Tag Archives: production

Better Interviews In Less Time – PTC 272

Play

Podcast interviews can eat up a lot of your time. Creating intriguing conversations requires many moving parts. In this episode, you get five steps that will help you save time creating your interview episodes.

Many podcast episodes I hear start with a generic question like, “Tell the audience a little about yourself.”

You can’t afford to slowly wade into an interview. Your audience isn’t going to wait around for a lot of useless background information. You have less than five minutes to make your listener want to hear the whole episode.

Start your interview with the strongest question you have.

If you would like help creating powerful interview questions, you can download my free “17 Ultimate Podcast Interview Questions” at PodcastTalentCoach.com/interview. These 17 questions can be customized for any interview and guest.

Podcast hosts tend to spend a lot of time researching their guests. They read the blogs and books. These hosts scour the guests’ bios. They will listen to previous interviews and learn all they can.

When you spend a lot of your time researching your guests, you eventually suffer from the curse of knowledge. You forget what you didn’t know when you started. You forget what the listener doesn’t know. That creates a gap between your questions and the listener’s knowledge.

I was on a call with a coaching client the other night. We were working to develop a plan for his podcast production. He feels like he spends a lot of time scheduling and preparing for the interview. Then, he spends a lot of time conducting the interview. Finally, there is a lot of time spent on editing, posting and promoting the episode, only to do it all over again for the next show.

He and I talked about his process and where he might save some time creating these interview episodes. As we laid out the plan, I realized that many podcasters could save time creating their interviews by focusing the same five specific areas.

Let’s go through each of them to cut your episode production time in half.

RESEARCH

1. Know the one thing

Your listeners will remember one thing about your episode. As much as we hope they remember the whole story, all of the details or the full list of 25 tips, your listeners remembers the moral of the story. The one thing.

Rather than spending hours researching your guest, decide why you want her on your show in the first place. It could be she created a new hack, she have a unique process, or she was the first person to do something. Maybe she made $100,000 in her first year of coaching and we want to know how.

This will save you a ton of time researching your guest. We don’t have time in the interview to tell their life story. Your listener isn’t tuning in to get her life story. Your listener should benefit in some way by listening to your conversation. Determine what that benefit is. Then, deliver.

PREPARATION

2. Prepare 3 to 5 powerful questions

You will probably use 3 questions.

Once you figure out the one thing you want your listener to take away from your conversation, decide what questions help tell that story.

You won’t need a whole list of questions. You only need a few. These questions should help your guest tell their story. Stories are much easier to remember. Teaching through stories is very powerful.

Ask great questions that help your guest tell stories with great details. Make it memorable.

My list of “17 Ultimate Podcast Interview Questions” is all about telling stories. All 17 questions help you set your guest up to look great and engage your audience.

THE INTERVIEW

3. Listen and ask great follow-up questions

Help your guest tell their story and get to the one thing.

Use the curiosity of a listener – ask what they would ask.

Now that you have your 3 questions, ask and listen.

This is where you avoid the curse of knowledge. Because you haven’t done hours of research, your curiosity will kick in. You will now begin asking questions that your listener is asking in his head.

These 3 questions will walk your guest right down the path of telling her story. You might use 3 questions in chronological order. Where did she start? What did she learn? Where does she go from here?

You might use a “struggle to success” framework. “What did life look like before the breakthrough?” “When did you realize the breakthrough?” “What is life like now?” “How can I do the same thing?”

Among the primary questions, you will sprinkle in follow-up questions that refine the story. These will be questions like, “How did that happen?” or “What do you mean by that?” or “How did that feel?”

When you are listening like a listener, you are more engaged. Your listener is more engaged. Your guest is more engaged. Everybody wins.

The best part, you just saved a bunch of research time.

EDITING

The last two areas deal with editing. There are two thing you can do to save a lot of time when it comes time to edit your show.

4. Leave large gaps of silence to speed up editing

When you leave large gaps of silence, you can easily find those edit points by simply looking at the waveform.

Before you start the interview, tell you guest to feel free to stop and begin answering a question again. But if they do, you would like them to pause for five or ten seconds. This will help with editing.

You should also tell them you will do the same if you need to start over with a question.

This not only helps with editing, it puts your guest at ease. They will rarely use this option. Their answers will be much stronger, because they aren’t as concerned about messing up.

5. Leave the ums and thinking silence in the conversation

When you leave in the “ums” and short bursts of silence, you let your listener fill in the blank and predict the answer. This makes the interview much more enjoyable and engaging for your listener.

Leaving these in also makes the interview sound more conversational. People use “um” and bits of silence in everyday discussions. They should be part of your conversations as well. You should only be concerned if the “ums” are distracting or the silence becomes too long.

Silence is a powerful attention grabber. When people hear silence in audio, they automatically pay attention, because it is unusual.

When you don’t spend so much time trying to find and remove all of these little nuances, you will save amazing time editing your show.

SAVE TIME

There are five areas that can save you hours every week when you are creating your podcast interviews. Give them a try and let me know how much time you save.

Download the “17 Ultimate Podcast Interview Questions” at PodcastTalentCoach.com/interview.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.

Your Podcast Is Eating Your Week – Episode 222

Play

Do you ever find your podcast eating up your entire week? The workflow seems never ending. How do you manage your time?

Once you get one episode complete, you need to begin working on the next. After awhile, it seems like the podcast is the only thing you do.

Eventually, the podcast feels like work.

It is strange how life works sometimes. I had two things happen in the past two weeks that strangely complimented each other.

THE CALL

First, I was on a coaching call with a client. He was struggling with the production process of his podcast. Like a lot of us, he felt like the podcast was eating up way too much of his time each and every week.

I am sure you have experienced the struggle a time or two. You need to come up with a topic. The outline needs to be developed. Set up the studio and record the episode. Find time to edit it. Then you need to write the show notes and publish the show. Don’t forget to spread the word and let people know the show is out.

Next thing you know, it is on to the next episode. (cue Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.)

Managing the process can be tough. If you don’t get a handle on it, the process will eat your entire week.

THE CONFERENCE

Second, I attended a conference. During that conference, I found myself in a time management session.

As the speakers discussed company meetings and people who are time vampires, I began to realize that the tips and tricks could be applied to a podcast workflow.

With a little reshaping, I started to create a list of steps to help you manage your production process.

How interesting that both events happened the same week. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Here are 5 steps to manage your podcast workflow.

 

STEP 1 – JOURNAL

Journal 2 weeks of podcast creation. Every time you touch the podcast, write it down.

You cannot determine where you are going until you first know where you are.

 

STEP 2 – GROUP TASKS

Look at the work and determine what can be grouped, like topic creation or writing outlines.

 

STEP 3 – PLAN

A. Create an editorial calendar. Consider the Digital Marketer 60 second blog planner.

B. Find the most productive time of the day.

C. Pick your priorities – Identify the “must do” and “nice to do” items.

 

STEP 4 – FOCUS

Focus on one task and one task only until it is complete. Multitasking is a myth. Your brain can only handle one thing at a time.

 

STEP 5 – WORK IT

Be consistent. Record and produce at the same time every week. Honor the schedule.

 

Create your plan this week. Let me know how it goes.

 

Do you need help with your podcast? E-mail me any time at Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com. Let’s see what we can do.

You can find my podcast and other tools to help you create great content at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.

Find Your Motivation – PTC Episode 048

Play

Find Your Motivation – PTC Episode 048

DSCN0108

Are you like me? There are times when I find it difficult to find the motivation to take myself to the studio and create a great show. Sometimes it is so much easier to stay on the couch and watch some television.

Just like an athlete, we sometimes just need to find a way to get fired up.

This week, I received this e-mail.

 

I have a podcast about fly fishing that has pod faded. Because I am a fly fisher I thought such a podcast would be ideal. But, it became so much work from pre-production, to post-production, to hitting the publish button on iTunes, that I stopped after 10 months.

I enjoyed interviewing the people on the podcast and the preparation, but quickly grew tired of all the other work it took to publish. 4-6 hours for a 1 hour podcast.

My current challenge is that I enjoy doing several recreational things, but I am not “passionate” about any of them. I just enjoy doing them.

Also, I did not have a product or service to sell and still do not. Since this is not a hobby for me, I want to make a good income from this.

I have purchased your book for my Kindle and am reading it now. I am considering consulting with you for an hour or two to move things along faster.

Right now I am re-grouping and figuring out what to do next and your podcast is a great help.

Thanks again for a great podcast.

Name Withheld

 

There are a few issues within this e-mail.

  • How do we find the motivation to fight through the blahs and record consistently?
  • How can we streamline our workflow to make better use of our time?
  • How can we do more of what we love and less of what we dislike?
  • How can we generate some income?

 

Motivation

Like most podcasters, I sometimes fight the blahs. Are you like me? Do you have those days where you could record for hours on end when you have the drive and you’re fired up?

Then, I experience those other days where I just cannot find the motivation to get into the studio. I feel alone. I wonder if anyone is actually listening.

There are a few ways to find the motivation.

Tips:

  • Find the time of day and day of the week that gives you the most energy.
  • Be consistent with the day and time of the week you record – schedule yourself.
  • Record a few episodes in one sitting to batch similar functions.
  • Always work a week or two ahead to ease the pressure to produce.
  • Have a back up episode in the can in case life happens.

 

Streamline the workflow

Tips:

  • Record a few episodes at one sitting. Setting up the gear takes time. Logging in, gathering material, getting to the studio, getting in the right frame of mind all takes time. You can perform the tasks once for multiple episodes when you put it all into one sitting. You could conduct one recording session per month for 6 hours and be done.
  • Minimize your editing by relaxing on the perfectionism.
  • Find the areas that eat up a lot of your time and remove or condense them.

 

Do What You Love

If you hate editing or creating show notes or posting the episode, farm it out. Use virtual assistants or production assistants. Make it easy on yourself.

 

Much of this costs money, so …

 

Generate Income

  •  What do fly fishers need?
  • Find something that is easy for you to create. Develop your product funnel. In this case, it could be location guides, gear guide, gear reseller, instruction tutorials, tours, travel coordinator, make your own flies.
  • Build different tiers for the funnel.
  • Michael Hyatt & Dan Miller did an interview about making $150,000 a year from your platform. Doing a podcast for 10 months creates a solid base. There is surely something in that niche that could be monetized. It simply needs to be uncovered.

 

This week:

  • Find the motivation to fight through the blahs & record consistently
  • Streamline the workflow
  • Do what you love
  • Build your funnel and begin to generate income

 

I’d love to help you with your podcast. E-mail any questions or comments you might have to Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com.

You can also find tools to help you create great content at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.