467. Stop Guests From Turning Your Podcast Into an Infomercial

0:05 Good morning podcasting. Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, March 5th, 2026, and today listener Mailbag. We're tackling tricky interview moments when guests keep promoting their own stuff, plus how to come up with clear episode ideas when you're feeling stuck, and some podcast news. 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, etcetera, please share this with the fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting, Morning Chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me we have producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Ralph, E Step, Sid Meadows, Alex Baelish, BC Babbles, Jonathan Howard, Nick Naulback and Nikki AKA Tide is also on stage with us this morning. Today we are going to have a glitch free episode of the podcasting morning chat. I have checked my Internet connection. If you missed yesterday's episode, well you definitely missed yesterday's episode, but you may have caught the 1st 5 minutes or so that I shared with you. That was what we could salvage and it was a fun first 5 minutes so I was glad we were at least able to capture that. But yes, yesterday my Internet was going nuts. It just did not want to work well and it made for a very difficult, challenging show, so we decided to scrap it. I mean, you can go back and check the live archived version of it on YouTube, and I don't necessarily advise you to, but if you're curious, you could go check that out. But yeah, So what I did was reset my router. I reset it last night and then this morning I came in and rebooted my computer.

2:37 I've checked the Internet speeds. Everything looks strong and stable. So fingers crossed we are good to go. And you know, I took yesterday as a real lesson. I was also very proud of myself. I did not let it eat me alive the way, for example, I did. If some of you who have listened for a while, if you remember late last year recorded an interview with Heather parody and never actually hit record, that one definitely caused me some headaches. This time I was able to just kind of recognize a, well, let's make some lemonade out of this lemon. But also, I think what's most important is is that I chose to focus on what I can control and not on what I couldn't.

3:26 And I think as content creators, that's a lesson that many of us can walk away with and learn from. That's a big step personally speaking because of you've talked about your ADHD and off meds and that's a very big step for you. Congratulations. Thank you. Yes. I think it also just goes to the fact that even when you have everything, like all the top, whatever things do happen and it's out of our control and you just really have to just laugh about it and kind of make do and it's. Hard. Because I remember when you had your Elgato camera and it took you like a couple of days to kind of figure that out. I'm not saying this about you, but it's all of us. We all are supposed to know how to fix stuff. And yet a higher power like the OR gremlins like to come in and and mess with things and it happens. But you know what?

4:28 We move on. Thank you, Alex. Yeah. I mean, this is also a lesson I've learned from my wife as well. You know, she was just telling me she was talking to somebody at her work yesterday and they were fixating on negative outcomes about something regarding work, she said. You know, I like to choose to focus on the outcome I desire, not the outcome. I'm trying to avoid it. It's just better for us mentally, if nothing else. And I do believe that there is such a thing as the power of positive thinking. So those two things combined, I think it's an, like I said, it's an important lesson for sure. BCI know you want to chime in. And by the way, before I go to you, I just have to say because I'm looking now at you and at our screen, if you're not watching the live stream or going back and watching the archived live stream, you really need to check out Mr. Estep here.

5:21 Ralph is promised yesterday. And you did hear that in the 1st 5 minutes I shared with you yesterday. He did promise he'd be wearing an interesting hat, and he did not disappoint. Come check out Ralph in his cowboy hat. We'll find out why he's wearing that in a moment. First BC, did you want to chime in on this whole thing about gremlins and focusing on the things that we can only control? I want to help you share some culpability this morning because I had a recent experience myself. So we've talked about her friend Alex San Philippa San Philippo on here a lot and his guest and host linking platform pod batch. Well, last year when I hopped on, I think I had interviews every other week on the I think I had like 12 people on my show between August and December.

6:11 Now someone reached out or or an assistant for a guest reached out a few weeks ago saying, Hey, do you have any, any updates on the posting date for you know, my bosses interview? And I said that's a really good question because I know I've posted people before her and after her and I wouldn't skip anyone for any reason. So let me go back. I searched all of Riverside for hours. I reached out to support for hours and I'm like, look, hey, I, I spoke to someone in on August blah blah blah. This time this person, this e-mail and they're like, sorry, we don't see a recording like that anywhere in Riverside and I don't record anywhere else for virtual.

6:53 And I had to accept the fact for the first time since January 2022 I forgot to hit record and I've been podcasting since 2019. That is the worst feeling. Like I said, yeah, very relatable. I that happened to me toward the end of last year and it was really frustrating and disappointing, especially when you feel really proud of the interview like that, you know, you thought this is going to be a good one for my audience and. And I recall enjoying the conversation very, very much. And yes, understandably, she did not want to reschedule. Oh that sucks. That's the worst. I have a client that actually just dealt with that, too. She thought she recorded it. She got, like, the first two minutes, and that was it.

7:35 And it was one of her rare interviews as well. She usually does solo shows. So yeah, that's got to be frustrating. And I feel for people when that happens. OK, listen, let's quickly check in with Ralph. All right? Ralph, so you're wearing this black cowboy hat. This is the first time I've seen you in this hat. What? What's the deal? Why are you wearing this? So a lot of people don't know this about me, but besides having a superpower as an accountant, I also am a rancher. I raised Black Angus cows here on a ranch in Delaware. So on Thursdays is sort of my not getting dressed for work day. It's sort of my ranch day in the morning. So I figured I would wear my ranch hat today.

8:15 So this is this is via my last trip to. Yeah, everybody loves Bucky's. My son is in the Coast Guard station in Galveston. And we went to Bucky's and I said that's the hat I need to have. And my wife says to me, she said you're never going to wear that hat, Mark. I haven't. When I picked it up at Bucky's, I wore it for the next 4 days straight, even wore it on the airport and on the airplane. The sort of says you're going to take that hat off Mr. Estep. It's a little too big for the plane because it's literally, I don't think it's called a 10 gallon hat, but this thing is wide, man, and it's a conversation starter, so. It is, and it's very cool to know it came from Bucky's. Yes, I am a fan. I finally went to Bucky's over this past fall and was quite mesmerized by that place.

8:58 It is like 7-11 and Wawa and sheets all combined in about 10 times the size of any of them. And I'm doing one more thing. I'm rocking the lemon cover for my microphone because in life we have to learn that sometimes you got to make lemonade. Yes, that's right. So that's what I'm doing today is in all of our podcasting and creative journeys, we need to realize that sometimes we just have to make lemonade because it's really good on a hot day. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Well, thank you, Ralph. Yeah, go check that out. You can find that and see Ralph's hat at podcastingmorningchat.com/join us. That'll give you the link to the YouTube and all the other ways you can connect with us.

9:43 And if you want to learn more, by the way, about this team that we're talking to today, Ralph, BC and all the others, just go to podcastingmorningchat.com/people and you can learn more there. OK, let's dig in to the mailbag. I realize I need my sound effect for the mailbag, which is literally just me grabbing some paper and shuffling them around. So first, this one comes from actually one of my clients and I'm going to protect her name. Well, really not to protect her. Well, I guess it does kind of protect her. This is about recent guests of hers, so I want to be respectful. I don't want within the off chance that maybe her guest hears this, I don't want them to feel called out per SE. So I'm just trying to protect that relationship, if you will. So we'll call her Sally, OK.

10:40 And Sally says I ran into something recently while recording a couple of podcast interviews that she's not quite sure how to handle this as a host. In both episodes, the guest kept weaving promotions for their app into their answers. Even when this is her words, Even when my questions weren't really about their product, it happened several times throughout the conversation. As a host, how do you handle situations like that during an interview? That's certainly one that I think at least some of us have probably dealt with once or twice before. Curious if anybody wants to chime in before I share any of my thoughts on this.

11:25 What would you do if your guest you felt like they were really over promoting throughout the entire episode? All right, BC you're up first. Go ahead. I would definitely inquire whether or not they were given an understanding of what the core focus of the episode was going to be beforehand. All my guests are always going to be entrepreneurs, people who are developing their own brands, so of course I want to. I will let them know for sure. There will be a point in the recording where I want them to plug for sure. If not a specific point with before the ending, then definitely at the ending. Like talk again about who you are, where they can find you, learn more about you kind of stuff. Other than that, my episodes have a particular aim.

12:08 I would say if they didn't understand what that was, that's one thing. But if they kept overstepping and and over implementing that plug opportunity, which takes away from the point of the episode, then I would say, look, I totally get it and I understand wanting to promote yourself. But if we can't keep this conversation cohesive with the goal, then there may not be a whole lot of usable content to put out there post facto. So I would suggest kind of those approaches. If I'm clear here, you're actually suggesting a couple of different approaches, One being maybe at first, at the beginning of the interview, let them know that that's not something that you're going to tolerate. Of course, you may want to say it in a nicer way than that, but you're going to let them know that's not something that we do on the show.

12:59 And then you're going to also remind them that you're going to give them an opportunity and maybe even being specific as to where in the show you're going to give them those opportunities. I think. Yeah, that that makes some sense for sure. Oh yeah, yeah. But that's also where I I'd also handle that in the pre interview. That's where the Discover call them to do every single time. Yeah, absolutely. And I'd see Ralph is nodding his head emphatically. Go ahead, Ralph. That's what I wanted to say is this is the definition of why you've got to have a pre interview and why you've got to lay out the groundwork of here's the way this episode is going to go. You're a guest on my show. You are here because I see that you have value for my audience.

13:42 And listen, I get it. People want to plug their stuff. I'm a finance guy. I want to see people monetize. I love that. But we also have to be aware of what the what what the expectations are. And if somebody is just a plug O matic, then I say, Hey, you don't release that episode. I know that sounds kind of harsh or you cut it down or you, but but again, I think it all comes down to that pre interview. And I'm on pod match and what's amazing to me, probably 90% of the people on pod match do not have a prerequisite for a pre interview. I think that is a strategic mistake, I think as a strategic deficit. So if you're listening to this right now and you're just getting into the whole guesting or hosting, do the pre interview. Yes, it takes a little bit more time, but you're investing, invest in your audience, invest in this because then you clear all those things up. You can say, listen, I'm going to give you like BC said, I'm going to give you X number of plugs I'm going to get. And the other thing it does is encourages people to have something giveaway.

14:39 Whenever I guest on the show, I always have a giveaway. I have a special link set up for that because I want to bring that audience value. And if I do that during the pre interview, then oh, that's great. I didn't realize you were going to do that. And it just helps solidify that relationship. It's very possible I'll have to talk to quote UN quote Sally to see if she is doing those pre interviews and if she is making that point clear as far as when it's appropriate to be promoting something as the guest. Even looking at it when we think about, yeah, this is the guest. It's funny because if you're a guest in someone's home, I feel like you're going to be, I feel like people are going to be for the most part, respectful of the home and not try to ruffle any feathers, break any rules, quote UN quote, right? You want to be a, a good guest.

15:28 I think sometimes guests that come on podcasts throw that out the window and think I, you know, I got to push, I got to push, I got to push instead of just recognizing, you know, what if I just give value, value, value, that's going to get these listeners interested in what I do and may want to work with me. But I think it's also important as a guest to ask the host about it. I think that's makes you a good guest if you actually are asking, you know, hey, I have something I want to promote. When is the appropriate time for me to promote it? I agree, Mark, because in a lot of times I blame the host because the host hasn't laid a framework for the guest and the host hasn't done their homework.

16:11 So I just want to champion what you just said because that's absolutely the case. And let's hear what Matt Bliss wants to say. Go for it, Matt. Good morning. I want to coin a term for the jagged wheel. I'm going to call it plug sensitivity. I think what you said, bringing it up to the host or the host mentioning what they consider a plug, I think is important because people can get very sensitive to it. So if it's starting every sentence with and in my book I talk about etcetera and still provide the value, a host might consider it differently. So setting those standards regardless of whether you do a pre interview or not before the interview of what a plug is to you I think would really help. Yeah, I wonder, you know, and I haven't actually had a full conversation with my client yet about this, but I wonder if the guest was overdoing that whole, you know, in my book or in this case on my app, maybe they were overdoing it, saying it with every answer, right.

17:09 And then that can be annoying. It's a smart move if you're subtle about it and you do it every so often with your answers. I think that's a smart move as a guest, but I think if you're doing it with almost every answer, it gets annoying not just for the host, but for the audience as well. Just very quickly too, there's the audio version of this, but there's also the video version of this where I've had clients who have had to specifically go to the interviewee before they begin and say, hey, mate, you're not, you're not quite in the middle of your video feed there. I can see a book on a pedestal with great lighting behind you. That's your book, right? Yeah. Let's, let's just, let's move that out of frame a little bit and let's put you in the middle because they're here to listen to you. They're not here to stare at your book. That's just a new avenue, I think, for the subtle plug these days.

17:59 Yeah, I see hosts guilty of this as well, where they really want whatever's behind them to be seen. Maybe it's a big sign with their logo on it. Maybe it's one of their or several of their books. But they are more focused on the positioning of the logo or the book than they are of themselves. And it makes it look worse if anything, because they're off center. They're maybe, you know, we're only getting like, from their neck up because they're trying to hide so you can see the sign behind them. It's an ugly look, in my opinion. And I would say, yeah, like Matt said, whether you're a guest or a host, you should be the one framed in the image, not the thing you're trying to promote. I'm with you there.

18:43 Mark, I want to bring out a comment that Dave just made in the chat, their own clubhouse. He says. I bought the domain gift from dave.com as my go to when I'm a guest on podcast right now, it links to a calendar link. Works great. I just thought it was a great piece of advice from Dave. Yeah, that is awesome. Let me read that again. I bought the domain gift from dave.com and there's a plug for Dave's link here as my go to. When I am a guest on podcasts right now, it links to a calendar link. OK, so basically what Dave you're doing is if you're going to be a good match for a host, you're going to give them that link and then they're going to schedule you on their show with that link.

19:23 I think that's that's the gist of it. That's cool. Anyone else want to comment? This goes back to the core stuff that we've been talking about. Knowing how to host is one thing. Having your stuff together, having your outline, being a good guest is just as important. And I think a lot of times people, you made the best analogy. I'm coming or Ralph did. I'm coming to your living room. I have to act by your rules. And people just don't realize that hosts have to be aggressive with how they want to lay out their. The way they run their podcast, because if they don't, it could turn into a disaster.

20:05 That's the main thing, becoming a strong host. It takes time. But also there's a lot of people out here that listen to this that are professional guests and the good guests know how to do that. They'll say in the beginning, this is what I have to promote, When can I promote it? If you're proactive with this, then that also puts the the host at ease and you know what the ground rules are. And I think that's the main thing, whether it's a pre interview, like a separate call or right before. I know we've had other people, I think it was John Wiley. He tells them right off the bat. We promote it in the beginning, we promote it at the end, but the rest of it is all about the content.

20:49 You have to be a strong guest and you have to know the rules. Thank you. Alex. 1 area we haven't talked about is, is what what happens if you've done all the things that we're suggesting here and the guest still disregards all of those warnings, right? I think at that point it is. And I think BC maybe you touched on this a bit, maybe you did, I can't remember now, but maybe stopping at some point during the recording and calling it out. And it can be something a little, it doesn't have to be super aggressive, but you could say, listen, I've noticed you've mentioned your book. I've, you've mentioned your app multiple Times Now. And as much as I appreciate that, I can tell you that in my experience, my audience does not, they tune out. Again, that's just my experience. And I really want them to get the value from you. And I promise you, we will make a conscious effort to promote it and we will put it in the show notes as well. So let's just try to focus on the conversation here so that we don't lose the audience, right?

21:50 Then you're not necessarily putting it all on you. And you don't have to sound so much like the bad guy. And instead you can just say, listen, if you really want to be heard and you want people to purchase that book, download that app. Let's just focus on the conversation. I think that goes a long way. Go ahead BC. If I can give an interviewer the permission to call me out when I have resting bitch face, I will take the permission to call out a guest when they are not acting right. Plus, I would also say, and just in case I I missed someone frame it this way, I would say, look, I previous previously spoke to you and told you I wanted to frame this conversation to help you provide actionable insights on a very topical discussion. Because I want throughout the conversation, the audience to get to organically develop that appreciation for you, where you come from and what you can provide to them. That way, by the end of the episode, they already like you enough to where you can finally plug yourself, your business, your book, your seminar, workshop series, your trade show coming up, whatever it is, and they'll actually care enough to listen.

23:04 But if you showcase yourself the entire time as a plug artist, a plug opportunist, then like you said, they're going to clock out. And I'm not going to blame them for it. That's why we have these preliminary discussions. I tell you, the framework default respect says you should just abide by it or I will call you out and it may not work out. And that's really my time wasted and I don't like that. I don't blame you. Thank you BC anybody else want to chime in before I go to the next mailbag? I want to back up to the pre interview call. I know that there are a lot of listeners who are just starting out on podcasting and there are those who are seasoned who don't do a pre interview, right.

23:52 So I would love to hear a role play between you and I don't know, maybe Ralph or BC whoever about how exactly a pre interview should go. And on top of that, let's say you you're interviewing someone really big, like, I don't know, Dave Jackson, who's like a godfather of, you know, podcasting. Does the pre interview? Is it different than just like a a regular person? I'm sorry, he's regular, but you know what I mean? Does it differ with someone who's like really, really renowned versus someone who maybe doesn't have the cred?

24:34 Or maybe has the cred but doesn't have the same kind of following. As somebody, I. Get yeah, the fame. Yes, that's a good, good way to put it. Ralph, do you want to chime in first? Yeah, actually I can address that Dr. directly because I had Dave Jackson on my show and Dave and I are kind of friends and I'm a member of the school of podcasting. But when I asked him to come on my show, the first thing he said to me is he said, Ralph, listen and I do the pre interview, he said, don't ask me about what I do and all that kind of stuff. Do I want to bring value to your audience? So no matter who they are, the main operating mentality needs to be what value are they bringing to your audience? I don't care if it's Taylor Swift. I don't care if it's one of the Kelsey Brothers. They need to bring value to your audience. They're not there to promote their stuff. Yes, they are sort of there to promote their stuff. But at the end of the day, I think it goes back to whoever they are.

25:28 They've got to bring value to your audience. And in the pre interview, one of the things that I say that you should ask them is what value are you going to bring to my audience when I'm pitching to be on other podcasts through pod match? I feel like an affiliate link there, Mark if we. Anyway, we do have fun. Yeah, we should probably put that in. Yeah, we'll put in the show notes. But but that said in the pre, even before I get in the, when I pitch somebody on, I want to be on your show, I give them what value I'm going to bring to their audience. And that way when we do the pre interview call and I'm, I'm playing a role as the guest now, I say to the host, here's what I'm going to bring to your audience. I'm not here to just promote my stuff. I'm not here to sell a bunch of stuff. I'm here to bring value to your audience. I know I said that a million times, but I think it's really important that even the the newbies, the new podcasters need to understand that, yeah, it's great to land a big name, but that big name honestly is probably not going to move the needle on your content anyway. And a lot of people think, oh, if I land this, it really doesn't work.

26:25 So pay attention to your audience. Pay attention to what value you can bring to your audience. Yeah, I'm with you there. It looks like we have some more people that want to chime in, and they've came. They've come from the audience. So let's jump the line. Go to James first. Good morning, James. Welcome back to the stage. Good to have you here. It's been a minute. What do you want to add to the conversation? First of all, Ralph is absolutely spot on. I had really kind of high profile guests from the media on my sports podcasts and they never really moved the meter. They were lovely guests. They were brilliant guests, brilliant episodes. But in terms of like social media buzz and all that kind of stuff. And don't get me wrong, they shared the episodes out like they helped promote it and stuff. But yeah, never really like you can have the biggest guest in the world, but you got to remember that guest. It's probably been a guest on about 200 other shows. Unless you're getting their die hard fans, you're probably not going to move the meters too much. I was just going to say, Mark, I was going to make you a happy guy today.

27:31 Oh, OK. I am starting a podcast. I am back. It's going to be sports, obviously American sports, obviously it's going to be 1 podcast. I am not doing the whole podcast network thing again. That's just not going to be a thing again. But I am coming back with probably a two to three episode a week show and I'm going to go for it. I've and my new job and my day job, I've made lots of connections within Sky Sports here in the UK, which also leads into Comcast in the US. It's going to have to have with the the adult warning thing on the podcast, unlike before where it was very family friendly, it still will be, but there's probably going to be some language in there now because I've grown up.

28:20 I'm a big boy now and I'm going to play with a big boy podcast. James, congratulations. That's awesome. James is a long time community member of the podcasting morning chat. He was part of the original rendition before I jumped in and and rebooted it. And it's great to see you back at it, James. And all I want to say is don't burn out. And in other words, that's a lot of, that's a big ambition that you have. And as far as like how many times you're going to do it. And I, you know, that's coming from experience here, right? Like I know how challenging it can be to do multiple podcasts in a week. And I want to see you doing this for a long time.

29:02 So just maybe it's fine for you, but I just wanted to call that out just in case. You're right. The thing is, when I first started my very first podcast, I had not a scooby-doo. What I was doing. I was totally like Google everything. Whereas now I have four years, five years of experience of not just one podcast, but at my high we had 18 that I was running. I did all the edit and all the social media. I did everything apart from host, all the shows I hosted like 3 or 4 of them. So yeah, that's why I'm not going down that route of having multiple podcasts. It's one podcast. I might not even host every episode. We may have some guest hosts come in as well. And from the old days, John, Katie, for example, even Dan. So yeah, we, we may go.

29:51 Katie Brinkley, obviously, she was morning chat, Yep, royalty as well. So that's the plan. Well, congratulations, James, please keep coming back and keep us posted. I think you know, and if you don't, now you do that, we're all cheering you on. It's great to have you back in podcasting. I know it's been a passion of yours and it's good to see you reunite with that passion. Thank you for sharing and thanks for sharing your insight on the guesting stuff. I know we have Billy and DV on stage. I feel like we have talked ad nauseam about the guesting stuff, but I do want to hear from them. So let me check in with Billy first. Billy, did you want to add anything before we wrap up this part of the conversation? I will just say this, I've been guessing way more recently and I love the pre interview stuff, but if the pre interview is the same as the interview, it's just a waste of time in my opinion. And I think as a guest, and really what I've seen as a guest is when I show up to an organized host, like if it's a pre interview and they're going, hey man, here's the things that I've seen and I've researched and I just want to clear this as topics that we can talk about and we can bring value to the audience that for me that is like, I got into someone's car that they know where they're going. I didn't just get into some rando's car and be like, all right, well, I'm here for the ride and just full of anxiety. So I think the better that they get that the host does their job and kind of has that talk list or that bullet points for my brain anyway, I go, cool, I know

31:23 where we're going. I can contribute and make sure we got coffee and snacks on the way. So I just wanted to say that it's like, and I notice a lot of pressure because most people are like solo hosting, but if you're going to have a guest and you want to just not be the host, that goes. So Billy, tell me how you started your business. I've answered that question 80,000 times in the last two years and I hate it. And I actually asked people now like, what's the first question you're going to ask me? They're like, well, how you got in this business? I go, I don't want to be a guest man. I don't have time for that. Thank you, Billy. Appreciate that. And yeah, you know, one of the things, by the way, that's been going on in the clubhouse chat is this idea that, you know, my guests don't have time to do pre interviews.

32:07 And a, that somewhat surprises me just in the sense that, yeah, I'm sure there are some guests like that, but I would still always at least ask for that pre interview and not make the assumption, you know, like, and I'm not calling you out specifically actually. It's just that you gave an example that you interview a lot of musicians and they they don't feel like they have time for the pre interview. And I'm sure that's been from experience. I also think it's still important to continue to ask because you'll probably find some that are interested and willing to do that. The last thing I'll say about it though is if if this is the case for for you, the podcaster and your guests, don't ever accept pre interview invitations.

32:51 Make sure you're at least carving out five minutes before you start your podcast when they join you to record and lay out some groundwork. I think that's that that's at the very least will help avoid going back to the original question here of your guests kind of going off the rails. So that is my suggestion to you. All right, I am going to check in with DV. Good morning. Would you suggest the pre interview? Because when I do my podcast, I kind of like the conversation and I always feel like if I do the pre interview, then we're kind of just like trying to recreate the magic that just happened, that organic magic. But at the same time, I like structures. When I would book them, I would send them a little link, little questionnaire and just say, Hey, you know, just to kind of help gather your, your thoughts together so we have a, a better experience.

33:48 And then they would just jot down in bullet form the answers to the questions. And then that would be saved in an Excel sheet for me, right? So that way before the show, I could create the descriptions. I kind of had an idea of where they were coming from, but it didn't rob the spirit of the organic nature of the conversation, but it gave me a little bit of clarity. And that seemed to work really well for me. But I'm kind of curious if there's more value in doing a pre interview or does it really just depend on the type of podcast you're doing? I think a lot of podcasters get hung up on this idea that they can't do the pre interview because they're afraid it's going to jeopardize the quality of the full, the real interview.

34:34 And I think that's just a matter of knowing what questions to ask in the pre interview. The pre interview is not to give them the same questions you plan on giving them during the recording. The idea here is like we've talked about to set some guidelines, some boundaries, some some rules, right? And it's also maybe a little bit about just getting a better sense. It's building rapport and it's getting a better sense of who this person is so that you can have a more fluid conversation when you hit record. It can still be, in fact, it will be, in my opinion, an an organic conversation. The kind of questions that I recommend to my clients to ask during a pre interview are things like, what's the story you most love telling about this topic, right?

35:27 And you're not. And you can stop them if they start getting into the details of the story. But your, your idea here is to get them thinking about those kinds of things, right? And you'll learn a few things along the way. But all I say is if they start giving you all the details, stop them. And with a smile, Hey, let's save this for the show. I want to learn about this on the show. I'll ask questions like what's something people usually misunderstand about what you do? That's another question I recommend to clients if another one, if listeners only remember one thing from our conversation, what would you want that to be? So it's really just getting a better feel of who this guest is, where their heads at. And it can help you construct some even more specific questions for the actual interview. DV is saying something that I hear a lot from a lot of podcasters.

36:21 Well, it's going to ruin that organic feel of the conversation. Well, number one, this is where a skilled podcaster, skilled podcaster comes into play. A professional will always make it sound fresh and exciting, even if you have to dig down. This is where the improv classes that Mark took, they probably helped a lot for this kind of thing. But this is one of the reasons why I wanted to do like a role play of what a pre interview actually sounds like. You know, for all the newer listeners and for people who are in the spot that DV is in.

37:02 That's a great call and I don't maybe tomorrow we'll play with that. Maybe we we do a pre interview role play tomorrow. Maybe a couple of us do it so that we can learn each other's styles before. Of course we'll do that before we share our wins from this past week. But a great idea. Great suggestion. Dr. Thank you DVI Hope we've answered your question. I want to keep things going and check in with Janae. Janae, go for it. Good morning. I was just responding to what Ashley put in the in the comments. You know, use that pre interview as a tech check because as a podcast host, you want to make sure that the guest shows up clean and sharp and sometimes they won't show up in the same place that they did the tech check at.

37:45 So unfortunately sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So I'm very specific on that, making sure that they show up where they promised it. They will show up on a pre interview or guess what's happening? We're going to, we're going to reschedule our actual recording because you didn't do what you promised. So that's what I frame my pre interviews as. And yes, I do ask them to fill out a form. I do the research on their previous appearances so I know exactly what they're talking about and where they're coming from. Thank you. Thank you, Janae. Thanks for that example. I think that makes a lot of sense. OK, let's dive in to the news now.

38:28 I know normally that's what we do yesterday, but quite frankly, most of you didn't hear the news yesterday and we're not going to repeat the story that maybe some of you heard when we attempted to do it yesterday. We're going to go to a new story new to us and actually, Ralph, you're going to share this is an AI related story and specifically AI content creation. So with that, take it away, Ralph. Yeah, this one's important for all of us because it directly effects podcasting. And according to reporting from Futurity, that's FUTURITYAI. Tools like Notebook LM can now turn research papers into full podcast style conversations. You've got 2 host, the natural banter, nice smooth transitions, and a confident tone.

39:19 So you could actually upload a scientific paper and boom, instant podcast episode. And I personally have done this. So has Sid. So has Sid with Google Notebook LM. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And, and it sounds incredible, but here's what researchers found when they tested it on three specific papers about volcanism on Mars, which I know that's a very neat topic, but here's what they found. The AI hit major themes correctly. So overall it did a good job, but it misrepresented key findings. It simplified concu conclusions inaccurately, and in some cases it blended interpretations that were not in the original research. Now let's go a little step further because this isn't theoretical. According to reporting from the Washington Post, AI generated podcast experiments have already produced. Here's some of the things they've found. Fictional quotes.

40:10 In one case, an AI generated new style podcast inserted quotes that were never said. They sounded real. They were attributed to real people, but they were completely fabricated. They're not summarizing, that's inventing something they also found. Another example, an AI recap episode summarized a news event but shifted a timeline, implying the cause and effect relationship did not exist in the original reporting. It didn't lie, it just reorganized information in a way that changed the meaning of it. It was subtle, but it was significant. And researchers found AI summaries occasionally overstated certainty and scientific conclusions. A possible became proven. A correlation became causation. And because the delivery sounded polished, most casual listeners would never know.

40:56 Now here's why this matters to podcasting. AI is a great tool. It can scale production, it can cut your cost, it can speed up research, and it can even create synthetic Co host. But it can't guarantee accuracy. And in podcasting, accuracy equals trust. That's the one thing we have. Trust equals longevity and longevity equals monetization. That's Ralph's favorite number. If listeners catch errors, your brand absorbs the damage, not the software. So, Mark, I thought it was so important to understand that, you know, there's a bunch of people out there putting out these AI things and, and actually, it's funny, Rob Greenlee interviewed the lady from exception inception point. And one of the things that he, I wish he'd nailed her a little harder with it.

41:40 He said, does a human being review everything that goes out? And she said no. So I think we have to be careful of that because just because AI says that it's true does not mean it's true. And it worries me because a lot of people think, well, I did a Google search, the AI bot came up and said this, this and this. It's funny because Mark and I find these sometimes as we're doing chats back and forth trying to fix a tech something and Mark will say, well, I know your AI said that, Ralph, but I'm not sure it's true. We have to recognize that though. And if we're putting that out there as content, it might be wrong. So just think that that's a good thing to think about as we're leaning into AI. Yes, AI is a great tool, it does great things for us, but it doesn't always tell the truth. Thank you, Ralph.

42:23 And I see, Nick says. But everything you see on the Internet is true. Yes, that's right. Nick and Matt, I saw you wanted to chime in. Go for it. You kind of tailed off there, Ralph, with what I wanted to bring up Jeanine Wright talking about interception point AI. I've been following that closely. And I'd urge, I'd urge anyone to listen to anything that she's been a guest on talking about the way that they create their shows. Because I'm waiting for the point where someone like digs their fingers in to those weird icky points that we keep thinking about that they never seem to address either from journalistic standards or wanting to respect their guests. But the entire podcast player, I guess industry at this stage is starting to make make movements into RSS to have A tag that indicates whether something is AI generated or not.

43:12 And it's some platforms trying to entirely remove catalogs of AI generated podcasts for the users that try to listen to podcasts on the platform. But Ginen never really seems to indicate any moral or ethical boundary one way or the other. I think most of it is based on the ability to generate a high volume of podcasts for a low cost. And that monetization, Ralph, tends to be very easy to do and it becomes profitable very quickly despite the content. It's a really interesting case study that's still ongoing. There's just no, no one stuck their finger on exactly where they feel bad about it, and I just don't think they do.

43:58 It's an odd one. Matt nailed it and Janine said it, she says. I can produce a podcast for pennies because she recognizes the other side of that. Even if she only gets 20 downloads, she can make money on that. If you're putting and I'm not listen, I'm not criticizing Janine. Let me be very clear about that. I'm a capitalist. I get it. But if you can put out an episode of you got 3000 episodes out a week with 20 downloads. And if you can, if you can monetize that through the, you know, cost per million or cost per thousand, which I hate, Race to the bottom, you're going to do it and you're going to just put out a wheel of crap. It doesn't matter if it's any good or not because you're going to monetize it. It speaks to the problem. And Matt, I'm so glad you brought it up. I'm annoyed because I almost feel like recording an episode about this because nobody has called her out on this. I love Rob Greenlee.

44:49 I think he's a stand up guy, but he he needed to take it just a little farther and I don't know why he didn't do that. Thank you, Janae. I I may just do that, but I don't want to. I don't want to destroy people. But the truth is somebody needs to say to her, but Jeanine is AI always correct. No one has said that to her. She and I don't speak for her. Be very clear. I don't speak for her, but she seems to imply that whatever AI spits out is true. And the reason I say that is because she has said that not there's no way that we could curate every single piece of content that goes out. That to me is the definition of you're putting out stuff that may not be true. I'm not saying it's not true.

45:33 Maybe 99.9% of this thing she's saying is true. Wait till somebody gets hurt because of something they put out that isn't true. Sorry to rant but this annoys me because I'm very serious about my license. Like I'm a licensed professional. I spend a lot of time, I spend a lot of money being a licensed professional. When I tell somebody something, I back that up with knowledge. I backed it up with education, continuing education, all that kind of stuff. It annoys me. People will come in to see me. They go on the AI and they have AI is my accountant great? AI is going to cost you money and it's going to cost you money big time. So this is what I'm talking about is we can't just let AI say it's true. And if you've got people out there promoting AI, and I don't even want to call it slot because it could be fancy AI, that sounds great. It's just not right.

46:21 Thank you. Ralph and let me see BCI think you had something as well. Go ahead. Just a quick clock on a, a stance that Ralph mentioned from from this person about we can't oversee every piece of content that goes out. To me that seems like a little bit and I'm going to be really try to be as nice as I can hear about it. It seems like a bit of a cop out because you set up the frequency and the amount of content you want to send out that's totally under your control. And if you're choosing to go above and beyond what you can quickly review and just skim through before it hits the perpetuating infinite immortal Internet, that to me just sounds like you're not trying to review things like that, You're not trying to take on that responsibility.

47:13 And one of the biggest things we spoke about during my master's program last year regarding AI, because we spoke about AIA lot in that program. And one of the biggest elements we discussed because of the mishaps that have been documented in the news with AI is that you have to invest in the human element. You have to have someone reviewing the generative content that you utilize AI for because like Ralph said, and this is not even just within the realm of finances, it will cost you a lot of money because AI is used everywhere, not just in finances, but in law, in tech and in other advertisements. And people get in really big trouble if they do utilize AI generated false advertising for something big. You cannot set yourself up to be in that position. So when I hear the idea that we can't review or what, I forget the word that that Ralph used, but when I hear the stance we can't possibly curate, I think that was the word curate. Every piece of AI content that goes out, to me, it sounds like a cop out.

48:21 It sounds like you're not trying, and it sounds like you're almost purposefully setting yourself up to get into one of these very avoidable bad situations. That's. It's an unusual statement really. Like it doesn't make sense to me because if we had the time before AI to generate content of our own, we should have enough time to be able to at least review. Just called laziness and it the fact is people need to do their due diligence and I'm totally with Ralph on this. I used to be an insurance professional and I had to do licenses and it's backed by your license. And there's reasons why we have rules. And the problem is, like Nick said, everything on the Internet is true and that's the way people believe. And I know we laugh about it, but when you see something enough times, people think it's, it's believable. And we've had industries go down because of it. So we as not just a podcast community, it's it's a bigger issue than just a podcast and it's bigger issue than just AI because 1 little piece of information could really change the a lot of things.

49:31 I'm a little torn on this because I think, well first of all, humans make mistakes all the time. Humans lie. So any scale between the two humans, depending on your character, will put quantity over quality. Some put quality over quantity. Again, we have that already going on, and the humans who receive that content adjust to it. OK. My concern with the AI is that it's like building a house. Oh, I have this idea of my dream house, let me go hire a builder to build it. And what they're forgetting is to go hire the architect first. They're not putting the time in building the prompts, building this, the system that's going to check the quality that actually has the tone, that's looking at what's important.

50:16 They're not doing that part of the work upfront. They're just putting stuff in and then whatever the AI spits out is what they run with. And to me, that's really where the the where it all falls apart. You're not composing, you're not designing, you're not architecting, engineering the experience that you ultimately want to have. And once you do that, then you put the robot to work and now you can do quantity, but you got to design quality upfront. Fairpoints DV. Thank you for sharing. I'm going to go to Ralph 1st and then James, I'm going to come to you. I want to say something that Matt put in the chat because I think Matt just nails it here. He's he's his inception points mission isn't to be factually accurate, It's to solve the labor problem for podcasts to be profitable and to be the first out of the gate of this kind of solution.

51:03 She has said that time and time again that her cost for production is lower. Well, I say this to my clients all the time. You get what you pay for mic drop. It's really that simple. You get what you pay for. And if you want low cost stuff, then go listen to their stuff. Fantastic. But just take it with a grain of salt and realize that that's their goal is to get stuff out at a very low cost. Well, again, you get what you pay for. AI is like a car, it's only as good as its driver. And in the UK recently there was a football match to be played between Aston Villa and Maccabi Haifa, who are from Israel, and the local police, West Midlands Police, They don't know how, we don't know why and how it came about, but they were filled by AI because AI basically was putting out all these intelligence reports saying that Maccabi Haifa fans were going to come over and tear Birmingham up and all this kind of stuff.

52:09 And it caused outrage because W Midlands Police banned Maccabi Haifa fans from coming to the UK to go to the game. And an actual fact, all the intelligence when it was reviewed afterwards, after the fact, was all bogus. It'd all been created by AI. And you had a whole fan base of about 10,000 fans that couldn't travel to go watch their favorite soccer team because of AI. And was it because of AI or was it the people who were using it? And I say it's like the car scenario. AI is there as a tool, so as a car. We just re quoted you and put that up on the screen here for those watching the video that that is a great analogy.

52:55 And you know, I will try to tie this all together from today's conversation. The recurring theme, whether it's around your guest and controlling your guest or your content and control controlling your content. I think that this is all speaking to the responsibilities of being a a smart podcast host. I'm not going to say a good one, but I am going to say a smart one. I think we have to pay attention. We get to control, we get to drive this machine, this podcast machine, whether that's controlling the content, whether that's controlling the guests. I think it's important that we recognize that, that it's our responsibility.

53:35 It's our show and it's and it's up to us to shape it the way that we want this to be presented to the world. So yeah, that's all I'll say about that. And I will remind you that we're back tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern. We'll we'll cover another mailbag question, maybe another news story as well. And of course, Dr. suggestion. We'll try to work on that today for tomorrow, where we will maybe do some mock pre interviews just to share how different podcasters do that sort of thing. So come join us tomorrow. If you can't be with us live tomorrow morning, you can always catch the podcast a few hours later. You can get all allthatinformation@podcastingmorningchat.com/join us and until tomorrow make it a great day.

54:20 Everybody take care.