Host Better Podcast Interviews Your Audience Will Love (Full Transcript)

[00:00:01] Speaker 1: Riverside Community Workshop. And I say this every time to everyone who's watching, but I really am super excited for this session because we've been talking a lot about short form, about creating clips, about repurposing. And today I really wanted to talk about long form. I wanted to talk about interviews because a lot of you in the audience are either already doing guest interviews or it's something that you wanted to start doing. And even if you've been doing it for years, interviewing is an art that you can continue to hone and continue to refine. And so that's what we're gonna be talking about today during this session. And for anyone tuning in live, let us know in the chat where you're tuning in from and also maybe how many interviews that you've done. Are you, have you done hundreds? Have you, are you just starting out? I'd love to hear kind of where you are on your journey. And as you're telling us a little bit about this, just to give a little bit of background on Riverside Community Workshops is that we created this program for peer-to-peer learning so that you can learn skills from other people in the community that are doing exactly what you're doing and be able to share their skills that you can become a better creator. And so that really leads me to our guests over here today. So we have Alex here from Podmatch. And I know a lot of you are already acquainted with him and the work that he's doing, but Alex, thank you so much for joining.

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: Kendall, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely love what you all are doing over at Riverside. I think I've been a paying customer since, since it first came out. I don't know when it was. It was 2020 or 2021 is when I joined. So maybe, maybe it was out longer.

[00:01:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right around the start of it.

[00:01:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely love what y'all do. And seriously, it's just an honor to get to be here today. And I'm seeing a lot of familiar names in the chat, which I shouldn't have the chat open, Kendall. I will turn it off when we start, but.

[00:01:51] Speaker 1: I've got the chat.

[00:01:52] Speaker 2: I want to see who is here, but it's good to see so many familiar names here. So I appreciate you having me today. It's an honor to spend this time with you.

[00:01:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. And I know that you have a lot of familiar names in here, but for anyone who has not been acquainted with the work that you're doing, tell us a little bit more about you and interviews as far as how you've been interviewing in the past, your experience. And I even forgot to mention, this community workshop today is about how you can host interviews that your listeners love. So I did that whole wind up about long form, but yes, that's what this community workshop is about today. It is going to be about interviews and how to host better interviews that your audience is going to love. With that, tell us a little bit about your experience when it comes to interviews.

[00:02:36] Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. So I got into podcasting in 2012 or 2013. The dates get a little blurry after a while, but one of those years I got into it and that was the first time I decided to interview somebody. And so I sat down, did it, and my first one was so scary as a host, but I loved it. And I felt like it came out really good and got a lot of cool feedback from friends and family, even though I was doing this weird podcasting thing, which is cool now, by the way, it wasn't cool back then. But so I got some really good feedback from the start and that kind of really just led me to the pod, it drew me into the podcasting industry. So I was like, I want to do more of this. Like I want to interview more, I want to be involved more. And so I've been interviewing people for that long. My company's Podmatch, which connects podcast guests and hosts for interviews, launched that during 2020. And I've just continued to interview guests. And my, I'll kind of go through, I have like six main points to get through today, the steps, and I'll kind of share how I've learned to interview well. And I will say those early days weren't so good, right? They've gotten better and better as I go on. So with the work, with the reps, comes your ability to improve on it. So that's kind of my background with it. So I've been doing this for a while now, but I'll tell you what, it is just as fun to interview somebody now as it was back then. It's a little less scary, but it's just as fun. And I'm really grateful for that.

[00:03:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really also excited about this because I have a big background in interviews as well. I was a political journalist. And so it's different kinds of interviews, but it's for, especially for TV, you're like trying to get that nugget that's gonna kind of separate you from the other channels and what everyone's reporting. But interviews really are just such an art and a skill and how you structure them, how you make your guests feel comfortable, how you ask your questions, what questions you ask to elicit different emotions. There's a lot to dig into. And so I'm really excited about that because when we talked about this topic, I was like, yes, I love the topic of interviews. So before we begin, I know we have our six points, but my first question to you is we're gonna be talking about what makes a good interview, what to use a good interview.

[00:04:37] Speaker 2: To me, first and foremost, it requires like both people to have some sort of mutual synergy or understanding at the very least. And Kendall, you get this coming from like a political journalism background, which I just can't imagine, right? But you couldn't go into the room in an interview ready to attack somebody, right? Like it just, it comes out wrong. Like you wanna go into it with some sort of like, there's gotta be some sort of common ground, some sort of connection. And for me, like a lot of my guests are people that I have very different opinions than they do about life, about work, about everything. But the thing is we could find what's the common thing that we both agree on. And typically for me, it was, cause I talk about podcasting, so it's super meta here. You know what, let me go back further. I used to talk about business. I'll go to that. We talked about entrepreneurship and I'm more of like a, I love bootstrapping. And there's a lot of people who don't love that. There's really no right or wrong answer, but we did like, I could always find the common ground when I was in that space, was we wanted to get something out really fast to the people that we think we're gonna be able to help. And so like the common ground I'd always find was like, hey, we've got this synergy. We've got different opinions on it, but let's talk about it. So to me, like a great interview is based on that mutual trust of like, hey, we do have the same underlying goal or initiative. And you kind of build your connection upon that. Now, even if you completely like agree with somebody, it's exactly the same thing. You still want to find that place where it's like, but what's our North star? Like, what is the thing that we have together? Whenever I spent the time to determine that, I think it's the host job to find that, right? To like really seek that out. When you find that you articulate it well and then kind of give the vision of like, we kind of start from this and the end goal is this for the people listening, you can craft like a really beautiful conversation between that.

[00:06:09] Speaker 1: Absolutely. I also think that like between the host North star is all, like besides that, it's also, I always think that it's about asking the questions that your listeners are also kind of like saying in their head as they're listening to their headphones, you know, being the voice for your listener. It requires a deep understanding of who your listeners are. And yeah, so I wanted to talk about, I guess we'll start off with your first point, which is how to really stand out as a host by being yourself. What would you say you need to do as a host to stand out, but also make sure that you're being true to yourself? Yeah.

[00:06:45] Speaker 2: So this first point, stand out by being yourself. Like this is just so important. I think that we live in a world today where the world is starved for more authenticity, which I realize is kind of a buzzword these days, but the reality of it, like the core, like people want more of that. And listeners are craving something that feels authentic. And so my advice to everybody here is to be you, don't try to be like somebody else, someone that you admire, a famous podcast or anything like that. This goes back to an old public speaking coach that I had years ago. And I started doing more and more speaking and it hit the point where he's like, hey, Alex, it's time for you to stop listening to speakers that you like. And I was like, what do you mean? I'm like, I get inspiration, I learn from them. He's like, yeah, but you're starting to mirror these individuals a little bit. He's like, it's pulling you away from your own voice because you're getting good enough where you can now change your voice a little bit and you're mirroring somebody that's not you. He's like, to find yourself, you have to stop having these inputs everywhere, which to me is such strange advice. Like in anything else, like you always continue the education, right? But if I was admiring them too much, I would start acting more like them. And when I found this in podcasting, the hosts are like, oh, I really like this person. I really like that show. They start trying to become like a miniature version of them, which ultimately pulls you away from being authentically yourself. And so it's like kind of like a very deep point here. I promise the rest of this won't be that deep, but this is like- We love deep, it's fine. Yeah, it gets a little deep, but the reality is we've got to, there might be podcasts that you listen to and it's like, oh, this was like, inspired me to start my show. I love it. I wish I could be like this person. It might be time for you to stop listening to that show for your own sake, for your listeners' sake, so that you can really be yourself. Because I believe the first way that you stand out is by you showing up as you, not as somebody else. The other thing I'll mention here is that you're not perfect, don't act like it, right? Like, what are you talking about? None of us are perfect. And the thing is, if we have this idea of perfectionism in our minds and like, it needs to be so tight, exactly the way I want it to be every single time, that really pulls away from who we really are. Now, at the same time, edit out when you sneeze or you cough in the middle of an episode, right? Like, that doesn't make it inauthentic. That's not chasing perfection. That's making it enjoyable to listen to. And so the last point I'll share here is that I've learned is that listeners might show up initially because of the guest. So they might show up like, even here, people might be showing up to one of these, this Riverside Community Workshop for the first time because I'm here, maybe. But the reality is they're gonna stay because they like Kendall. They're gonna come back because of Kendall, not because of me. And so I think it's important as hosts that we remember that. Yes, our guests might attract that initial listener, but if they like us, they're gonna stay and hang around because of the way that we show up. And again, that's authentically us.

[00:09:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, I 100% agree with that last point that they come back for me, I'm kidding. But that they, like all of the podcasts that I listen to or YouTube channels, I come for the hosts and it's great to have these guests, but that's what keeps me coming back. I want to hear the host. I love how the host frames their question. I love how they get their guests to come out of their shell, whatever that is. I love the sound of their voice, whatever that is. Like I come back for the host. And so I think that there's a lot of people stressing about the guests that they have. And of course, get guests that are relevant for your show. But I think that you want to, you don't want to bring on a guest and then say like, yes, this is all about me. But I think that to make sure that you keep that as a North Star for yourself, but like, I also need to be true to myself. So totally, I'm with you on that. I'll also say, as a side note, a tip that I got when I first started interviewing, which is when you were talking about don't listen to people you love too much. I actually learned how to interview by listening to journalists that I didn't like their interviews. So I had a very sassy boss at the time and he did not like an unnamed journalist that I will not talk about here, but he did not like his interview style. So he had me watch that journalist's interviews and write down what was wrong with the interview, like what I didn't like about the flow. And it actually taught me what I liked about good interviews by learning about what I didn't like about bad interviews. And that could be a cool workaround because I'm not going to take on this person's voice, but I could learn about maybe what my voice would be and what I would do better. Do you agree with this idea?

[00:11:02] Speaker 2: That's so good. It reminds me of growing up. I have three younger brothers and we were less and less needed to be disciplined because my youngest brother would watch, what does Alex get his mouth washed out with soap for? What does the next brother get put in time out for? Why does the other brother get spanked, right? Like I grew up in the 90s. Give me a break, everybody. It's so funny because the last one, he's just watching our problems and being like, just don't do that. And I'm good. I think that is absolutely brilliant, Kendall. I love that. I'm going to actually add a note for myself to think about that a little bit.

[00:11:29] Speaker 1: Well, as a youngest child, I also endorse that message.

[00:11:33] Speaker 2: That's why you're perfect, Kendall. I see it now.

[00:11:35] Speaker 1: And that's why you're coming back for more. So, okay. We're talking about being yourself during the interviews, but I want to rewind it a bit because I want to talk about what you do before you even interview to get prepared and what everyone else should be doing.

[00:11:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. So like before you hit record, basically, like to me, it all begins with kind of what we said, shared at the beginning, which is to know where you're going to go with it, that common ground, the North Star, where's the direction for this? Do your research on your guests. Like, who are they? The way I like to do this is if I can find them on other podcasts, that's like the best kind of research you can do. Like, listen to it. And so what I'll do, like if I have a guest who's been on, let's just say five or six other shows, I'll pick the three that seem most interesting to me, maybe that would kind of somewhat represent the direction I want to go in. I'll queue them up. And over the next couple of weeks, I typically like book out in advance. I'll just be listening to those and taking notes. And sometimes you can take notes, like don't bring this up, right? Like, or definitely I can tell they're very passionate about this, right? Because you're kind of looking for that. So other people have kind of paved the way for you a little bit. And so I always do my best to listen. I think that that's a really big way to do it. And that's part of your research process. The other thing that I like to do is I always like to ask the guests before we even, before I even do any of this, I guess this is probably my first point, what do they want to talk about? What are they talking about right now? And that's part of your research. And you can even just ask, like, hey, what is it that you're wanting to discuss right now? And for all you know, you could be saying, okay, it looks like they've built an empire off this book. I'm gonna talk about that book with them. But they might be like, you know what? I just recently got into this new thing and it kind of like propelled me from my book to this. And this is kind of what I'm doing now. Maybe you're the first person that gets to ask them and talked about that. Find out the direction that you think they want to go. And then the last thing I'll mention here is that if you do use AI for help with the format of the episode and the questions, spend time massaging that. Don't just plug and play and say, here's the 10 questions that AI says I should ask this person. Like you want to spend time with it. Now I get that sometimes coming up with questions can be tough. And so if that is you, that's like, well, I really need the help, great. But make sure you make it your own by doing the rest of these things we talked about. Before you ever hit record, before you ever enter that space, I think that that's really, really important to do, to make sure that we've done our time. And a guest can feel when they've had the honor of you knowing who they are. And it really goes a long way. And I think that listeners can feel that as well.

[00:13:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, so quick follow up. And then I have a few points that I want to add because I'm very inspired by this conversation. Do you always go off of a list of questions? Do you kind of let it flow? Like where are you at with having questions written down versus kind of going with the flow of it?

[00:14:06] Speaker 2: I try to have like, I don't know why, but I like having three different like sections or like kind of, I guess a flow for it. So I kind of always have like three things I know I'm going to ask, but I just put them in bullet point form now to kind of just segue the conversation. So like whether it's a book, whether it's some life experience this person had, if it's a life experience, it's where were you before? Where are you now? And where do you see it going, right? Like, and I'll kind of position, if it's a book, I'll basically pull out my three favorite sections of the book or chapters and kind of do it that way. But for me, it's just bullet points. So like, it's funny because if anyone else saw my notes for an interview, they couldn't take over the interview. Like they'd be like, what is this? I've done my time, most of it's in my head and I want it to flow. And the reality is I'm not married to those points either. I've heard enough, I know enough to know that like, hey, if we're getting off track immediately, I'm not going to try to bring it back. If it seems like that direction might also be useful and helpful. And I've done some interviews where I asked the very first thing and the rest of it, I just, I closed it out and I just did my best to like actively listen, to understand while keeping my audience in mind and just followed where it went organically. And sometimes those are my best interviews.

[00:15:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree with you. So when I was doing TV, a thing that I would do and that we have people do if they're less used to doing TV is we'd have them write bullet points, three, onto a Post-it note. And so it'd be like, if you kind of feel yourself going onto a tangent, this is different because it was like news journalism. It would be like, okay, this is the point that I need to get back to. Like, maybe I went on this tangent, but bring it back to one of these three points. But I also think that sometimes if you do that, if you try to stick to those points too much, then you lose the conversational-ness of the conversation because you end up kind of trying to stick to a point when like, it's kind of cool sometimes to go on those side quests. So yeah, I will also say, I'm gonna follow up on some of these points. One, I also will go through interviews that people have had and will like listen to them and be able to do research that way. A cool place to get interview questions for yourself is to ask follow-up questions to something that they've said on another podcast or another place. So when I was a journalist, a big thing that I would do is I'd say like, on CNN, you had said this, but I wanna take it a step further, or I'd play the clip maybe for them. What would you say about this? You know, like pushing it a step further, asking that follow-up question. It's like almost written for you. And it's a cool way to also show your guests that you've done that research and you've heard them before. I heard you say that you write down all of your questions. So let me ask this next question. Because you said that, do you ever leave room for like going off the cuff? Like that can be a kind of follow-up question that you make off of somebody else's podcast or somebody else's interview. Could be very cool. Another thing that I like to do is I like to look at their own social media, not just like their LinkedIn, like find their personal Instagram. And like they posted about baseball. And we have an interview podcast about, or they posted about like being a foodie. And we have a podcast about B2B marketing. And I'm like, actually, I know that you love to go to restaurants. So what would you say is like a chef that you think is doing really well marketing themselves? Like it could be, and it's a new way of exposing something that they really love and like make them really excited about something, but kind of still bring it into your wheelhouse. It also like suddenly brings out a new part of them. So that's usually what I do. And then when you're talking about questions with chat GPT, another thing that I like to do is like write a question on one side of a piece of paper and then write a line in the middle of the piece of paper. And so the question could be like, let's say chat GPT gives you, where did you grow up? Like, tell me about growing up. Fine question, but like maybe on the other side, try to push it. So on the other side of the paper, you could write like, what did growing up in Havertown, Pennsylvania, that's where I'm from. What did growing up in Havertown, Pennsylvania, like how did that shape you into who you are? Like, do you feel like that carries into you, to the person that you're at today and how? Like getting to the meat of what's the question, where are you from? Like, what do you actually want to know about that question? Write that on the other side of the piece of paper, like do it a step further. Those are my three interview tips. I'm sorry I'm interjecting with my interviewers. But I think it's a fun conversation. Yeah.

[00:18:25] Speaker 2: Just so everyone knows, I'm not in a chat room. I'm literally taking notes for myself. That's so good. I had something I wanted to add to that. I think you might, I don't know if you've done this Kendall, but I imagine you have, but I found it really interesting to do. And I got this advice from an unknown podcaster at this point, it was so many years ago, I can't remember who gave me this advice. But he said, if you're interviewing an author or somebody that has any sort of like published content where people can leave reviews for it online, go read the bad reviews. Yes. And it is gold. So I would go to like, if it's like a book on Amazon and there's like a hundred reviews, I go to the one-star reviews. Now there's always like the first one-star review that comes up, I don't know why. It's like, it's for the book, but someone's like, the vacuum I bought was broken. It's garbage. And like, that's the review. And like, obviously you're not gonna learn anything from that one, right? So I don't know how I got there, but I'll go a step above.

[00:19:09] Speaker 1: Tell me about that guy's vacuum. You can even ask us a question like, oh, I saw this review about the like, why do you deal with these reviews? You know, it could be, yeah.

[00:19:16] Speaker 2: I've never brought it up. I should, but you can find some people who were like, this book didn't help me at all. Like, typically it's pretty like rage, right? But I look, is there any common trend in the five people that left a one-star review? Were they all like basically said the same thing and some of them moved to two-star reviews, three-star reviews. I'm basically looking for the people that might, that could be swayed back to their side if they just gave it a little bit more thought. And I think that that's a good way to like kind of dive in because people feel like there was a gap. So you're kind of giving the author in that case, the opportunity to fill in the gap that other people feel like their book had made. And that is like some gold questions you can ask right there.

[00:19:48] Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can even say like, what do you say to the person that would say this or something like that?

[00:19:52] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, yeah.

[00:19:54] Speaker 1: So, okay, you did the research. Let's talk about the interview. Let's talk about how you started. Like how are you, how are you starting your interviews? Like what, do you have any tips for people on how to begin?

[00:20:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, and before I get into that third point here on beginning the actual episode, there's like a kind of like a segue step here, which is the green room. So like, I use Riverside. Like this is the green room. But so Kendall and I were in the green room before everyone else joined us. Like we were just, we were just here, right? And Kendall, you brought up like going to their personal Instagram, noticing like they play baseball or they have, they're like a foodie. I always try to start with that. Cause I see most podcasters do, guests and hosts. The guest joins like, hey, how are you doing? Good, how are you? Great. You know, it's just kind of like weird pause and you're like, okay. So what I like to do is be like, Kendall, so good to see you here. Hey, I didn't know you were a foodie. I was just on your Instagram a few minutes ago. Like what was that restaurant you just went to? And then we automatically jump into this, like having this rapport, building something together. And the other thing I do right away is I hit record. I mean, listen, thank God for Riverside. I can go, I can just edit it out for wherever we actually start the interview. I leave a weird pause and then we get into it. But sometimes I'm recording for 10 minutes before we've even started. And the reason I like to do that is because if it's not like a super experienced guest, it's a little bit like, hey, you ready? We're just gonna countdown. It's gonna be kind of intimidating. Like you kill all those bad, like that bad energy that comes in. It's just like, this has been fun talking to you already, Kendall. You ready to get started? Let's do it. Like we're already recording, we're good. And then you just kind of like make it this peaceful thing. And from start to finish, it feels like a conversation versus an interrogation at times.

[00:21:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually was about to say that you can go into your settings in Riverside and turn off that countdown, which I usually do. I don't do it for the live because I like to have a little bit of a countdown before I'm live. But for interviews, if I'm doing interviews, I always turn off the countdown because I agree. It kind of like changes the vibe. Actually, this is really great because we have a question from Mike who had said, what about pre-interview calls to get to know them? And so when you were saying green room, I actually am with you. I recommend what I call green room conversations instead of pre-interview calls. So that's from my journalism days again. But what we used to do is part of my job as a producer is that when a guest is waiting in the green room, somebody's supposed to go in and speak with them. And it's just to have a conversation because what they say is that it takes 10 minutes to lock yourself into conversation. If you're just like silent, you're silent on the drive there, you're silent as you go in, like not silent, but saying a few words, it's really hard to then go on a news, like go on a TV set and just start talking. So it's about warming them up. How was your day? Oh my God, I had this kind of like, it's just about first of all, finding topics of conversation, but then also just about warming that person up. So I think that it's better to be done right before the interview than to do it like a week or so before on a pre-call. But it's also about what makes you comfortable. If you're like, hey, I'd actually be more comfortable going into it if I had this call a week before, it helps me do my research and all of that. That's also great too, up to you. That's just what I do.

[00:23:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good. Okay, back on track now, right? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

[00:23:10] Speaker 1: No, as any interview goes, we love to go on a side tangent. So that was a very helpful one. So let's start with the, let's go into, yeah, let's go into beginning the episode. What do you recommend for people? Because I think that a lot of people, when we talk about hooks and we have three seconds to get somebody to listen or they go to the next thing, it's like a lot of pressure for those first few seconds or minutes.

[00:23:32] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there definitely is. And so these next few points we're going to go into is going to be beginning the episode, talking about the main segment of the episode and ending it. So let's be a little quicker. Take notes, please. But this first part here about beginning the episode the right way, we have to start off thinking what's engaging. What is engaging to a listener? And listen, I'm not trying to tell us to create clickbait where it's some dramatic, crazy thing happening right at the very start. I'm not saying that necessarily, but what is going to tell somebody who tuned in, now keep in mind, podcasting is different. It's not like scrolling on social media where people are looking to instantly be entertained or they will move on to the next thing. If somebody's clicking into a podcast, they're going to give you a little bit more time. That's an important distinction between these two things, right? It's not the same thing. So you don't need to make it something absolutely crazy. But at the same time, you do want some sort of hook and even some sort of promise to keep people hanging around. And so for me, some ways I've learned to do this is skipping the intro has been one thing I've done. So my introduction, I used to have like a two minute intro on my show, cut it down to a minute, cut it down to 30 seconds. I think it's like three and a half seconds now. And like, if you go, my show is called Podcasting Made Simple. If you listen to it here, my intro is very, very short. I did that because I realized, hey, just getting straight to it seems to engage people longer and they stick around a little bit more. The other thing is like the guest introduction. I think it's important to introduce your guests so that people aren't just like, who is this person, right? Like, I'll get into why that's important in the next point, but you don't want that to be a question that comes up immediately. But at the same time, what I have seen some people do is it's like the host will give a three minute introduction and then ask them, did I miss anything? What else have you got? It's like, okay, we're six minutes into the episode. We have said nothing, right? Like, we're just talking about credentials. We're talking about your resume, like all the things, right? And so for me, like a great start to a podcast is just getting right into it. Find a way to get into it. Like, Kendall, I know that you grew up in Philadelphia. Now you live in Tel Aviv. Like, that's a huge move. Why did you do that? Right, like, now anyone who's listening is now like, I'll listen to at least Kendall's response, right? And that was probably not a great question, but that is interesting, right?

[00:25:30] Speaker 1: No, no, that is, it definitely is interesting, like, because then it also creates like a, it opens the door for somebody to talk about their journey. And also my immediate response is gonna be like, hey, yeah, what a journey.

[00:25:42] Speaker 2: Right, yeah.

[00:25:43] Speaker 1: Like, it ends up like, yeah, exactly.

[00:25:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, so anyway, those are my points here. And Kendall, I'm curious, given your background, I think you've, coming from this space, you have even less people's, like, less time to get people's attention. So like, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too.

[00:25:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, most people listen to like news, like, sound down is what they say. Like, that they're not listening to the audio at all. So it's very hard to break through. But I will say that I, I mean, tell me if you feel differently, but I'm like a sucker for a cold open. Like, I love just to have like, maybe the guests say something interesting in the beginning, just like a quote from them, and then it goes into the episode. I also do not recommend, usually, to do the intro, like, to take the intro that you do during the call, like the recording, and use that as your intro. Like, chop it off. What I usually would say to do is to start the, like, record your intro after. Because how are you gonna know what the most engaging thing of your conversation is going to be before you even have the conversation? So why not, like, start it by being like, hey, welcome to Kendall's Podcast. I had Alex on with me, and so I wanted to talk with him about interview hosting, but what I thought was really incredible was that he talked about X, Y, and Z. And so with that, I just want to get into a conversation. And then it goes into, or I could even say, I could introduce you. I could take, like, the, like, instead of doing the tell me about yourself, you answer that during the recording. But I'll do it in my own words. He started interviewing back in 2012, and has had, like, I'll do it in my own words, be able to sum it up, and then say, and with that, let's get into a conversation with him. So you control the intro, and it's also something that you record after you have the conversation. Let me know in the chat if you're recording, like, if you're using the intro that you do while you're recording, or if you go back and record your intro later. I don't mean, like, the intro music for your podcast. I mean, like, how you set up your show. Because I always like to do it afterwards. I think that's when you know what the cool, interesting part of it is.

[00:27:44] Speaker 2: For sure. And the way you described it, by the way, is exactly what I was talking about. Like, you want to have something that you promise or hook listeners with. Like, you said this was a really interesting conversation with Alex, let's go ahead and, like, get into it. Now they're like, okay, well, what Kendall just said does sound interesting. So, like, the promise is now that we're gonna talk about it. And that's very hard to do if you're doing the intro live, right? Or, like, at the same time as the rest of the recording. It's really hard to know if, like, it's actually gonna deliver on that promise, right? So it's better to do it afterwards. And basically, like you said, you can drill in on what's most important or most interesting in the conversation that's gonna grab a listener and say, okay, I'm committed, I'm gonna hear this one out for sure.

[00:28:19] Speaker 1: Exactly. And so for this next point, we're talking, so we got the planning, we got the intro, let's get, like, into the meat of it. Let's get into the conversation. Tell me about the methods that you're using to keep momentum, to make it an engaging, conversational, interesting interview.

[00:28:38] Speaker 2: Sure. Can I just call this the main segment of the episode? Kendall, is that the right word to use? I didn't know what else to call it. Have I always just, like, main segment? Okay. So it's the whole line.

[00:28:47] Speaker 1: It's better than what I said, it's like the meat of it. Now it seems like a sandwich. But, like, I do love sandwiches, so that's fine.

[00:28:52] Speaker 2: Hey, I'm right there with you, me too. We found our common bond, everybody. Here it is.

[00:28:55] Speaker 1: There we go, see? This is, we're watching in real time this happening.

[00:28:59] Speaker 2: Right. Wow. Okay, so this main segment of the episode, like, I'll just compare it to movies. How many times have we, like, I actually love to engage the chat here. So I'm gonna open the chat. Usually I leave it closed so I don't get distracted. But how many of you have seen a movie in the first three minutes? You're like, this is going to be sweet. And then the next hour, you're like, this is so boring. Or I don't even understand what's happening now. Like, who's seen a movie that you feel like has done that to you? Does anyone, anyone with your mind alone?

[00:29:25] Speaker 1: In college, I dated a cinematographer. And so I was like, oh, this movie's gonna be great. And then it's just long shots of scenery. And I'm like, what's the plot? Why is no one speaking? What's happening? I'll tell you why that happens.

[00:29:38] Speaker 2: It's because it's actually hard to create something that's engaging from start to finish. Like, even if you make a really good hook at the beginning of an episode and people are like, I'm committed, I'm gonna check this out. It's, that's like, although that can be, take a little bit of tact and a little bit of skill to be able to do and a rhythm to figure out, keeping it interesting is actually really tough. And some people's solution, like me, is just make my episodes shorter. So that's my hack. I don't do an hour conversation. I try to keep it under 30 minutes because guess what, Alex is interesting and so are his guests for under 30 minutes. So like, that's one thing you can do, but what you really, in order to keep it interesting is there needs to be some sort of strong narrative outline. Like, there needs to be something where there's a plan for where it's going to go. And so, at the same time, you also wanna follow the flow that you're feeling in real time of where it's going. And this is where, again, something like completely AI-generated questions can actually harm the conversation a little bit or the interview because it's gonna be very difficult for that to predetermine exactly how it's going to go. So you might have questions where it bounces around. Here's the big goal of this. You don't want your listeners to have questions. You don't want your listeners to have questions. Kendall mentioned earlier, you wanna be asking the questions first that your listeners are gonna be asking, but not the ones of like, wait, how did they meet? Wait, where are we now? And the problem I see happening, and even sometimes while I'm interviewed on podcasts, and some of them are actually really good shows, it's just, it's hard to get this right. But they'll ask me, hey, tell me about your first job you ever had, like out of school. I'll talk about that and be like, tell me about your upbringing now. I'm like, okay, well, now we're not following a narrative flow. Like now we've already- Yeah, we've mixed the story up. The timeline's not working. And I'm not saying every story should be like, tell me about your childhood, tell me about your college experience, tell me about your first job, tell me about what you are now, right? But you wanna make sure that you do follow that flow, even if it is bouncing and skipping things. But again, all with keeping the guest in mind, saying, is the guest gonna be like, huh? How did we get here? Where are we? If the guests are having, or sorry, the listeners, if the listeners are having to ask questions saying, how did we get here? I don't understand where we're at. Then it's not following a real coherent narrative flow. And to me, that really is so important. And the last thing I'll mention on this point is, you want me to mention Riverside here, but again, paying Riverside forever, you can change the order of an episode after it's done. I have done this plenty of times where we got into something and then the guest was like, you know what, actually, this really started from when I was in college. And then now we backtrack to before everything else we talked about. Well, when it's done, I go into Riverside and I now reorder the shape of the episode. Not because I'm making it inauthentic or anything like that, but I want it to answer the questions that the guest or listener is gonna have before they even come up. And to me, it makes a much stronger narrative flow that somebody can listen and be like, wow, what a journey, what a story. So I'll go back and move things around. That's the beauty of post, is that you can go in and you can change those things a little bit. And again, I don't feel that's inauthentic at all. It's making it a better, all true story for someone to follow versus just kind of random pointed direction.

[00:32:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I, so one of the things that I really relate to you on is the narrative flow, I would say, I honestly think that it's more important than writing down the questions. So I can always feel when I'm doing an interview, or having an interview done with me as a guest, that this person came in with these questions and we're following the questions they wrote down. And sure, if that's how you wanna conduct your interview, then more power to you. As long as they're in kind of a sensical way. But it starts to then feel a little bit strange when you're talking and then suddenly somebody's like, great, and so my next question is, it's like, okay, but there's so much that we could have just talked about about this. Like, let's follow the conversation. Let's can like, like you wouldn't sit down with a friend at coffee and be like, so how was your day? Great, and so my next question is, what would you say about podcasting? Like, it's about kind of like, you can get to those questions and have them as an outline, but you can also ask them in a more conversational way. That's one. And two, like, I had an interview, I did an interview with Dallas Taylor from YouTube. He's a huge YouTuber and a podcaster. And we were talking, I was like, I knew that he was starting a YouTube channel. So I wanted to like, I knew that what I want to talk with him about, what the story in my mind is, is about how he went from audio to video and what that transition was like. But okay, before we talk about that transition, yeah, from 20,000 Hertz, we got Kiki in the chat saying that. Yes, exactly. And so what we wanted, like what I wanted to get to from that was that being the main narrative. But okay, to do that, I need to back it up. How did you start your audio podcast? Tell me about the journey. How did you, were there struggles that a new podcaster could relate to and hear like a person who's really successful at this, like be able to relate in this way that like they've also struggled with and be able to see each other that way? Like there are a lot of ways that you can, instead of writing your questions, write out a map of what you think the episode should be. I want to start with him starting his podcast. I want to go into considerations that he made when he was planning it and then talk about, okay, that was when he started your podcast. Now you're huge. Now you're doing the same exact thing for a YouTube channel. How does that change? Like kind of like writing down the narrative journey rather than the questions is one thing. Another thing that I think about this is that, like this is a shout out to Matt Gilhooly who's from our community and an incredible podcaster. And I love the way that he interviews. And one of the things that he told me when we were speaking is that his interviews got better when he allowed himself to forget the follow-up question. And that really, really stuck with me is this idea that like you're sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I have a follow-up question. You're trying to keep it in your brain and keep it in your brain that you haven't listened to the second half of your guest's answer the entire time because you're just trying to keep that nugget in your mind. And what makes for a better conversation is to kind of let it go out. Like just let it exactly active listening as we have in the chat. Just let that go out of your mind and then just continue to listen and something else will come and a conversation will continue. But yeah, I think that that's really changed my interview, how I let interviews flow.

[00:35:50] Speaker 2: So good, I took notes again. So it's amazing, I love that.

[00:35:54] Speaker 1: I'm taking notes on your end too. So I'm glad we're all, and the session's being recorded. I will say this again for anyone who is listening. Okay, so that's, or is that what we wanted to cover for main segment? Because then I'm going to talk about kind of how you wrap it up. Yeah, yeah, let's move on to that. So how do you kind of wrap up the conversation? And I also have questions in the chat about the conversation and I've seen them. I'm going to get to it during a Q&A because we've got a lot of questions. So yeah, how do you end up ending a conversation strategically in a way that really feels like you've closed it?

[00:36:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, ending an episode strongly, I think is absolutely, it's key. And this is the one I've struggled with the most. There were so many times I've like spoke on stage, especially earlier in my journey where I didn't think about the ending. Like I got all the meat of my content, right? So I started off good, I did that. And then I'm just like, and well, that's all I got for you all today, right? Man, it's like this strong build up to just like, yeah, well, thanks everybody, see ya, you know? Not saying that's necessarily like a terrible thing, it felt very Alex to do that. But I was like, that's not really me ending strongly, right? Like it's just kind of like, see ya guys, right? There's a way to end really strong. And so for me, when I think about podcasts, the first thing is you always want to leave people wanting more. And I don't mean by skipping things and leaving little details out or anything like that, but you want them to be like, that was so good, right? You want to end with the listener saying, I can't wait for that next episode, like that was amazing. And there's so many examples, people have gotten this right, but there's also examples people have gotten it wrong. And I'll use one example, I'll leave the podcaster nameless. It's a really big, famous podcaster, probably like a top 20 in the world. And the episode was extremely long. It gave me all the detail times 3,000% of what I wanted and expected from it. It was every piece of detail I could ever imagine getting. And at the end of it, I left knowing what I needed to know, but at the same time being like, whew, that was a lot. And guess what? I didn't listen to another episode. Even if they had more that seemed interesting, I'm like, I don't know if I could do that again. That was a lot for me. That's not what you want a listener to say. You want to listen to be like, that was so good. I can't wait for something else. Like what else is there? And so that's the idea behind ending it strongly. If you want to end it in a way that's like, wow, that's so good. And so when you think about that, there's a lot of ways you can do this. One is to get the call to action for you and for your guest, right? The way a lot of podcasts end, it's like, oh, well, this was a great time, Kendall. Thanks for being here. Where can listeners find out more about you? And a lot of people, especially a guest, maybe that's newer is not going to get that right. They're going to say, well, I'm on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I just started dancing on TikTok. I've got this, I've got this, right? You can email me. You can text me. You can go to my website. You can get my book.

[00:38:32] Speaker 1: This is my address.

[00:38:34] Speaker 2: Stop by, please. I'm available all the time, right? But it turns into that. And then the guest is like, oh, is there, or the host goes back to them. Like, oh, and also be sure to go here, here, here. It's like, man, you just like, all attention has to be gone. Like, people can't retain that. And so for me, the best way I've learned to do this, this is more recent what I've been doing, Kendall, is I started giving my guests call to action. And I tell them before we even get started, hey, you're not going to need to share anything. Like, just show up with as much value as you can. And so at the end, which I'll usually tease at the beginning, in the introduction, be like, hey, just so you all know, Kendall has a free gift for everyone who's here today. And I'm really excited about that. It's going to go right along with this conversation, how to be able to record a better conversation. And anyway, I'm really excited about it. We'll get into it now. And I'll be back with you at the end. At the end, be like, hey, I mentioned this early on. Here's what Kendall has for you. And I give the call to action that Kendall wants to give anyway. Just one thing, not where to find Kendall on social media. Anyone who's interested in that is going to do that on their own anyway. They're not going to be like, what was Kendall's handle again? No, they're just going to co-type in your name, right? And go find it themselves. Or you can link it in the description. That's perfect for that. But I give that really clear pointed call to action. And so that's one way that you end it really strongly. And then after, I do like to turn it back over to the guest, but not to share more of their call to action. To say, hey, Kendall, again, thank you so much for this time. Do you have any final thought or word of wisdom? Really quick, just for our listeners. And typically, I'll just end it with that. And I've prompted my guests. So it's not like a, yeah, let me think here. I tell them ahead of time. I'm like, the one thing I'm for sure going to ask you is if you have a final thought. And that's what's worked well for my show. So don't necessarily call it that. Maybe it's a famous quote that they love. Maybe it's how a story ended or anything that could be, just leave someone feeling good about it, right? And so you want to find a way that you end it. And so typically, my guests will share that in 30 to 45 seconds. On my podcast, I'm like, that is just such a great way to end this. Kendall, thank you again for being with us today. And I cut it right there. And everyone who heard that is like, wow, that was like powerful at the end, right? Like, okay, their call to action. He told me that Kendall's got something for me today, right? So to me, that's a great way just to wrap it up. And all this should be pretty condensed. You don't want to spend all day trying to close it down, right? Like a good ending is typically pretty quick. It doesn't need to be hours. I'm re-watching the Lord of the Rings series in the last of those movies. I don't know if anyone has seen or remembers, but especially the extended version, it goes to like a white screen and then shows another ending, like four or five different times where you're like, is it over yet? And it's all good. Like everyone loves Lord of the Rings, right? But like, you're like, this is turning into a lot. Are you going to actually end the movie?

[00:40:58] Speaker 1: I actually just recently, I would say re-watched it, but I actually watched it for the first time. My friend was so outraged that I hadn't seen it. That's true. I'm a little outraged. You have to sit down and watch it. Yeah, but okay. But I have like a new child. So the idea that like, I couldn't sit down, but my friend was very adamant. So I'd have to be like, I'd have to say to my wife, be like, oh, I'm so sorry. I have to go leave for like five hours to go watch Lord of the Rings. It's a commitment. I did it though, because I'm a committed friend. No, I also think that a lot of time people, their like knee jerk thing to do will say like, and what's one parting thing? And I think that that's great. If you're like, if you're a, like, if you're used to podcasting or used to talking, it can be like a really incredibly powerful moment. But I think that you just need to use that one wisely only because if you're talking to somebody that's not particularly on a show, it's kind of like, what's one thing somebody should know about you? You're like, ah, I don't know. It's like suddenly becomes your fun fact, like the company party that you're like, what do I say? Have I ever been fun? Do I have any facts? So I think that it's, I think that that should like, if you're going to use that one, do it wisely to somebody that you know does podcasts or speaks, does public speaking that knows that. Yeah, otherwise I think that having them kind of say one call to action, I actually got to shout out my guilty, it's not a guilty pleasure because I'm not guilty about it. I love this one podcast called Reality Gays. And it's two gay men talking about reality television, the really where my interests collide. And so in it, there was a CT at the end that they talked about leaving them a review. And they actually would give like a, if you love this episode, like leave us a review and they'd say like what you could say in the review to even make it easier. It was, they'd say, keep going Queens. That's what they would do. And so it's fun because it's also really on brand for them, but it like made you very easily go and leave a review. And they also have a closing line that they change every time. And if you are so-and-so, call us. And it's funny, if that can work with your show, like trying to do something like that, where you do like a little wrap up line that you can change every time to be about that show, to be kind of off the cuff, I think is just like a really masterful way of ending your show. And I like, I love to hear the ending of it every time. And how many shows do you listen to that you say like, wow, I love that ending, you know, like I'm here to listen to those last five seconds so I can hear how they close it. You know, it could be a cool way to do it. Okay, so we have a bunch of questions, but I also do want to get to, let's be honest, making content right now isn't just about doing the interviews. It's also about distribution. So now you've done it, you're editing it. How are you thinking about the title, the description, and making sure that people actually go and watch the episode? Because I do think that's a big part of being a host now.

[00:43:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. You want to make sure that you are positioning your content well. And this is twofold. One, if somebody sees a title and description that actually describes what the episode is about, they're going to listen for longer because they know that it's going to be in there. And so the very first thing I always mention, anytime I talk about titles and descriptions, is you have to deliver on the promise made in both those things. So you can't say, like, in a compelling episode about how Kendall overcame adversity, and then you never talk about it in the episode. Like, that's called clickbait, and you will lose trust, and it's not going to work. But if that's really what the conversation's about, like, go for it. And that's, by the way, probably not a good title. I'm not good on the fly with titles. So, but anyway, my point is just like, hey, you want to make sure it's going to deliver on the promise. So that's good for two things. One, it's going to make sure that somebody's going to listen to it and be like, yeah, that's a topic that's interesting to me. And they're going to listen through because you can deliver on it. But two, it also helps with discoverability. And so people are typing what they're looking for, believe it or not. I don't know about you all. If you use search or AI, you typically type in what it is that you want. Especially on YouTube. Yeah, especially on YouTube. Oh yeah, yes. On anything, you're typing in what you're looking for, not for what you're not looking for. And so you always want to position in place of like, well, could it be discovered? And the biggest mistake I still see in podcasting is that so many shows start off by listing maybe an abbreviation of their show title or their whole show title or season one episode this, right?

[00:45:03] Speaker 1: Episode that, guest name.

[00:45:05] Speaker 2: Right, and it's not even, so like I was on a podcast recently and it was the title of it was episode, or sorry, season three, fully spelled out, episode four. And then it just said, Alex Sanfilippo. And I was like, that tells you nothing. Like, you can't even say my name. Like my name is not like, you can't say Sanfilippo, right? Like, so in my mind, I'm like, I don't, no one knows what this is about. Like there's no indication at all what this will be for. It's gonna be hard for anyone to research and find it. But even if they could, they're probably not gonna click it if the one right below it or right above it actually has a promise that it's able to deliver on, right, in the title. So we want to really get it right. And I found the shorter is typically the better. Like say it in as few words as you can. And so if you were like, hey, but Alex, I have to have my season episode in there. I referenced it somewhere, put it at the end. Like don't use up that prime real estate at the beginning. Like make sure that you're using the right stuff. And Riverside has that built-in AI tool, which I use a lot because it knows the context of what I just shared, right, me and my guest. And it can give me some good ideas. Now, do I ever use it word for word? Basically never, right? I'm gonna tweak it a little bit to be Alex's voice. And that's perfectly fine, but it gives me the direction saying, hey, this is what you all talked about. This would be a good title for it. It's like, that is what we talked about. That is a great direction for a title and for description. And I, and so I ultimately like to write things in my own voice. It's like one of my favorite things to do. And so I'm gonna do that. But the reality is it's told me where I can go with it. And so I don't have a lot to share on this point, Kendall. I don't know if you have anything else you wanna add, but at the end of the day, just don't skip this part. It's a shame when I see podcasters get everything right and then just take the shortcut at the end. Could you imagine writing a whole book and then titling it Alex's book? Like that's not gonna help you. If you spent all those years working on this book, like put a little bit more energy into getting it out there as well, right? And I'm not talking about being a marketer or not, just have some pride in it. And the pride is the signature you put at the end of it. Your title and description is that signature.

[00:46:55] Speaker 1: That's a great example as far as Alex's book. I really like that. I'll also just say that like, for example, for this interview or this workshop that we're doing, you can also do this for multiple videos. So we'll have the long form, but like we did this in six parts. So how Alex structures episodes to make sure that they can stay engaged. Like how to structure your episode to keep them engaging with Alex. And then like that can be its own mid form, not short, not long form kind of conversation that you put on YouTube. And then there's more ways for your stuff to be discovered. So you could do that with your longer episodes. You could also do that with creating like five to 10 minute clips out of your episodes. So yes, very into this. Okay, we've got a lot of questions and I'm excited about them. Yeah, same.

[00:47:43] Speaker 2: I love it.

[00:47:44] Speaker 1: So we just got how to, from Elaine, how to title them to attract viewers. So we covered that. Let's go with, so we had a few questions. We had a conversation that was happening in the chat about if a guest is going long with their answer, do you have any tips for kind of how to keep the guest, keep the conversation going without interrupting them or seeming rude?

[00:48:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, unless it's a live show or something like this, if it's anything other than this, right, where we're doing it live, you can very easily edit and post. And I once had a guest on who was like a dream guest. And I was told that he's a talker. And so I was like, all right, I'm ready. And he told me at a hard stop in 45 minutes. I'm like, great, I only want to record for 30 so we can get you out of here in time. He talked for an hour and a half. It was the longest episode I ever had in my show. But what I did is afterwards, I was able to find the breaks where I realized he went on, like he would give a good answer and it'd be like three to five minutes long, but then he'd explain his answer for another 10 minutes, which is kind of like going a layer deeper. And what I realized, I was actually able to pull that out and it was actually a better interview without it there. And so I was able on each of those things, I only asked him three questions, but I was able to just grab those three questions and pull out those other points. And again, it didn't dilute it at all. And so if a guest really loves to talk and it's in some sort of direction that's healthy, like let it ride, right, let it go if you can. Now, if it's just like, hey, oh yeah, you asked about my business. Well, I used to skydive and let me tell you how that became a hobby. Well, actually let me tell you about my dad's hobbies first and it starts going into that, like you have to interject. And I typically try to interject with humor because confrontation is not my favorite thing. So I'll jump in with some sort of humor and just be like, I'll be like, man, we're all over the place. Like, what was the question I asked? Like, oh yeah, I was talking about this. Like, can we go, let's go back to that. And then typically they'll go along with it and laugh. And now if they're really serious, maybe don't get yourself in that situation. Again, like listen to somebody on the show first. If you kind of realize you're gonna have like a personality that doesn't gel, don't get yourself in that space in the beginning anyway.

[00:49:46] Speaker 1: Oh, there's another question here. Former journo transitioning to podcasting. Welcome. How much do you share with your guests in advance? For example, do you send them all your questions in advance or simply enough to give them a sense of the topics that you wanna cover? I, as a former journalist, I don't send them questions. I don't like sending the questions beforehand. I'll say like, hey, this is a, let's say like, I have a podcast, it's about podcasters. My audience is this. That's what I always ask as a guest before I guest on other people's podcasts. Like who's your audience? Who can I be? Who am I talking to so that I give you better answers that'll actually connect with them. But you as a host, by the way, should say that. Like my audience are these people, this is what they care about. Just so that your guests can, they can make sure that your conversation really relates to them. I don't share my questions. Let me know in the chat if you do. And Alex, let me know if you do.

[00:50:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't share questions either. And I've only had one, actually I had one group. I was interviewing three people and they asked and I actually did give them an outline, but I had never done that before. And it's funny, I gave them an outline, they hated it. And they're like, can you just restart and go a different direction? I was like, okay. Ended up being really good with that. It's the only time in the hundreds of interviews I've done. But no, I don't give questions. And the only thing that I do is I reach out to the guests in advance saying, hey, just a reminder, my podcast is about podcasting. It's for guests and hosts that wanna go further faster. And I think that your latest book will be really good to cover that. I've got three sections that I really wanted to cover. And that's it, it's like one little paragraph, sometimes two paragraphs. I'm just like, are you okay with this direction? That's it. And it's typically in an email. If they say, yeah, that's great. Then I'm like, cool, I'll prep you day of when we get started before we hit record. That's it. But I don't do any questions or anything like that. And the thing is I could change my mind the day of, right? I could just have this revelation of like, wait a minute, this is the wrong way to go, right? And that's fine. So yeah, I don't really give that to anybody. And I'll say this as a guest, I don't like to get the questions in advance. Because now I feel the pressure of being overly prepared.

[00:51:41] Speaker 1: I was like, I was just gonna wing this.

[00:51:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean. I was just gonna get in the seat. As long as we're talking about what I know, that's okay. And I think I give better answers than if I prep. If I prep, I actually don't give nearly the depth. And so I just, maybe I just don't do good off the, like are being prepared like that for things I already know. So I'd prefer not to get the questions. Unless you're like, Alex, I'm asking you a really tough question. It's this, you need to think about it. If that's gonna happen, great, give it to me.

[00:52:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, and then sometimes I'll be like, yeah, yeah, sounds good for the interview. But I know that I'm just gonna kind of go with the flow of the conversation. And they're like, so what were the three things that you would do best for this? And I'm like, oh no, should I have read those questions and then written down my three things? Like, ah, let's edit this out, this silence that I'm gonna give you. Mike had asked, what about ad placement? How do you work that into conversation? Maybe like a mid-roll ad.

[00:52:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the way I do ads right now is I use dynamic insertion. So they're only in there sometimes. So dynamic insertion allows you to add, to include the ad at any point anywhere in the episode. I keep mine at the very beginning or the very end. And my longest ad I think is 19 seconds. And so at the beginning, I'll just, once a month I'll push a button and it'll be at the beginning of every episode. And it's basically like, hey, Alex here, before we get into today's episode, I wanna invite you to a virtual event that I'm hosting. Here's where you can get a free ticket. Now here's the episode and I roll into it. And then sometimes I'm like at the end, which I actually like even better. Weirdly enough, it converts better for me. But the end's like, hey, Alex here, as a thank you for staying around to the very end of this episode, I have something I wanna give you. And then I basically have to give away. I personally don't enjoy like the mid-roll ones. I get that you have people's engagement, so maybe it helps a little bit. But for me as a listener, I don't know if it's just the way my brain works. Hopefully my brain works right. But it's sometimes like- We hope so, because we had you as a guest today. Wait, what were we talking about before I started hearing about this mattress? Right, like now I'm listening about a mattress. I know there was something else before that. And so for me, it's like, again, it probably converts well for the host, because you have the engagement, the attention. But for someone like me who's listening, I now have to go back, hear the end of it, and then fast forward through to it to get to where I'm actually picking up that conversation so my brain can connect the dots. So I don't know. I'm a little unconventional when it comes to ads and stuff like that anyway. But I just would be very careful with it, I suppose.

[00:53:57] Speaker 1: I think that also if you know they're gonna put an ad somewhere, you could just do like a quick, just have a pause before your next question, maybe. I think that sometimes if I'm listening and I could tell that if you're doing a mid-roll ad, you could tell that the host didn't think about the ad at all, because it'll cut off in a really sudden way, and then suddenly there's an ad. So I think that if you know that you're gonna put one in, you could just add a quick pause, and then that's something that you can edit around.

[00:54:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, JLD, John Lee Dumas' Ransomware is on fire. I think he does it really well. I don't mind the ads in his show at all, because he prompts his guest, and you know exactly where it's gonna happen. So go listen to any episode of Entrepreneurs on Fire, and you'll hear how to do an ad really right as a mid-roll.

[00:54:40] Speaker 1: Awesome. We also have a quick Riverside question, so I'm going to answer that. That's for you, right? Can we, yeah, there we go. Alex, you'll take this away. Can we do a live, greet the guest in the green room, and then go live without them, and then add in the conversation after? Yes. There is, when you go into the people panel in Riverside, there's a hide show option, so you can just hide them, go live, introduce yourself, and then do the, press show, and it brings them back. That means they'll be backstage. Their video and audio is not recorded when they're backstage, so it's a nice little way to be a little bit more dynamic when you're live. I like that. That's very cool. Yeah. How do you feel about giving the edited podcast to your guests?

[00:55:23] Speaker 2: So, oh, before publishing. Okay, so this is like, the episode is done. I like this, John. I think this is an important thing to bring up. I'm all for it. Any guest who's asked me for anything, I give it to them right away. I'm like, if you want something, it's all yours, right? Like, it's your voice on it, I'm fine with that. So, I've even had twice where I've given the guests the content, and they went ahead and posted on their own show. They mentioned, hey, I was a guest on another show, here it is. One time it was actually four, it even came out on mine, which was kind of funny, but at the end of the day, that doesn't bother me. Like, if anything, their audience now is gonna come find me, and they're gonna hear the, oh, this is that interview that was over there, right? If they hang around, they might catch it a little bit later. So, to me, yeah, anytime a guest asks me for anything, to me, it's just as much theirs as it is mine, right? I've never had anyone abuse that, and so I guess I'm always okay with it.

[00:56:09] Speaker 1: I am, I mean, I think that it could be, you don't wanna ever make your guests feel like they are kind of in a gotcha type of situation. Like, I would be bummed if I went on somebody's podcast, and I found that I didn't like something, like that they published something that I didn't like, but I also feel as a guest that I would know that I said something, and I would write to you and say, hey, can you please edit that out, or something like that, or if there's something that I spoke about, and then news happened, and maybe it's a more sensitive topic or something, then yes. Otherwise, I mean, I think that it's a nice, like it's nice if somebody asks for it, it's a nice gesture to send somebody on the podcast beforehand. My only thing is that I find it interesting that you're saying that it's just as much theirs as it is yours, because I do think that there's ownership of your show, that sometimes people will wanna say, I want to change this, what if they start giving you a bunch of edits, like, can you take this out, or move this to the beginning, do you still feel that way, that it's just as much theirs as it is yours?

[00:57:13] Speaker 2: I guess I meant, yeah, no, you're right. As a show, the platform's yours, it's your home, you invited them into it, so it's not equally theirs. The experience of the interview is more what I was referring to. I've never had anybody do that, but I would not, I hope I would never have a guest on that would want to do that, but I've never had that happen, but absolutely not, like, you as the host, like, you don't work for them, like, you gave them the gift of inviting them over, and that's important, and if they disrespect you by not taking off your shoes and asking you to move your furniture around, like, that's, they can go, right? Like, and perhaps it's better just to delete that and let that one slide.

[00:57:48] Speaker 1: I actually did have somebody recently come to my home and tell me to move my furniture, but that's fine, and they're not on this live session.

[00:57:55] Speaker 2: Was it so you could watch a five-hour movie called Lord of the Rings? No, no, no, no, it was not. It might make sense to readjust it.

[00:58:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that actually is very true, and it was not because of that, it was because of a chair that does happen to be a little large for my living room, but so be it, it'll stay. That's right. So I love that sometimes tangents happen during interviews where suddenly you're talking about a chair in your living room. I wanna just say, if there's one, like, is there one thing that made a difference for you when you were interviewing? And that'll be kind of like, as my wrap-up, is there one thing that you would say when you started interviewing that you did for yourself that you felt like really changed how you look at interviews?

[00:58:34] Speaker 2: Yeah. It was the realization that it's not actually about me. It's for somebody else who's in the audience. It's for a listener, it's not for me. And the second I learned to shift my focus away from this is about me, this is about Alex, it's about my experience, this is about my influence, and shifting and saying, this is actually to help, to love, and to serve somebody else who's actually going to hear this, I took the pressure off myself without even realizing it. So I went from being like, all right, Alex, get ready, get psyched up, here we go, you gotta do really good today, to the reality is like, you know what? It's not about me, it's not a performance. I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna do my best to serve somebody who needs to hear this message today, knowing that there's probably one person out there whose life could be changed from this. I'm doing this for them, not for me. And again, when I did that, it took all the pressure off, and that's where a lot of the nerves I mentioned when I was starting to podcast in 2012 to now, was because of this idea. And still when I show up as a guest, it's the same thing. This isn't the Alex show, right? It's not, I'm here to help and to serve. And as long as I can remember that, I find it flows a lot better, it's actually a lot better content too.

[00:59:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I think that when you first started talking about it, I thought that you're gonna say like, the interview is not about me, it's about my guests, but when you said it's about the audience, I was like, yes, I 100% with you on that. And I think that's a great takeaway. So thank you for sharing that. If there's one place people can find you, where should they go?

[00:59:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go to Instagram, TikTok, wait, no, I'm just kidding.

[00:59:58] Speaker 1: My home address. Don't move my chair in my living room.

[01:00:02] Speaker 2: Put it in the chat. Yeah, if you go to podmatch.com slash free, that's podmatch.com slash free, I've just got nine quick ideas there. And these are ideas that will help you level up as a podcast guest, as a podcast host, if you're still new, an aspiring guest, aspiring host, it's just nine things. I don't ask for an email address or anything like that. It's literally just my favorite things I've learned over the years. So again, that's podmatch.com slash free, but I recommend hanging with Kendall. Kendall, you're doing such a good job with this, and this was incredible today. So thank you for what you do.

[01:00:29] Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, this was incredible. I loved all of your tips. I actually, you stole my joke, because I was gonna, I literally wrote in my notes, because we were talking about how to end a conversation. I was gonna say like, so-and-so has a free gift for you, but we hadn't talked about a free gift. Oh, right. So I was gonna make a joke being like, so-and-so has got a free gift for you, but you actually just did that. So incredible work. That was, you know, you took my joke, but. So I am going to say, if you'd like to find more of Riverside's community, more of these workshops, more of just anything having to do with Riverside and our community, I'm sending a link in the chat. It is Conversation Creators by Riverside on Facebook. You can find a lot of me there, a lot of people in this chat, and just incredibly supportive, helpful community that is helping each other grow and cheering each other on. So no better thing than that. So with that, that ends our community workshop, and thank you all so much for tuning in. Thank you, Alex, for joining. This has been such an incredible conversation. I really loved this. So I hope that you all took a lot away from it. Yeah. Bye, everyone.

[01:01:29] Speaker 2: Thanks, everybody. Take care, everybody.

[01:01:32] Speaker 1: Stick around, Alex, because. I'm not running away, don't worry. I just like to scare my guy.