Crafting Podcast Content That Connects

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host, Tracy Hazard, and today we're going to talk about crafting podcast content that connects. You know, it's one thing to be putting yourself out there recording and bringing your message to the world. And all of you podcasters and aspiring podcasters know that. Yes, that's the most important thing. You've got to do it. Put yourself out there. And if you've done that, congratulations, that's wonderful. But what about making sure that content is the best that it can be and is gonna really resonate? Those are the things that we wanna talk about today, right, Tracy?

Yeah, because part of grabbing attention and getting listeners to not only click through is to have some relevancy to what they're looking for and what they care about. Right. But you got to keep them coming back for more. Right. And that's what you're in the most control of. It is a little bit harder for us to control who's going to see our content. We can only do so much. The apps don't really help us in that process. So it is really our content. How we title that content and describe that content, that has a little bit to do with it on the tactics side of things. But if that content isn't going to resonate with the audience and the listeners that you want, they're not going to come back again. And that's what we have to do, is hold their interest. And so that's some of what we want to talk about today.

I agree, Tracy. Well, let's get right into it.

So my number one thing on my list. I don't know what's on yours, Tom, but my number one thing on my list is being focused. I think when you're really focused about why people are coming to your show and you keep a target on that and you keep really focused on that, sometimes I call it curation. You'll hear me say that you're curating your content, you're curating your guests, but it's really about being focused on giving the users, the listeners what they want. Right. Like you're giving them what they came to you for. So we've had a really long, long term client who has a show which I think he's not actively publishing because he has a second show, but it was called your first thousand clients. Right.

He's been publishing some new ones lately too, actually.

Oh, awesome. Because I love the topic.

Did have a little hiatus, but he's continued.

Yeah, right. Well, well, Mitch Russo, here you go. Shout out to you your first thousand clients. I love the focus of that topic. Who doesn't want a thousand clients?

A thousand clients. Right.

And how you get to your first thousand is way more valuable advice than for most people right at that moment in time when you really need more clients. Right. And scaling from 1,000 to 10,000 is a totally different conversation. And so if I know that that's what your focus is and you're bringing me guests and you're always asking questions and you're staying focused on that, then there's nothing I want to do but tune in next week and next week and next week. Right. And that's valuable. And it also makes it so that I'm really likely to refer your show to other people who might have the same problem as I do.

I agree. That's a great example of a show that has a promise that it's making and that through delivering on that promise, provides the value to the listeners that they're looking forward to. The title does hook people. As you were mentioning, titles of episodes is also very important and actually just recently experienced a show that has really bad episode titles and the customer was wondering, why am I not getting more listeners? Like, well, because you're not really telling people what it is that they're going to listen to. There were two word titles and they just were generic. They could have meant anything. But this podcast has a very controversial topic and there could be very attention grabbing titles. So anyway, titles are important, although I know it's not really what we're talking about today.

Right. And I do want to say this for those of you who are taking guests very often, I see that the only thing you ever do is put the guest name as your title. That doesn't tell you what they're going to talk about. So if I've not heard of them, you've done nothing to hook me, nothing to get me to come back for more. And if it is somebody very recognizable, I'm likely to skip it because I probably heard them on a hundred other podcasts and I don't really need to hear them again. Unless you're going to tell me that they're going to say something so different that I've never heard before. So it is actually really valuable and important for you to make sure that you're hooking a name and a topic or a name and the reason that you brought them on the show. Right. So why you're focused on that person. Right. That. Go back to that again, that focus. Why are they here? For my show. For you listeners that are listening to us right at this moment in time. Right. That's what we want, is we want to keep that why and that focus together.

I agree.

That just reminds me something, Tom, actually, what you said there is that sometimes we do deviate. Like, we used to have a show about 3D printing, right. And it was called WTFF, and it was about fused filament fabrication. So you would expect that all we would ever be talking about was fused filament fabrication. But that's only one type of 3D printing. And on occasion, we would deviate and we would talk about some other type of 3D printing, maybe some industrial type or something like that. But we would tell our fuse filament fabrication listeners why we were talking about this other subject. And that's something that you want to address right at the very beginning of something, because they'll give it a shot when you. But they'll go, if this is just totally not something I'm ever going to use or I'm ever going to do, then why am I going to listen to it? So you want to hit that right at the beginning if you're deviating from your core topic. So in the case of. In the example we just used with Matruso and your first thousand clients, if you've got someone who went from 1,000 to 10,000 clients, and that's why they're on the show is to talk about that. You need to drive it back as to maybe some choices, some things that you might do in the first thousand that you made a mistake for, which made it harder for you to scale, Right? So it's something they need to hear. Give them a reason to stick around and listen.

Okay, well, Tracy, I have an example of a show that provides a very unique kind of value, and it's a good example of only one thing you could do. I mean, there are literally dozens and dozens of things you could do with your show to really craft that content to be engaging and grab people's attention. But. And so I'd like to share this example just as one. But I don't want people to get too focused on exactly what this show is doing, but more the concept of doing something like it, because I think everybody has an opportunity to offer some sort of value. Now, if you have an or an interview type of podcast, you have guests on your show periodically and that this is related to that. Okay, there may be other tactics we could talk about for people that don't do interviews, but you have a reason why you want to have a guest on and you know, want to provide some, bring out their story, share it with your audience. And that's wonderful thing to do. And this show does that too. But it's a show that's about business leaders and in particular business investing in general, like VCs and funds and things like that. So it's very specific. But what this show does that's unique and that the listeners can look forward to every time is that the host asks some key questions and astutely, not always the exact same questions, but gets to seven insights for business growth from each guest. And each of those seven insights is cut as a less than one minute video clip for use in YouTube shorts and on social media. So the audience gets accustomed to, oh, what are the seven insights going to be from this person? What are the seven insights this week going to be? Because like I said, they're not always the same ones, right?

And you know, let's be really careful here. So unless you're really good at doing this, and I love the way that this happens because it's not the same every time, right? It's not going to be the same things. When you ask the same questions and the same things, it gets to become a gimmick. Us hosts get bored, but the audience gets bored. So getting a number of things, 3, 5, 7, like whatever that is, that is really good because people will stick through to make sure they get all of them. Because you can't not check the box, right? Like there are a lot of us, we've talked about this before, completionists who really need the whole list. Like we really don't want to miss one of the steps. So that's a really good thing that that's there. So if you come in, it's a great attractor because if you come in, catch the one minute video clip and it's on step five, you got to go one, what's 1, 2, 3, 4. I don't want to miss it. And then I'm going to stick around for six and seven. So it's going to drive you to the full content. And that is really important. But it's also more likely to make sure that that people aren't going to drop out before they hear all seven. So that also is really important to think about. So is there anything you can do that makes that happen? Now it doesn't have to be week over week you're doing the same thing. It might just be this particular episode that you're doing that within because it has a multi step process or because you want to get to their three key factors that for success that your guest happens to have. But when you have something like that, outline it at the very beginning. Say you're not going to want to miss it because we're going to go over the three key factors and you want to get all three of them. So you want to make them stay. That's how you're crafting the content. When you got an opportunity to do it, use it. I love that example, Tom. It's a really great one because people love to check off all the steps.

I would also related to this like to share a pro tip that is honestly counterintuitive and most podcast coaches would not tell you this. Okay. And I'm going to tell you from experience, you know, launching over a thousand shows and supporting even more podcasters. What I really recommend you don't do is give timestamped locations for where each of those things is in your either episode description or shownotes because you're just telling people, oh, you can skip ahead to that point to get that one insight. We don't want that as podcasters we want everyone to play through and listen through the entire episode so you can put in your description or your notes what some of the key things are that are talked about. But don't put the timestamp, please do yourself a favor.

So I actually like to go one step further. I do not like to put the steps out in my episode description either. Now it doesn't mean I'm not covering the topics, but I'm not going to cover them in any order. I've said, you know, if you want to stay tuned for the seven tips that do this or the seven insights that do, you know, cover this and cover the area. And if you want the list, the complete list, go to the blog post for this episode and put the blog post, send them to your website to get the numbered list. So that way you're at least giving them your sidebar. You're capturing them, you're hopefully going to get them on your email list. They're going to want more. So you're getting more information from them because when they're listening, they're just listening. You have no interaction with them. You don't know who your subscribers are. You've got to drive them somewhere else. So I don't want to baby them by giving them everything they need right there. Make them listen to get that right. And then the other option is, is if you do want to give them a list, you want to give them those tools, that resources, make them get it from you directly, not get it through Apple.

I agree. Drive that traffic to your website. Give people the value for free. Just make sure it goes through your own turf that you are the resource. And yeah, you get a lot of benefits from that. Now, Tracy, you mentioned something about what we call open looping, right in early in an episode, basically you're letting people know, here's the things we're going to talk about. You're going to want to listen because you're not going to believe it when the guest talks about this or we're going to hear an amazing story about this and maybe as a part of the episode, that's for later. Right? Well, what's really important, I want to make this clear. A lot of podcasters record their episodes linearly, meaning they start recording and they record it from beginning to middle to end. Almost like we're really, like we're doing here, although we're live streaming this and that's the reason we're doing it, because you can't do anything but do it from beginning, middle to end as you're live streaming it. But most podcasters that pre recorded on other shows, Tracy, that we host, we don't record it in order that it actually ends up being delivered to you, the listeners. Right. And so it's really important to do that. Record your discussion with your guest, whether it's a discussion or an interview, whatever it is, record that first. Then go back and record your beginning portion of the show where you welcome the listeners.

So the binge factor, I don't actually do it that way, Tom. So I do record the interview first.

I thought you did okay.

But I record my outro, my closing thoughts next before I go back and close the beginning. That way I know how to open loop it. I know how to get them to wait all the way to the end because I know what the end is, right? So I know what the payout is. I know what my recommendations are going to be because I've done it. So I record the interview immediately. Record the close, and then I record the introduction, and I open loop with the level of excitement of having just done the interview and knowing what the payout was and what my thoughts are. It gives me a much better introduction and gives me an opportunity to not only open loop, but gives me an energy of what they're going to get in my voice and in how I introduce them. It also gives me a little bit better opportunity to choose things. So sometimes people give you a really long bio. You can choose the things that are most relevant for that episode now that you've gone through it, because I might skip something that was important.

This is the great point. And what you're suggesting applies to really what I wanted to share with everyone anyway, which is great, is that when you don't record it in that linear order in one take, if you will, then you have the opportunity to highlight some of the important things. You can't do that at the very beginning because you really don't know yet everything's going to happen or it hasn't happened yet, and it's really kind of obvious. I. I think podcasters who interview people all the time and don't do this often hurt themselves because all they really can do at the beginning is talk about what they've read the guest's bio. Or the worst is when they ask the guest to introduce themselves and sort of read their own bio. I don't, I don't really personally like that. I think it's sort of really early podcasting and we can all do a little better than that with just a little effort and produce a much more interesting dynamic show that can get formulaic too. But if every time there is the promise of a different payout, golden nugget of information, you know, important part of a story, whatever that is, and you're talking about it up front because you didn't record that first and you had that experience, you know what it is, you do a much better job of that.

Well, so here's a couple of things. If you are going to have to do it in a linear format and you're going to have to do it live, here's a couple of things that I always do. If you've ever been to, like a live panel discussion or a live introduction. How often? Because usually whoever the emcee is, that person typically doesn't really know who's coming up. So they do a very poor job. And typically they let the guest or they let the panelists, or they let the person introduce themselves. And it is a complete failure. And so when you're going to do it in order, you do need to prepare yourself. Check out the bio ahead of time, make sure that you know it, but take the time to tell them why you've invited this person on and make that at least a part. Even if you're not going to do the whole bio introduction yourself, make sure you tell them why you invited them here. Because that transfer authority is keeping that curated focus I was talking about before as to why the audience should stick around and listen to this guest, you have to transfer the authority to that guest. So when you're doing in a linear way, it's even more important for you to give the why they are there, why you're curious about them, why you've invited them on. So even if you don't know them and you don't have the energy of having done the interview, you at least have the energy about why you're looking forward to it, right? That's there and that exists. So you do that in that part. And don't forget to tell them that you are going to do some closing thoughts. So sometimes when I've done this live before, I will mute and shut down the interview when it's over and end it and then stay on and continue. If you're recording it in that order, but you're not actually live streaming it, I very typically just pause the recording, say goodbye to the guest, kick them out of the zoom, and then continue on with the final recording thoughts. So if you want to keep it in one recording piece, pause is a great way to do that. It's super simple tactic. Keep it going. If you are going to do it, let them leave and then record a separate piece if you're going. If you don't have a problem with editing it and stitching it together from an audio perspective, but you can continue on and do it and still record it linearly in one piece, making the editing easy on yourself if you're doing it yourself.

Okay, yes, there's several different tactics for how you might actually record that depending on your particular situation, your particular need. Too many podcasters don't listen to their own shows and I'm not saying you need to listen to every episode. You don't. We're not going to listen to hear ourselves speak every episode. You recorded it, you were there the first time. Why do you need to listen to it again? I'm just talking about once in a while listening to your episode from a listener perspective and are you delivering something that is engaging? Are you delivering Something that's getting. Are you motivating them at the beginning and getting them set up and like, all right, yeah, I want to hear this, you know, and they're going to stick with it, right?

Yeah. Remember last week when I talked about the podcaster who I didn't air the episode for the binge factor because she flipped out over my coaching?

I do.

If she had actually listened to her episode, she would have understood why it had a bad listener experience, because it was very clear that a script was being read. And so if you're doing any of those things, it's even more important. Even if you only have a scripted section of your show or anything that you're doing. Like, I have some people who do, like a scripted tip of the day or something like that, or a meditation. You need to hear the experience on what it's like to hear that without looking at yourself. Close your eyes. If you're watching the video, turn the video off, whatever it is, but listen to it. Take in the audio and listen to the experience. Because sometimes it's not as good as you think it is.

And I don't want to discourage anyone from continuing to podcast because of this. I don't want you to think this is fatal. You shouldn't be podcasting if you do this. Look, we all started green. I mean, you want to have a laugh, and Tracy's not going to like that. I'm going to say this. Go back and listen to our very first couple episodes of wtff.

Oh, my God. If you can find them, you'll have.

To find the Volume one. Because we did so many episodes, we broke them up into different podcast shows, listings, if you will. And volume one has it. The very early on, the shows were so contrived and we just didn't know any better and we were inexperienced. Now, fortunately, what we were doing, who we were serving, who we were talking to, it resonated regardless. We got a large audience quickly, and then we became much better quickly as we realized and got a little feedback from actually, at first a business coach. But then listen to ourselves like, yeah, we shouldn't do that. We should do it a different way. And we pivoted and did right.

And so this is the thing. It's like sometimes we have different expectations for ourselves. What you do also need to do is go ask your target listener. Ask them what their experience is. Ask them how you could improve the show. They would be happy to tell you. Our listeners were so generous with what they were looking for and what we were really Doing was a very radio advised model because back in those days of podcasting, everyone was coming out of radio and going into podcasting. So the prevailing coaching and advice was very radio focused. And that's not what the audience wanted. They wanted the intimacy of us talking to them, of us seeing them on the other side of the camera. Right. Of us knowing that they're on the other side of the microphone. Right. That we want to have that today. That's what podcast listeners expect now, especially a decade later, right from when we first started, that they definitely expect it because they're being given it in other areas. So that's why I'm not a fan of the super contrived stuff. I'm really much more a fan of these things that provide this. I hear you, I see you and I know you're out there listeners and I'm making sure I'm delivering for you. That focus on your listener is going to come across in what you choose to do, the content you create, the guests you choose to do, and the way you may be segmented or pull it out or open loop and deliver it. But the second part of that is knowing your listeners. You also have different types of listeners. We know that very, very clearly here on feed your brand. We really know that we have new people and we have very seasoned pros who listen to our show and we have industry people who tell me that they listen to our show for their own advice.

Yeah, I remember Dave Jackson telling you. Yeah, he listens to Feed you'd bend. Cause he's interested to listen to anything about podcasting. And if you're listening, Dave, hey, good to be having you listen to our show today.

Yeah, I just re promoted his binge factor episode. So it's out there, right? That's right. Like we need to improve ourselves and that model of continuous improvement. That's why Dave Jackson is a great coach, because he's continually improving. And you have to remember that too, that you have seasoned pros who are out there doing that in whatever your category might be. And you might need to speak to both levels. And so you might say, here's what it's in it for you seasoned pros. Hey, stay to the end because I'm really going to talk to you about what I, as a seasoned pro, am going to do with this. And hey you, you newbies out there, right? Like this episode is also for you. And here's what if you build this better foundation. So you may need to put your why or why that's here or your Start, you may need to make it clear about how you can listen to it at both levels.

I think that's really important, especially when you do have a wide variety of listeners at different stages. And I think a lot of people in, you know, a lot of coaches in business that are attracting new people, but they have other people they're supporting that are further along in their journey. You've got to find a way to make the show hold interest for everyone, really, at different stages. And you'll hear me sometimes when we're talking about a really advanced topic, I'll reach out and I'll say, hey, for those of you new podcasters or aspiring podcasters, and I'll make sure I'm addressing you with an important point or when we're talking about something really elementary, one on one, and I'm really concerned that we're going to lose the advanced people and they're, oh, my gosh, they're going to hear a couple minutes of this and say, all right, I'm out. You know, now, look, not every topic is going to be right for everybody. And some of you are going to leave because, all right, you're not interested in this topic. Maybe it has to be about monetizing your podcast, and you're not interested in monetizing your podcast. I get it. But I try to be cognizant of this, and I know you do, too. Tracy, how are we providing content for people at different stages, even within the same topic and in the same episode? Because I think it's important. You want to provide value for everyone. At least we do on this show. And not every show is like that, but it's something to consider.

And even when you're interviewing, it is okay to take a timeout and a pause and you just say, hey, I love what you just said there, and I'm very sure the seasoned pros out there got that. But I want to take a step back and say, ask the question that would then help a beginner be able to get to that stage or define it. Sometimes it just needed a definition, like, what did you just say? What was that acronym? And what does that mean? And that some. We got newbies out there there who need to know what you meant by that.

You've got to do it. I agree. Definition of terms, especially industry terms, are really important. Don't assume everyone knows it. And even if you think, well, my right listener should know it, okay, maybe. But I do think that it's wise to define it. Plus, from an SEO perspective, too, if you're going to have that term in a blog post eventually. Or, you know, there are other good reasons why you might want to define it.

I have it happen all the time that someone will come back and say, I didn't know that term. Thank you for defining it. And I've been podcasting for five years, or, you know, in our. In our 3D print world. I've been 3D printing for months and I still didn't know that term. Right. Like, so it happens in your own industry sometimes it's really good to define those things, even for ourselves.

Couldn't agree more. What else you got, Tracy?

So content, we gotta keep stuff moving along like that is one of the most important things that I think that we forget about is like, we don't necessarily need to hear everybody's whole story. We don't need to start at the beginning. Very often we get caught up in how important the story is for everything, but it drags out and loses interest. And so I have, and I am happy to link it again in the blog post for this episode, but I have my interview questions and the order of those questions, of what I do for them. The top interview questions, I think that's what the blog is called or something like that.

Oh, oh, you mean.

Oh, I think it's my masterclass.

One of our longest and most actually fundamental episodes that any new podcaster working with us, I always give them to it. I think it's called structuring the best interview questions or something like that.

Yeah. And it has like the five to seven questions. And there's seven only because if your show's long enough and you might do. But for the most part it's five. Right. And it's the interview questions, but it's the order of those questions that help do the drawing in through the story. Right. Because if you let people start from the beginning, they start from the beginning.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I really want to put a big emphasis on this. Okay. Those of you interviewing people, especially newbies, look, there will be a time when you do want to start a story from the beginning, but please don't start everyone from the beginning. It becomes one of those things that becomes common and boring and oh my gosh, I gotta hear how this person now talks about themselves and why they're so great and how they, you know, started whatever, whatever it might be. Sometimes it makes more sense to start with something that's gonna be attention grabbing right off the bat and then go back to, wow, that's amazing. How'd you get there from there? Or you know. I don't know. You know better than me, Tracy, but you're. You're more of a. The interviewer.

There are two reasons, and I think I talk about. It's been a long time since I watched that because that one holds up. It's so timeless and like, it was a masterclass that we did on that. So it's a bit longer of an episode for everyone out there. But there are two ways to go about it. So sometimes we're. Our stories are. What we're trying to do is talk about success, right. And sometimes we're talking about mistakes. The two different models for how you might be going about your thing. You want to learn from those mistakes, and those are the lessons that you're bringing. Or there's a success. And I want to take the same path, right. I want to learn what that path is so I can take it. That that's the point of the story model or the story arc that you're going to take along these shows. And many of your shows are structured like this. And this is specifically for interviews, not for topics. Keep that in mind here. Right. But you can also ask yourself those same questions as you're structuring your topics as well. But in the interview process, we very often go, start at the beginning and tell us your journey. So we get to the end, right? And that is a hero's journey. And you can do it when you're giving a speech, but it doesn't always come across well in an interview. And if you let them go, it takes too long. Very often they start at the wrong spot for where you really want to go from. And so it takes a lot longer to get there. And you can lose your audience along the way. So what I like to do is start from the mistake or the success. So I know, because I invited them on the show, I know what the success point that I'm trying to highlight is, right? So I was like, you know, your company just achieved $1 trillion. Like, how in the world did you do this is what we want to get to. But what we need to go is like, tell us a little bit about how that success feels. So we start there. And then I say, okay, now let's talk about where in the point did you know you could achieve a trillion dollar company? Where did you know that was going to occur? And then we step back one more time and we go back to the question that says, when you started your company, I bet trillion dollars wasn't even on your radar. What did you start with and where did you start from that made it possible for you to even make a trillion dollars one day? Right. Do you see how I arced them through it and I actually did it in reverse?

Yeah. I don't know how many interviewees you have out there that have a trillion dollar company, maybe more of a billion. But anyway, that's.

I just wanted to throw that in there because we never talk about it. Right. But anyway, yeah, you know, it's like, you know, million dollars, whatever. You made your first million, whatever it is, right?

No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm just teasing you. But it's very good point, though, about the questions.

And because a trillion is so big, right? Like, because that journey may have taken so long, like, that's the point for so many of us, like, the journey is not a six month journey. Right. Your listeners may need the next six months for themselves, but the journey might have been a six year journey, a 16 year journey. Right. Like, to get to that point. And so you can't let them start at the beginning. How often are you like, well, when you were a child, like, you know, what made you think you were going to be a podcaster? I never thought I was going to be a podcaster. I had somebody ask me that before. I was like, I did think I was going to be a journalist. Like, you know, like, so I had to like, really come up with the story, right? Like, I had to come up with how to start that story for them. And it had to start at like, you know, 10 years old in my closet pretending to be a journalist. And, you know, with the press badge on my, on my hat. I had to go back to some really early days just to achieve what they wanted from me. But that's not necessarily where the best story arc, where the best exciting and most compelling and concise episode. Because we want to be respectful of everybody's time. So if you can lead them through that process, you're going to be better off. But I like to start. It's just my model of it. There are other people who don't. But I learned this from our good friend Dustin Matthews, who I think is a brilliant marketer, and he is the one who suggested that you start from that feeling of success. What did that feel like? What was that thing? So that they know that's what your story is really going to be about. And that also, the reason for also doing it is because sometimes we have to keep our guests very, very focused on the story. We Want them to tell instead of leaving it open ended and then they.

Tell the wrong story or so that's a really good point, Tracy, that I wanted to make sure we work into this episode. And you know, if you've been podcasting for any length of time and you do have guests on your show at all, whether you accept guest solicitations or not, like you would ever take one or not, you're receiving tons of guest solicitations every day, every week. I mean, I know we are, Tracy. I, I keep all these really generic PR agencies, blind emails. They really don't know me. They haven't really researched my show and everything from that all the way, the ones that may be more targeted. But please beware of the person who is hawking a book that is getting on as many podcasts as possible and just wants to say the same thing on every podcast. Just doesn't take a whole lot of research to find out whether shows they've been on recently talking about that book and are they saying the same thing over and over and you want to make a good decision, do you want to have them on your show and risk that they're going to say the same thing or Tracy, like you're saying, if you're really intentional about it, you can plan to not allow them to tell that same repetitive story over and over and get something different out of them, which is, I think, more interesting as a podcaster and more challenging to try to do. But then also you provide some unique value from a otherwise guest who's on the circuit.

And that's the one thing that I really want to hammer home here for you. Right? We're talking about crafting podcast content. That means you're the artist, you're the one with the paintbrush, you're the one in control. You get to use the scissors and cut out what you don't want in the collage. My mom's a collage artist, right? You, you get to use the scissors and cut it out. That's a decision that is made. You get to make the choice about what goes in it and what doesn't go in it. And even if you're not editing, you're still making that choice by question. You choose next by what topic, what story you tell next. If you're doing a topic based show, right, you are crafting that. You are in charge of that and it is really important. If you're going to build a beautiful masterpiece, you're going to build something that people takes in. The whole thing listens to it all the way through and tells their friends they can't miss that that's what we ultimately want. This is how we really get more listeners and that we have to take that role seriously.

Wow. That's one of the clips and sound bites right there. The previous minute or two that needs to be put out on social for this episode because that was incredibly well said. There are people in podcasting that have good business reasons why they want a podcast. They want to share their nuggets of wisdom. They're going to put it out there. There may be SEO reasons. They may be just interviewing guests who are their potential customers or clients, and they don't care how many people listen. There may be a lot of good reasons why to do this. Today, we're really talking about if you want to make your podcast content resonate, be the best that it can be and really be one of those things people want to share and come back to listen to every week or however often you're podcasting. What Tracy just said there was gold. And I hope what we're trying to get through is coming across here.

So this is the one last thing that I want to say to our audience, because we have a lot of you who come out of the speaking world and you come as a top speaker, you like, on all the stages. You've been giving these fantastic inspirational speeches and people love you, but you give the same speech every time you're out there. This show cannot be that. This show is improv. This show, when it's good that you're going to create, needs to also not allow your guests to do that sound bitey. Give their talk. This is not their speech. This is to get people to want to go hear that speech or that TED Talk or whatever it is. It is not the TED Talk. Right. So you have to be really careful. Like, we're in the political, like, craziness right now because it's a couple of weeks as we're recording this, it's a couple of weeks before the election and it's getting to the point where the news is replaying the same sound bite from speech after speech after speech. Right? So when our political leaders are now going on podcasts, they're getting brand new cool sound bites because those podcasters are skilled at getting a good story, a good intimate story, and not letting them do that. Broadcasters are not. So anyone who's interviewing for the news, it's like the same thing that you just heard on a stage somewhere. It's not happening with the podcasters and I think that that's brilliant, and I think we have to remember that that's the skill we want to hone, because that is going to keep our listeners coming back. It's going to keep our show growing. It's going to get us to better call daddy level. Right? And that's what we want because we're skilled at drawing that out and making the audience want to hear it, combining the two things, telling them why they should be there, keeping it focused on what they want to hear, and then delivering on that with a beautiful topic or a fabulous guest, and keeping that all honed in, focused, crafted, so that it delivers what we said it was going to deliver from the promise of our show and the promise of the episode.

Now, for you new or aspiring podcasters out there, please don't get overwhelmed by this. I'm sure you're like, oh, my gosh, I was just going to get on the mic and start recording, and now I have to think about all this stuff. Right. So look what Tracy was just sharing. That's what you aspire to do and the journey you're going on that you will get there. Please do not wait until it's perfect to record it and to put it out there, because you'll stay in this area of permanent potential for. I've seen people do it for years. I really do recommend better to get done and get it out there than have it be perfect. You'll improve as you go.

Yeah. So, I mean, look, I've done over, I think probably at this point, 3, 500 interviews. I mean, I think my bio says 3,000. Right. But I'm way beyond that at this point.

And I'm like maybe over a thousand somewhere, so not near as much.

Right. And so what you're going to learn is what didn't work, and then you won't do it again. And that's the only way, honestly, to have a bad interview is a good thing because I learned so much more from the bad interviews than I did from coasting along on the good ones.

Make it a successful failure, definitely.

Right? So hopefully you get a couple of those in the way and it'll teach you. But that is the thing. If you want to continuously improve, start somewhere, listen to your show and ask your key listeners. Ask a seasoned pro and a beginner. Ask them very specifically, what do you wish you would do more of and what do you wish you would do less of? Ask them both, and you will get very surprising, very different answers than you would you determine to do on your checklist of things you want to improve, you'll be very surprised at what they will tell you to improve.

All right, sounds good.

You can always get the blog post for this episode@podcasters united.org and the link to that interview question masterclass, the best interview questions that is going to be there as well. So make sure you go to podcastersunited.org and click on this episode so that you can find those links.

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