On Interviewing Jay Abraham (And More) - The Podcast Report InbetweenISode

I just got off the Skype line with industry titan, marketing genius, giant among men, Jay Abraham. It was a fantastic interview. I think we had great content. A bond was made. I think hopefully in the future, I don't know, more might happen. This will be fun. But I am now faced with what do I do with with the interview. I thought that'd be a fascinating concept. Here for an in between episode. For those of you who new to these. I am in season six at least it's a trial. It might happen in future seasons. But in season six, I'm going to release early in the week and in between a sode, a quick episode that we go right to Facebook Live. I grab the audio off of, I save it as an MP3 file and just publish it. No traditional show notes, no webpage, no nothing. Just a quick catch up between you and I. If you want to interact during the live part of this, if you're watching this on Facebook, you can actually go into comments and reactions and you can go into comments. I will see that on the screen. We can react, we can interact, we can do that kind of thing. And then later on in the week, on Thursdays, I will release the more traditional episode. The episode that I'll be releasing this week is who not how. A major concept that I've been working on in podcasting thanks to some direction from Strategic Coach and the like. But today I want to chat about interviewing. I want to chat about what happened with my interview with Jay. I want to chat about what it means, what I'm going to do. I'd love your thoughts on it if you're on this live. Would love your live thoughts if you are watching this on Facebook later. I still read the comments. And if you want to do the social media thing, you know, we're all over social, we track that kind of thing. It was a great interview. It was fun content. It was great interaction. I felt there was a groove. But here's the problem. There's only a certain segment of my audience who would love to hear it. From the moment that we clicked record to the moment that we ended. There needs to be some editing of it. There needs to be some storytelling that's wrapped around it. There needs to be some cohesiveness that only a good edit can bring. Now, dangling in front of me is a lot of client work. Dangling in front of me is a lot of episodes. The next episode that we have to do in two days, there's a lot in front of me. But what Jay dangled in front was that he's going to take the episode, whatever edit I come up with, and he's going to share that on his podcast as well. Now, I don't know his numbers, but I do know his impact. I've been saying for a long time, you don't care if only one person listens to your podcast, if that person is the Dalai Lama or some other Mark Zuckerberg, some big industry titan. And it is the big shots who listen to Jay. So I've got this in front of me, not quite sure what I'm going to do. I will probably do some version of an edited episode and then give people the opportunity to grab the whole episode if they want, a free form, free line of thought kind of thing. But that's where I'm going now. Go to the bigger question of interviews, because the number one question I get, and it's funny because I got it today, before I did the J. Abraham interview, I was talking with a new client and the question was, how do I be a good interviewer? Now, I've chatted about this on past episodes, and this has been a theme throughout, but there's this idea that we need to be a good interviewer to deliver a good show. And the content that we delivered that I recorded, haven't delivered it yet. The content that I recorded today, amazing content, because of the two minds that were chatting, because the two thoughts that were going on, neither one an exceptional interviewer. Jay asks tremendous questions. And Jay appreciated some of the questions I asked, which is a good sign. But what do we do with this? So the number one question I get is, how do I be a better interviewer? But the question is, is that the question? The question is, how can I, in a conversation with someone else, deliver the best possible content, deliver the value that my audience deserves? Now, some of you would benefit tremendously from the hour and a half unabridged. Here it is, the coughs, everything. Some of you need 5, 10 minutes of Jay to know where to go further. Some of you need something in between. And I've got a show that I'm doing for one person. You know, I'm doing one episode. I'm doing the show for a series of individuals, but it is only one episode. And that's where things get really, really interesting, because I have to figure out how to deliver this. But I'll tell you this at the top of my questions is not how do I show off my interviewing skills. The number one at the top of this is, what were the good questions that I asked? It's not the narrative of the interview. It's, hey, welcome in. As I got to chat with this great mind that you probably can't afford to chat with. That's the process. That's what I'm doing. And I think this is a question. I think this is a thing that podcasters deal with. It's really interesting because, you know, we have this desire to be good, and so we study the greats, and I want to chat a few things that I've learned from some of the greats. But we study the grades, we try to be a good interviewer because we think that's what's needed. But the technique isn't necessarily. Isn't nearly as important as the intent. Is my goal in the podcast report to go check me out. I got an interview with Jay Abraham. Check out all the smart things I said. Or is my job as the podcaster to give you the best information I was able to get for you as a result of interviewing Jay Abraham on my show? I hope you understand the difference because it's really, really key. If this was 60 Minutes, they would have to show the great interview. They bring on Lesley Stahl or they bring on whoever. If it was Oprah, oh, my goodness. Oprah can interview. Or Barbara Walters. Barbara can interview. What does Paul bring to. To the game? I think that's the first question that all of us podcasters have to ask. What does my audience need? What do I want to deliver? How can I do that the best? What is probably going to happen? And you're just going to have to listen to the podcast report to find out. Some probably going to pretty significantly edit it down because I think the conversation, I think the edit requires it. But then I think what I'll do is I think I will make the entire interview unedited, available for those who want to go further. But it's not a question of how do I interview Jay better. That's a question of how do I serve my audience. With the interview from Jay, the opportunity for podcasters is this. Don't look at it as a chance to show off your interviewing skills. Don't look at it as a chance to become a better interviewer. Don't look at it as anything other than a chance to serve your audience by asking the right questions of the person that are interviewing. It's the type of thing where you can go, this is a lot easier. This is a lot better. My job is to get the. Get the knowledge out of the mind of the person, ask him the questions that our Audience wants bring those questions out, serve those questions, it becomes primarily about the audience, secondarily about the interviewer, tertiary, third, whatever about me. And I think that gets forgotten a lot in the podcasting space. Now with that said and done, some thoughts on interviews. Dave Letterman. I've chatted to this before. Dave Letterman has a show on podcast called My Next Guest Needs a New Introduction. And in that show, Dave in the once comical guy who used to cover himself with Alka Seltzer and drop into water, or cover himself and in Velcro and jump up against the wall or throw watermelons off of the NBC building, he now wants to get a bit more serious, do the interviews that matter. It's funny because he starts with Obama and you're like, well, there's an interview that matters that's pretty fantastic. And then he goes to George Clooney. I was kind of shocked, but the interview was pretty fantastic. George has a lot more depth to him than I realized. And then I can't remember the exact order, but he brought on Jay Z. Jay Z. Never been a big fan of the music I've heard. The guy's pretty smart. The fact that he and Dave have a rapport, interact well with each other was fascinating. But I. But I watched it and I really got into this mind of Jay Z. He's a fascinating character. And he and Dave chatted about everything from music and rap and position and celebrity, but also talked about fidelity, an issue both of them have had issues with. And it was a fascinating interview. But what Dave did that I really respect, that I really appreciate, was Dave realized that sometimes the story is bigger than the 5 to 7 segment he got on his show. Yes, he started the show back in the day on NBC late night to shake up television. But what he started to see was the story that the people who got on the show started to tell became more and more fascinating. One of the things that Dave did that was fantastic, that I always appreciated was, yeah, he'd bring in the hotshots, he'd bring in the stars, but he'd also bring in, you know, Rupert G. And if you don't know Dave history, you don't know what that story is, but he'd bring in these characters just as fascinating, just as important, and he went from there. So he goes to a show and he realizes, if I interview Obama, I can do the full interview. If I interview Clooney, I can do the full interview. If I interview Jay Z, if I interview Tina Fey, if I interview Malala, he gets to get the whole story. He gets to share the whole story. He gets to give us a better piece of entertainment than he ever could before, and that's fantastic. Now, at the same time, though, Jay realizes who he is. Sorry, Jay. Dave realizes who he is. And Dave intersperses it with these moments. Yes, Malala and the seriousness of being shot in the face for demanding education for girls mixed with Hogwarts jokes at the Oxford School store is classic Dave. But he realized he had this opportunity to tell a bigger story. And as podcasters, I think we should all embrace that. I think we have the opportunity to tell a bigger story. I don't want any podcaster who doesn't know of Jay to listen to my interview with Jay and feel like I've got all that Jay has. I want to introduce the idea that big thinkers are going into podcasting as a part of a larger picture, as opposed to, this is how I'm going to get rich and then introduce my audience to Jay. See where I'm going here? So when you interview, don't try to be Barbara, don't try to be Oprah, because Barbara and Oprah are already there. Don't even try to be Dave. But realize your unique opportunity to tell the bigger story, and I think you'll be at a pretty cool place. Now, another Netflix show is Comedians in Cars, Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld. Not nearly as deep, not nearly as introspective. Now, Jerry is a fascinating character, and if you get a chance to watch, actually on the David Letterman show, if you watch the interview he does with Jerry, they sort of interview each other. It's sort of a thing that Netflix did because it owns both of them, or at least owns both of the shows. Jerry is having more fun than he should. And if you watch the episode, you can tell these are people he really enjoys. And he's got this thematic theme. I guess that's what thematic means. And he takes them down this journey, and he welcomes you on that trip. So no insight into the human existence. There's a couple of moments, but it's mostly Jerry having fun. And I would really recommend that you, as the podcaster, have fun. It's funny. That very theme was the same thing on Jay and I conversation. This thing was, if you can't enjoy doing this, why do this? And I would say it's that really interesting combo that Dave and Jerry give us of tell the whole story, but have some fun with it. Realize who your audience is and serve them. And then someone else that came up in the Interview talking with Jay, Jay said something about podcasts that are just in it for the advertisements. And I immediately went to Tim Ferriss Tim show. Last time I checked, it was like six minute of commercials before the show, which some podcasting prognosticators could say I sold out or who's going to listen to those commercials or whatever. But the fact of the matter is Tim doesn't necessarily care who listens to those commercials. Tim has said over and over again that he's leveraging his show, he's leveraging his position to bring these people to a very targeted, very specific base. And these people are paying more for the ability to say, as seen as heard on the Tim Ferriss show, as they are, you know, being added three out of how many that he has. They want the association with Tim. They're paying for the association with Tim. It's done with this simple ad batch and again, feels like six minutes of it at the beginning of the show. But then Tim gets to work, Tim does the show, and I think there's some at the end, but I can't go directly there. But. But what's interesting with what Tim has done that I have tremendous respect for is Tim has stated over and over again that he's not building the podcast to build out this massive business. He's not building the podcast to bring people into his marketing funnel. He's building out the podcast because he wants to have these conversations, and he wants to do it as quickly and as easily as possible. And lo and behold, Tim has figured out how to do that. He has the numbers, he has the capacity to get the downloads and the high CPMs to make this bad boy a marketing machine. But then once that's done, quickly, he goes onto the show, serves his audience, serves himself, and definitely has fun in the process. So we can learn from the other players out there and we can begin to build Tim. I don't know, honestly how quote, unquote, good of an interviewer he is, but I know that Tim asks the questions. There have been times, then the questions I want to ask because Tim, I know, folds himself into our mindset and folds himself into what we're trying to do. There's been times where Tim is almost a giddy student of what's going on, and he just goes deeper and deeper and deeper and yeah, that's the question I want to know. And that's the question I want to know. And that's the question I want to know. So how good of an interviewer is he? He's better than me. But how tuned into the needs, the questions, the desires of his audience. He's doing that better than anybody else. And I would really. And I think the show shows that, and I think that's why people want to get on the show, and I think that's why people want to be associated with the show. So, Dave, tell the bigger story. Jerry, have fun while you're doing it. Tim, be extremely strategic. Now, as we get to the bigger issue of podcasts and interviews, I want to suggest that sometimes we're not asking the right question. I've chatted about this before on the show, but one day someone posted on my wall, what do I do if I have a hard time getting interviewees? And I said, don't do an interview show. And the response was, is that possible or is that allowed? Here's the thing. Some an interview, a podcast must be an interview. Doesn't have to be. Look at what we're doing right now. If you've made it this far, this type of podcast is interesting to you, and it's certainly not an interview. Now it's talking about an interview. And I will soon release the interview with Jay. But it doesn't have to be an interview. The question you should not be asking is not who can I interview? It's not what can I say? It's not what should I talk about? It's a question of how do I serve my audience? You do that. You're at a good place. One last thing I want to close out on, and then we'll close this up and we'll get this thing published and we'll work on some other stuff. Those of you who've been watching this live, thank you. That's always fun. If you want to make any comments, go ahead and do that. If you are watching the delayed version of this on Facebook, comments are still tracked and moderated. And of course, if you want to reach out on social thepodcastreport.com Facebook thepodcastreport.com Twitter thepodcastreport.com Instagram. You can head out to all those. I have been in several meetings where a client, potential or existing, says something along the lines of I would like the NPR sound. And let's face it, who wouldn't want the NPR sound? If you listen to an NPR interview, you get some of the best sounding audio you've ever had. You get the transition tones, you get the audio, you get the voiceover, you get the background music music, you get all these things. And what's interesting is I think A lot of people who ask this question, perhaps even the podcaster, don't necessarily realize what is. Is that they're asking or what it is that they're insinuating. I swear, sometimes I feel like when somebody asked this question, they're basically asking, oh, can you click the NPR sound button on your podcast as you export it? And, well, it's not that easy. The NPR sound is very different, and I think this is important than a podcast sound. The NPR sound is I'm going to do massive amounts of research and massive amounts of hours and collect a massive library of content, assemble all that together and tell a story. If you have the ability to do that as a podcaster, that is amazing. That is fantastic. But that's not necessarily the medium that we're dealing with here. I had the opportunity to get. I was surprised I got this much, but I got 90 minutes with Jay Abraham, and sure, I could have had 10 hours, 20 hours, asked all the questions, assembled this. But what do I get if I only get those 90 minutes? And as we look at the scope of who we are and as we look at who we can reach is even necessarily a legitimate question to ask someone to give us 20 hours, 30 hours to put this together. And then again at the same time, do I want to go through this kind of effort? Is that the best service of my audience? Am I looking for a story like we do in npr, or am I looking to introduce you to someone that I think you can benefit from? The story was not that I recorded today was not the J. Abraham story. The story was not the check out Paul. He finally meets Jay Abraham story. The story was, here's a guy who's been thinking about business for a long time, who's raised a lot of money for a long time, who's decided to dip his toes into the podcasting space, and might be someone that you would enjoy listening to, and might be someone that you will enjoy getting a few talking points from, a few thoughts from. That's what I was doing. So it's not gonna be the NPR sound. There'll be some music. It'll be more produced than most of the episodes I've done, but. But it won't be the NPR sound, and it doesn't need to be the NPR sound. And gosh darn it, I dare say I don't want it to be the NPR sound. So that's my thoughts on interviewing. The Jay Abraham episode will come out. When it makes sense for it to come out, it will actually be cross promoted to the podcast to Jay's show as well, which is just mind blowing for me. That's very cool. His show is the ultimate entrepreneur. I definitely recommend that you take a look and a listen to that. Those are my thoughts on interviewing. I want to close up. I want to get this on the podcast, and I want to get back to the other work that needs to be done today. So thank you very much. Thank you so much for watching. We'll chat next time. Bye.