Podcast Guest: How To Actually Get Them To Easily Open Up And Start Amazing Discussion

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community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works.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 Tracy Hazzard and along with my partner and co host Tom Hazzard, we are going to talk today about podcast guests, how to actually get them to easily open up and start amazing discussions. Because, you know, hey, we all wanna have a great discussion because we want our listeners to be entertained and stick around and come back for more. Right?

We do. And Tracy, you know, you've done so many interviews. I know I've had some experiences that could be cautionary tales or things like that, but I guess I'd like to ask you, without outing the person, because that wouldn't be particularly friendly, what was the worst time that you had getting a podcast guest to open up and have a good discussion? You know, did you have to like, struggle to pull it out of them?

So the worst guests that I've had are the bigger celebrities. And I'm just going to say that it's because they're too over prepped is what I believe. And they're over prepped for what works in tv, what works maybe even on radio, but it doesn't work for podcasting. It doesn't work for that open and honest discussion that podcast listeners expect and that I expect as a host. And, and so when they're over prepped and full of their sound bites and they've got it memorized and they say the same thing again and again and again. And I know it's a soundbite because it sounds rehearsed, like it just does, you know, instantly. And every time you ask a question, they're trying to craft it into the way that they want to answer it for something that they're programmed to answer. And so when that happens, you know something's not right and you just have this initial. I can only do so much to try to push them off of that. And usually you have to do something shocking like you have to ask them a totally off the wall question that they were unexpected. The problem is, is that when they're celebrities, like when they're at that or they think they're a celebrity, which is more of the case than who I was interviewing. Where they, you know, they think they're a celebrity in their niche, right. And then when you do that, they get offended. Like you deviated from the promise you made to them, which you didn't make it. Their PR person probably did. Right. And you know, that's the reality of it. I didn't make any promises I was going to ask specific questions or they wouldn't be invited on my show. I don't use pre programmed questions.

Yeah, I really dislike it when people say give me the questions in advance or here's the questions I want you to ask me. Right? That's not my style. I don't think it's yours either. But you know what? Now that you mentioned that context, you.

Know who it is, I can see your little smile.

Interviews with a truly worldwide famous actor who you. I know that interview was kind of a disaster of sorts in that you're trying to get him to ask some real meaning, answer some real meaningful questions and all he was prepared to do was answer the questions that he was prepped for, which again was not your style. And even I remember after you found a way to ask a question that he sort of lit up and was interested in because of some personal interest of his, when you let you thought, oh, finally I got him to answer a question and we're having a decent meaningful conversation. When you heard other people interviewed by him in around the same time period on other shows, you were disappointed to learn it sounded like it could have been what they said on someone else's show. He said on yours it was really not that different.

So that particular question that I asked at the end was the flip. And this is my main tip for getting someone out and starting to open up. So when you find someone who's uncomfortable and over prepped in this particular case, the only thing you can do is tap into something that they're truly passionate about. So. So if you haven't done your homework and you haven't done your research on them and you don't know enough about them, this is where you're going to have a problem. And so that's why I'm always researching just enough to find their hot point, right? Like where is it that they will be as natural as possible? So if you've watched them being interviewed and someone asked about their personal mission or you know, some, maybe they have a social good project that they care about, or they have a child who has health issues in a particular area and you can get them talking about what's going on in research in that particular area. You're going to get them into a discussion that they want to have, that they're more willing to have on a friendly basis and less of a pre programmed business relationship or transactional relationship is what they believe that they're here for. So when you get into that transactional mode, the only way to break it is to go personal. And you have to know what that is because you can't just dive into someone's personal life. You have to know this is something they're willing to talk about. They're extremely passionate about it and it's kind of a mission for them. So they will take any opportunity because it's a platform thing for them. They'll take any opportunity to discuss it. And usually that's a social good project. It just, it usually is there. You, you need to be looking for that. So when I'm researching, I know I'm looking for that one thing. So it doesn't take me a ton of time to find it ahead of time. I rarely get a guest on that isn't going to be good to begin with because I did my homework ahead of time and I check them out and if they seem like a robot, then I'm not going to invite them on to begin with. Like, it just isn't that in this particular case. Sometimes the celebrities, you think, oh gosh, of course they're going to be great, but then they're not and you don't know what to do with that.

Yeah. So on your show, the binge factor especially, and that's not the show that, that case study that we're talking about or you know, anecdote, whatever you want to call it, came from. But with your show, you've got a pretty significant application process that really screens people and you're only going to actually interview people on the show that are truly a good fit. And you also listen to their show so you know a bit of it.

Right. And that's the key is even though they apply, I don't take what they say. I still listen to it before the actual offer to be on the show is made. So somebody applies through my team will go through it and cut anyone who's not who just doesn't meet the minimum requirement for the show. Right. You know, maybe you haven't had your podcast long enough. You haven't reached enough episodes for us to have a meaningful discussion. Now they have leeway to say, well, yeah, they, they only have 15 episodes, but they got 100,000 listeners in 15 episodes may like, okay, well, we want to know how that happens. So my team has a little leeway to deviate from my criteria. So that's why it's not an AI that does it. Right. Like, it's not a machine that says, oh, they didn't meet the minimum requirement. They're out. Right. It does check that. But at the end of the day, if I don't like how they sound on their show or I don't like the way that they approach that, I don't think they're going to make a good guest, I won't invite them. It's just not going to happen. So. Because I want a meaningful discussion and I want openness. It's part of what my show is about.

Yeah. So I know that that one sort of interview debacle, you had known that this particular person has an interest in aviation.

Right.

And so you, when all else failed, you went right to asking a question related to that. And I remember seeing his eyes sort of light up and he's like, oh, yeah, I could talk about that all day. But at the same time, even when he answered it, he still somehow brought it back to the talking points. The publicist wanted to talk.

Right. Which is the technique that the publicists teach them how to do. When you're prepped for media, this is something that happens now, luckily, we edit. Right. And in this particular case, I wasn't actually airing the episode. I wasn't going to air the audio. I was writing an article from the audio. So it happened to work out in my favor that I could work around this and I could keep the portion where he was natural and remove the portion where he wasn't. It took me a lot just to get enough of a natural quote in there to be useful to us. Right. And so that's the hard part. But diving into something that they're passionate about, an area that they care about tremendously, this is going to open that discussion up. And what it's going to do is it's going to ease the communication between you because it says that you know a lot about them. So another really good example of this is I interviewed Molly Bloom and Molly Blum, if, for those of you who may not know, she's kind of famous for being the poker queen, the one who created these underground poker games with celebrities and all kinds of things, and ended up, you know, in a lot of hot water for it over time. But she had a movie made about her and she had a book, but I actually read the book. And there's differences between the book and the movie that are significantly personal. It's the way I would say it. The movie's really well done. There's no question they created a great character, but there's lots of untruths in that process. Right.

Let's say artistic license.

Exactly.

License. You know, hey, that's true. But this will make a better movie. More people are going to. So they definitely take some liberties with the facts, shall we say?

Right. And so her coming out and being at this event that I was interviewing her at in person, right. We were standing next to each other before the camera went live, before the mic went on all the thing, and I. And I specifically looked at her, and she's tall. So I looked up at her and I said, you know, I really enjoyed your book, particularly where you did this, because I think that shows a real interesting sign of, you know, innovative thinking or something like that. I don't remember the exact words I said, but it was something like that. And she looked at me, she smiled, and she said, thank you for reading my book. It was a hot point that people thought that they knew her, but they hadn't read what she actually wrote. And that made a difference to her. And from that moment on, no matter what I asked her, she was actually much more straightforward and honest about how she answered it, instead of, like, I can just see it just melted the walls. She trusted me, and that makes a difference.

I want to share something with our listeners right now because, Tracy, not everybody is a reader like you. I mean, you devour books. You read books every single day you're reading, and you get through a couple crazy number of hundreds of books every year. I can't do that. I'm not that type of person. I enjoy reading, but I can't consume books with the speed that you do. So I'd like to give it to our listeners that can help them achieve what you're suggesting and without necessarily having to put in as much time as you often do, because that'll.

Totally fair point, Tom. Totally fair point.

You know, everybody doesn't have that kind of time, right? I sure don't. And I still want to have a meaningful interview discussion with my guest in a podcast. So I'm just here to share with our listeners that even if you don't have the time to read their entire book, okay. And you don't have to understand everything about the book, you probably have time to read a chapter, or you might have time to just do a little homework on them. Ready, read their website, read some of their bio, go do something, a quick Google search on something about them. Find something, a point of interest that you can ask a question about that shows them all right, you actually did do a little homework. You're not just been fed, you know, a quick highlight sheet, you know, about them. Which, by the way, in our very first podcast that's over, you know, that we did over 650 episodes, we had an assistant prepare a full sheet of background info, recommended questions and bio info and stuff like that that we could look at in the 15 minutes before an interview and know we needed to know to have a good call. And that works too, if you have that kind of support, if you have a personal assistant that could put that type of thing together. But not all of us have even a personal assistant focused on doing that. So just do a little bit of homework. I mean, 15, 20 minutes of time doesn't have to be, oh my gosh, it's going to take me hours and hours over a week to read your book. I'm not suggesting you have to read the whole thing. Just inform yourself with a tidbit, a little bit of information, because it will go a long way to getting that guest to open up and, you know, appreciate you and have a more meaningful conversation. Obviously, the more homework or research you can do, the better, no question. But you can hack it. I mean, it's almost like kind of reading the Cliff Notes. But I don't recommend you actually just read the Cliff Notes, do a little homework, do a little digging, little Google, read a little chapter, something to get that additional piece of information that's going to help you respect the guest and put them at ease. Like Tracy says, get them to open up and give you more.

One of the tips on my list of things that I was going to we're going to go over today anyway. Like, you know, that is that when you Google them, when you research them, when you do it, do it with your topic in mind. You invited them on for a reason. So if I'm going to invite Tom Hazard on my show, I'm going to say Tom Hazard, podcast expertise or podcast whatever, because that's what we're talking about, right? Like, so I know why I invited him on my show, and I want to see what's going to come up when I Google that. And that helps, you know, what he said before and what he's going to and what you might want to know that's different from that. So you'll see if it's Very repetitive, because it'll show up again and again and again. It'll be the same thing over and over again. And if it's different, then you'll know what that is. So one of the things that you also have to remember, and this particularly relates to someone who's a celebrity or well known for their subject matter, an extreme subject matter expert, right? So Pat Flynn is a perfect example of that. Pat Flynn's a great expert in the podcast industry. Lots of us call him the godfather of podcasting. Many of us wouldn't have shows if we hadn't listened to him and thought, hey, if he can do it, I can do it. Right? Like, that's kind of the way it goes.

Including you, right?

Including me. Right.

Back way in the beginning of our podcasting journey. He's one of the people you listen to, right?

And so when I interviewed him for our show, this is the thing, the thing is, is that he said it all before on a lot of other shows, because he's been on hundreds of other shows talking about podcast expertise before he got to my show. So because of that, there isn't much new you can go into. But here's the thing. Most people are lazy in terms of their interviews, and they're gonna ask them the same questions that everybody else asks. So having and being prepared for where he's going now is extremely important. So I always have prepared, and a lot of times with those types of guests, I actually start there instead of end there, which is, what's the future of podcasting, of cryptocurrency, of blockchain? What's the future of something or other now? I might already prep that. And no. So, for instance, he was changing his website and his entire business to be more whole digital platform focused, of which I already believed in. Right. I had already done that. I knew it was success story, but he was switching it to do more email supports and more. More whole digital marketing focused is really what he was doing. And he wanted to be known for creating an online platform, not creating a podcast. And. And so I could see that in the languaging that he was shifting himself away from being so tightly associated with something. And so when you see that happening and you go there, they know you're going to let them talk about the new thing. And because you're giving them that open field, that free reign to talk about that new area, the thing that they're passionate about now, and you're not going to tie them down to being the guy who talks about this or the girl who talks about that? Right? Then you're going to give them this open world that they're going to give you new things. And so that's a technique I use when someone's really established, of course I'm going to, before the end of it, go, you know, hey, I would be remiss if I didn't say, if I didn't ask you to give, you know, new podcasters advice. Right. I think if I didn't go back to this, like, tried and true stuff. But I do it towards the end, so it's kind of like an ending. Like, he's like, okay, of course I owe it to. I just got to talk about all the stuff I'm passionate about. I owe it to the community to go back and, you know, and state the thing that I know they need.

To hear or the other thing you probably could have done. And I think maybe you did, if I remember correctly. But you'll have to confirm, Tracy, is that you knew enough about his personal interests that somebody like Pat Flynn, if you know anything about those interests, you know that he is a huge Back to the Future fan. I mean, really, like geeky fan, like, loves the movie Back to the Future.

Right. And you don't have to do any research to know it because, like, stuff is behind him on his videos. Like, you can see it's not that hard.

But anything that you might say or quote, something from there, whatever, is going to get his attention. Right. Because, you know, he knows you geek out together.

Right.

But it builds a kind of a rapport with him too. Right. The fact that you are willing to geek out a little with him on that. Right. And so that's a different thing. Now, obviously, I'm not saying you absolutely have to do that versus the other thing that you suggested, Tracy. I think what you suggested, your tip is much more substantive for the listener to get value from your interview, but for you to again, get that guest to open up a little sometimes if you know a little something about what their personal interests are, well.

And sometimes what they're doing new is a deviation from the old and they need to break that mold. And by you doing it at the beginning and helping them do that, you're setting up a greater trust with them that then is going to allow them to open up and be willing to give the advice that, you know, your audience wants to hear too. That is the tried and true, true stuff too. So passion question, or they're a social good interest question. Right. Going there to that kind of personal thing that they Care about or going where they're going next. Like, those two things to start with as questions are a great way to open them up. But before I open them up and I get them into the first question, I actually do a pre prep. Now, I don't do it in a separate phone call. I do it right there before we start the recording. So now this doesn't work so well if you go straight into a live and you don't have that prep time, but I always allow that. And so if you do try to give yourself a five extra minutes before you go live, like have them join the call five minutes early, whatever that is, have that time. And the two things I prep them with is, hey, just, you know, you might be a pro at this, but I just want you to understand that podcast listeners like this. And so I will explain that podcast listeners like authenticity. They like that natural conversation flow. They don't want short answers, they want long answers and stories. Work that in whenever you can. Are you good with that? Does that make you uncomfortable? You know, just ask those questions and kind of prep them up for that. If they've done hundreds of interviews, you probably don't have to worry about it. They get it by now. Then I go to the second part of that, which is I just want to let you know a little bit about my listeners. My listeners care about this. My listeners are these type of people. And when they ask you how do you know about these listeners? You just say, these are the binge listeners that reach out week after week after week. And those are who we're recording for. Right. And so that's just kind of how we do that, is prep them on making sure they understand the podcasting is different from other media types if they've not done it a lot, and making sure that they understand your listeners and why they're there to talk to those listeners. Right. So those things are clearly important to get at from the beginning.

I like it. That's great advice, Tracy.

The other thing is that I just say is, like, know why you have someone there, why you invited them on. If you're just like phoning it in and you'll take anyone on your show at some point in the process, you have to get to what's in it for the audience, right? So you either have to be a careful curator of what are you going to talk about for that audience, or you have to do it before you invite them. You always need to get at that. And if you are very serious and strict about it, I'm here To talk about podcast success and how that's created through your own personal marketing, through your own ways of doing things, not just, you know, by the network that you work for or something like that. And they can't talk about that. Then don't invite them on. I turn away people from wondery and big networks all the time because they have no idea how their show works. They show up, read a script, and that's it. And I'm telling you that because it's the truth. I've talked to them again and again. They have no ability to talk about their show. They barely even push it out to their own social media. Sometimes some of them are that bad at it. So that's not helpful to my listeners, which are, you know, doing it themselves or, you know, yes, they have hired companies as well, but they're working really hard to build their podcast and their business at the same time. These people have a job, a job as a podcast speaker, like, that's it. You know, they're a host, but they're not really hosting anything. They're script reading. So that's not good. I'm strict about that. But that's the difference there. If you get people on who aren't right for your audience, then you need to stop that. And that's the last tip I want to leave with everybody, is that if it's going all wrong, if it's not the right type of guest, it was a mistake, Apologize and stop it before you waste your time and theirs and definitely don't air it.

That's a really good point, Tracy, is to don't air it. I mean, I can think there. I may have mentioned this on a previous episode, but I think it bears repeating. I had someone as a guest, I think it was on wtff it was, who really wanted adamantly to know what questions we would discuss before he got on the call. And we actually conducted the interview and I didn't want to do it. I don't think you actually participated in that one.

I wasn't on that one.

And yeah, I was reluctant to. It was part of the lesson that taught me never to do this again because I didn't want to do it. Reluctantly did, just because the guy was pushing and pushing and pushing, and I should have known this was a red flag and said, no, thank you, I'm going to decline. But we got on the call and of course he didn't know, Even though I had given him a few questions that I was going to ask. I changed it up on him because I thought the order of questions was not very well done. It was, how do I say, boring, and I wanted to change it up. So I started asking him some of these questions in a different order. He was completely ill prepared even for that. It threw him off his game so much that I asked the fifth question first and might not ask all the questions and mix it around. He clearly was looking through. I could hear the papers shuffle where he's looking for where his answer is to that question so he could read it. He didn't want to have a conversation. It was very prepared and mechanical. And fortunately for me, he also had some tech problems with his microphone.

Oh, see, I always thought those were like, and I'm putting air quotes here for those who aren't on video, that there was mystery tech problems. That it was just, it was on.

Our end, I just said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. No, it wasn't quite low. I'm going into a tunnel. What? What? No, no, it wasn't quite like that.

So it wasn't, it wasn't a fake tech problem, which you can do.

He had a real tech problem. And I just said, you know what? Your microphone, this is going to be really distracting for the listeners. It's not going to sound good. You really need some different equipment, a different microphone. If. And I use the if. If we're going to have this interview and do this well. And so we ended the interview on that tech reason and it sort of gave me an out where, you know, the idea was, well, we could try this again sometime. Well, guess what? I never reached out to him to push to do it. And I was pleased that he really never reached out to me to sort of push, hey, I've got a new microphone now. I'm ready when you are. I was a less experienced podcaster at the time, admittedly. I mean, this is easily six plus years ago. All right, so, you know, my bad. I didn't straight out say to him, you know what, I'm sorry, this is just not how I conduct podcast interviews. I probably, had I been a more mature podcaster would. Now I would just say, you know, I'm sorry, this is not going to be good for my listeners. I'm not into the Tom.

That's what I want to recommend. That's what I want to recommend here is I want to say, like, you know, you can take us quick time out and try to save the interview if it's important to you, if this guest is important and you can take us Time out here, instead of just cutting it off and saying, we're ending it and saying, hey, let's start this whole interview over again, or let's start this section over again. This is not going to play really well with the audience, and here's why. Let me explain to you a little bit more and do that, what you might have done at the beginning and didn't do, which is, let's talk about what podcast listeners like to listen to, what my audience in particular does. Can we do this again and try this? And we'll do a couple of questions, and if it's not working, then we're just going to say, this isn't working out for both of us here, because I want to paint you in the best light possible, you know, and podcasting is just, frankly, a different media type. So we need to make sure that we do this in the best way, and that's a great way. They'll appreciate that. If the ego isn't too big, they'll take it really well. And because they want to do a good job of making a great interview, because they want it to serve whatever purpose they're going out there and publicizing. Right? So at the end of the day, that serves everybody well for you, being straightforward and honest instead of just cringing back and going, well, I'll let it go. You know, it doesn't work. And remember, you can always edit out a question, right? I mean, this is something even if you don't edit normally, this is something you can go to Fiverr and hire someone just to fix in a single episode and make sure that you do it. Take control of your show.

You know what? I like that. Take control of your show, Tracy. It's your show at the end of the day, and if you don't take control of it, other people will take control of it if you let them. And that's not gonna be really good for you.

My favorite thing is when a conversation ends on the show and I have an automated email that goes out within an hour of ending an interview, and it says, thank you for being on my show. My team's gonna reach out and, like, you know, just a few little things, but it's short and it's personal. It does. You know, even though it's automated, it still sounds very much like me. And it came from me. Right? I wrote it. And so very often, if the guest had a good time, they reply to that directly to me. And it says, I had so much fun on our show. I haven't had that much Fun doing an interview in a while or, gosh, I really hope we can continue this discussion again or I'll see you at the next event. And we need to get coffee or a drink, like those responses says to me. Okay, they felt that amazing discussion happened. The audience is going to feel it, too. And I can walk away going, okay, this is going to be another great interview. It's going to be another great episode for my audience. And I gained a friend or I gained an industry networking partner, whatever that might be in the process. So everything went right. That's what I want for you all at the end of it. So it's not just that amazing discussion on air, but it's that. That feeling that it was worth it to everybody involved.

I think that's a great place to sort of, you know, stick the landing on this episode. Traci, was there any other thing, advice?

You know, that was it. That was it. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is not a straightforward, like, I can give you a formula, but there are, like, tactics you can use, and I hope we've given you those today. And you'll just be able to figure out which one of those tools in the toolbox to use in a given space because it's different every time. But having these, you know, four or five tools that you can reach into and grab and say, I remember that I could use this, which I know about them. And now I could create that opening question because it's not going well right now. Just pull them out and use them, you know, and try it and see what happens. You'd be shocked at how well it goes.

All right, Tracy, Wonderful. Well, hey, listeners, I hope you got some value out of that. There's, you know, other similar topics available. If you go to politize.com to the feed, your brand podcast page is actually a search bar there where you can go and search on any topic and find a past episode you know, for what you need support with on your podcast. And of course, we'll be back next week with another great episode. So signing off, this has been Tom and Tracy Hazard on feed.

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