Podcasting: How to do a good interview

The best podcast interviews are those we’ve prepared for. You may have the gift of gab, preacher. But if you don’t have a plan and purpose for taking that gab you’ve recorded with a super-awesome guest into a thought-out and valuable landing point, then listeners aren’t going to invest their time in listening to you. A quality interview is going to take the kind of prep you put into a lesson a sermon.

Here are some steps for assembling a quality, value-driven interview:

Know your interviewee.

You have permission to stalk (healthily). See what information is available online about your upcoming guest. Check out their social media feeds. What do they tend to tweet about? What have they focused on lately?

Many of our guests on interview podcasts are authors who want to push their books. So read the book. At least be familiar with the book. But try not to make the interview about the book–make it about the author’s experience around the book. What problem were they trying to solve in writing their books? Is it a problem your audience likely has as well?

If your guest is an author, check out the book reviews on Amazon, paying close attention to the 3- and 4-star reviews. Do they mention why they just couldn’t give the book 5 stars? What was missing? This is a great chance for your podcast to answer lingering questions and add value–and for your guest to fill in some of the holes of their work.

Check out other interviews your guest has done (if they have done other interviews). You might gain insight on some guiding questions and some questions your guest may not be very good at answering. You’re also going to build a feeling of rapport with your guest. And that rapport is important for your listening audience–more on that in a bit…

Make a prep document.

Assemble all your stalking information into a dossier. You’ll want to include your guest’s introductory bio, the questions you just have to ask, some relevant quotes from the guest’s previous writings or social feeds, and the purpose or landing point of your episode.

Identify a purpose.

This step is rolled up in making your prep document but deserves to be called out. Often, we are attracted to a guest because they have interesting things to say. For us, the interviewers, that may be enough to warrant a conversation. It’s thrilling for us to talk to these people.

But our audience members need more. They need to know what’s in it for them. What benefit is listening to this conversation going to offer them? Start with that benefit in mind. Let your guest know what benefit they will deliver to the audience as well. You may want to offer a definitive statement like, “My audience should hear this so that…”

Act like old friends.

Meeting new people is an awkward experience. It’s almost as awkward as listening to other people meet for the first time. We want to spare our audience that awkwardness.

Watch a late-night talk show. The hosts of these shows are tremendously good at establishing a sense of familiarity. When Jimmy Fallon interviews someone, we often feel like they’ve hung out at a party before or gone bowling together. And we, the audience members, respond to that because we get to feeling like we’re a part of their friendship, too. We’re in.

Generally, Jimmy and the guest are no more familiar with each other than we are with our guests. He just assumes familiarity. He addresses his guests as friends. When we do the same, our listeners have a better experience. We want them to feel like they’ve joined us while we’re hanging at the coffee shop together.

We don’t need to lie to our audience and say things like, “It’s so good to talk with you again…” when we literally just met 10 minutes before we hit the record button. But we also don’t want to clue our audience in on the fact that we don’t know much about the person on the other side of the line.

We can bring some of those guards down by interjecting some levity by poking fun at ourselves or noting something curious about the guest: “I noticed you only post pictures of your dog on Instagram, I guess your kids just aren’t that cute, huh?” [Laughter ensues…] We can also respond to personal facts or stories with phrases like “I didn’t know that about you,” implying a degree of familiarity.

Avoid closed questions.

Ask questions like you’re in conversation with a teenager (even if your conversating with an academic). That doesn’t mean you want to ask elementary questions. Simply that you want to ask questions that elicit more than “yes” or “no” responses.

One of our goals as interviewers is to elicit stories. Each question we ask should be an invitation for our guest to share a story (they won’t always accept the invitation, but we’ll keep trying). So instead of asking a question like, “Was it challenging overcoming that personal obstacle” (answer: “yes”), rephrase the question to elicit a more personal response: “What did you have to do in order to overcome that personal obstacle?”

Ask questions you know the answer to IF they bring value.

If you’ve done you’re research/stalking, then you’ll know a good deal about your guest. But your listeners have not done that research. The goal of your research is to figure what they need to know and the value your guest can bring to their lives. Your interview then reveals your discoveries.

Your interview is not necessarily an opportunity for you to learn more. It’s not for you, it’s for them. So it is often a good idea to ask some questions that you already know the answer to–because your audience likely does not.

You won’t need to exclusively ask questions you know the answer to, however. Your research may reveal a question or two that needs clarification for your own understanding. Those are great questions to bring to the table, as others are going to be wondering, as well.

Don’t over explain your question.

If your question requires a lot of explanation or rationale for the reason you’re asking it, then it’s either not the right question or you’re not giving your guest enough credit. (Most likely the latter.) When we explain our questions and our rationale for asking them, we often end up confusing the guest and losing the urgency of the question itself. Sometimes the actual question gets lost in the explanation and we get the “I’m sorry, what was your question?” response.

Your role in the interview is to ask questions and elicit stories. That is how you will shine. You’re not going to shine by explaining your questions and thought process–as alluring as that may seem to you.

For further tips, Talk to Me: How to Ask Better Questions and Interview Anyone Like a Pro by Dean Nelson, PhD, is a great resource. So is your favorite interview-based podcast and late-night talk show.

Looking for more podcasting tips? Check out the podcast section here for ideas about technical set-up, audience growth and more.

Here are some steps for assembling a quality, value-driven interview.