Profitable Audiences: Find Your “Shoulder” Topics

About this episode

Dustin shares strategies for finding profitable audiences and leveraging guest expertise to grow a business.

Dustin shares a simple way to find profitable audiences to grow a business—without needing a huge following or the “perfect” show to pitch. Using the “Oprah effect,” Dustin explains how guest experts like Dr. Phil and Rachel Ray grew by borrowing trust from an established platform. The key is not trying to replace the host, but showing up as a complementary expert by finding the overlap between what you do and what the audience needs. Dustin walks through a practical “triggers and symptoms” framework (a Venn diagram + upstream/downstream thinking) to identify adjacent audiences where your expertise fills a content gap. You’ll hear real examples across industries—coaching, finance, leadership, and nutrition—plus a clear action step to brainstorm 6–12 “shoulder topics” you can target for podcast guesting, stages, communities, and more.' Chapters: (00:00:00) Why “profitable audiences” matter more than finding the perfect platform (00:02:20) The Oprah effect: how guest experts borrowed trust and launched huge brands (00:05:10) The Venn diagram: overlap enough to fit, not so much that you compete (00:06:20) The 2 questions: triggers (upstream) and symptoms (downstream) (00:07:35)…

People in this episode

Host: Dustin Riechmann

Topics covered

• profitable audiences
• guest experts
• Oprah effect
• content gap
• shoulder topics

Keywords

• profitable audiences
• guest experts
• Oprah effect
• Venn diagram
• content gap
• shoulder topics

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