445. How the Pre-Interview Creates Better Stories Every Time

0:04 Good morning podcasting. Morning Chat Today is Friday, January 30th, 2026 and today pre interviews, podcast prep and honest conversations with Ralph Estep filling in for me, sharing practical strategies and fixes for smoother guest episodes. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:23 Well, good morning friends. Welcome to podcasting Morning Chat. I am Ralph Estep junior filling in for Mark and I'm super happy to be joining you today. On this Friday, I want to introduce others on stage. We have producer Ashley Feller. We have Alex Baelish, BC Babbles, Sid Meadows, Nick Naubach, Matthew Bliss and Dr. Face, so I just want to thank everybody for joining us today. Today we're going to be talking about pre interviews and I wanted to start off with this. I truly believe the best interviews don't start when you hit record. They start before the guest even shows up. Because we've all had that moment when you hit record and you realize that you and your guest are not on the same planet, maybe not even on the same universe.

2:05 So I've asked Ashley to put up a polling question here. Quick show of hands and I want everybody to jump in here and answer this question as we get started. Quick show of hands. Do you do a pre interview every time? Do you never do it or only when you're unsure about the guests? I really wanted to start our discussion today with that polling question, Ashley. So if you could put that up and if anybody wants to comment, you know, throw your emoji up there. I'll do my best to to keep an eye on that, but go ahead BC. And for me, it's definitely pre interview every single time. You know, I like to really get past those kind of introductory questions because for me, the more actionable the conversation can be for my audience that I always want to provide insights for the better.

2:49 And I feel like if I spend too much time with all those introductory questions, like who are you? What have you done, yadda, yadda. Not that they don't get that chance still that my guest does, but if we can really take what their thought leadership is from the get go and really going to go ahead and like put that into what the purpose of the episode is, I find that's a lot more productive and a lot better for the audience. Actually, I can't see the polling question. Can you say what the results are on the polling question if we got any results so far? Right now we have 60% at all the time and 40% at Nope, never. Thank you very much. Here's why I want to talk about this today because in a lot of ways, some people think that a pre interview is really just busy work. And having done some interviews and interviewing other people, I don't see it that way.

3:34 I really see them as being insurance and truly I see them being 5 things. And that's kind of what I want to start the discussion with today. Here's the five things that I think an effective pre interview doesn't. And I hope we get into a discussion today about what makes an effective pre interview. What's the purpose of that? But here's the five things I think we really should be looking at. Alignment, efficiency, quality, safety and confidence. I think those are the big 5 things. So here's a question I have for everybody and I would love for everybody to jump in, is what problems have pre interviews prevented for you? That's the first question. And the second question is what's the worst? We should have clarified this moment you've ever had with a guest. So what have you used pre interviews? What have they prevented for you? And what's the worst we should have clarified this moment you've ever had with a guest. So what have you used pre interviews, what have they prevented for you and what's the worst we should have clarified this moment you've ever had with a guest? Does anybody want to jump up?

4:24 Go ahead, Nick. I had a couple instances where I'd be talking with a potential guest and they'd send me like a one sheet or kind of like a a rundown of their experiences. And I went into a pre interview with a certain idea in my head of how I envisioned that interview going just based on the 1 sheet. And after having the pre interview, realizing my conception of what they're doing or how they're doing what they're doing was way off. And it allowed me to actually better frame the episode. Once we got into the real interview, it would have just been disastrous. I would have been talking out of left field and. I guess it would have.

5:05 Been like, what do you what do you mean? It helped clarify a lot of things. Just having that little conversation and really getting to understand where the guess is at. And one thing that I really like to do in all of the interviews is ask the guests what they're most excited about right now. Like in their business, I interviewed entrepreneurs and all that because that to me, like if you can start talking about stuff that the guest is excited about, they're going to start opening up, they're going to want to be involved in that conversation. So it was for me always. Yeah, they're a professional. They do this, they do that. But what are you most excited about right now? That tends to open the door for a lot of really interesting conversations. I think that's one of the main benefits. It really does open up the door to conversations and you might not know those things when you're just doing some research or maybe you reached out to them to do an interview. So great point, Nick, Does anybody else want to share something that pre interview has worked or sometime that a pre interview has caught, you know, prevented a big problem? Because that's really what we're talking about today. I want to get into some some what's here in a few minutes, but I wanted to give everybody an opportunity if they've had that scenario where, oh man, I'm so happy I did this pre interview because it stepped off some big problem. Well, let's jump right into the what of this. I think that's something that we really need to cover today is and that is what should a pre interview cover? And I think that there's really five things that a pre interview should cover.

6:28 And I think these things are the things that make it solid. And the first one of those I think is outcome. And when you're talking to the person you're going to interview, what do you want the listener to think, feel or do when the episode ends? I think that's something that's really important to discuss in that pre interview. What is the outcome that you're hoping from this episode? The second thing I think it was really helpful to talk about is what I call your story inventory. And this is kind of what Nick was talking about a little bit a few minutes ago. Give me two or three stories you can tell in 60 or 90 seconds. Because honestly, I think that's going to give you a good idea of this person's ability to tell a story. Are they going to be able to capture your audience? Are they going to be able to convey information? Honestly?

7:09 I think another thing it does is it gives you a chance to listen to their audio quality. You'll get a feeling for whether they are going to need some, you know, improvement on their audio. You can work that out ahead of time. Maybe they've got some some issues with room noise and things like that. The third thing I think really should cover is what I call boundaries and landmines. And these, these are the things, you know that anything off limits discussion, anything that you don't want to be asked. Are there things that you definitely want to be asked? Are there any sensitive topics that that we should handle carefully? You might be interviewing somebody that's been through trauma or somebody that's had difficulties in their lives at BC. Go ahead and jump in while we're here and then I'll move on to the next piece. That's a great point. I have spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs who do allocate a big part of their pivot in life to a traumatic experience. And I do always want to let them know. I never poke at that, but I do want to, you know, tap into that enough to where we understand how that does feed into how you ultimately found the innovation to bring yourself to where you currently are.

8:14 So for me, it's always about letting them know. I do want to harness that to a great degree for the conversation, but I never want to what sort of I'm looking for. I never want to take advantage of it. One of the things I like to do, I don't really consider it a pre interview before we go on. We have like a a chat and and I always ask them what's off limits? What are they promoting? Was there something that I can set them up? I don't say it that way, but you know, what are you promoting so that I can get you to where you want to go? Because I think to BC's point, you know, you want to make sure that you put them in a position to be successful, but you also have to do your job.

8:54 When I do an interview, it might be a 7 minute celebrity interview. I don't have the time to to do a pre interview. There is no such thing as a pre interview. You just have to kind of go, and that's a problem because sometimes actors don't like to answer stuff in good bites. You think they would, but they don't. So you really have to kind of push them. But to your point, you know, yes. And what's off limits versus what's what they're promoting, I think that that gives them a sense of ease that you're on their side. And I think that's the thing, because you're part of that team. Alex, do you find that these celebrities do not want to do a pre interview and they just not willing to do that? Is that what you're saying that? They don't want to. We don't get the opportunity because we're in a queue. We have somebody right after us and we have somebody right before us.

9:42 Now I have done interviews where we've brought people on to the show themselves and we have a quick conversation, checking audio, checking, all that kind of stuff. And then again, I just, I go over, hey, listen, is there anything off limits? Is there anything you're trying to promote? And then that's pretty much my Chronicle pre interview, but we don't have anything that elaborate. Go ahead Sid, I saw you wanted to make a comment. I was just going to say 99.9% of the time I do a pre interview, there's an occasional time where I don't and that's typically if I know the person really, really well. But other ones I do with everybody else. And part of my goal with the pre interview is just to get them comfortable with being behind the mic, get them comfortable with the idea of being on a podcast and sharing their story and talking.

10:33 Because, you know, my goal with the podcast is that, you know, people feel like that we're at a coffee shop having a regular conversation and they're eavesdropping on that conversation. So I just want them to be really comfortable and not stiff and not stale and not reserved, but just have a natural conversation. So I try to make sure that they're comfortable with me and the types of questions I asked because I kind of, I kind of do the pre interview like it's the show and asking questions that I'm likely going to ask, trying to pull things out of them. But I really enjoy the pre interview too, because it does give me another level of connection with my guests. And that's part of what I'm trying to do is to build, you know, a group of I'm trying to build connection with people, build relationships. Very good point, Said.

11:15 Let me go to Matt. Matt, go ahead. I just want to elaborate on something that BC brought up the traumatic perspective because I had as a podcast editor very early on, I was working for a, an Australian podcast called Konsugi Heroes. They actually have a ton of podcasts, but someone that I worked with who was a host at the time had a very specific process for talking to the types of guests that they brought on. Now these guests are dealing with all kinds of trauma. You know, it's Konsugi Heroes is the idea that you build yourself up from being broken to be more valuable than you were before. And it could be someone who's sharing a story of how they lost their child in childbirth and then their husband or wife cheated on them several times until they realized what was actually going on.

12:05 Or it could be the loss of a loved one or a deep childhood trauma that then LED into alcoholism and addiction and all those kinds of things. Very heavy stuff. So the host that I was working with at the time, Evelyn Clark, that I actually had on my show for an episode, she had a very specific process that she went through with every guest that included a pre interview and a little bit of post interview time as well. Just to make sure that it was a very safe space for them to share what they were talking about. And it's really funny. At one point in the future, perhaps I'll share a little bit about what her process was like because we could actually chart the way that she wanted to wind through the conversation with the guests. But the important thing is that pre interview was the time when they would connect.

12:58 They would share what they would like to discuss, potentially what they wouldn't like to discuss. But it was that connection, creating that space that was the huge advantage. But suffice to say, navigating those conversations can be hard in the moment when someone's experience could change in the week that it takes to go from the pre interview to the actual interview. And the skill of being inside that interview is sometimes more valuable again. But that connection, dealing with potentially traumatic events, having a process for that you can do through a pre interview is absolutely valuable. I think too many people opt for the roar and try to get the scoop to get that raw emotion in the interview as well, but that that's got to be a spot where the pre interview shines the most.

13:46 You don't want to do it in the recording. I think that's brilliant. I think what you just said is right on point and and I feel for the people in that situation. And I think in that particular case, the pre interview has has got to be a major important thing. And the other thing that I want to talk about in a pre interview, I think another thing that I think you need to include is proof and and specifics. Are there any numbers, dates, names or results that we can reference accurately in the episode that we're getting ready to record? And then and Alex kind of talked about this, you know, if listeners want more, you know, what's 1 best next step? Because the thing I've seen a lot of people do is, you know, we always say have one clear call to action. Unfortunately, I've listened to shows where somebody came in to be interviewed and they've got a laundry list of things and it's so complicated for the listener to really dive into that. So I think that's another thing that you can do in the pre interview is really narrow it down to one link or one offer one action.

14:39 I will tell you when I go on someone else's show, I design usually a landing page just for that show to give them something that they can use to as a, as a key take away. And I think one of the ways that you can reinforce that is during the pre interview. But I've got to be honest with you. I'm on pod Match and actually you can probably put a link, an affiliate link for PMC for pod match. But I'm surprised how many people on pod match don't require pre interviews and how many you know, just don't even think about it. For me, I don't do a ton of interviews sitting down with people. I go on other shows a lot of times up for me, I don't know that I want to go on a show that I haven't done a pre and reverse because I want to get to know the host. I'll give you a great example of this. I was doing 1, I think it was last summer. A person asked me to come and be on their show and I kind of looked a little bit.

15:27 I listened to a bit of the episode. It sounded like it was strong. But we're in the middle of the interview and I guess she was in a in a college library and about 3/4 into their interview, there's a knock at the door and somebody screams, you got to get out of here. So we're in the middle of this interview. We hadn't done a preview thing. We had this problem where she was basically somebody was coming in on her. So and I had another situation actually where I went into the interview and the host audio was horrible. And the whole time I'm thinking, I don't want to have my brand associated with this. And my audio was good. It was better than good, but their audio was terrible. But but go ahead, Matt, I want to go to you now. This is an important thing I think, and places like Pod Match would be rife with it. People I think get podcaster confidence. I think they get a few episodes under their belt and they're like pre interview, shme interview. I can, I could do this stuff.

16:17 It's it, it's just me talking into the microphone. I've done that 100 times, it's fine. And because Pod Match is the kind of place where you can be a guest whilst also being a podcaster, that kind of confidence starts to spin up a little bit quickly because you presume everyone else is a podcaster as well. But like all the things you're saying, the pre interview gets all that stuff out the way. I wouldn't say it's a Dunning Kruger effect, but you can very easily presume that you're all good, that you don't need a pre interview so why would anyone else? All right, Matt, that reference Dunning Kruger, you got to help me out. I don't know who that. Is the Dunning Kruger effect is an interesting cognitive bias where when people know very little about a subject, a topic, whatever, they can feel supremely confident and feel like they know a lot about it, even if they don't. So it might be the case that someone goes to the gym for three or four weeks, starts to see some new gains and goes, oh, yeah, this is super easy.

17:20 I could be a PTI could make other people do this too. And then they start bringing on clients and they're like, oh, creating supplementation, oh, calcium deficiency in people with osteoporosis. Oh, that's what the tricep muscle is. So it's that overconfidence with very little knowledge. Listen, I love Alex Sanfilivo, a great guy, but I think that is an issue and not just on Podmatch. I know there's other platforms the same thing. And I've had people, you know, reach out to me and and I'm a super host and I'm like, OK, then we we do a little bit of a conversation like you don't have any clue what you're doing. Let me ask the room this question and and Alex, maybe you can address. If you only had 7 minutes for a pre interview, what are the absolute must things you're going to ask in that 7 minutes?

18:07 I'll just say you had 7 minutes, you've got somebody, they've got 7 minutes, you've agreed you're going to do a pre interview. What do you want to cover in those seven minutes and what things would you be willing to put aside? Does anybody want to comment on that? If you had a 7 minute timer, what you would want to talk about in the pre interview? I think it was what BC said about the whole, you know, getting to know the person, but it's really about the tech and just getting a feel for that person, how they react to stuff. I don't have specific questions off the hand because I don't know the person is, but you know, seeing if you can do follow-ups with them and how they react to that kind of stuff. Thank you, Alex. Go ahead. Ashley, I saw you wanted to make a comment. I don't do free interviews because most of my guests are screened from a publicist because I do a lot of my interviews on location and I have control of the sound so the guest doesn't have to worry about that.

18:59 But I would say if I were in the situation where I were, my important question would be what is the ideal outcome of this interview for you that you see as a win win situation? What is the most important thing that we promote? What are some things that I can say to lead you into a story that would help you promote this idea? Go ahead, Nick. When I was doing pre interviews, the one thing that I would avoid in those pre interviews was getting into too much detail. Because sometimes, especially if you hit it off with a guest during the pre interview, you can get like excited and the conversation starts flowing and it's like, wait, no, we have to save this for the interview.

19:41 Like I feel personally, from like an interviewing standpoint, when I know too much ahead of time, it becomes difficult for me to kind of like backtrack on that and put myself in the position of the audience who knows nothing. I want to ask you a question right there in the middle of this because and I did hear, I did see BC and Dr. I'm going to come to you in a second, Nick, but here's a question for you and a question for the group. Do you record the pre interview? Because Nick, what you're really getting at is you might have some real pearls of wisdom in that pre interview. So do you pre? You record that pre interview as part of the process. I don't think I did. I always did the pre interviews on Zoom and then I do the recording on Riverside and I don't think at the time I was recording any of my Zoom sessions but that would have been a really good idea. That's a good take away for today. If you're going to do pre interviews and and you can hear from my voice, I think it's a great idea to go to you in a second, BC And then Dr. But I think to record those things, just let the person know, Hey, I'm going to record this. It's a way for me to keep track of stuff. And if something happens in the pre interview that really could be used in the show, we're going to use it. But go ahead BC And then I'm going to go to you, Dr. Yeah, that's definitely a great idea to to record the pre interview. But to answer your 7 minute question, you know what the understanding that they've pitched themselves, I've seen their pitch, I've seen their LinkedIn and I've decided they have great match potential.

21:00 And then I opened up the pre call with a quick intro to what the show is. I make sure to cover include what I've already kind of messed up in my head based on their pitch and their background that I think are good topics to see if it ruminates with them. I also like to ask, is there anything within this field of discussion that you either find yourself loving to discuss or you think is not discussed enough to see if that also is in line with what I want to discuss and that I think is good for the audience? I think that's a very good point. Go ahead, DRI, know you wanted to make a comment. I always record the pre interview.

21:41 Always, always because I have clients who use that. I call it a Stinger. You know that cold open where the guest is talking and it's hopefully a sentence that's going to be enticing enough that people will want to keep listening. So I call that a Stinger. And sometimes there is a better Stinger in the pre interview than there is in the actual episode. So I do use it for that. And also this is that pre interview is where you can really, really, really drive home the fact that you need either earbuds or you need some earphones. I don't just use your computer mic. That's not what we do here.

22:27 And if they don't have the equipment during that free interview, then they're not going on. I think that's a really good point. Dr. and Dave Campbell put in the chat. My question is to my guest in the pre interview, what would you like to know about my audience? And I think that's a really good point, Dave, very good point. So let's talk about the actual, you know, the making of the sausage, as they say, you know, how do you do this? I want to talk about that how And I really feel like there's really 3 distinct ways. A lot of people think, well, it just needs to be a call. But sure, you can do a 10 or 15 minute call. That's usually best for most guests. It's a quick way to align. You can tell some quick stories, we can talk about the boundaries and the call to action, but here's one a lot of people might not have thought about. You could do this asynchronously. You know, you could have a form like for example, I use pod page and pod page will allow me to send out a guest interview form for lack of a better term.

23:18 The problem is it's pretty cumbersome because it's asking for a bio and pictures and all their profile links and all that sort of thing. But one of the things that as I was preparing for today was one thing we could do is send them a 60 minute voice memo or a quick video you and ask them to do the same back to you because that's a good way to take a look at their technology, get an idea of how they speak. Because you maybe you don't have time to put something on the calendar for a traditional quote Zoom meeting or a call. But what you could do is actually do some asynchronous thing you can talk about what's the what do you want to cover on the show? All the things we've talked about for the last few minutes, you know the outcome, the best story. What are those things not to ask and that one link. So if you don't feel like you can't do this, if you don't have a an actual sit down.

24:03 And then of course, the third thing I think is just having a form, you know, a simple, you can use a Google form. Like I said, pod page has got a great one. If you've got a whole high profile guest like Ashley mentioned, maybe you use their booking agent and and if it's a sensitive topic, then maybe you need to have that phone call. But does anybody want to comment about other ways that they've created a pre interview that has been effective for them? Does anybody want to comment on that? Have you had other ways besides the normal? It's we're going to schedule a meeting, we're going to do a Zoom call. Any other creative ways that you've done that has been helpful to you in the past? I don't record the pre call. I should but I don't. I do use my Otter assistant to capture the notes from it and then I'm working with the ChatGPT to upload and create my run of show based on a template that I created using the Otter recap to just kind of pull out some highlights and stuff like that. So I'm playing around with that, but I try to make it super easy for my guest.

25:07 I don't ask him to fill out a form. I've been on podcasts where I've been sent a form and I swear to Pete, it takes me 30 minutes to fill out a freaking form. And then I have a pre call and I don't know, I'm just not a fan of that. I just try to make it easy for them and, you know, schedule that. I give them a link to schedule the pre call. And then while I'm with them, we schedule the actual interview together. And I'm researching my guests and I'm doing the outreach to them. Occasionally I do get, you know, marketing people reach out to me and I get a little more information from them. I have one of those coming up and I just try to make it easy. I don't give them a form to fill out. I mean, I know who my audience is. I know what they want. I know if people are going to be relevant to my show or not and so again, I just try to make it easy for them and I do the heavy lifting myself rather than making my guests do the heavy lifting.

26:00 And Sid, I think that's brilliant. And and Tim put something in the chat, which is make sure you have the spelling and pronunciation of their name correct. Yeah, that's a personal pet peeve. Sometimes people butcher my last name and it's like, wait a minute, you could at least ask me how to produce pronounce my name. And that's something I think that is real important to do as well. So Sid, thank you so much for sharing that. Does anybody else want to share anything before I get to what I'll call the spicy part of our conversation today? Anybody want to talk about pre interview techniques? Anything that you've it's come to mind since we started talking about this. Go ahead, Dr. Talking about pronouncing the guest name correctly. Sometimes I have to go on YouTube to hear the name and how it's pronounced and everything.

26:41 If you are ever in any doubt and you don't have that free interview then go on YouTube and see if you can find them. Maybe they've guessed it on something else. Absolutely DRI agree with you. So now I want to I want to I want to pivot the conversation and what I call the spicy part of that. Now we've done the pre interview or you decided not to do the pre interview and said, I respect what you're saying. You're trying to cut down on the friction of that. But let's just say you did, you did it, you didn't do it, but now you're actually in the interview. What do you do when the interview is live and it's not great? Things are not going as you expected. Things are getting off the rail. I'm going to call this our real time rescue lines. I would like to open it up.

27:22 Does anybody have any real time rescue lines? I've got a couple that I have here, but I'd like to hear from the room here. Are there any situations? And if you have a story about this, I'd be happy to hear that too. You know, Ralph, I was doing this interview and it went off the rails. I didn't know what I was going to do. And how did you recover from that? Are there any ways that you can direct that? Does anybody want to share that this morning of situations they've been in to do that? I have a couple of these. I had a really great pre in your pre call with the CEO of a company and it was really great. We get to record it and I felt like I had a Jekyll and Hyde and I actually interrupted him at one point during the recording and asked him if he was nervous.

28:04 I said, I asked you a question and you answered it for 7 minutes. That's too long. We've got to be able to have a conversation and go back and forth. And I think he was nervous and we talked about it. And so let's just say we did a lot of post editing with that one to make it sound right. I mean, I listened to it, my editor listened to it. We figured out where there were certain pauses that we could cut out certain things. Because when I asked him a question, he just went on too long. And I think part of it was he wanted so much to connect with my audience that he felt like he was in this position to pitch and he needed to pitch, pitch, pitch. And so I think at the end of the day with all the editing, it turned out great. But my biggest challenge that I have is energy. And people show up on the pre call and I, some of them I know and they have really great energy. And then we show up for the actual recording and their energy is completely opposite.

29:03 And that is a challenge. Like I try to spend a few minutes trying to get their energy back up. I've actually even said to a couple people, I don't think that today's a good day for us to record. Obviously, there's some things happening that maybe you can take when you take a step back here. So we can, you know, get our energy right. Because I want them to be upbeat and excited and not flat or preoccupied. So I've done that a couple of times too. So the energy level is something I really pay attention to. On recording day. I do my best to get their energy up. If it doesn't work then I put a pause and say let's record it another day. It's bold Sid, I like it, but you just flat out say, hey, listen, this isn't working today. Let's pivot, let's go somewhere else. And the other thing you mentioned was, and I have a my notes here if a guest rambles.

29:48 I I thought of some good ideas of ways and I'm open other suggestions, but I thought, you know, maybe you say something along these lines. Let me pause you. I want to pull out the gold in that. Or maybe you say give me the headline in just one sentence or what's the take away for the the listener? I think all of us have been in that situation where we have a guest that they're just rambling. Sid, you just absolutely shared that completely and you had to say, wait a minute. We just had a 7 minute answer to that and you had to get past that. The other thing that you kind of mentioned, Sid, and I think they went on longer, but I also see a situation where the guest is too short or nervous. And I think that's something that we see quite a bit when we're doing this type of situation where we've got an interview and the person, you know, maybe you had a pre interview and they seem like they're very solid. But then they have that all of a sudden the camera's on, the lights are on, the audio's on, and all of a sudden they've locked up and they're not sure what to do at this point. If you've got that situation where they're too short or nervous, one of the things that I think you can do is say that I'm, hey, take me back to the moment that this changed for you.

30:49 Tell me about the story of what went on there or, you know, what were you thinking right then? I think is a really valid way to do that. Or what were you afraid of what happened? Because sometimes I think as the host, you've got to sort of pull it off or pull it back into bring them back to where they are. Because they obviously you wouldn't have brought them on in the 1st place if they didn't have something to share, if they didn't have something valuable to your own. At least I hope that's that's the case. You decide ahead of time. This person brings value to my audience. Another thing we kind of talk about, you know, what happens if you've got a guest that goes off topic, and I'm welcome to hear suggestions about that too. But I see that sometimes as well when somebody goes off topic.

31:30 If somebody's going off topic, go ahead, Matt. I'm going to let you intervene here. Go ahead, Matt. I think we're starting to progress from beginner stage interview prep into the advanced stage. And when I say advanced, I mean that Gray area where it starts to become about a preference for how you want the podcast to sound as well as how you would like the conversation to go and your understood skill in how the conversation will run. I keep wanting to jump into the conversation and say I don't worry about those types of things because the way that I like to do my interviews for for my podcast is to have it be conversational to follow my curiosity. And if there's a point to jump in where someone could elaborate a bit further or they're elaborating too much, showing that interest and doing a polite interruption to have them elaborate further and lead the conversation a different direction.

32:25 It's super easy when you're kind of taking that sort of calm, relaxed, lackadaisical approach to it. But not everyone does that. Like clearly Sid would would listen to that answer and go, well, I've got I've got a thing I'm doing here. And we kind of agreed on how the conversation would go. And I'm trying to respect my editor and do all these things that we've talked about in the pre interview. But they've kind of flipped and, and been worried about certain things. And I think everyone has a different approach to how they tackle all of these different parts. I think there's going to be no, no consensus about what's the best way to do it. But I think the key abstracted advice that will absolutely apply to everybody is that you have to do a couple first. Do a practice, see what works well for you. If you've got an editor or people who help out with the production, find out what works best in that workflow. Try some things.

33:20 Get a a high diversity of guests that you can test with if you can. Sometimes that's easier than than other times, but reflect on how you prefer to run the conversations as well, because your preference for what the podcast outcome might be can also be radically different to how you run the conversation. There's a ton of examples of podcasters I've met in the last year or so that have very different ways that they do podcast interviews that we could talk about too. But I think we're in that Gray area. We're starting to lean into the IT Depends section of things. And Matt, I think that's I think that's a very good point is, you know, this is preferential and I'm just trying to give some ideas of some things that could help you. And I see Dave put a couple things in the chat. He says, I tell my guests in the pre interview to tell their story again on the actual interview. So it was as if I've never heard this story. Don't truncate it.

34:14 The listener hasn't heard your story. I think that's a great point. And then he says a yes, no question to a guest is a great pattern disruption for a guest that goes too long. Again, Dave, I think that is a great way to handle it. Sid, one of the things that you mentioned is if you've got a guest that's pitching too much, if you've got a guest that you know wants to just talk about what they're going to sell somebody, what they're going to give away. I had a couple ideas there, Sid, but did you want to talk about that for a second? Did you have any ideas, if you've got a guest that's trying to pitch too much, how you handle those situations? My show is not about pitching. I do understand that a lot of the people that I interviewed, my audience could potentially specify their product or buy something from them.

34:54 But I really, really try to avoid the pitching. And so I kind of do a pattern interrupt. I change the topic of the conversation, I look at my notes and maybe ask something completely different to get away from the business a little bit to distract from the conversation. But you know, in the in the coaching world, they call it intruding. And so I try to politely intrude on the conversation. I interject myself into it to take the conversation a different direction. And you know, and then one of the things that I do a lot is I recap what the guest said and I'll be like, so Ralph, just me reframe what I heard you say. And I say it in my way because a lot of times, especially when I'm talking to tech people, they talk so far over my head.

35:38 If they're talking over my head, they're talking over my listeners head. So I try to take that information and break it down into the simplest form of what I heard and then give them the opportunity to say yes or no to Dave's point about asking a simple yes or no question, and then add anything else that maybe I had forgotten. And then I move the conversation on. So hey, let me reframe what I think I heard you say. And I go boom, boom, boom. And they'll kind of nod their head or they'll say, yes, that's correct. And I'll say, OK, let me go on to my next question. And so I try to do it that way just to keep the conversation moving and to hopefully prevent too much pinching. No. And I think what you're really getting at said, I don't want to speak for you is really being a good active listener. And I think that's one of the things that is absolutely critical if you're going to be a host is to be a very good active listener.

36:29 Because I, I will tell you personally, I've interviewed a few people and before the interview, I've got this list of questions. And if I'm being completely transparent, I'm not even listening to them sometimes because I'm so concerned that I got to get to that next question because I've got to ask him this and I've got to ask him this. I love what you're saying there because what you're saying is I actively listen to them. I'm repeating back to them, Hey, dude, do I understand you correctly? And it's kind of where Matt was going with the way he does it too. He's digging into that conversation. He's wanting to bring more out of them, but listen as a podcast host, hear what Matt's saying, hear what Sid is saying and hear what I'm saying because this is a great opportunity to bring that out of them.

37:09 And you can't have this. You might have a set of questions that you want to ask. You may have an itinerary of where you want to go, but just like I'm doing on the show today, I've got to go with what's going on in the room. I've got to go figure out what, where, where is the conversation going? You got to do the exact same thing. If you're doing a host of program, go ahead Sid, you want to add more to that. I have found that when I have a list of questions that I get lost in the conversation. The conversation doesn't flow naturally, but when I have a couple of starter questions and a list of topics that I want to talk about, then it's a much better show. It runs much better, It's much smoother. It's much more organic.

37:52 Remembering that my goal is like we're at a coffee shop and my listeners are listening into this conversation at the coffee shop and I wouldn't have a list of questions to ask you, Ralph, at the coffee shop. We would just have a conversation. At least from the pre interview, I know the things I want to talk about. I know the highlights of like what I want to get to and how I want to drive the direction of the show. But too many questions gets me distracted. Like where was I? Which one did I not ask you? Did I highlight it on this? And I got to pay attention to your point. I am focused on I'm being present with my guests so that I can intently listen or actively listen to what they're saying so that I can respond appropriately. And a document with a bunch of questions in it on a different screen is too.

38:39 Or laying on a piece of paper in front of me is way too distracting for me to have that natural organic conversation. And I think you hit it there and I want to say thank you, Sid. It's a great, great thing to share. And Dave put in the chat, I pre war my guest that as the host, I represent my audience and I might interrupt you on my show to clarify any jargon or to explain further. And Dave, I think that is a great thing to say because at the end of the day, and then we're going to we're going to transition here in a minute to our wins of the week. But Dave, I think that's a good way to cap this off. At the end of the day, as the host, it's your show and you've got to be able to give your audience what you see that the audience needs. And if the person you're interviewing isn't getting there, you've got to take the the reins of that and just make it happen.

39:22 So Dave, that is a very good point. And and that's that's sort of my big take away for today is it's your show. Whether you choose to do a pre interview or not do a pre interview, ultimately that's up to you. I truly believe, and I think some of the folks here in the room today have said that too, that a pre interview interview is a great way to make sure it's going to work, make sure it's going to be a good fit for your audience. But at the end of the day, it's your show and you've got to decide what you're going to do, what works for you and how you're going to move forward. But I'm so happy we had a great conversation today. Well, let's talk about our wins of the week. So if you'd like to share a win of the week, throw up a pepper. I got to be honest with you, Clubhouse is acting very strange today. Some people's Peppers look like they're stuck in perpetual just pepper sets there.

40:04 But if you don't know what we're talking about when we want to talk. Talk to somebody in the chat, we throw a pepper but go ahead BC I think yours works. So I'm going to go to you first for your win of the week. I'm actually seeing some attraction right now on the sub stack. I've got a couple of new subscribers and I've got some new likes, so I'm seeing some momentum and I'm getting excited. That is good. Do you want to elaborate a little bit more about that what what you're doing on sub stack BC? Yeah, so I opened a sub stack a few months ago. I'm hosting a new podcast on there, plus I'm giving a lot of marketing insights. I am sharing other content. I am also trying to build a good community over there. And so this week I started seeing some likes, some new engagement. I got a couple new subscribers that hopped on this very week. So I'm seeing that momentum that I've been hoping for in one of my channels. So I'm excited to see what happens. I'm connecting with the new subscribers, seeing what brought them in, what they want to see, and I'm going to start, you know, building this strong community over there. Awesome BC So my take away from that and by the way, congratulations, you're building relationships and I think that's awesome.

41:04 Go ahead Sid, I see you wanted to share a win of the week for yourself. I'm also putting a plug in for Mark if he's listening and maybe for Ashley and Dr. I think it would be great for us to talk about Substack one day and how podcasters are using it. I've only been out there one time and it's really becoming popular. So I think it'd be a great conversation when they to talk about sub stack and let BC and others share how they're using it, how it's working and that kind of stuff. That's somebody say the other day said you start a sub stack. I'm like really another platform that I need to be on like. I've tried, I've done. I didn't realize that there was a personal sub stack and a business sub stack and I think I put my banner for my my business on my personal.

41:50 I'm just having issues just trying to get it up and running. So a little shout out to some of my PMC people on the stage here. If you want to help a little little old helpless me, I sure would appreciate it. Dr. Did you want to share a win of the week while you're there? I'm not going to let her share before I get to share. Come on now, she's skipping. Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead, go. Ahead, go ahead, I will pass it to Dr. My win is that I have electricity. There are people surrounding me in my town, like even across the street that have been without electricity ever since last week when the storm started.

42:34 So I have electricity. We've had a couple of flickers on and off we've had to deal with, but for the most part we still got power in the house. So yay, we were. We were down for about 36 hours, but then now we've gotten power. That is a great one. And it's interesting, Dr. how many of those things we take for granted until we don't have them. And then we go, wow, like to have power is something you just take for granted. You turn the light switch on and it works. But go ahead, Matt, I saw you had a win. You got to. Come back to me, I got to share my win. Sid, I apologize profusely. Go ahead, my friend. No reason to apologize. So all the months of work to finally come to to ahead for us and Monday is the official launch of season 7 of the Trend report and it just feels really good to celebrate where we are.

43:22 The this week has been crazy trying to get all the last bits of information from the sponsors and AD placements and episodes put together and landing pages built. And so we've been running crazy. But you know, my win is that we're here. It's exciting. I started my community this week called the Insider community. I talked about it in my trailer episode. I sent an e-mail out about it. Have about 10 people inside that community already. Not all of them paid yet, but some of them I put in for free. But, you know, so I've got some paid members coming in, which feels really good and excited about all the, and, you know, really proud of all the work we've done for the last several months to get us to where we are today for the official launch of Season 7 on Monday.

44:08 Well, Sid, I just want to say congratulations. That is awesome. I can, I can feel it in your voice. You're super proud of what you've done and and I'm proud for you too, Sid. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I apologize that I cut you off a couple times there. Go ahead, Matt. Now you're up, my friend. My win this week is, I mean, you might call it petty, but you might be aware that I've been trying to make a business pivot away from podcast production and editing into something akin to coaching and mentoring and all that kind of stuff. January's been very editing heavy while I try to tail off a few clients, but this week I had two conversations with editors, kind of like as an interview for them to take over some of the client work that I'm doing. And they've had so many questions and like, it's going to sound egotistical, but I've given them so much value. They usually call it wisdom about podcast editing and the mentality going into that space to become a professional editor. So I've kind of resolved that before I move into general podcaster mentoring kind of thing that I focus on editors and create a big pool of like Matt clones essentially so that I can just handball production work to people that want it. Not like an agency, but just like these are the people. These are my people that I know can do these things that I used to do and I'd be happy to pass the work along to them. But there's only so many of

45:39 these conversations that I've had for free for like an hour and a half where I just keep dropping bombs and they're like, oh God, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And I might be preaching to the choir here, but yeah, that's my win. So I'm going to try and set up paid for coaching or mentoring conversations with potential podcast editors, audio, video, whatever, and see if I can get that moving. So if any of of you are listening to this right now and would like to have one of those conversations, let's say show notes, I won't. I won't do all of the the link plugging and the recording. Matt, that's awesome. Congratulations. And I'm just picturing the Matthew clones, that is you drop that there and I'm just. Picturing, just picture them, manifest them because in all seriousness find it's the only reasonable way for me to get around my anti delegation policy. That is, it really is me being my own worst enemy. But anyone who's done work for people in the past and has trouble passing it off to someone else, I feel a tremendous amount of guilt having to pass a podcast editing client to someone else without like having giving them a path or a place to go.

46:55 Because it's a me thing. It's the only way around it. So I'm trying to turn it into an opportunity. But yeah. Very good man. And maybe maybe we needed to show, do a show in the future about effective delegation. But Ashley, I know you wanted to share a win, so go ahead. Absolutely. And let's not forget Mike down in the audience. I think he's trying to come up. But my win for the week is that for the first time since I think the end of last year, I'm not working on the weekend. I've met all my deadlines. All of my work hasn't blood over into the weekend, so I'm going to spend the weekend writing music, practicing music, reading, and just recovering. Thank you so much, Ashley. I appreciate that. And Mike, I tried to bring you up as well, but it looks like Mike said Nope, I think I hit the button accidentally. That's cool, Mike, but feel free if anybody else wants to share. We got a couple more minutes.

47:40 Does anybody else have a win that they want to share? If not, I'm going to go to the list here and we'll just go through. Go ahead. Dr. Did you have something? You want to go ahead to Tim. Tim came up. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Tim. My clients have two fantastic wins. Just completed a interview with Misses Wyoming for our suicide prevention podcast just yesterday. So after today's clubhouse, I'll be editing that and pushing it out on Monday. And then my other client who has a hockey podcast, we interviewed a gold and silver medalist. For. Women's hockey and that interview will be coming out also on Monday. And my personal win was I was able to dig out my car yesterday so now I can drive around town here in IC Fredericksburg, VA. So yay, congratulations, Tim.

48:38 I know that's a thing. I've been talking to a few of my clients and they say, you know, we get their driveway cleared out and then the snow plow comes by and plows them back in. So Tim, congratulations on those wins. Does anybody else have any other win they want to share before we wrap up today? All right, well, let's go ahead and close it out for today. I want to thank everybody for joining us today. I apologize for some of the technical difficulties that we went through, but make sure you come back and join us again on Monday. We'll be live here on Clubhouse 7:00 AM. Monday morning with Jonathan's going to do his Binge Worthy podcast. So make sure you join us then. And until that time, have a great weekend. Stay safe and thank you so much for joining us today on the show.