I live inside sales ops and automation, so my LinkedIn inbox sees a lot of outreach. Lately I’ve been hit with a string of “free placement on the Founders Future (powered by Closers.io) podcast” invites. I said yes to the first one, filled out their “podcast questionnaire,” and even spoke with an actual person for a short pre-pod review. Right before the scheduled recording, they canceled. When I asked to reschedule, the communication went quiet.
Then I accepted another invite. Same questionnaire. Canceled right before the pre-pod call. A third invite followed—same pattern. At that point, the behavior felt less like booking guests and more like qualifying prospects.
To be clear, this is my personal read on what happened to me, not an accusation about the company as a whole. I’m not claiming every profile or outreach message tied to Closers.io is fake. But based on what I experienced, I do think they’re using some disingenuous profiles on LinkedIn to start conversations under the cover of a podcast invitation. The flow looked like this: hook you with a “be on our show” message, collect your sales-process intel through a form, then quietly bow out if you’re not a fit for their offering.
The questionnaire itself reinforced that impression. The questionnaire asked for exactly the information a sales org would want to qualify a target:
Here is a copy of the questionnaire. (NOTE: Their questionnaire was sent to me using this URL – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uOR3qVcFS8ZIYxndIh3gBbqyT0RdrORtJwR_hMc3HA8/edit?tab=t.0 – but it has download and copy/paste abilities disabled, so I put the version I have here together from screenshots)
My hunch is simple: if your answers suggest you’re unlikely to buy sales staffing/training or you already have the capabilities in-house (we build automation, so we’re not a natural buyer), the interview never happens. Again, that’s how it felt from my side of the screen. I got one real person on the phone, but the rest of the pattern was cancellations and silence.
For balance, I looked around to see what other people say publicly. Online opinions are mixed. You can find Reddit threads where some posters call programs like this a “scam” or share rough experiences with Closers.io specifically; these are just anonymous internet comments, but they exist. You can also find comments from people who say they’ve had good outcomes and defend the company. Both sides are out there for anyone to read. Reddit
Review sites also show a split picture over time. Trustpilot, for example, includes a range of user-submitted reviews—some very positive, some very negative—which, to me, underscores how inconsistent the outcomes can be depending on who you are and what you need. I’m not vouching for any review’s accuracy; I’m only noting that public reviews run the gamut. Trustpilot
One more piece of context: using a podcast invite as a sales door-opener is a known, legitimate tactic in B2B. There’s a cottage industry of agencies and playbooks that teach companies to invite ideal prospects onto a show, build rapport, and develop deals later. That doesn’t make every podcast invite disingenuous—far from it. But when you’ve been around the block, you recognize the pattern. My recent experience with the podcast pitch looked a lot like that pattern. contentallies.com
I also want to acknowledge that Closers.io and its founder show up on podcasts and in interviews across the web. That public presence doesn’t prove anything about how these specific invites are handled, but it explains why a “podcast” angle is plausible and familiar in their world. SpotifyApple Podcasts
Bottom line, and this is only my opinion: promising a podcast slot, using a questionnaire that reads like prospect qualification, and then canceling when you’re not a match feels like a bait-and-switch. Maybe other guests get recorded, published, and have a great time. I didn’t. After three cycles of form-fill-cancel, I came away convinced that at least some of these invites are a lead-gen wrapper, not a sincere editorial opportunity. Be aware and do your research.
