Podcast Guesting: Credibility & Uniqueness

Well, welcome. And tonight's topic is going to be about credibility and value in, in getting guest appearances on your podcast. So, like I said, thank you for being here. And this applies to, you know, your podcast, if you have one that accepts guests, as well as the guests themselves that wants to join you in this podcast. I'm going to explain why guest appearances can be crucial in shaping a podcast or your credibility and value in the market. And so there's two sides of this. Actually, there's three sides. There's the audience. There's the, the, the guest, there's the host that need to value or need to be considered in this equation. So welcome to the show tonight. My name is Rob Greenlee. This is episode 46 of the Podcast Tips Show, and it's terrific to have you here either live or as a podcast that's being maybe watched as a replay on the social platforms. But it's great to have you here, and this is an audio and video podcast. So kind of the 5 concepts that hopefully you'll have a better understanding about at the end of this show is basically 5 concepts. And the first one is how to select and manage guest appearances on your podcast, how to understand the potential risks or unintended endorsements, or, you know, maybe you do want it to be an endorsement. There's a variety, there's a spectrum on this, and this is a fairly complex area of podcasting, and I'm gonna dive into this. And there's some strategies to maintaining authority that can be of benefit to your host, your guests, and your listeners or your viewers. In this case. So let's, let's go ahead and start off with the number one aspect of this, which is understanding the credibility effect of guest appearances. Now, the whole aspect of perceived endorsement is, is an issue that you need to consider. And if you're a podcast host and you're bringing on a guest that maybe is coming on your podcast with some level of expectation that they're going to be promoting a product. And you as the host of the show and the show itself are kind of giving a fairly direct endorsement of that guest as well as the product that they represent. So I think you have to really, really consider that if that's what you want to do. Is there an alignment with the purpose of the podcast and the goals and objectives that you might assume that your guest has? And then take into consideration, well, where's the value equation to the audience? And how does that impact the audience's trust in what you're doing with your podcast? And sometimes these things can be difficult to manage because you're trying to get out a new episode every week and you're looking for a guest and sometimes, guests will cancel at the last minute and you will struggle to be able to fill that time slot, especially if it's a live show. On the prerecorded side, you may have a little bit more flexibility on that, but really one of the considerations here, and many podcast hosts really go through a significant process here, is to evaluate these guests. Around their credibility, their knowledge, their expertise, and to some level, what their kind of chemistry will be with you as the host of the show. And how does this guest being on your podcast benefit the guest and benefit the show, right? So there's 3 elements to the benefits here. And I think there's definitely a lot of good justification in making sure that what you're doing has integrity with all three parts, right? And you're getting what you need out of this guest as a host, and your audience is getting what they need out of it as well. And like I said just a minute ago, that's a difficult line to walk. Because always your goal is to build trust between the host and the audience, right? And so anything that you introduce into the show has to build on top of that and needs to be considered and curated. And value alignment is important here too. So those are, sometimes difficult things to figure out in advance of having a guest come on your show. So, it's a challenging kind of process. But I think as you get going with it and as you kind of refine your process and what makes you feel good, some people will do kind of like a pre-call before the interview Talk through the issues that you wanna talk about. I wouldn't make it a Q&A type thing. I would make, if you're gonna do a call with a guest in advance of being a guest on your show, the real benefit, I think, 'cause I've done this many times as well, is to get to know them as a person, right? Talk to them in a conversational way. Don't dive in too deeply into the topics 'cause what you wanna do is have 'em on your show and to have genuine curiosity that may be linked to some questions that you've come up with in your research on the guest. So you don't want to get those questions necessarily answered before you do the interview. So, because if you do, then it could come across as not the most authentic conversation. So, because the audience is going to be trying to discover this guest as well as you the host. And you're going to be a lot better off doing that in an authentic way than it is to come across somehow like you already know what the answer is and all you're doing is, you know, asking this question because it's an obligated question and not so much that you're actually having a conversation and wanting to really dig deep into these topics. So, and then the next one here is is, and I've alluded to this a little bit, is the value creation between the host, the guest, and the audience, right? What is that mix of creation? And, you know, just to use this show as a little bit of an example, I've kind of moved away from having guests on this show. I started this show with guests, and while I love doing conversational shows. And it's not that I've decided not to do those. I just have decided to really, really focus on trying to build my ability to do a live show solo and to be able to carry that show myself and to be able to, to have that process completely on my shoulders and not be kind of shoulder no pun intended there, um, with the burden of, of, um, having to be kind of propped up by a guest, right? Because it may be easier for you to have a guest than it is to do a solo show, and I think that actually makes some sense. Um, but it does tend to, uh, put a little bit more pressure on yourself to just do a solo show, but This show is not about talking about solo shows. I'll probably do an episode about solo shows once I've kind of gone down this path a little bit further and got a little bit more kind of experience with doing solo shows, which I haven't done a lot of in my past. So what is the value exchange between the host, the guests, and the audience? Well, for the host, there must be a mutual beneficial relationship. And, and that guest brings a depth of expansion of the topics that you typically cover, or you as the host are maybe not as in-depthly knowledgeable about that particular topic. So, so as a sports analogy here, there's usually, you know, like on a sports football game broadcast they usually have the main host and then they have like a color commentary that is added to it, and that color commentary is really an additive to the conversation to provide depth and data and kind of perspectives that you, the host, probably wouldn't have because maybe you don't have as much experience or expertise in that particular area that you're trying to cover. So, you know, it's, it's helpful to bring on an expert sometimes, right, when you're diving into complex topics that, that you want to dig deep on. And that's the advantage of doing a guest show, is that you can also learn. And I think that's, that's kind of an underrated benefit of this, is that every guest that you bring on that's, that's related to the topic or the genre of the show that you have adds to the host's knowledge base, right? They are able to be inquisitive, ask those questions, and learn deeper information that will give them greater knowledge as they move down the path of being a podcast host in that genre. And over time, if you really engage in a conversation with the guest, then you're learning as well as you're able to share that exploration process. And as a host, you always also want to explore fresh perspectives or fresh insights that maybe you don't have or this particular guest has a certain twist to their personality, let's say, that is able to bring, you know, a little flair to the show or, or a little bit of entertainment, but brings you kind of like an in-depth view on what's going on with this. And, and for guests, you know, what's, what's the guest's kind of benefit here in this value equation. And the benefit to the guest is increased visibility as well as a personal brand building opportunity is their benefit and what they're trying to get from that particular interview. So I think those are very important things to consider too, is that You know, that's why it's really important for the hosts to, you know, inject their own perspectives because what that creates is a dynamic in the conversation that allows the guests to maybe dig a little deeper and create a little bit more of a unique piece of content. And I think that's another aspect of this that doesn't get talked about a lot as well. Is that oftentimes if you bring on like large name, very popular guests onto your podcast, so if you're fortunate enough to be able to get, you know, a very big author or a celebrity or someone that's very, very well known onto your podcast, you run the risk of that show being all about them. And I'm not sure long-term that's what you wanna do. I think what you wanna do is, make it a showcase for your guest, but not necessarily at the expense of the host and the host's authenticity and expertise-building process that comes from that conversation. So, and I do believe a terrific example of this is, say, Joe Rogan, who's been doing interviews with multiple people, you know, 5 days a week for many years now. And he's just so knowledgeable about so many areas Now, because of those conversations, of bringing on experts from various areas of the, of the, of society and culture and science and all the stuff that, you know, when he gets in front of a guest and wants to have a conversation, that guest has a lot of respect for Joe Rogan's knowledge. And some people are scared to go on his show because he's so knowledgeable and has a has a record of challenging people to some degree. And I think that's the point where you wanna get to, is that you've been doing a show on a particular genre or a particular topic that your guests wind up thinking that you're kind of an equal, right? You have knowledge that is competitive to them. And to some guests, they love that. They love to be challenged, they love to learn from another person. And in that case, it would be from the host of the show. You know, I think that's the perfect dynamic. Now, one of the things that's this X factor that comes into play too is what's the chemistry between the host and the guest, right? What are their personalities? How do they talk? Are they really able to follow a train of thought? And is each side willing to challenge the other side with their perspectives to hopefully draw more clarity onto that topic? So that is— it's such a fact, you know, I've spent so many years doing conversational podcasts that it's always been such a fascinating experience for me over the years. I did a 7-year radio show that I would have as many as 3 guests on the show, and, and those would be only like 10 or 15 minute conversations. But, but I also would have, um, really, really interesting guests on, and I would pre-prepare questions for those conversations as kind of like a baseline of what I wanted to communicate. Um, in this conversation. I had done research on the guest or research on the technology that they were, they were coming in to talk about, whatever. And I had very genuine questions about, you know, how that technology works, um, what's the, what, what's the background of the, of the company that this was the CEO of, um, how do they get started, where do they see the future And as that guest would talk, I would inject the things that I've learned about that particular area and probe him on that, challenge him on that. Like if he had a certain perspective on a— or she had a certain view on, let's say, wireless internet and was commenting about a certain kind of protocol for that. I would have done some research on the full spectrum of wireless kind of transfer of data and things like that, and the whole spectrum of various ways that that is accomplished. And so I would kind of challenge them, well, what's the comparison to, let's say, WiMAX? Or what's the comparison between 5G and Wi-Fi, you know, so you can kind of dig into these topics to help your audience kind of like, you know, connect the dots of sorts. So, and then lastly on this value creation aspect is what's in it for the audience, you know, what's in it for them to spend a half hour with you or to to, you know, invest that time. And that gets back to the long-term reputation of the host and what they've been able to accomplish with that audience in the past. That builds on top of each other over time. And what that host needs to do is create programs and guests that provide new insights, perspectives, and actionable takeaways, if that's even appropriate. You know, oftentimes in an interview, I'm not sure that you actually have to have an actionable takeaway. But I think what you want is, if it's not an actionable takeaway, it's a light bulb moment, right? You know, this other term that's out there too with audiences with podcasts that have been around for a long time is the the driveway moments. That's where you're listening to something in the car and you don't want to turn it off because they're talking about something that you're deeply engaged in and that you want to continue listening to. And this mainly applies to audio, and I think it applied mainly to radio in the early days. But as people have increasingly listened to audio podcasts in their car, this was happening, right? So they'd be involved in a maybe an hour-long podcast episode of a show that they really liked. And let's say the traffic didn't take them as long to get home from work, and the show was 45 minutes long, but they got home in half hour, and that basically left a certain amount of time that was left in the episode, and they didn't want to stop it and then restart it back in the house because they would have like family or something like that that they needed to reconnect with, and they wouldn't necessarily connect back to it unless they waited till the next day, and then they could finish the episode. But then that would mess up their, their commute. So sometimes people would stay in the car and continue listening. So, you know, these are the, these are aspects of this that a lot of podcasters don't think about. Now granted, this can happen in the modern world now too, where people are just out doing things in the world and they're, they're listening to their phones, um, and they're doing other things and they don't want to stop listening. So, so these are aspects of value creation with hosts, guests, and audiences that are important. So, and then also creating high-value experiences too, you know, strategies for aligning your guests and topics and expertise with your audience's interests too. So hopefully you've been able to ascertain over time what your audience is interested in, what aspects of these conversations maybe will spark interest with your audience at a, at a deeper level. And there's a variety of ways that you can explore this through audience engagement charts. You know, I know Apple Podcasts has a chart that shows consumption of the media over its kind of kind of time frame, right? It's a 30-minute show. You can actually track when people start and stop listening. Mainly, I would say it's— you can track the path of when people stop listening. So if you can map that particular timestamp to a particular place in your episode, you can determine what transition that you made. Was it an ad break? Was it something that you did, you know, it was like maybe a promo for something that caused your audience to basically drop. And then learn from that and maybe reposition segments in your show to come up with a better alignment with how your audience expects to get the content. And then that'll also help you see, well, if there's a particular topic that you're covering that really spikes the interest in the program. And especially at the beginning, that's why it's so important to kind of tease at the beginning of your show is because what you want to do is connect with people and keep them listening, right? And not have this kind of like, there's a bunch of people come in and start watching and then they just fall off like a rock, which is gonna happen. I mean, the consumption of podcasts does have that pattern. It's the same thing that happens on YouTube. You can see it in the charts on, on YouTube. It's oftentimes, you know, you start off great, you know, 100%, and then it falls like a rock, and then it kind of tails out and flatlines after you get into like maybe more than the first, you know, 2 minutes or 3 minutes of the content. And so what you want to do is to extend that path. So you want people to keep at a higher level engagement for a longer period of time, you don't want it to be like dropping off a cliff, right, where people click play and they, they immediately bugger out of there, right? I don't think that's, that's what we want, and there's usually a reason for that. So, um, people gave you a shot and it didn't deliver on what they were anticipating, and then they kind of fell off. And that's something that I wrestle with all the time. I mean, I've been wrestling with that issue for many years with all the content that I do is that how do you balance that and keep people engaged? You know, that's the X factor of being a content creator. So let's move on and talk about another topic in this thread. This is the third one here is selecting the right guests. So what's that process? I think what you do have to do is come up with your own. It doesn't have to be anything written out or anything like that. I just think you have to, over time, what you're going to do is you're going to learn what works and what doesn't work, you know. And yeah, I'm not sure that you can be an expert at doing this from day one and be able to vet the guests for your show correctly at the very beginning. I think what that— what happens with that is that evolves over time, because what you start to do is you start learning from your experience with bringing on guests, and you, you kind of get this feeling like, well, maybe if I had talked to them before the show, maybe that would have helped me have a better interview, or maybe that would have helped me vet them to see if I even wanted to have them on the show. And two of the things that I wanted to mention about this is, is, and I've had this experience to some degree too, um, is that just because you have them on as a guest and you record a show with them doesn't necessarily mean that you have to publish the episode, right? And I think it's okay to say, well, that, that conversation just didn't ring the bell, right? It just didn't You know, it wasn't engaging. The chemistry between the host and the guest was just not entirely there, right? And so it's, it's okay to pull the plug is what I'm trying to say. If you, if you want to, and, and that gets back to kind of your learning process too, because if you had to pull the plug on a guest, that can be a little embarrassing for the guests. And it can also be, it can kind of be a setback for you as a host with your show too, because you were all set, you were all probably all ready to go and and you did the recording and you listen to it afterwards and you're like going, don't think that was up to my standards. Because one of the other things that can happen with a guest, and I've been through this many times too, and it gets back to their personalities, right? It gets back to, are they able to have a conversation, or are they— or do they have a personality where they have to monologue? And that's very dangerous in a conversational podcast because especially if you have a limited amount of time with them. Now, granted, if you're going to go 2-hour interview, then it's probably okay to have a guest on that, you know, elaborates, just to use a nice term to describe it. But if you're trying to record like maybe a 10 or 15-minute conversation with someone because you have multiple interviews in an episode, you want to get to the point You know, your questions need to be concise. The answers need to be relatively quick. And so you can get through what you want to get through in the time frame that you have. You know, that's the, that's really the vector between doing a long-form conversational interview with someone and doing a short segmented conversation with someone is getting to the point, getting to the information that you want to extract from that guest for your program that benefits the guest as well as benefits your audience and benefits you as the host. And I think that is a key dynamic here around short-form conversational recordings and longer form. So let's say you're doing a 2-hour interview with a guest, right? Well, you have some time there to elaborate, right? You have some time there to dig deep and really kind of find out details on things. And sometimes that's the real benefit of long-form content is that it is deep, right? But I do think as part of this vetting process, what you have to do is look into their, their past work, listen to a couple of past episodes that they've done on others, other people's podcasts or on video shows, or if there's any videos online that show them as a keynote or as a presenter, you can kind of get a sense for their ability to speak, their ability to be concise, and also what's their expertise, right, in whatever topic you're trying to bring them on for. And vet their credibility. Go to their LinkedIn profile. Go to their website. And maybe if you get an opportunity, ask a colleague about this person, what they think about them. Sometimes that's not possible. And then also vet that against your podcast goals, right? And it needs to be additive, not a replacement for you, the host. It needs to be additive. That's the key takeaway. Now, granted, you can do a podcast if you want where the, the whole podcast is this person doing the, the interview, right? Just ask a question and then it just sits there and listens for the answer. And then when he's finished the answer, then you just ask another question, right? You can, you can do that if you want, right? Or the other option is to create a real conversation, right? Which means that you have to accept the fact that you may go off topic. Or you may go down a rabbit hole, but you also have to have the skill to pull that guest out of the rabbit hole, get them back on track again. All depends on their personality. They will continue down the rabbit hole, and you're, you're screwed as the podcast host because you've now lost control of your show. And the other thing that I wanted to mention too, and I'm not sure I was going to cover this in the, in my outline here, but is that you want to maintain control of the episode. You as the host need to maintain control of your episode, and it needs to follow the path that you want to take it, not the path that your guest wants to take it. And I think that is a very, very difficult thing to know how to do in in practice. That's only going to come from experience of doing it because depending on the personality that you're dealing with, they may be a real Type A kind of dominant personality and they'll come on your podcast and want to dominate the whole conversation. Or they will, you know, you ask one question or one probing kind of conversational piece and they spend the next 20 minutes elaborating on it. And how do you get them to come back? Well, you have to interrupt them. That's the only option that you have is you have to kind of like force your way into the conversation to break their train of thought. So if you've— and this is where the active listening comes into play too, is that you need to really listen to what they're saying, not always just looking at your question notes thinking about what your next question is, because The danger of that is, is that if you're not— and this has happened to me before, I'll be honest— I'll be looking at my, my question notes and my guest is talking and they will cover the topic of my next question or similar to it, right? Or where it's going to look funny if I actually ask the next question. And if I didn't hear him actually answer inadvertently my next question, then it's going to look weird to the audience because I'm going to come in and ask them to answer a question that he just answered. And so that's, that's the real kind of X-factor skill that, that is required to actually do a a podcast, right? And to, to have this conversation that is helpful to everyone. So, so, you know, setting a clear criteria over time will be something that, you know, that you'll need to do. And I think that's the I think that's important for you to think about, right? And also, you know, let's also talk a little bit about kind of practical tips to— well, I think we've kind of covered this aspect. I think I've covered it pretty deeply already here. I'm going to show you a different camera angle. I've got two cameras set up here. So this camera doesn't have as much color depth to it. So I kind of like to go back to this one. It's, it's a better camera. This big of the camera is a, is a 4K camcorder. And then this other one is a, is a Logitech C920 is what it is. And so you can really tell the difference between these two cameras around color depth. And the Logitech C920 just doesn't have the sensor that this one has, as you can see. So it looks like Rena Friedman Watts has got some questions that she's been posting in here. And before I move on to number 4, And that's kind of managing the, the guest dynamics. And to some degree, I've, I've maybe covered some of these, um, Reena, hi, um, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna cover them at a deeper level next year. But, uh, um, Reena Friedman Watts, uh, writes, what about personal stories that might help people think and exactly create a, you know, a light bulb moment or a driveway moment. You know, those personal stories, if they're in context to the conversation that you have, are compelling. You know, it's— I did an episode a couple— was it a couple weeks ago about storytelling and podcasting? And I do think that, you know, podcasting really is all about telling stories. Really, the only difference between various stories or podcasts is the length of the story, right? And what's the passion for the audience? Around that story and what's the passion for the guest on why they, they feel like they need to share it. So, and then Rena also asks here, it says, uh, what would you tell new podcasters around that? Well, I think I've expanded on it a little bit here, so let me go into the next one, number 4. Is managing the guest dynamics and authenticity in the conversations. Well, balancing, you know, kind of more personal like we just talked about and being, being kind of more, you know, personable, but yet with a certain amount of professionalism. So I think what you want to do is create a balance here of of that's very professional, very informational, but yet at the same time have a familiar human factor to the conversation too. And I do think it's okay to have a little bit of emotion in your podcast. You know, if something is said that just doesn't seem right or just seems a little out of kilter or is shocking, I think it's okay to show a certain amount of shock and maybe some disagreement. I think it creates a dynamic in the episode which creates a little bit of tension and may create, you know, a little bit of drama, which is not always a bad thing. I think, you know, I think all of us can, can associate with that in our current political climate right now. If you happen to have, if you happen to do a podcast about being a Democrat and you bring on a Republican conservative on the same podcast and you talk about politics, well, there may be some heated moments, and that's what will make an interesting podcast, you know. And I think, you know, that may piss off some people, but I think the other aspect of this too is avoiding softball questions, and I think we've recently seen this in the political sphere, and guests on shows that are maybe on the part of a political campaign have been accused of doing interviews where the interviewer was throwing out softball questions. They weren't really challenging the guest. To talk about an important topic. So I think being thoughtful about this and driving important questions that will elaborate into insights that a person wouldn't normally have, and that may be a reason to do a pre-conversation, because what you might want to do is just find out from that guest where those limits are., right? Because you may get in a situation where you ask a question and the guest will tell you, well, I don't want to go there. And that may not turn out good, right? I mean, how do you navigate through that? Well, I mean, you can easily just back off and say, well, I understand, you know, that that's a controversial issue. And it's okay if you don't say anything. If because you don't want to make anybody upset at you or angry at you or, or, or those kind of things. And that also may create a situation where maybe you don't want to have them on as a guest if they're not able to handle a tough question. So it depends on what your goals are. And I think, um, but sharing tough questions and not doing softball questions all the time is more authentic for your audience. And I think it drives a lot more value to your audience too. But it's not without risk. You know, you may— I've been in a couple of conversational interviews in the past as a host and as a guest where audience has objected. And I've had— there can be things that come up in conversations that expand into areas that are maybe hurtful to others or controversial or just talk about topics that make people feel uncomfortable, and I think we are in a world right now where you have to think about those things, and if you're brave, then you just blow right through it and hope that that guest that you have if you're recording, doesn't send you an email after that asking you to not publish the episode, or after you've published it, they write you and say, I need you to take that down. Those things can happen. Or in the worst-case scenario, they file a lawsuit against you. For defamation or something like that. There can be issues that come up, and this is why a lot of legal folks in the content space recommend that you get guest contracts signed by every guest that comes on your show that specifies the, the rights of the host as well as the rights of the guest, right? And who has the ability to pull the plug on that. Is it just the host or is it the guest or is the guest waiving their ability to object to the final product or they said something that they didn't mean to say, right? Is always a risk. It's, you know, people get into very spontaneous conversations and they will occasionally say things that maybe they didn't consider. As being maybe not a smart thing to say. You know, it's easy to fall into that trap, and— but you as a host need to think about that and think about how, how you're going to handle that, or, or keep that in, in mind. And where, where's your limits on that? I mean, you may have put in a lot of effort to get that episode recorded, and that guest writes you and says, sorry, you gotta either edit it or take it down. Um, and you have to decide what you're going to do. Are you going to say no, or are you going to say yes? Are you going to— um, yeah, those are your choices. And I would recommend that you probably wind up saying yes and do what they ask. I think it, it creates a better long-term relationship that you have with that guest. So because that can be another benefit of having a guest on is that you've built a rapport with that guest and, and you and the host have a good relationship going forward. Both sides were willing to take a risk and, and if it didn't work out— and sometimes people will go on shows and talk about personal things that their families object to, and that can be sometimes the cause of it. It's not always an external person that's calling them out on social media, so, and this is all linked up with having very divisive or controversial guests, right, and in our world now, that is an issue, and it could impact the ability of your podcast to be monetized. It could also have an impact on your podcast around losing audience too. If the topics that you venture into are not aligned with that audience's acceptance. And it's hard to know some of this stuff, right, before. But I think that there are sensitive areas that are out there that most people recognize as sensitive areas, and so you as a host probably need to set, you know, some boundaries on what kind of content do you feel comfortable talking about in your show and where are those lines, and if a guest starts talking about a particular area that you feel very uncomfortable with, You can also just, you know, put a little audio marker in the audio as you're doing the conversation. Say, you know, mark 1 or some comment like that that you make after this guest has said something. And, you know, mark 1 back, you know, 2 minutes or something like that. And so when you're going through the editing process, you can go back and hear where that marker was where you were concerned about it at that time. And you can't do that necessarily in a live broadcast, but most podcasts are pre-recorded. So, and then really at the end of the day here, this is all about maintaining your audience's trust in you. And it does require management. This isn't, you know, this isn't an easy thing to do. I think a lot of people think that doing interviews is the easy path. I don't necessarily agree. I think there's pitfalls. I think doing solo shows are actually, based on what I've been doing over the last, you know, few months now with this show, I think doing solo episodes are actually safer in this climate anyway. As long as I'm able to control the things that I share and, and not traipse into dangerous territory in, in solo shows. So, you know, I, I think it's, it's just really, really important now to consider all this stuff. And doing conversational interviews is increasingly becoming a challenging thing. And now we're seeing some very, very successful interview shows out there on YouTube and and in podcasting, and a lot of those shows put in a lot of effort into vetting their guests, making sure that their guests are compelling, even going to the level of— there's a show out of the UK that goes to, or at least it used to be out of the UK, I'm not sure if it still is, but that will actually put a CO2 sensor in the studio and also set the studio at a pretty low temperature, like 66 degrees or something like that. A lot of the broadcast radio stations did that in their studios too, where they would actually create a chilly environment, not so cold. It's not like you want your guest or your host to be shivering, but you don't want the room to be too warm because then it, And then a lot of people will actually stand when they do a show because then they can— their chest is opened up, they're not sitting, they're not kind of get comfortable, you know what I'm saying? And so they tend to project more, they tend to, you know, put a lot more energy into the program. And these are techniques that have been around a very long time. So let's, let's move on to the fifth one. And then I'm going to, after I get through the fifth one, then I'm going to go through a list of, of companies that are out there that are offering what they call podcast guest booking services. I'm just going to go through a list of ones that are out there that you might consider if you're looking at trying to get yourself booked as a guest on, on another podcast. I think that there's opportunities for that that can help you grow your show, and I think that might be a good strategy. I've been through a contract with one of the companies that I'm going to talk to, and I can kind of share what my experience was with being on a 1-year contract with one of these guest booking services. And what my personal experience was. So let's go into number 5, and I may have covered a little bit of this prior, but what's the host's role in framing the guest's appearances on your podcast? You know, how a strong introduction can set the narrative and, and really establishes the reason that the guest is there and their credibility for being on your show. I think a lot of shows make, make a mistake when they say, well, welcome back to the show, and I've got a terrific guest here. His name is Joe Blow, and Joe, why don't you tell your— tell my audience about your background and, and what you're, what you're doing today. You know, that kind of an approach, uh, in, in my view, is a little bit lazy from the standpoint of you're the host, you're the leader of the show, you need to run the show, you need to command the presence in your show and take responsibility for learning about your guest, number one, and introducing them in a way— and this is really important— introducing them in a way that tells your audience that the reason this person is here is because they're an expert in this, this, this, and they have credibility because they've done this, this, and they're going to bring expanded information on this and this topic, and we're going to have a conversation about that. So you're controlling it. And after you've done that, say, Joe, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. Let's jump right into it and start talking about XYZ. And, you know, let's start off with this this question or topic to talk about and want to get your, your perspectives on it. So what you've done is you've set up that guest to be very focused and targeted on delivering the value to your audience. And you as the host have kind of taken charge of that interaction at the beginning. And I also feel that the, the host needs to take charge And if the guest goes off the rails a little bit, they need to have the experience or the skills to know how to interject and pull the conversation back to the track that you understand drives the value to your audience. And I think that's really, really important, you know, and, you know, don't let the guest be the host of your show, I think is the key important takeaway in this particular— I think it's a common mistake for new podcasters to do this, and I'm not sure, you know, it may take them some time to actually comprehend what they've done. And I think it's a really important thing to consider. It takes a little more prep, but it is a reflection of your research on your guest. It's a reflection on your understanding of the guest, and it's a reflection on what you think are the reasons you have that guest on your show. And you should have clarified that during the intro of your show as well, before you even got to the guest. You should say, I'm here today to talk about this topic with this Joe Blow, talking about this important topic in the area of podcasting, right? What do they bring to, to the show? I tried to do that with a lot of the earlier episodes of Podcast Tips where I would bring on a guest that I felt had deep knowledge and experience in a particular aspect of podcasting or content creation that I wanted to learn more, really. And at the end of the day, I, I vetted that against what I thought my audience might benefit from. And I did face some criticism in the early days of this show that the show that I was doing was titled Podcast Tips but I wasn't really giving tips. I was actually giving concepts, right? And I think that's different. And so, like what I've done tonight is that I'm sharing concepts and personal experiences in a format that is formatted in tips, right? So, I'm trying to better align the name of this show with what the actual content is. And I think that's an important thing to think about too. So let's kind of move on from this topic. I did get a few more questions from Reena. Let's see if there's ones— okay, so let's see. Yeah, so, uh, Arena asked, do you go over where people exit your show? Yeah, I mean, that can be done in Apple Podcasts. I believe it could have been done in Google Podcasts as well, and I do believe that, that the Spotify platform has that ability as well. And some of the hosting platforms, um, have been building those tools like Blueberry has the ability to track when people stop listening. So let's say they click play in a web player and they listen for a certain amount of time and then they stop, right? The Blueberry podcasting platform will actually track when that stream or that download stopped, right? It's not an exact thing. I would say what Apple has and that Spotify and these bigger platforms have is more precise because it's playing through their players and they get that data because it's oftentimes better analyzed, right? So that's the answer to that one, Rena. And let's see, what do you do when it's not up to your standards? Um, yeah, what do you do when your episode's not up to your standards? Well, um, you have to decide, are you willing to put your audience first, or are you willing to put your guest first? And somewhere in there, you have to put yourself first as the host of the show. Um, you have to decide, is that interview worth publishing? Is it gonna drive enough value where it's not gonna harm your brand, your, your podcast personal brand, or is it just not gonna drive enough value to the audience to make it worth publishing? Now, granted, that can be a tough story to tell a guest, and you probably don't want to just— I know some people have probably done this where they just don't publish it and they don't tell the guests they never published it. Um, I think that, that happens as well. Uh, I think people will do the interview, they will, um, they will just choose not to publish the episode. And, and that is probably, um, a little bit of a cowardly way of doing it. Um, but there is some— I would say there's some benefits in doing that, but you do run the risk of at some point down the line you're going to get an email from your guest saying, when's that episode going to come out? And then you have to decide, well, what am I going to tell them? I chose not to publish it, um, 2 months later or something like that, or do you do it up front? Do you send them an email when you make that decision? That's kind of your, your choice, and it's based on your values and your level of honesty that you want to put out there. And you may want to consider in that situation maybe trying to book them again to come in and do another interview after you've had a little chat with them. About what, what your goals are with the interview, and maybe it's worth re-recording to get what you wanted out of it. So I think it's, it's important to, to really consider these things as you move down the path. Uh, Nadine, uh, welcome to the show. And it, it looks like, uh, you posted in here the, the Dearest Podcast is here. So I'm not sure, I'm not that familiar with that show, but, um, let's see here. And AKTGIF is here as well. Thank you for, for joining me tonight. But let's, let's move on, get some energy back in the show again and try and go through all of the, all of the, the service providers that are providing services for guest appearances in podcasts. So let's, let's go through the first one. I'm going to pull it up on the screen. So if you're watching the video, And then I'm also going to do a couple of screen shares, um, from a couple of them, um, and one that I, I had a one-year contract with that I can talk about. And then this, this, this particular one is called Podbooker, and it's a platform that connects podcast hosts with potential guests and allows users to create profiles and reach out directly, offers both free and premium plans. So that's PodBooker. I'm not sure if that's podbooker.com, but I'm sure if you did a, did a search, you can find PodBooker. And, and then the next one is Pod— was it matchmaker.fm? And it's actually considered to be the Tinder for podcasters. This service connects hosts and guests through detailed profiles, free to join with premium features available. So this is, uh, just another platform that'll allow you to find guests or to book yourself in to create opportunities to be a guest. So oftentimes these are both, um, services that you can get on as a guest or as a host, find people that you want to do deeper research on. Because what they've done in these profiles is they've shared a lot of detailed information. It'll save you a lot of time in doing research about a, about a possible guest, right? And so the next one here is podguests.com. And this is a service that matches podcast hosts with guests. So hosts can post guest requests for free while guests can subscribe to receive opportunities. So this may be a paid one, a paid-for one on the guest side, and they offer access to hosts. On that paid plan. So that, that is podcastguests with an S dot com. And the next one here is Guestio. Guestio, and that's G-U-E-S-T-I-O, is a marketplace where hosts including high-profile individuals can find and book guests. Offers both free and paid options. So that's what this one is. And then there is another one, Podchaser Connect. I believe that's now owned by Acast, I believe. And it's a platform that helps hosts discover and book guests leveraging Podchaser's Extensive podcast database offers free access with premium features. And then the next one is— it looks like maybe I've already done that one, so I'm not going to do that one. The next one is the Interview Connections folks, and let me bring their page up on the screen here because I've worked with them in the past, so let me bring that up on the stage here. Okay, let me take, take myself out here. And the Interview Connections folks is a booking agency that connects hosts and guests and vice versa. Primarily as a paid service. So that's what this was for me, as a paid service. Um, it was a couple thousand dollars a month to actually get access to shows. Like, I did probably 2 or 3 interviews a week, um, on this platform, and I did it for a year. And I think I was booked on maybe 200 different podcasts over a year, 200 plus. By the end of that campaign, uh, which I kind of see it as that way, it's a campaign of sorts. It's almost like a form of self-promotion and advertising of, of sorts. So, and you can burn out a little bit on it. You can also oversaturate yourself out there, especially if all these hosts have a certain perception about you as a guest, and they, they, um, only want to talk to you about certain topics, right? And it oftentimes becomes duplicated, right, over and over and over again. Like, I've got probably, you know, a couple hundred conversational, you know, podcasts that are out there on other people's shows that are very similar. And also, over a period of time, those conversations also, um, lose relevance too. So I think that there's kind of two sides to that equation, um, that you really have to consider. And here, let me go to their homepage. And so it's, uh, run by two women. And so you can just go to their homepage. It's at, uh, the domain name. It's the, theinterviewconnections.com. It's, uh, with an S on the end. And you can book a call with them if you're interested. They've been in business about 11 years, so they've been around a while, and they've booked over 30,000 guest spots on podcasts. So they've got a lot of experience at this. And then let's go ahead and move on from these folks. And let's see, Podchaser is in there again. And then another one is called Podmatch. And let me pull up that one. Let me see if I can get that one up on the screen here. Share this tab. Okay, here's Podmatch. Which is an AI-driven service that matches podcast hosts and guests based on profiles and interests. Offers both free and paid plans. So this is, this is a newer platform that it says it's, it's generated over 98,000 bookings among 10,335 members. And it says 159 bookings booked in the last 24 hours. So he's got a lot of data and, and stats up here and lots of, lots of podcast partners. That are connected to the platform. So let's go ahead and drop out of this and get back to the show a little bit. And so that— let me go down and then the last one here is expert— what's it called? Expert Bookers. It is a professional podcast guest booking service that connects clients with relevant podcasts to enhance their brand and reach, primarily a paid service. So that's, those are all of the, all of the companies. And so let me go into the comments again and see if I have any new ones in here that might be good questions for us to explore. Don't see any at this point. So yes, I wanted to just say also I appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you so much for, for spending time here tonight. I hope you learned some things about being a guest and being a host. And what that responsibility is between the guest, host, and the audience is an important one. And I think it's one that is really something to think about at a deeper level if you're doing an interview show. And it's going to become clear to you over time just from experience. You know, that's how I learned from it. It's not like I read anything about this in a book or really have really heard anybody. I'm sure there are podcasts out there or YouTube videos talking about this topic similar to what I've done tonight that you can maybe dig into a little bit and get some more insights into doing a conversational show. And I think that's the key takeaway. For me anyway, and, and I hope it will be for you, is that what we should all be shooting for now is conversational engagement in your episodes if you're going to do that kind of format. Now granted, if you're going to do a solo show, I think you have to think about that where it's almost like you're having a conversation with yourself. And what are the elements of that conversation that, like I'm giving tonight, that help you help the audience. And that's what I hope to do with this show, is to share my knowledge and my kind of perspective from being a podcaster for over 20 years now and doing hundreds and hundreds of conversations in podcasts. And given what we just saw with the presidential election, the importance of interviews I think was really highlighted over the last couple months with presidential candidates going on big podcasts, doing 1-hour, 2-hour, 3-hour conversations about policy and about these candidates' personalities and what they're bringing. And the best ones were the ones that were kind of unscripted, lacking in strict format, created a conversational experience, and it's really proved to be a powerful alternative to mainstream media and how mainstream media or legacy media has impacted the presidential election of years past, right? Very contrived, controlled, maybe even biased conversations with journalists from big media outlets has not always been the most authentic and real and conversational. It's always been like hard-hitting questions and driving home and talking about very, very divisive topics, where I think the conversations that we saw with these candidates on podcasts that went very long, really, really dug deep into the personalities and the views of the candidates at a much deeper level than you would get out of mainstream media. And I think what we've seen is that level of importance to voters deciding who they're gonna vote on is very important. And I'm not sure that we had that in the past. I think what we had in the past was very, you know, these debates, if you want to even call them that, or are they kind of like griping matches between people? It's not very helpful to someone because those can be very scripted and contrived and not very authentic, right? And the audience doesn't get the authenticity of it. Where in these conversations that happen in podcasts with, let's say, a Joe Rogan or a bunch of other people out there that had conversations with these candidates, those conversations were much more real and more believable. And that's where the extension of what we talked about tonight is so important, right? Is that, you know, it can have a significant impact on your audience to have a compelling interview conversation with someone that's got insights that will help them, and it will help you as a, as a host too. So I'm going to get back to doing more conversational episodes in the future with this show as well. I just wanted to play around with this solo side for, for a while. So maybe I'll bring on a guest from one of these guest booking agencies to talk about this process that they've gone through, because they can probably provide some insights that are even beyond my knowledge. So maybe I'll do that. So, well, I want to say good night and thank you so much for being here with me. It's been like an hour and 12 minutes or so with this, this, uh, live stream. And you can find this show, um, in the Apple Podcasts catalog as well. So let me pull up some of these links so You can find this show and a bunch of other shows that I do on my YouTube channel at Rob Greenlee. And then if you want to send me an email, you can send it to rob.greenlee@gmail.com or on my X account, which is a good place to post some information to me too. And I have a website, robgreenlee.com, which has links to all of my podcasts that I do. Even the video players that are available as well. And if you want to get all the episodes of this show in an audio and video all in one place, um, in a, like a blog listing, uh, just go to podcasttips.blueberry, B-L-U-B-E-R-R-Y,.net and, uh, check them out. So, well, good night. Thank you so much for being here with me. I, I appreciate all those that posted comments and, and questions, and I would love to hear from you. I mean, send me an email if you have a topic that you would like me to expand on that you're seeing in the podcast market today, and I will do my best to dig deep into that and to, to share that with you. So like I said, have a wonderful evening, and thank you so much for being with me here tonight. And I'll be back next Thursday at 7 PM Eastern, 4 PM Pacific. Thank you so much. Good night.