Podcast Interview Tips: Crafting A Professional Interview Structure That Impresses Your Guest

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community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works.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.

Welcome back to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host, Tracy Hazard. Today we're going to have a little different take on a topic that's always been very popular amongst our listeners and our customers, and that is regarding podcast interview tips. So, Tracy, why don't you share what our little bit different take on this is today, how we're expanding this to help everyone on this popular subject.

So we've already talked about structuring the best podcast interview questions, which really helps you with the interviewing thing and that. I think that's our most popular YouTube video ever and our most popular coaching class, if you want to think of it like that. Like, it's the one that gets reviewed again and again and again. And it's six years old now, so like, and it still holds up. So that one is really important. And that's about interview tips in terms of how to ask questions. And then we have the best interview opening questions, right? The ones that sort of sets the tone for everything. And we did that one more recently in the last couple of years. And that one is also is one of our top 10 of all the coaching topics we've done. So people come back to these again and again. But now we want to talk a little bit about how to structure all of that, right? How do you record this in a way that makes your guests comfortable, that makes it easy to do all of that. So we're going to talk about the recording structure and the podcast interview structure itself as another layer of tips for that, because those are questions we get all the time as well.

Sounds good. Well, I hope everyone gets as good value out of this. And it's as popular as some of the other ones because it is, you know, the most sought after topic among star content. So let's see, where to begin? So we're talking about the structure. So, Tracy, I imagine we're going to suggest you don't just record your entire episode with your guest live and from linearly from start to finish.

Well, we do. If you're going to do a live stream, we do it here Right. You do it that same way. So you can do it with your guest there if you need to do it in a structural way. But it's actually much more conducive to the editing process. Right. To being able to do it into segments later is the way that we found is the best recording pace for an interview.

I agree. In fact, I would venture so far as to say, unless you are live streaming your content, we are with this podcast. Although most of the time we don't have a guest, it's just you and me. So that's a little different. But unless you're going to livestream your episode recording, I actually recommend you never record it in that way from start to finish. Linearly. There are some advantages to a different approach, right?

Absolutely. So let's talk about the structure that we think goes really well. Now, keep in mind, this isn't like us deciding this is how it should be for podcasting. It is also how it is done in the major broadcast interview world. So if you look at professional interviewers, what they do is they sit down with someone, they shake their hand, they have a nice introduction to them, or they re greet them again, welcome, I'm so glad to see you again. And they do all of that. That doesn't usually make it into the final edit of a 60 Minutes segment or something like that. It just doesn't. TV cuts and edits all of the interviews anyway. So thinking about that. But you do have to have this sort of like comfort building process. And we want to do that, but do we necessarily want to do it with our audience watching? And that's a question that most of us have. So many of us have the structure where we start up a zoom, we invite our guest in, we chit chat for a little bit, and then we turn the recording on. Right. So we've done that. I'm gonna call it like get to know you piece to make the guest comfortable. So when you do what Tom was saying and you just are like, okay, we're going recording and we're live, you're going into this formal process without that comfort transition that really is important to get your guest to feel relaxed and ready to open up and ready to chat with you. So when you look at this sort of comfort zone area that you want to create, you, you need to create some space for that in your recording structure. And I recommend it not being on air because not having the recording on is actually the ideal part for this. By not having the recording on, I'm setting a rapport with the person, I'm letting them ask their questions, I'm letting them get their nerves out without the recording on. That has a trust building part of the process. So it is critically important, you know.

It has a trust building part of the process. I agree with that. Some people, when that little recording light goes on, they feel a lot more pressure, they get a lot more nervous, they're out of sorts. However, I can tell you, Tracy, I've experienced a lot more people coming to us over the years literally in tears because they forgot to put the recording on. So I really don't recommend that. I recommend your meetings automatically set to record. You record the whole thing. You just put your guest at ease that we're not going to air all this. We're just talking here, right? We're just getting to know each other.

A little bit and that's fine too. I like to turn mine on and make it a more formal part of the process. But I've also done thousands of interviews, so I'm. If I forget to do the recording, it'd be shocking. But it is this idea and I think you're really right about that, Tom. I mean, if you're a new person to it, you need a process that's going to be guaranteed to not fail for you. You want to just have this sort of buffer zone. And that's what we're creating in here. We're creating this buffer zone before the official stuff starts. But at the same time, I've also seen people like go through all their questions. Like I've been on the receiving end the guest on this situation where they ask all this stuff and they get all in and we do all the good stuff before you start to air it. So you just want this to be a meet and greet. Think about it like that. That's what this is. This is about. And then asking them if they have any questions or anything that they would like to feel more comfortable about or. And a lot of times if you have a good guest, they'll say, well, who's your real. Who's your audience and who am I talking to and where should I direct my stories? A really good guest knows to ask that. So if you haven't given it to him in prep, of course, right. You may have already given them that information, but that part of it is actually going to be really good at getting you in. The other thing that happens there is that when you then start recording, there is an energy of rapport and that's really good because your audience feels that they feel like, you know each other, even if you just met five minutes.

Before, that's really important. I agree that how you get that across, how that's presented to your audience can make a huge difference. And I agree. It's not always. You shouldn't always just air the first thing first. Right. And the second thing second, because it may not be the most engaging. You know, we've talked in one of our previous episodes about asking the best opening questions. Maybe you didn't ask the best opening question first, you asked it second or third. You know, you have the opportunity to fix those things, right?

Absolutely. So, and anyone who thinks that it doesn't work like that in the real world, in the real broadcasting world, right. You know, I mean, you're mistaking yourself, right? Like, because even Howard Stern sits down with his guests before they hit the on button. I mean, they're. They're sitting there together. They're in the studio together, in the green room together with, you know, on a TV show or talk show, there is a pre interview. Some production team member went and pre interviewed someone. Like, there's a whole bunch of B roll and other things that have happened before the interview that you think is happening on air had a lot of prep work to it that you may not want to do. So the best way to create that atmosphere is to have this buffer zone, five minutes of just of meeting and greeting. Now we want to jump into the interview because that's. We have the energy for that and we don't want to waste this time of going back to the beginning. And this is where that transition fails so often. Tom. Right. There is no authority introduction that is going on, and there's no context as to why they're your guests. Almost every TV show, talk show, everything like that is. Tells you why this person is critically important to this point in time to be bringing on a show. Now, it could be something really personal, like why I've invited you on this show is really a personal story. I got to tell it. Do I really want to tell it now that I. It sounds like complete introduction after I've already gotten to that trust point and we're ready to start chatting. I want to do that separately. And so Tom and I have always had this process of we jump into it, we do our little meet and greet, we jump into our interview, we end that, and then we come back to do our introduction. And this is exactly the way it works in broadcasting too, right? Because they will figure out what they're going to edit. They edit the whole meat of it. And then they go back and they do that little introduction piece and they write that separately. So it is done after the fact almost all the time in every good interview you have ever watched. Very rarely, except on maybe a stage interview, because that's a little bit different. But there is almost always an introduction part to the guest or to the speaker. Right. So there's a transition there that it almost never happens in an interview process.

Well, when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because the only kind of an introduction you could do to a guest, if you're doing it before you ask them any questions, before you've had a conversation, and you really, you don't know what they're going to say yet, is a very generic kind of introduction. Their background, where they're from, what their claim to fame is, why you invited them on the show. Maybe, sure, you might know that because you had a good reason, hopefully why you did. But you can't tease to any part of what you're going to hear in that interview. You can't foreshadow anything because you don't know what's going to happen yet. This is where the opportunities come from. Recording the interview first and then going back and now recording an introduction that either has a lot more relevant current context and.

Or.

And I would say more and than or honestly has. You are not going to believe what Tracy said and I asked her about this and you leave that dangling and hanging out there for the listener like, oh, yeah, I gotta watch this or I gotta listen to this. I want to hear that. And so you build anticipation and get people sitting on the edge of their seat wanting to hear what's coming.

Absolutely. And Tom, this is such a good point to be making is that in this day and age, with the short attention spans we have, if you're not getting that teased, you're not getting that draw in in the very beginning and you do this generic open or you sit there and read somebody's bio like, that is just terrible. It's not going to draw the audience in to listen to the interview and. And you're not going to get them through your episode like you want them to. So this is a way to create an energy of excitement and anticipation for the interview.

I really, a lot of times when I hear an interview, a host, you know, starting an interview, and it's really obvious they're reading a bio because it's very mechanical and it doesn't have the normal tone and, you know, it often doesn't sound the Same. It's like, oh, my gosh, I want to pull the plug right now on listening to this episode. So really, if I ever read a bio and we've done it when we've interviewed people where there's a key point, if I'm going to read from the bio, I actually tell listeners, all right, listeners, I'm actually going to read this part to you because I want to make sure I don't get it wrong. It's like, involved or something. And I tell them. So I'm quoting part of the bio, but I'm not delivering the whole introduction that way.

Yeah, a lot of times I'll take the bio and I'll make bullet points from it so that I don't mess up what college they went to or whatever their title is, the name of their book. I don't want to mess those things up. But I really. I digested it and absorbed it, and now I turn it into my own thing. You know what fascinates me the most about Tom Hazard is. And so I turn it into my own thing, and that is a really useful thing. So this is doing introductions. We actually have another episode we did on that as well. So we'll definitely link that in the blog post for this episode so you can get to that and the other ones we referred to earlier. But the whole point of this introduction is what we call an authority transfer, an authority introduction. And it creates context and a power to listen to require listening to this great guest that you've invited. So when you put in the why, why they're here, it could be your personal why, why you invited them. It could be a contextual why as to what's going on in the world today. And that's why you invited them. Right. That happens all the time on a news show. And when you then give them the authority to on something, on some area, on some reason for them being there, that's authoritative, you're transferring your trust, you've built with your audience to open their ears to listen to that guest.

That's really powerful. I don't think a lot of podcasters really understand that power that they have. And it's a reason why we really recommend you don't choose your guests too casually, meaning you don't just take anyone on your show. And there are some people that do. It's like, oh, I need all kinds of guests. I want to fill my calendar. And they're just looking for warm bodies. It's going to come across. And you're transferring your authority to someone who's kind of lousy. I've had an interview like that one. Not that, I mean, I guess we did. We were care always careful in who we invited. We didn't just invite anybody. But I've got someone that I can't really sugarcoat it or make it sound nice than it was. I got someone that was a real wet blanket of an interview subject. I mean, nothing interesting at all, even though they had some good credentials, which led to booking the interview. And honestly, I didn't air it, I didn't publish it. It was that bad.

Right? And this is be picky about it if your reason for inviting them on is clear and it can be some topic reason, right? Make sure that they're going to be good conversationalists about the topic before you invite them on. And back when we were first doing this, it wasn't so easy because not everybody had done podcast interviews and not everyone had a YouTube video and they weren't always doing video on social. So it was typing so you would see what they wrote. But that didn't necessarily mean they were good conversationalists. But today there's no excuse. You can research anyone, you can see their clips, you know, if they can carry on a conversation. So there really shouldn't be an excuse for you to have someone like that again on your show. But it does happen, especially to those that use a funnel to feed their guests into their show. And I'm telling you right now, your audience is not fooled. There is a significant reason where Tom and I can look at the stats behind the scenes of all the shows on Potitize and I can tell you which ones are using a funnel because their numbers are lower by a significant amount than the ones that don't. Now, a lot of times you're not doing a great job of telling your audience why they're there, and that may be why you're not getting as good a listen through. And that's what we're telling you about here, is this structure to recording your podcast interview is going to help you with that listen through that is so desirable, so important. If we've got advertisers, if we've got stuff to sell, if we've got, you know, we want them to transfer that trust to us and then come and buy our stuff, buy our books and buy our courses, we've got to get them all the way through the episode for that, we've got to give them.

Value or even just to get more people to join your community or your email list, you know, which is coming up in a future episode we're going to talk about.

Yeah, absolutely. So now we talked about this authority introduction, right? This authority transfer that is going on. I also like to call that there needs to be a close. And I like it to be a critical close.

Me too. I'm a big fan.

I don't mean by being critical to your guest. I don't mean by criticizing them. I mean the word critical to be like imperative. Very important. That's the time I'm using critical close. It is a time for critical thinking for you to analyze what you heard and share your thoughts with your audience. It's a time to make sure that you make the most important thing. Take away a parent, the critical takeaway, a parent. And if you were trying to get something out of your guest. So in other words, if you're trying to turn your guests into clients, this is a great spot to leave a point to them of something that they could be improving on, of something that they. You're looking forward to seeing from them, which kind of puts them on the hot seat to make sure they perform to that level. And maybe they're gonna need your help to do that. So it is a good time where you can be slightly critical. You wanna do it in a really good, like, plus way. Like you're a positive way.

Positive way, yes. Thank you. That's the word.

Yeah. But if, you know, Tom and I are working on the binge factors deconstructed model and the problem with it is, has been our guest list. So we've had a few people reach out and they're absolutely, we are going to do their show, but they've opened themselves up to wanting critical thinking about their show. They want us to give them a critique of their show and they want us to be honest because then their show will improve. That's what they're looking for. But most people that we would select that we want to share with you, we have to do something that we're not usually comfortable with and that is doing criticism of a show to the point where it makes them feel like we might have bashed it, might have slightly bashed it, dented it a little.

It's interesting because controversial things get a lot of attention, draw a lot of viewers and listeners. So there's a positive side to that. There's also a backlash side to that where we might get some hate email or hate tweets or hate maybe too strong a word, but unhappy comments on social media. But our goal is to provide value to all you podcasters and help you all learn from these stories and make your podcast even better. That's the whole point.

Right, Right. And so that means that we are trying to do a selection process where those people who we might criticize their show, where they're good examples for you to learn from, will never be our client. And so, like, they would never. Like, they're just never going to come to us because they're associated with some network or they're somewhere else. That's what we chose to do because we don't want to bash someone who could improve. That's not fair. Like, that's not in keeping with the spirit of what we do at Podcasters United as a supporter of that or what we want from our atmosphere. So you have to keep that in mind that what you want to get from your guests and what you want to give to your audience, you've got to make sure that there's an alignment in the process, in the structure of what you're giving them and who you're selecting and how it flows through everything. And in this critical close that still matches your ultimate goal. Because if in giving to your audience, you hurt the people in your industry, right, you're not going to get more authority in your industry, and you're not going to grow, and that isn't going to get you more listeners who could use your help. So you've got to think about those two things as intertwined. Like, this all has to work together. The guest, the audience, you and your goals. Right? All of that has to. And that critical close is the place for you to put that feedback, to give those critical thoughts, and to do it in a way that is positive and learning and growth for your audience, for the guests, and for your own business.

You know, I really love that label you put on it, Tracy, the critical close. Because I talk about this with the podcasters that we're supporting with strategy and support, especially the new ones, as they're going to get into podcasting and they're starting to think about, all right, how am I going to do this? How am I going to conduct this session with my guest? And I haven't referred to it as a critical close. I hadn't put that name on it, but it's really well labeled because it leaves a lot of room for you to make it your own and do it your way and provide that additional value to your listener. And the other thing, it really does when you think about it, folks. And I do recommend, by the way, when you record that intro we talked about, before that, after the interview, and you record your introduction with context and all that, that you actually let the listener know. You know you've got to transition to the interview. And when you then say, all right, let's go to my discussion with Tracy Hazard, and I'll be back with some final thoughts after that, or whatever you want to call your last section, you let them know up front there's more. When you get to the end of the interview, you hear us winding down with the guest. Don't skip to the next episode, don't switch it off, because there's more. And what we're saying is there should be more with some significant value that your listeners will appreciate. This critical close area will be why more listeners come back to your show episode after episode. Because you're not just a facilitator letting the guests tell their story. You're actually giving your mind, share. And like you said, Tracy, trying to highlight something really important, put some emphasis on something. Make sure if the guest buried the lead on something, in your opinion, you're shining a brighter light on it. There are many aspects to this that you can do and figure it on your own to make it truly, uniquely yours, but the structure sets you up to be that authority.

Remember that almost all of your guests are not exclusive guests. Like, you'll never get. I mean, it just doesn't happen in the podcast industry where you get an exclusive, where that guest is never going to guest on another show again. Very rare. Is that going to happen?

I don't think that's ever happened.

Yeah. I mean, they usually are on a media blitz, right? They're going to go on every show they can. So you're not going. And they're going to say the same things again and again and again. Your interview process, like, that's why you want to be good at, like, getting that conversation going. So it is different. But what you think of those things is the one differentiator you have. And if you're not saying that, if you're not sharing it, how many times. And think about this. If you've already been doing interviews, how many times do you mention to your co workers or a friend or at your mastermind groups or something? I had this coolest conversation with so and so when I was interviewing for my show and he gave me the idea that I should be doing this, how many times do you do that? And did you do that for your audience? If you didn't do it to your audience, for your audience, the people who are giving you their time, then you did them a disservice. You owe your audience those thoughts. That's why we have the structure the way that we do and we know that this works to get listened through. That's what we see on our clients shows when they follow this structure. We see that listen through happening. And if you notice and have been a fan of our show and listening to our show, we've also done ones on the best places to structure and put your ads right. And Tom and I are big fans of the last third ads. We've created a natural process and place for those ads to be and we know that the late roll, post roll, late mid post roll ads like those spots do really well. So you, if you finish your interview, you run an ad, you've got your closing thoughts, they're going to stay through the ad because they know your closing thoughts are coming, especially those that are accustomed to it. And then they'll listen to the post roll ad because it'll just bust right on to right before you get to your outro, if you've got one like that. Or they'll listen to your outro and find out where to locate you next. Right where to get more from you. So all of that stuff will flow more freely and you'll get more return on those ads if you're running into a structure where you're providing them something of great value, not just a here's what's coming up next, they'll just go to the next episode. That's what I hear too often in the closing time, is here's what I got for you next. Like we moved on to the thing, here's what I'm selling you and here's what I've got for you next.

Yeah, I mean look, if you listen to enough podcasts, you'll hear everything, really. That's why I'm not too worried about offending some people or making them too unhappy about being critical about their show in the Bingefactor deconstructed because there's millions of podcasts out there, we're going to offend a very small few. Not really trying to, but we are being critical so that you all can learn from their example and make your own decision about if you do or don't want to do that for your own show. In some cases you're probably really not going to want to. But anyway, it's all got a really good purpose to it at the end of the day.

But this is where you have to be able to be thinking carefully about who your show is structured for. If it is more structured for your guests, you need to provide a better environment for them. And that's also a reason why we recommend these two pieces come separated from the interview process because their time is valuable. You saying hello, getting to know them and jumping right into the interview maximizes their time with you. Gets the most content you can possibly create in the time period they've carved out for you. You didn't waste any minute of it and they feel that. And the Q and A process, the interview process, hopefully it goes really well because you're following all the good guidelines, you're asking questions that they've not heard before, you're following up on those questions, you're doing those good practices. So they look at that as a professional experience. Now, your follow up with those guests are the last thing that I do when I leave them on the interview. And this is after I turn the recording off. I will say, okay. And I always prep them beforehand that I'm going to record in segments. So they're not going to hear the introduction and they're not going to hear the close. I remind them again at the end, don't forget, when I send you the link to this episode, you're going to want to hear my closing thoughts because, you know, you gave me a lot to think about here and my closing thoughts are going to reflect that. So that makes them now anticipating and wanting the release of the episode and them to actually listen through to it. Where most people will not listen to their own interviews, but at least maybe they'd skip to the end here and listen to your closing thoughts, they might listen to your introduction too. And that would be valuable to show that you gave them the proper setup and context that they wanted. And now it makes them even more proud of to share the episode. So if you can get them to take a listen to the episode itself, they will do a better job promoting and sharing that show. But if they just receive the link and they're like, pass it on to my media team and don't even listen to it or think about it, you didn't achieve your goal of establishing a rapport and touch points with your guests.

It's really good point, Tracy. And there are some of those people that they just show up, speak, leave everything else to their team. It happens. And those people usually do a lousy job of sharing things on social. If they don't have a team that's actually required to do it. Right.

Well, we're gonna have to do an upcoming episode on this. It's not on my calendar. It's not on our calendar, editorial calendar, so I'm gonna have to add it. But it was an article that I just read yesterday that was really talking about that, what we call sponsored posts, like where you make an announcement about something that you want people to buy, have diminished value. Well, I really do also think in podcasting, there is diminished value with the audience that you're listening. Audience, right. There's diminished value when you don't have something, when something sounds programmatic, when something seems like, oh, it's just part of the sales process, or when your interview is a part of a funnel process and you do not care about your audience. I think it shows through in the numbers. So we really want to create that whole environment where the guest is valuable, my listeners are valuable, and what's getting back for me is also valuable enough to keep me at a high professional, engaged level with this. Because if you're phoning it in, everybody knows the guests, the audience, and you do too, because you're frustrated. You're sick of it.

That's so true. It is. Listeners especially can hear through, not see through that with you. And it's really true.

I want to just talk a little bit about the structure of the transitions, right? Because we said we were going to talk about recording podcast interview structure, right? So we're talking about that. When we do it, we are conscious of the fact that introduction happened. So when we're live streaming here, we say hi to you. We introduce ourselves. We do that because on the live stream, there is no formal introduction. So on the podcast, though, we know there's our formal introduction and a throw to Tom and I. So if we were recording just a straight interview or we were recording something in our show, like when we do the Binge Factor, we don't do that. That way we don't say, hey, I'm Tracy, I'm Tom. We don't do it because we know it's already there. We don't want to be redundant for our audience and waste space. We just also, when we transition then to the opening piece, we want to throw to the interview that's coming in a high energy, open loop, teasing way, as Tom potted, like, get them to hang on, get them to want to keep listening. Don't hit pause, don't hit end, don't move on to the next episode. Don't skip. We want that to happen there. So we've got to end that opening with that same transition. Now, sometimes in your audio, like, you might want a Little music interlude, you want to like fade in. You can do stuff like that and get creative if you want it, if you have the time or if you use editors. But it's really not necessary because the startup of your interview should be with that energy. Places like so and so. So glad you're here. I'm really excited to talk with you about this. Like that opening question that we talked about when we did that episode on it, when you listen to that, you're really going to understand how that jump in piece. Because for you readers out there, I'm a huge reader. I love a book that starts in the middle, that starts. And I don't like it just starts with the energy of it. And Tom was watching Mission Impossible the other night and that opening scene where it starts is high energy. The biggest action part of the movie can. And it starts that way. And it's super long. I don't know, I think one of them was like 15 minutes long. That's amazing. If you can have that sustained built energy that starts your interview process. Right?

Definitely keeps people.

Attentive and looking forward to what's coming next, what you have to say. And again, listening all the way through at the end of the day, that's what we want. Listening all the way through every one of your episodes, if that's not happening, need to revamp, reconfigure, take a look at things. And it's just super critical, in my opinion.

And then when you close your interview, don't forget that you're going to have a closing. And you might want to tease to it, you might want to mention it, you might want to say it with your guest on the air so that they hear that you're going to have some closing thoughts and that's not being recorded in front of them. Right. So you may want to do that as well with them on the air. And that kind of opens that. Those of us that know we have binge listeners, like the majority of what we have are binge listeners. I don't do it every time because they know I'm gonna be there because I can't stop my opinion. Like that's how my show is all about. And I already usually did it at the introduction level. I did it in that introduction piece saying stay tuned to the end. So I've already given that loop for it. But you can do it again. There's no harm in doing it again. In fact, it's a great way to remind your guests that that's what's gonna happen. And so you would do that again. Transition. Or you can have an ad so that you have a piece in there that's going to break it up to that Final closing thoughts. When I close my thoughts, I have my closing thoughts about what it is and then I transition logically into whatever about my own business or about something that I want them to go and click and check out. Might be a reminder of some of the things we referenced in the episode. I might do that towards the end of it and then I know it's going to go to the close and tell them where to get it. So while I say go to podcasters united.org or whatever URL that we're. We're shouting out to, even though I might say it, then again that outro, that formal outro is going to reiterate that exact same place. So that's kind of the overall structure.

And I think that's important. Yeah, that is the overall structure. Just the final comment, that last piece. It doesn't matter in my experience that you mention your own website more than once. I really don't think you can mention it too many times. It's not really going to bother anybody. Don't spell out the www Whatever. It's a link to it in every episode description, or there should be. If there isn't, you need to do that, but reinforce just the name. So that's the. You want to burn that in your listener's brain. They want to get any more. They want to get additional value. They go to your website and they're going to get what they want and ideally for free. You just. They just have to go through your website to get it. That's the only website you want them to hear. So anyway, just thought that was worth emphasizing again.

So before we close out here, the last piece that I want to mention is that there are a lot of people out there who come from the radio world and they're these huge fans of segmenting. They cut it up to cut it up because they expect to have ads in those places. Right? Because that's the way radio was is you had to create your ad break. And so they would have like I'm going to call it like games and segments and gimmicks. And if you are doing that with your guest on the air, it is an interruption to the flow of conversation. None of those things normally happen live because they will take a prerecording and air pieces of the interview. Normally in most radio shows or most shows that most TV shows that you're watching, right. They've broken it up and created the segmentation on it. It's very rare that it is like a flow through or they do it before they bring their guest on. Like if you watch any kind of, you know, night talk show or something like that and you know they've got games that they're playing, they might bring their guest on for the game.

And then send them back and then bring them back on again for the interview. They don't let it flow in the middle and break up the interviews with the games. They might end the interview and then play a game, that's okay too. But when you do it within it, it is very disruptive to the listening experience and to the guest. Trust building experience, the conversation experience. They now feel that this interview isn't about them anymore.

It's a great point, Tracy. I do think that pattern interrupt is not helpful to any guest's train of thought. It's going to distract them and there maybe if they had something in mind they thought was very worthwhile to say next, they often might forget about it.

Yeah. So think carefully about where you want to do it. You could bookend the interview with them, but do them separate. Also think about how you're doing them. Is it adding enough value to the whole listening experience and guest experience or should you just, I mean, honestly, it's more work and it's not worth it in terms of the listening experience.

Very sound advice, Tracy. Well, I hope everyone's gotten some more value on their journey toward interviewing people on their podcast and have some, I think, great tips to build on what we've done in the past and we'd love to hear from you. If you got any other topics, questions you have, you can reach out to us@podcasters united.org otherwise we keep plugging away with all these great tips and what we're seeing people are interested in from the traffic we're getting on our website and our podcast.

Well, thanks everyone for listening. We so appreciate you. We will be back next week and we're going to be talking about some nitty gritty things that are going to help your podcast grow.

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 unitedwepod so you can get feed your brand live until Next time, keep podcasting.