How to Conduct Great Podcast Interviews
Great podcast interviews don’t just happen. They are crafted with intention and preparation. In this article, we want to give you nine simple tips to take your podcast interviews from okay to great.
Start and Finish Strong
With so many podcasts competing for people’s attention, in every podcast episode you want to make sure that you grab listeners’ attention from the start.
1. Ask someone for a 60-second overview of themselves and their company. This ensures that people don’t ramble, and keep things brief and to the point.
2. Lead with action. “What actionable advice are you going to give today?” This hooks listeners, and if they want this advice they will have to keep listening.
3. Close with reflection. By the end of the interview you will have covered a number of different points, so you can close with some reflections that tie some of those points together. Examples include:
What’s a blog in your industry that people should be reading, and why?
What’s a book that you consistently recommend to people?
If you could go back in time to tell yourself something, what would it be?
4. Give your guest a chance to promote themself. Listeners may want to follow up and you want to give them a place to go.
Research Your Guest
When we say “research,” we don’t mean having a thick Jason Bourne-style dossier. Just take a few minutes prior to the call to learn more about your guest.
5. Check out your guest’s web presence on LinkedIn as well as company and personal websites. Jot down some ideas and questions based on what you find.
Have Questions in Your Locker
You should have a set of stock questions that you could ask any guest. You won’t necessarily get to these questions each time (and you don’t need to in order to have a great interview) but it’s good to have them on hand should you exhaust a particular line of questioning.
6. The questions you have should be ones that you are passionate about, or offer great follow-up opportunities. Some examples:
What is the future of this industry?
What was one of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome it?
Do you have a mentor you learned something powerful from?
Practice Active Listening
In the movie Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman’s character Mia Wallace asks John Travolta’s character Vincent Vega, “Do you listen or do you wait to talk?” He replies honestly, “I wait to talk, but I’m trying to listen.” You have to do better than Vincent and seek to listen first. The talking will come as a result of that listening.
7. Active listening is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of just waiting to ask your next scripted question, listen and take notes on what your guest is saying. Then you can decide whether it makes sense to follow up right then, or to tie that follow-up to a later question you have planned.
8. Active listening can often manifest simply in rephrasing your guest. You could say, “When you said that ‘that was the worst hire you ever made,’ what made it so bad?”
Follow Your Curiosity
As you practice listening, let your curiosity guide your discussion. Remember that this is your podcast and ultimately, you’re looking to have great conversations which yield insights for your listeners and a good experience for your guests. That means that you should follow the discussion where it leads rather than feel bound to a certain number of questions.
9. Let your curiosity create organic angles to different parts of the conversation. Some of the most interesting podcast interviews have been the result of an unexpected answer to a regular question combined with a host savvy enough to follow up on that unexpected answer.
Have a topic you want to see us cover on the podcast? Write to our host at hello@contentallies.com.
This episode is brought to you by Content Allies.
Content Allies helps B2B companies launch revenue-generating podcasts. From startups to Fortune 500s, we have helped some of the world's leading companies build and run profitable podcasts. Contact us for your free podcast consultation at ContentAllies.com