap if
Speaker 1: you don't plan to try out a new podcast? And
Speaker 1: that means that your friends will be experiencing some of
Speaker 1: the same things that you have, so you can talk
Speaker 1: about the shared experience afterwards. As in, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for recommending that new historical novel Joan about Joan of
Speaker 1: Arc by Katherine Chen I loved it. What did you
Speaker 1: think about the section about her childhood? Or my family
Speaker 1: loved the chicken chili it's on the make Again list.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the recommendation. If I wanted to make it
Speaker 1: even spicier for the next time my brother visits, what
Speaker 1: would you suggest I do? If you try doing a
Speaker 1: recommendation swap with friends, I'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can reach me at Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod
Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: Podcast at i heeart Media dot com. That Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.