Leveraging Your Guest’s Viewpoint To Improve Your Podcast Interview Experience

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community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works.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 feed 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, your host and today I want to talk about making the most of your podcast interviews. And sometimes in order to really get the most out of them, to really understand.

Some best practices, some recommendations, some tips and sort of do's and don'ts, or at least things to consider. You know, there's no absolutes here. It can be helpful to understand about, you know, an experience others have had, or to have an experience yourself, being a guest on someone else's show, or maybe to have a guest you've had on your show give you some feedback and talk to you about their experience. I had an experience just recently, in fact, literally just days ago from recording this, where I discovered that an organization that I'm actually a member of had a podcast, and they've had a podcast for a couple of years. I did not realize that they did. So I'm going to explain a little bit about this organization. So when I was a young boy, I mean 10, 11 years old, I went to summer camp for eight weeks. Like every summer you hear about camps where people go away for a week or A2, or you have a local day camp. Now this is like a camp you go to all summer. And it was in New Hampshire on a lake called Newfound Lake. My family has quite a history at this camp. My grandfather attended it, his brother attended it, and then three of my uncles attended it. I attended, and then a cousin of mine who's a little younger than me also attended it. So this campus existed in New Hampshire since 1903, and it's actually called Mowgli School of the Open. And that Mowgli, you probably heard of that name because of the Jungle Book. And it is a camp that's themed after the Jungle Book, but not the movies. The movies came later. The person who founded the camp was fond of the book by Rudyard Kipling, the Jungle Book, and reached out to the author back in England in 1903, or actually prior to 1903, reached out and said, would he mind if she themed this summer camp for boys after the characters in the Jungle Book. And he said, no, by all means, go ahead. Long before the movies ever existed, this camp for boys existed. So I went to it in the early and mid-80s as a preteen and then young teenager. And it was a very special place. It's a great experience. And a lot of who I have become today as a man was. Were a lot of those values and certain life skills were formed in those years at that camp. So I have been out of touch with the camp for a long time. Biggest reason, I don't have any boys. I am a parent of three girls. I haven't had any boys to go from the next generation after me. So anyway, I've sort of been out of touch with them. And recently one of my fellow campers when I was there reached out to me on Facebook and we reconnected and he told me, oh, they have this podcast and you should get reconnected with this other person, whose name is Wayne, because he's the host of the podcast and you're in the podcast business. You guys would probably have a lot to talk about. So about a week ago, a little more, I reached out and reconnected. And he said, oh, Tom, I'd love to have you on the podcast. Would you be willing to do an interview? And said, well, of course, sure I would. Then. So we set up on this past Sunday. I was going to be a guest on the show. So I went and did some homework on the show. It's been around for about two years. And I want to explain a little bit about this podcast. When you think about it, this summer camp today in modern times, and actually they didn't even have camp in 2020 because of the coronavirus. First time since World War II. The camp skipped a season, and it skipped two seasons during the World War II years.

This camp has a capacity of campers of about 100 boys. Every summer, 100 boys go and spend the entire summer there. So you can think over the 120ish years of history of the camp, maximum of 100 boys attending a season. And of course, each year a lot of those boys return. This may be 30 ish new campers every year. There's not a whole lot of people who've attended this camp, you know, as compared to the population of the United States. So my point in sharing that with you is this podcast has really a pretty limited audience of they're trying to speak to alumni of the camp, current campers, and maybe some prospective campers or their families to learn more about the camp, and mostly the host of the show, interviews alumni and sharing stories of the years when they were at the camp and their experiences and what it taught them. And you can imagine this is not a show that's going to set the world on fire in terms of listenership. You know, it's not going to have a broad appeal. It's a very limited audience, for sure. It's serving its private, I would say very private, very limited community. So I just want to acknowledge that, because some of the things that I'm going to talk about maybe would be more applicable to a podcast that's trying to have a much more broad appeal. But still, this experience I had recently sort of brought a few things into my consciousness and reminded me that, you know, hey, we as podcast hosts, should be paying attention to certain things. And so let me explain. The guy's name is Wayne. He set up a Zoom call. I connected with him on Sunday, and it was, you know, a casual day, and I didn't know how long we're going to spend on the phone. I've looked at some past episodes, and they've ranged from 40 minutes to an hour, and even some that were part one and part two that are over an hour each part. So I didn't really know what to expect, and he didn't really prepare me for anything. I just got a calendar invite with a Zoom link and I showed up. I really kind of expected when we connected to have some chitchat and talk a little bit, set some expectations before starting to record, but I quickly found that's not how this was going to go. I connected with him and it was recording and it's like, boom, you're on. No prep, no nothing, no chit chat. I didn't realize that for about a half a minute to a minute. I'm like, oh, my gosh, he's already recording the episode. I thought, you know, he would talk to me a little bit and then start recording. Now, this gentleman, Wayne, who's the host, is older. He's like my father's age. He's in his 70s. And I think he certainly.

Didn'T seem to be technophobic in that he's averse to using modern tech and recording on Zoom, which is what he was doing. He clearly didn't know. It seemed to me by the end of the interview, he didn't know some things about Zoom. I certainly would have been happy to help him learn a little bit about Zoom, but clearly he didn't realize that you could have a Zoom call and start the recording at some point and then also stop it and still be able to talk to who you've been with on the call. After that, he did this where we're on the call. You get there, hey, Tom, how you doing? Welcome to the show. Boom. And he's into questions. We're having this conversation. So at the end of it, I was kind of shocked after the better part of an hour that when we sort of said goodbye and ended. It was a little awkward at the end because I expected he was going to turn off the recording and we were going to keep talking, and that didn't happen. He just ended the call and it was, boom. I was gone. It's like, you're out. That was a little odd. So this is where I start to realize maybe he needs a little bit of. Or could use a little tech training or some suggestions. But even beyond that, I realized, wow, there were a lot of missed opportunities. And for a guy that's been doing a podcast for a couple of years, it's got definitely more than 50, 60 episodes. I was really kind of surprised at how rough this experience was. I'm going to have another call with him. I've already arranged that because I sort of wrote him afterwards, said, I'm sorry. That was sort of a little awkward ending. I sort of thought you'd stop recording and we'd keep talking. And I've offered to talk with him another time, which he's accepted, and we're going to have that conversation still, even though we're going to do that. And I want to provide him value because, honestly, I really. I care about the organization. I mean, it's a nonprofit camp. It's not for profit. And he's doing this just, you know, he's not getting paid to do it. He doesn't have a lot of expenses with it, but he's just trying to support the community of alumni and keep everybody connected. So there's lots of good reasons to be involved in this, no matter how rough it is for me. But it really illuminated some things for me that I realized in. You know, obviously, I've done hundreds and hundreds of podcast interviews myself. Tracy's done well over 1500 or 2000. She's done a lot more than me. And there are some things that just we're so used to doing come so naturally, and maybe today we sort of take for granted or, you know, there are things that we do that are really important, but we don't really think about them all the time, and we don't realize how Many things we've learned and done over the years to make the podcasting experience.

A really valuable one. Not just for me, the host, but for you, the guest, or vice versa. So I thought I would share some from these observations, I want to share some recommendations and some tips. Some of this may seem obvious to some of you, but I think those of you that are relatively new, it's important to make sure you're considering these things. And hopefully any people working with us at Poditize know this. Now, this podcast is available to everybody out there as a podcast, and so you may be new to podcasting. So I just want to say make sure you understand your technology that you're using to record and how it works. And you don't need to do everything in one take and you don't have to. As soon as the call starts, start recording. And then once you stop recording, it doesn't mean the call has to end. I would always recommend when you connect with your guest, even if you don't want to forget to push that record button, because believe me, that happens to everybody at least once in their podcasting experience. So maybe you use your recording tool like a zoom. You set it to record automatically. That's great. You know, do that. But that doesn't mean you have to use the first five, 10 minutes, whatever it is, of that recording when you're just connecting with your guest, being polite, making sure they're comfortable and they're ready to go, also testing their audio and their equipment and making sure they sound good. There was none of that that occurred in this recording on Sunday as well. Now, fortunately, I'm a podcaster. I have, you know, my good quality microphone here, and he probably suspected my audio would sound good. But that's not always the case with the guest. So taking a little time in the very beginning, assessing the situation, making sure your guest is their audio, is the best it can be. I'm not saying it has to be perfect or if it's not what you want it to be, you shouldn't still record the episode. Those are judgment calls that you, as a podcast host will make. Most of the time, I would say the content is more important than the quality of the recording. Unless the quality of the recording is. Is just so annoying, people are not going to sit through it. Now, that's pretty rare. That's happened to me just a few times in all the interviews I've had where I was not going to air an episode because of that. But still, you want to assess that situation. You want to make sure that they're going to sound good and then you want to make sure they have proper expectations for what this experience is going to be. Now, in this case, I learned very abruptly that this was going to be a one take, it's all in there raw. It is what it is type of podcast. And I went with it. Right. But a lot of people would be sort of caught off guard like that. And I would always recommend speaking with your guests, setting those expectations. Hey, you know what? I'm just going to record this all in one take. I'm going to introduce you right up front and then we'll jump into our questions and then, you know, we'll end it when the conversation feels like it's over and that's that. At least give them if that's what, what it's going to be some kind of expectation. When I interview somebody, I do it in a few different parts. I, you know, I have my questions ready and I'm going to do the interview and then I'm going to say goodbye to the guest. And after that I'm going to record a little intro now that I have experience with that guest and I know what took place in the interview, and then I'll record my final thoughts. Three different sections. And you know, they get put in the right order by our editors and put out as a great show. But I let my guests know that's going to happen, say so just so you know, we're going to start this interview and I'm just going to jump in and ask you my first question. And I'm not going to introduce you to the audience. I just want you to know that's not what the entire show is going to be. You'll be introduced, but that's a separate recording and the audience will have heard it before they get to this interview. So I don't want you to feel like you need to explain who you are or that the audience isn't going to know. This is going to feel abrupt, but the entire show won't be that way. I let them know what's going going to happen. I also let them know, hey, if you at any point say something that you wish you had said it better, you'd like to stop, go back a little bit, start again and improve that. You can do that and we can edit that other part out. That's how I do my show. Clearly, this other show was a, hey, we're just having a conversation. Good, bad or indifferent, it's going to be there. We're going to do it, because I really don't think he edits very much. And that's the way it was. I would have liked to have known that before we started. I didn't really know, didn't have that expectation. But whatever the experience is going to be, I highly recommend you share that with the guest right up front.

The other thing that I thought was a missed opportunity here was while I knew this person, I mean, literally 35 or 38 years ago, I met this man and I knew him, he was in his 30s probably, and I was, you know, a preteen or teen, so I remembered him. But I haven't spoken to this guy in like that many years. It's been a long, long time. And so I thought it would have been great to just have a little chit chat, build a little rapport before having the podcast interview. I would always recommend that for any of you with your guests and, you know, especially if you don't know them very well. I like to block out an hour of time for a podcast interview, even if it's not going to be, at minimum an hour of time. I don't necessarily expect that interview to take an hour, but I'm going to take a little time, do that tech check at the beginning, build a little rapport, set up expectations, then start recording. And then sometime before the end of the hour, I'll say goodbye to the guests and then I'll record my intro and my final thoughts, those two other sections. But I think it's really important to establish rapport with the guests, especially for those of you that are podcasting, to try to lead, generate from your guests. Now, I know not all shows do this, but there are quite a number of podcast shows that the host is inviting guests on their show that are their ideal client. We call it the guest VIP strategy, where you're treating them like a vip, you're giving them a lot of exposure, you're maybe stroking their ego a bit, helping tell their story, but you're building rapport with them because you'd like to contact them at some point after the episode airs and say, you know, I really been thinking more about you and your business and I see some opportunities for you and I wonder if you'd like to discuss that they're probably going to feel like just the law of reciprocity, that you were kind to them, interviewed them, gave them exposure on your show, that they're at least going to take that call or have that meeting. So building that rapport with them and making it a really comfortable Experience is, I think, really important. And whether you're targeting your guests to be your clients or not, I certainly think it shows them a little respect that you care. So that's something that I would really do. And then, you know, obviously, when you end an interview and this didn't happen, you know, I told you, this ended very abruptly. I sort of was waiting for him to stop the recording and we were going to talk, set expectations, maybe he's going to tell me, well, on the schedule, this one's going to air. We think at the end of March, I had nothing. So it was like, boom, I was gone. I was like, whoa. Really? I mean, it was really kind of off putting. And I felt kind of bad because I honestly felt like I didn't say a proper goodbye on the air to him. And that was kind of awkward for me. We have our sort of game face on when we're interviewing and we're thanking somebody, hey, great to be on the show, all that, but it's not the kind of proper sort of farewell that I would have liked to have had with that individual. So it was highly awkward. And I walk away from it with this sort of. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not the end of the world here, right? But I had this sort of ill feeling and it was disconcerting. I didn't feel right about the whole thing. To the point where a little while afterward, I typed him an email saying, hey, I'm sorry about how that ended, kind of awkwardly. I was apologizing to him even though it was his show and he set the whole thing up. I felt awkward. I think that's another important lesson learned, that we want our guests to walk away from our interview experience, recording it with a really good feeling. We want them to be, wow, that was fun. Or that was, you know, really valuable, or it was entertaining, it was funny, whatever it is, we want that guest to walk away feeling like that was worth my time. And wow, if he asks me or she asks me back again, oh, I'm definitely going to do it. I have more story to tell, whatever it might be. So that experience was just super odd. And you could tell, I mean, it bothers you so much. I'm recording a whole podcast about it. Right. I'm hoping those of you listening to this that are working with us, I hope we're preparing you better than that for this, and I think we are. But also for those of you that are just listening to the podcast and you're not working with us, you want to be intentional about your process. And I would even recommend sending correspondence, an email, something to your guest ahead of time. This is definitely a best practice, sending an email ahead of time with setting some expectations, letting them know how you conduct your podcast interviews. I actually have some boilerplate email copy that I send to my guests that prepares them for best practices, you know, to be in the best environment they can for audio recording. If they have a microphone, please use it. Even if it ends up being, you know, an earbuds with a little microphone on it. That can a lot of times be better than just the microphone on your computer. You know, it's also. I'm going to share another detail here. Just today I had someone referred to me by an existing customer and whenever that happens, of course I reach out to them and I offer to have a call to a meeting with them to learn more about their podcasting goals. But when it's an existing podcaster, I go listen to their show. And I listened to a couple episodes because I wanted to hear. When I heard on one episode, I heard the audio quality of the host was not very good. Clearly she was using just the built in microphone for her laptop. Nothing better. Not a really nice quality microphone, you know, like we always are recommending to use. And I thought, well, maybe that's a fluke. Maybe she was on the road. It was not ideal situation, but she had a captive audience. She had this person she wanted to interview and should interview right then that wasn't the case I found because I listened to three different episodes and they all had the same audio call. And I'm like, wow, this person's interviewing very high level guests, like even Hollywood actors and television personalities. I'm not going to out who this person is because actually there's still a prospect and hopefully we can support them. But when you have high profile guests, you want your audio quality to be the best it can be. And certainly to not be having people question, how valuable is this podcast? Do I really want to be on this show? Because I think that's what can happen when people hear that you're sort of in this echo chamber and there's a lot of noise in the recording. It either means you're not bothering to do any editing or production, or you're not, you know, paying attention to recording good quality. It also probably says you probably don't listen to your own episodes because I kind of have a hard time believing if a podcast host listened to their own episodes and heard an audio quality like that, that they would be willing to accept it over a period of, you know, 50 episodes, one or two or three in the very beginning, I would always say record your content and get it out there, even if you don't have the best equipment, and then upgrade it as you can and improve it. Sure, that kind of thing happens all the time, but after so many episodes, to have that kind of quality audio really surprised me. So just another observation unrelated to my podcast guest experience, but experience listening to someone else's show today. Anyway, back to the guest experience. Preparing your guests, I think very important. Set expectations. And then at the end of that experience, you really stick the landing, so to speak. If you know, to use a gymnastics term, you want to stick the landing, you don't want to stumble, you don't want to crash and burn. You want to have that person walking away feeling really good. So stop the recording. Set expectations. Let them know what they can expect. When you think this is going to publish, are you going to send them notification when it publishes? Let them know so they can be aware and they can share it with their followers. You know, I think it's important to sort of close the loop, stick the landing, and properly thank them. That's not on the air. Because on the air, I mean, even though we're all trying to be authentic in our podcasts, we're not always going to sort of put it all out there, Right. And we're going to maybe say some things personally off the record that we wouldn't really say when we have that game face on for our audience. Right. So.

That'S really what I wanted to show you today, this sort of awkward guest experience.

And you know what? I'm going to add something else here. So now I'm going to have to edit something out because I realized there's something else I was going to say when it comes to your experience, too. One of the things that if you have a large enough audience, you have a large enough following on social, you may want to go live with an episode or with an interview. You can control that experience, which I actually am doing, recording this. I've started my zoom, and I have an audience of listeners who are actually, you know, customers of Potitize who get early access to this. And we do this every week, and they're on there, and I can talk with them about what I'm going to record in an episode, and then I go live on Facebook and record the live part and then end that live part. But I'm still on the call with them afterwards, controlling your experience with your listeners, your community. You can do a lot of good things, you know, when you're on a live stream call, and especially if, you know a lot of us and pretty much everybody is working from home these days and I've got a dog, sometimes something will spook it and it will, you know, alarm, bark or do something undesirable. That's something I wouldn't air. I would definitely, you know, let my guests know, hey, we're going to edit that out and let's take a step back and start again. It's important to consider, you know, that experience even within a call, which is kind of within an interview. And that's kind of hard to do if you're doing that whole one take thing that Wayne did with me on Sunday. And then another thing that I actually wanted to mention about these kind of interviews, if you are going to batch record, which I often do, record several interviews in a day. Make sure you don't schedule them back to back to back, like one after the other. Give yourself a good half an hour break in between because some of them are going to go long. Or you may need to save those recordings and get them organized from the previous one and then get prepared for starting the next one. Leave yourself some time to organize and that will help your overall experience and producing a good result, not overwhelm yourself. So, yeah, okay. I think that sort of rounds out everything that I was going to say about this. So I'd be interested to learn if any of you have had any sort of odd experiences being interviewed on other podcasts. So if you've had any of those, hey, let us know. Reach out to us anywhere. At FeedYourBrand we have a feed your brand Facebook page. Feed your brand podcast. Our website is poditized.com and you can always send an email to hellodotize.com if you have anything to share. Be interested to hear it. Perhaps if there's some good ones, we can, you know, work some of those experiences or stories in a future episode. Okay, thanks so much everybody. Till next time, this has been Tom on feed. You'd brand.

Heard something valuable today but didn't get a chance to write it down. No worries, we've got you covered. We partnered up with podcasters united.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, free masterclasses, the largest podcast tip library assembled, and free promotion opportunities while you're there. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube and on social at United wepod so you can get feed your brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting.