Hello friends Dylan Schmidt here your podcasting mentor and host of digital podcaster today We're gonna be diving into the art of the interview and explore techniques to make your podcast conversations Engaging and memorable whether you're a seasoned interviewer or just starting out this episode. We'll have something for you This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom Learn how to grow your network and net worth hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and welcome to digital podcaster Now disclaimer, I'm not claiming to be the best interviewer in the world I couldn't write a book about it But I've gathered some thoughts around what I've done to set myself up for success in a podcast interview And how have I done that by doing some really bad interviews? Also by having some issues when recording interviews not at the fault of the interviewee But my own gear from tech glitches to power outages I've had a few issues along the way of digital podcaster And what's funny is if you were to listen back to past episodes of digital podcaster You probably wouldn't even be able to find the episodes where I had these issues And I think that speaks to the power of editing which I can talk about in another episode and in case you missed it last Week we spoke about repurposing your podcast content I know a lot of people are overwhelmed with the amount of tasks they have to do right now and that's why I wanted to cover repurposing your content because it just makes sense. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that yet, be sure to check it out. So like I mentioned, today we're going to be talking about the art of the interview and I'm going to be covering three essential aspects of conducting more captivating podcast interviews. Let's dive right into the first one. First is research and preparation. This one is key. Before you even hit record, take the time to research your interviewee and make sure that you're familiar with their work. There's two people that I think that do this exceptionally well. Number one is Nardwar. If you're not familiar with him, you can look him up on YouTube. He's a character. He does an incredible job of researching the people that he interviews and it shows. And then there's Danny Miranda who I've had on Digital Podcaster. He's the host of the Danny Miranda podcast. You can tell that these hosts do a good job at their research because they commonly get the same reactions out of their guests. Their guest says, "How did you know that?" Without the guest having given them certain information, the hosts are still able to come up with questions that surprise the guests. This is fun because the guest gets caught off guard, which makes for a more authentic and surprising interview, and the audience is following along being pulled closer into the episode and what they're saying. And that's why research and preparation is so important. You want to make sure that you're coming into the interview with more than less. The next essential aspect that can really make or break an interview is having the right questions. And what I mean by this is don't just come to the interview with a list of questions that you want to ask and then never deviate from them. Really listen to your guests and ask the best follow-up questions. If you're sticking to your list of questions like a robot, there's a good chance that your guest is going to check out. And if your guest is checked out, your audience is for sure checking out. So how do you get better answers from your guests? That's by asking better questions. And you can ask better questions by making them open-ended. Here's some examples of what open-ended questions sound like. What's your experience with blank? How did you become interested in blank? What do you see as some of the biggest obstacles when it comes to blank? These open-ended questions really allow the guest to really open up. I guess that's why they call them open ended, but they provide more in depth answers. They get your guests talking. And last but not least, what can make or break an interview to being conducive for you, but also for the listener enjoying it is the atmosphere. Sometimes this one is out of your control and it's especially harder to control if you're doing a virtual interview. But if you're doing an in-person interview, the atmosphere will be everything. Let me give you two scenarios that really drive what I'm talking about here. So scenario one, you're recording a podcast in downtown New York City. Your guest arrives at the studio 10 minutes late. You've got to rush through because you've only got the studio for 90 minutes and you know you're going to be cutting it close. Your guest gets there and you hop right into the interview. You feel uneasy because you've barely spoke with your guests and they feel uneasy because they just walked into the studio that they've never been in, talking to someone that they've never met or maybe just briefly through email about subjects that they've been working on their entire life. Everyone's disoriented a bit, anxious, feeling a little on edge, unsure. Completely natural and normal to feel that way. You listen back to the episode after you record and you barely want to publish it because it sounds rushed. Now let's talk about scenario two. Scenario two, you're recording a podcast in busy downtown New York City again. Your guest arrives at the studio 10 minutes late, but you're not sweating it because you have buffer time built into the schedule. You've made it part of recording process to allow a little bit more time for traffic, life, whatever to pop up. You've also got it built into the process to chat with your guest a little bit before you hop into the episode. The guest has a guess you could call an acclimation period where they spend even just 10-15 minutes just soaking in the environment, becoming familiar with their surroundings, and calming their nervous system. You still only have 90 minutes to record, but you make sure your episode, the actual finished product, is only 30 minutes long, all part of your plan. You record your episode, you listen back, and both you and your guests are in love with the interview because it was so good. Not only that, your guests love the interview so much that they're sharing it with their audience and their personal network, telling everyone that they need to listen to it because they were surprised at how good the the podcast was. Now that's an extreme example, but even at a virtual level, the atmosphere still affects your interviews. So if you, the host, don't make the environment conducive to the conversation, then your guests won't go on a journey with you. With all three of those techniques in mind, you can set yourself up to conduct an amazing interview. You've got the right questions, the right tone, and the right environment. Now with all of this being said, I do want to just take a second and say that you could do all of this and your guests could just be having a bad day. There's things that are just going to be out of your control. Everything I'm sharing here isn't about making every interview a grand slam. You'll never run into problems again. This is about controlling what you can control as a host. And when you can control what you can control, you'll get better interviews more of the time. If you found this episode valuable, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your fellow podcasters. Your support helps me continue to bring you more content. For more in-depth guidance on conducting engaging podcast interviews and other essential podcasting skills, I invite you to check out Podcast Academy, visit podcast.academy, or the show notes for a direct link to learn more.