536. How to Create Podcast Interviews People Remember

0:03 Ralph Estep Jr.: Well, good Today is Thursday, june 11, 2026 and today we've got Hall of Fame Podcaster Room. Yes, that's our second of the week on the show, and we're going to talk about what separates a forgettable interview from one that listeners remember for years. So, if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, top right hand side of the screen, and share whatever Clubhouse let you. If you want to join us live on the video, go to Podcasting Morning chat.com/join us. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. Now, give me about 30 seconds, and we'll get things going. Thank you so much for being here today. Audio Clip: The podcasting morning show is powered by Ironick Media, helping podcasters launch, polish, and grow great shows, and by Content behind their content. Ralph Estep Jr.: Well, good morning again, everyone. Welcome to the podcasting morning show.

1:24 here. I am your host today, filling in for Mark Ronick, who continues his adventure volunteering. Now joining me on stage today, we've got DR. Fay, Sid Meadows, and joining us from the audience, we've got Ty Domingo, and we've also got Dave is going to introduce him in just a few minutes. So, thank you for everyone being here. We've got an incredible show for you this morning. You know that feeling when you listen to a podcast interview and the guest says something just stops you in your tracks? Well, guess what, friends, that doesn't happen by accident. It happens because the host did the work before the record button was ever pressed, and today we're going to learn exactly what that work order been doing it at the highest And before we get to today's show, I just want to remind everybody, if you're interested in having your show spotlighted on our show, we'd love to hear from you.

2:17 We can go directly to Podcasting Morning show.com/spotlight just record a 62nd spot, send that over to us again. That's podcasting morning show.com/spotlight So, DR. I have you introduce our guest here this morning. DR: Absolutely, you know today shaped the way so many of us Dave Jackson is the founder of the School of Podcasting, a Hall of Fame podcast coach, speaker, consultant, and the author of Profit from Your Podcast. He's helped hundreds and hundreds of podcasters plan, launch, grow, and improve their show, and he's done it with a kind of a practical, no-nonsense advice this industry kind of desperately needs. So, I am truly honored to welcome someone who has had a lasting impact on podcasting, on the podcasting space, and certainly my own work.

3:14 So, please welcome Dave Hi, Dave. Good to have you. Dave Jackson: Happy to be here. Always great to hang out with you guys. Ralph Estep Jr.: So, Dave, for hasn't found you yet, give us podcasting origin story. I like to start there. Dave Jackson: Boy, that's 30 That is not my strong suit. Discovered podcasting in 2005 Did a quick Google search for it, and there was one and a half pages on podcasting at the time, over the 20 years I learned what to do and what not to do, and went from everywhere from, you know, making a horrible version of the school of podcasting to cleaning it up to at that time I was still teaching in the corporate world, when that went away, because everybody already knew Microsoft Office.

4:02 I was like, I'd like to get a job in podcasting, and because of my podcast and the job at Libsyn. I was at Libsyn for eight years, and two years ago I had had enough of Libsyn, loved the people over there, but didn't love the direction they were going in, and became the head of podcasting at Podpage, so that's.. I don't know if that was 30 seconds, but that's as close as I can get. Ralph Estep Jr.: No, I think you So, let's start at the very When you agree to have a guest on your show, what happens next? I want you to walk us through exactly what you do before that interview even takes place. Dave Jackson: Yeah, so I will I've learned I just did a couple and I was like, "Oh, Dave, this is why you do your research.

4:50 They had said some really cool where I was like, "I need to go back to doing pre-interviews just to eliminate the, you know. When you find out that the guest you're interviewing about growing your show doesn't have a website, you're like, man, that might be a red flag. But once I get somebody, and I've most of the time it's somebody I've met in person, and then I go, ooh, you got to come on my show, and once they're here, I have to let we're going to talk about, not here's the topic we're going to talk about, and like I had one woman on, they could have talked could have talked about the we're the theme is find out what it to them, because she was getting her music streamed in Netflix, she was getting into movies and stuff, and making royalties on that, and I said, so that's really kind of that's a theme I talk about all the time.

5:46 Figure out who your audience is and give it to them, and that's how you went from not making any money in the music industry. She had been on two different record labels, and welcome to the record industry, she got dropped twice, but she was making money now, and I said, well, let's examine that, and when I did, it was like, oh, I talk about that all the time. So I let her know, like, we're not going to be talking about work-life balance, we're not going to be talking about this and that. So just kind of let them know where they're going. If it's usually the people I talk to have already been on a podcast, but if they haven't, I will explain to them it's not radio. If you mess up on anything, just pause 10 seconds and we can do it again. I let them know who my audience is, so if you want to get kind of nerdy, my audience loves nerdy, so feel free to go into the weeds and talk about kilobits per second and bit rates and all that stuff. So I give them my idea of why they're here, who's listening, and kind of where we're going.

6:37 Ralph Estep Jr.: DR. I know ahead, DR. DR: Yeah, yeah, so you know there's like two schools of thought here. Do you give your, the person who you're interviewing, do you give them the questions beforehand? Dave Jackson: I don't. I give them a topic like, hey, today we're going to talk about matching your matching your content to your audience, that's we're going to go. I'll be like, "Hey, I'm going to say thanks for coming on the show. You can say, "Thanks for being here. And the first question is going to be, "When did you know you wanted to start a podcast? Always let them know what the start thinking about that, And it only happened, I think it's twice, so not a lot, but I used to give people the questions, and then I had somebody go, Thanks, Dave. Boy, that's a great question.

7:26 I remember when I, and they just completely written out their answers beforehand, and I was like, this is, and so I was like, all right, well, that's one person. And then it happened a couple years later, and somebody did the same thing. I'm so glad to be here. And I was like, okay, in the future I'm just gonna say this is why you're here. Here's the topic, and then because if you don't give them any idea, then you're relying on your guest's ability to do improv, and some people are not great at that. So I kind of let them know I'll give an example. Right now, I'm trying to get Tom Buck on my show, and Tom could talk about gear, he could talk about all sorts of stuff, but I love that Tom has integrity, and so I'm like, hey, I heard you talk about how you handle reviews and how you do this and that, and on another show he was on, he was explaining how there are companies that do really like pretty black hat stuff, where they're like, "Hey, will you go, you know, we'll give you 20 bucks if you go leave us a review?

8:27 And he says no, and I was like, "Okay, I'm like, I would love to have you come on and talk about integrity and why it's important. And so we keep kind of almost getting it there, you know, how you do that via email, and then he gets busy and I get busy, but that, that would be an example of I'd love to have Tom Buck on to talk about integrity, and then from there you can obviously expand out, but that's the theme I'm going for. Ralph Estep Jr.: Cool, Dave, I So, you talk about researching a guest before the interview, what does that research actually look like? How deep do you go into that research? Dave Jackson: I usually just go into either Google or I use Pocket Cast, and I will type in, interview, and then I'll see how playlist of those, and then when love about Pocket Cast is you can make bookmarks just like an audible, and so any good bookmark, and then you can be called great question, no was interviewing them asked a the follow up question, and like, oh, I gotta go back and me, I remember when Jordan Harbinger show had started it, that it was a bit of a debacle, and he was in a legal thing, and so people had kind of asked him, and he'd be like, well, I'm not really sure I can talk about that, or whatever, and I

9:59 went further, I. Actually, was like, well, did this happen, or then, and finally he got to a point, he's like, I cannot, not, I'm not sure if I showed, he was like, no, no, we're as far back as we can go, and so, yeah, listening to other episodes, and then there are times when I always say, if you can ask different questions, because if you want, I just had a weird situation happened a couple weeks ago, where I decided I'm going to try something new. I'm going to batch interview, so I went to Pod Match, and I had four almost back to back to back interviews with people, and I didn't do any research on them. I was just like, "Hey, if you your show. And so I had four interviews in one night, and I'm here to tell you, I almost thought there was like a, like a box on the wall in case of Dave Jackson interview break, and here's your 10 questions, because I remember question number three for all of them was What's the difference, because a lot of them die after episode seven, and when I heard that, like, the third time, I guess somebody's getting these out of ChatGPT or something like that, so if you're, you want your audience to share it, you got to some questions, it's like if I'm going to see Lynyrd Skynyrd, I want to hear Free Bird, and so every guest has their Free Bird answer, right, you're like, oh, that's so good, my audience has to hear that, and so I interviewed Justin Moore, who wrote the book Sponsor Magnet, and I listened to like three or four interviews, looking for something that somebody didn't ask him, and they were all pretty good

11:30 interviews, and they were all really good answers, and I, when he showed up, I said, Justin, I hate to do this to you, and he's like, what, I go, dude, I'm gonna walk you through your greatest hits, I go, because my audience hasn't heard those yet, so I also then didn't expect Justin to share it, because it was his greatest His audience has already heard that stuff. So, let's get into the details. So, how do you prepare yourself, both mentally and technically, before that guest joins in? Is there a ritual that you go through, Dave? Is there some things that you do? You check this, you do that. What does that look like for you, for me, my perfect guest is someone who is either has a really good because of my podcast story, so I've done or I've done this, and it grew is, and it's something my reproduce the results. There's that.

12:19 There are, in some cases I'm interviewing somebody about their technology, or if it's just an inspirational story. So I just got a the other day, I pulled out a coffee mug, and there's a, I believe his name is Pedro, I'm like 90% sure that, but he does my stuttering life, so it's a guy who has a pretty bad stutter that does a podcast about, like, hey, this is what happens. I stutter, and I looked at the coffee mic. I've never had him on my show. I go, that would be an inspirational story of, like, hey, you person that doesn't have a stutter, and you're sitting here worrying if anybody would listen to me, and, oh, I'm, I might look silly if I do that.

13:00 This guy stutters, and he's got a podcast, so get off your butt, turn on the microphone, and start a podcast. So it kind of varies, but of those things where, when I it, I go, oh, you know what, Ken Ralph.. like I'm thinking of my audience, and I'm like, what would they say if I said, should They're like, yes, please get Ralph Estep Jr.: So now you've in the room, you hit that record I forgot to do on my broadcaster. So hopefully eCamm will make a great recording today. But Dave, what separates a host who is just running through their question list from a host who is truly in the conversation, because I think that's a challenge for all of us as we're preparing for an interview like I was preparing for today. I've got a list of questions I want to ask you, but what separates that person just going through that list? Because you mentioned that when you did those batch interviews, what separates that person from that host is truly having a conversation.

13:59 Dave Jackson: Yeah, follow-up I will say an answer expecting a could say some. In fact, there are times where I'm going to do this eventually. There are times when I'm being interviewed and the person has their questions and they're like, great or excellent, let me ask you this question, which you don't say in a conversation, you just ask the question, and they've got their list, but I just said something that just screamed follow-up question, and I swear someday, because you'll, as the interviewee, there are times when you're like, oh, we're just going to go through the questions, okay, I get it, and I swear, the next time I get into one of those, I'm going to say something like, and that's when I shot a man for snoring, just so they can go great.

14:43 What was your aha moment, you know? And just go on to the next thing. Mark Maron was at Podcast Movement years ago, and somebody And he said, "Oh, it's easy listening, and it really is. So I always have kind of like you, Ralph, I always. Have on my left hand side, I have a list of questions that I think, yeah, this should be enough for an interview. And then on the right hand side I have an empty piece of paper with a pen that doesn't click, hear we were talking about the music industry, and she said I stand out, and I just on my stand out and then I went back is you're trying, you're sitting remember to ask standing out she says something else and and the price of whatever, standing out in the, and you're still trying to listen, so if you just write it down, I'm not writing down the question, I'm just writing down enough to Oh, yeah, I need to ask her about standing out, and that's nine times out of 10. Your follow-up questions are better than the ones you had on your pre-made paper.

15:51 And there are times when I've had one question that I started off with, and the rest were just follow-ups, because they've minute, what were you thinking when you did that, and like, well, what did that feel like, and etc, etc. And you're walking them through a story that's nine times out of 10 better than what's your So it's one of those things where really listening and asking follow-up questions and asking the follow-up questions that your audience would ask if they were in the chair. Ralph Estep Jr.: DR, I'm going but I just want to mention on club, as he said, yes, one of learned and developed in my time listener. And Dave, how does that strike you? Do you agree with that?

16:35 Dave Jackson: Oh, absolutely. happens is you're you don't going crazy trying to remember like having two kids, right, one somebody hands you another kid, you're like, ah, you know, and so by writing these things down, them, and you can just go back Ralph Estep Jr.: Go ahead, DR. I for Dave. DR: Yeah, so you've been interviewing people for many, many years. Is there anything that stands out to you as the interview that maybe you went into it really not expecting too much, and man, it just blew you away? Dave Jackson: That's a good question. DR has stumped Dave.

17:20 I love it. Well, because most of the time I know the answer before I ask the question, or I have a pretty good idea, so I'm usually not surprised. The one that, in terms of it, blew me away is I had had, you know, some quote big names on my show that everybody knew, and you know, people were like, okay, you know, that was cool. And then I brought in this guy named Glenn Hebert from the Horse Radio Network, and yeah, it was it, and he came on and gave, like, not only strategies, but strategies that worked, and so, like, at the School of Podcasting, Glenn is a verb, there, I'm like, well, how did you do that, and, like, I, Glenn, the geeked it, and so that was a case.

18:02 Guns been on my show, probably five or six times. He doesn't even have to ask anymore. He'll just be like, "Hey, I got something. I'm like, "All right, schedule it, you know. And just the stuff that people are like, "Man, I never thought of that, or like one of his things was he went to - he's all about horses, so he went to and he said, look in the back, ads, he goes, because those goes, and then call the magazine be to advertise in the little because then you know how much goes, and then you go to those magazine, and I was, it's just just like DR. did. You're like, oh, I never thought of that, because you want, if you're sponsors, you need somebody with a budget, and it was stuff like they were like, oh, and then he'd say another one, like, oh, I never thought of that. So that was one where I had a lot of comments, or like, who was that guy, so it's interesting. I know John Lee Dumas, who's got a really.. I'll put it this way, John made so much money with this podcast, he moved to Puerto Rico, so that's a successful podcast.

19:12 And he was mentioned in Time magazine, and he said he was really obviously proud of mentioned in Time magazine. He goes, didn't move the needle. He goes, appearing on Pat Flynn's show, though. He goes, because you've got that relationship with your audience. He goes, I got more juice from Pat Flynn's audience than I did being in Time magazine. So that's a nice statement to that relationship that podcasters have with their audience. Ralph Estep Jr.: So, Dave, I have a follow-up to that. What do you think is the biggest interview, Dave Jackson: in the middle, not editing, really, it's where somebody goes, so have you ever had a time when you didn't think you were gonna be successful, and you know you're worried about it, and then you went, and the person goes, no. Not really, and I'm like, okay.

20:02 Why did you keep that question there, unless it's surprising that this person never felt that way? You know, there are times when I think that's the big one, is editing, because there are times when I go, I'll just hear things. When I edit my interviews, 90% of what I'm cutting out is not the guest, it's me, because I will give a huge, sometimes way too much background information. was a time when you tried this really cool, and you did this, and then finally I will say, so what are you going to do when you did it? Right, I'll finally get to the question, and I'll listen back, and I go, okay, my audience doesn't need to hear me think through the question.

20:44 Let's get rid of all that and just get to the question. So, I think editing.. there are times when I mean, I have probably listened to 10 episodes of Joe Rogan, and every time I get done with one, I go, that was a good episode. It would have been a great episode if they'd cut out about, you know, 60% of that, because Joe goes all over the place. Ralph Estep Jr.: BC, I'm gonna John Domingo, you and I both Dave, he's asked a question here in the chat. He said, I just watched an interview where the interviewer kept interrupting the guests with, there's no evidence of that, the guests finally had enough and walked out. How do you handle interviewing someone you disagree with or disagrees with you. Dave Jackson: I just did one, a person that had, he thinks way outside the box, and I just went, "Well, wait a minute. So, are you like he said he was talking about how you know people do like book clubs, and you'll show up and a whole bunch of people talk about a book, and setting these up ahead of time. The thing I'd heard originally was he just walks in and starts talking about his podcast, and so that's what I did. I said, I understand you do these things where you go out with a projector and you, you blast your logo on the wall, and I go, are you just walking into Cracker Barrel and going, hey, let's talk about my show, and he started laughing, and he's like, "No, no, that's not how it works. I'm like, "Okay, because that's what it kind of looked like on Facebook.

22:07 So that was a case where I was like, "That would not be something I'd recommend. He's like, "No, no, I work with the venue, we set it up, we have a bunch of people, we're all going to talk about this thing, and I was like, "Okay, but if somebody, instead of me being the antagonist, right, so Ralph says something like yellow and blue make red, and I'm like, okay, Ralph, that's an interesting point. What would you say to the person that said yellow and blue make green? So it's not me, it's the other person that's gonna push back on you. So that's another way of doing that, and the other thing was, I saw that interview, they were both talking over each other, a, that's a nightmare for the editor, and b, somebody's again, what's the key ingredient, you got to listen, so let that person make their point, and then go, okay, that's that, and when they say, oh, there's tons of evidence, there's tons, there's miles of evidence.

23:01 She'd go great, give me one that drove me nuts. I just heard the woman who runs Inception Point AI, and she said, Oh, we've got millions of great shows, they're really popular, but I'm like, great, I just wanted the host to go name one, give us one that's a good show, and they didn't, and I was I ever interview her, that's the question I'm asking her. I've been tempted to reach out to her to her and go, "Hey, can we do an interview? It might be a bit of a gotcha, because I'm not really a fan of your company, just to be completely honest, to see if she would come on and go, "Look, if you can convince me, you might convince others, but on the other hand, I don't want platform, so BC, Ralph Estep Jr.: I am going to come to you, but I want to put, I want to say something.

23:46 Tim Bryan put in the chat. This is for Dave. It says, "Tell him Tim and Kyle want to hear the story of Binky and The Wiz. Dave Jackson: Binky and The Wiz is every 100 episodes, and this is just a Dave thing, because everybody goes, "What do I do? And I decided to throw out my, I different, and I got to 400 and I still want to teach people about podcasting. So, what I did was, I invented a story of Binky and The Wiz, who are radio guys. So, these are your typical, and the fun part was Binky is kind of, as in an exaggerated version of David Lee Roth. The Wiz was his sidekick, and The Wiz has a stutter, and then they have their, you know, there's always a woman in there, and that was, if I remember right, Miss Fatima, and all she said was, Binky, you so crazy, and then Binky was like, Hey, what's up guys, all right, we're gonna do anything of that thing, and then The Wiz was just..

24:44 I think I'm not really sure what's going in that house thing, and so I wrote out a script, and Binky and The Wiz came in, and they captured me and threw me in a closet, and I called my, my now ex-wife to said. These crazy radio DJs have thrown me in a closet, I can't get out. They've taken over my show. And then she named off like 10 or 15, like just really weird radio names that aren't real but sound like they are. So that was Binky and The Wiz, and like 400 was a good one, 500 I did a thing about Groundhog Day, where I kept waking up. 900 was pretty cool, because I interviewed Jesus.

25:25 That was fun talking about the family business, you know. So, every 100 episodes I throw out my format and do something wacky, put that winky in the whiz. Ralph Estep Jr.: Before I go to BC, I just want to make a plug for tomorrow on the show, Dave, and I don't want you to about, but you said ex-wives, so going to talk about how your family, so make sure you join us it puts a lot of strain and stress on people. I don't know if you want to comment real quick, Dave, but I do want to go to BC here in a second, but that's what I'm gonna be talking about tomorrow. Did you have a quick, quick quote about that? Dave Jackson: Yeah, be careful, because a, the internet writes in ink, so I did a show, and I decided, for whatever reason, I was going to work kind of blue, you know, a little little naughty.

26:07 And I did an episode about if the Amish don't have electricity, that means there's no Amish porn. And then I had all these double entendres, you know, raise my barn, you know, plow my bean field, all this stuff, and I started dating a woman who became my now ex-wife, and I get to meet the kids finally, and the kids Google Dave Jackson, and what came up, you guessed it, Amish porn, and who they then, of course, told Grandma, who luckily thought it was hilarious, but yeah, be careful when I was doing a show, about, so if I ever brought up my wife, it was always the nurse. I never said her name until we got married, and she said, 'Okay, you can say Diane now, and I'm like, 'Okay. But realize your family didn't ask to be on the internet, so be very, very careful about that.

26:56 And I'm sure they'll talk about that tomorrow. Ralph Estep Jr.: That's I apologize for putting you off a little bit, but Dave walked right into that, so I want to But go ahead, BC. BC Babbles: Sure, no, you're good. That's quite, that's quite a section to follow up on. But a little while ago, we were talking about sponsors, and I liked your approach to finding magazines, or magazines, or publications, and seeing who the advertisers were. For those who may have an ideal sponsor they want to reach out to, but they don't know if they aren't advertising anywhere else. What kind of additional research would you say is a good annual reports, or like, how would you say to find out whether or not this ideal brand that I think works with me actually has the budget to work with me?

27:37 Dave Jackson: Yeah, first of Sponsor Magnet, by Justin Moore. If that's your, if that's your goal, is partnerships, because everything I'm going to say is from this book. He was saying, look at their social, and because many times companies will have, like, oh, it's time for the spring sheet sale, and then it's time for this or that, will, like, whatever it is, based on the year, and then you can reach out to them and say, "Hey, I saw last year where you guys did the, you know, 10 for 10 sale for the blah blah blah, are you guys doing that again? doing a good interview, you've they're doing, and then you go, if you're looking for partners to promote that particular I've got your target audience over here, and just to get the ball rolling. And then what Justin talks about in his book is we're so used to saying things like, I have a lovely woman from Amazon on my thing, and she's giving me amount of money for per episode, which, which kind of makes sense, but he said you really want to sit down and find out what are they trying to do, because there are different types of campaigns, there's like, we love people that are like, we just want to get our word out there, just a branding play, please say our name on our website a million times, that's all we want. And then you have sometimes smaller companies that are like, well, we're selling jeans, and

29:08 we're going to ask you every three days, how many, you know, how many times have you run the ad, because we've only sold two pairs of jeans, and we're going to track ROI in insane amounts, and those are really not the people you want as a partnership, you want branding people, but look at what they're doing, look at their old campaigns, just stalk them for a bit, and on especially on social, because that's what they're using to do, and then when you show them that you've done your homework, you know, hey, I know last fall you did the such and such campaign, because it's probably already still out there, and then you like, you know, I have something similar that we could do on my show, if you're interested, you know, yada yada yada. And what I see, where people shoot themselves in the foot, is their imposter syndrome kicks in, and they're like, "Hey, I know last year you did this great campaign, I thought it'd be great, and, boy, that really fits my audience in.

29:59 I've already. Been here's an example. I've already been affiliate for your product, and it seems to really resonate with my audience is small, and I've only and no, I'm not really very good. I'm like, no, don't do that if you've got, if you've got the right. I've gone on shows that have, in theory, a smaller audience per pod match, and I'm not sure how accurate that is, but nonetheless, but if you have the right audience for me, I will go on your audience. I don't care if you don't have you've got 30 people listening that might start a podcast, I So, but that's for people that budget is, just go see what thing for a guest. I always say, if I want to be a guest on somebody's show, go look at their titles and see what they've done in the past, and go, "Oh, I see you've talked about, you know, online newsletters, and you've talked I don't see an episode about podcasting, and I believe your audience would really benefit from this, and then pitch that idea to the host. BC Babbles: Awesome, love it.

31:04 Thank you. Ralph Estep Jr.: I've got another question from John Domingo here in the chat. He says, "Dave, what podcast format do you find the hardest? Solo, guest, interview, live stream, and what's your favorite format? Dave Jackson: My favorite format style, because every time I do one, I mean, I will get more comments than any other format. People like that was really cool, and it is. And if I only had one podcast, I would probably do all of mine like that. They just take forever, because I'm doing one right now. I interviewed Rox Codes from Flight Cast. Now, a big chunk of that interview was him doing a demo. Well, that's not going to work in audio. As he goes, you'll see here in the upper right-hand corner, like that's not going to work.

31:52 So I'm going through, and I'm just cutting out snippets that he talked about more of a strategy on YouTube, and so I'm going to end up with all these puzzle pieces over on the right-hand side in Hindenburg, and then I go, great. Now, how can I kind of.. is there any kind of story arc, or how? What's the flow gonna be? And then once I figure that out, then it's just a matter of like one of the things you can think about when it comes to YouTube is don't forget to do this, and then you drag the file in, and then after that file is over, and like, it's also a good idea if you do this, drag that thing in, so it's great. It's just one of those when I get done, I'm like, "Wow, that took three times as long, but the results are also then So I'm not.. I like interviews because of the that wasn't awful. I will always kind of edit that out, so that's the thing for me.

32:57 Interviews are almost as much editing as a narrative style. Ralph Estep Jr.: Awesome. I've got Dan Schultz wants to ask a question. Dave, so Dan, go ahead. Dan: Hey, Dave, what you were in interviews where, like, one to succeed would be listen, and what you said about, well, I just, I'm gonna just gonna ask think is either your favorite sucks, and I'm just gonna, real quick, you made me think of Larry King, when, like, he be interviewing somebody, and know, Larry, I'm happy to be on the show as the third man to ever set foot on the moon. I've never told this story before, but you will not believe what happened 30 seconds I got off the flying saucer spaceship thing I was on, and Larry will just be like, "Do you eat Do you keep in shape? And it's like, "Are you not listening at all. Dave Jackson: Yeah, my favorite Larry King is when he kind of knew who Jerry Seinfeld was, and and he was kind of like, so did you get canceled?

34:13 He's like, did I, did I get What, Larry, what do you know? It's like, so Larry was not my favorite to me ever, and Larry's answer was, "Well, I want to be just like the audience and come in blank. This sounds very weird. I've, I have a window guy who was showing up very early to my house, so I'll can I answer that question in 10 seconds? Yeah, I unfortunately have to go answer that. He's here like hours early, so no problem, Dave. This is what happens when you do live recording. So, Ralph, Dan: I honestly thought that Dave was gonna say my favorite interviewer, though, is this guy. He's doing my Windows right now. Yeah, that's what I Ralph Estep Jr.: thought was going to happen. See, this is, you got to love live stuff, because when you have a live show, this is what happens in a live show, but that.

35:00 Say, that's a, that's what happens. So, we'll give Dave a second, but again, don't forget to join us tomorrow. We're going to be talking about surviving relationships while doing podcasting. I think it's really going to be a great show. And also, bring your wins of the going to have wins of the week So, Dave is back. The window guy has been checked in, so now you can answer that question. Dave, Dave Jackson: yeah, he's 20 minutes early, so Ralph Estep Jr.: he's not late. Dave Jackson: So, the who does a Jordan Harbinger, and Jordan Harbinger does the work. He will talk about how he does not have an author on the show until he reads the book, and people are like, wait, what? Like, yeah, and I'm here to tell you, as someone who has a book, and someone who is now out of breath, I can tell when somebody's read the back cover actually read the book, and you just get a better interview when you know the content. So, yeah, so I would say Larry King, I was never a fan of his stuff, and you know, Poughkeepsie, you're on, you know, and Jordan Harbinger does a really good interview. Thank you, Dan.

36:05 So we're going to pivot to post interview here in a second, but Gabe in the chat asked a question. He says, "When should a new podcast decide whether to start a website for their show That's really it. So you've recorded your episode, you've gotten some feedback from people, and by that I mean you've gotten some feedback from people, and if you because everybody skips that step, and then they wonder why isn't my show growing, and I always say an author has, like my book, I went through five edits before they went to the public, athletes have preseason actors have dress rehearsal, you the basement practicing before they go public, and yet you just recorded the very first thing you've ever recorded, and you go, "I want this thing out of here, and you publish it, and then wonder why it's not published a rough draft. So, what you can use the website for is to start building up your email list, sign up here and be notified the minute that this goes, and then you can also put your episode there and get some feedback before you actually go, oh, this one's ready for the public, so it's your website, and people go, "course you're going to say that you work for a website company, but I've been saying this for 20 years. Your website is your home, this is it, your home base. And then you got your Instagrams and your Snapface and all the other different social places around it, so that one of those is not the cool place to be anymore, but you're good to go.

37:36 Or if you get kicked off of YouTube, people know where to find you. This is my home base, and that's of, because as much as we.. well, Ralph, what if somebody wants to do a spotlight? Where do they go? Ralph Estep Jr.: They go to show.com/spotlight Dave Jackson: So he's reinforcing his brand, he said his domain name again, and he's given a quick, easy way for people to, you know, leave their spotlight. So, your website is that's your home base, and so, yeah, and you know, get your get your episode, get your media host. I'm a big fan of Captivate and Buzzsprout, not Spotify.

38:17 If you need free rss.com or Red Circle, but once you get that done and you've got something hosted, you can go ahead and, you know, put that on your website to get some feedback, and then from there, once you're done, then you can really start, you know, using your website for all sorts of fun stuff. Now, Carrie, Brett, do you want to make a comment? Carrie, Carrie just joined us on stage. interviewed somebody. Carrie, are you with us? Dr Carrie Madej: Yes. Yeah, I interviewed Jordan Harbinger for my show. Dave Jackson: Yeah, Dr Carrie Madej: and it was very, very interesting. He had just interviewed Matthew McConaughey at the time, and I was really excited to get him the movie Hitch. Do you guys remember that with Will Smith, and I heard him before I knew who he was.

39:05 I heard him on the Jasmine Star show, and the only reason why I was listening to the Jasmine Star show is because I'm a professional photographer, and I was on the speaking circuit with Jasmine back in the day for professional photographers, and I heard him speak, and I'm like, he's like the male version of me, like this is amazing. Yeah, and Jordan had a lot ofCarmen. Dave Jackson: Yeah, Jordan is guys. He will, that's what I love, when I, anytime I ever have him on the show, he will just say, well, it, it has to be good, and by good I mean exceptional, and he just.. it's like this is what you need to do, and most people don't do that, and Jordan is not afraid to say that.

39:48 Ralph Estep Jr.: Thank you, I want to pin it to.. I'm sorry, go ahead, Carrie. Sorry, go ahead. Dr Carrie Madej: Lee did a lot of amazing things, and he deserves a lot of credit. Ralph Estep Jr.: He does. Thank you, Carrie. I want. To pivot to our last section today, Dave, because the whole reason I had you on is talk about creating remarkable interviews. Yeah, and what I have seen is most podcast advice stops the moment the guest hangs up and they say, okay, you've done it, you're great, but I got a suspicion that you think about what you, I want you to tell us what you think about after the interview that you need to do as well. Talk us about the follow-through, Dave, because I know that's important to what you, you've talked about editing wanted to talk about right now, right?

40:28 Dave Jackson: Yeah, it's times, want to kick myself but you want to make sure you guest know that it's available, you know, hey, your show's live. Here's the link, and give them everything you can. So, here's, here's, and I recently changed this. When you give them a piece of artwork and it matches your likely to share it if it matches So, if your colors are blue and yellow, and their colors are brown and beige. You might want to make that brown and beige, because it'll match their stuff. But so much of just like, hey, our episode is live, and that's it. But if you go, hey, our episode is live, here's a built-in tweet, or something to share on threads, or Instagram, or whatever, and you give them, you know, the typical kind of rectangle image, and a square one, whatever it is, it's so easy to do in Canva to make multiple versions of that, and then thank them for that, and you know, just make it super easy, so that in the event you did do an episode that was kind of thinking outside the box and not the same old kind of questions, they're much more likely to share it, but also in the early days, I still do this, but I would probably say I'm more of a C grade instead of A or B. On this is every now and then, just follow up with people to go, "Hey, you know, we..

41:52 I haven't talked to you since we six months ago. What's up? What's new and exciting? Anything than that? And they'll probably. whatever, and you're like, later, just to say hi, so that do you know a podcast guy, and Dave Jackson does this thing, the biggest benefit of you can build with people, and and somebody asks them, and they this guy, so now you know that builds and builds. One of my favorite examples is I was the head of the new media show, not the new media show, New Media Expo, and I got to hire Pat Flynn to talk, so that was the first time I got to know Pat, and I was at an event talking to Pat, because I knew Pat now, and Michael Stelzner walked up, who I kind of knew, who runs Social Media Marketing World, and so Michael knew Pat and was talking to Pat, which means he was also talking to me, which means I got you know, I'm talking to social media marketing world, because I Reach out every now and then, even if it's been a year, it seems kind of weird.

43:18 idea from? Jordan Harbinger. So, follow up with people just to keep those relationships going. Ralph Estep Jr.: Yeah, and I think it really is all about relationships now. Someone asked something earlier that I think is a perfect segment to what I want to ask you about now, because you talked about these How are you using AI in your content creation, specifically? Did we talk a lot about AI on this show, and you have to be under a rock right now to not hear about AI all the time, and the thing that struck me is this is probably a great use for AI to create those images and things like that, but where are you using AI to be sort of a superpower right now? Dave, Dave Jackson: yeah, I use AI on my images in some cases, depending on how much time I typical, you know, what is that stuff good?

44:03 It's not B roll, but public images in Canva, and I just type in, give me a chart, and there's a chart there, it is where if I'm like, show me in, you know, a striped shirt next to a chalkboard, you know, etc. etc. AI, in some cases, takes it longer, so that's usually the The less time you spend on it, the not so cool it looks, you know. Vice versa, so there's that. The other thing I just did is I did an interview with a friend. Now, the good news is I get to catch up with my friend. The bad news is we went on so many tangents because we're friends, that really, and I went in, and I transcribed it, and I said, find the parts where we're kind of off topic, and give me timestamps, and it did, it was like from three minutes and 10 seconds to four minutes and 27 you guys talked about this, so I now can go in and cut out the stuff, I don't have to listen to the whole thing. Even though I'm going to anyway, but it gives me an idea where to look, and then I just did this last week, and I'm not sure if I'm going to do it every week, but it was pretty I had my show in my head, I had my bullet points, I recorded the whole thing, didn't do all the fancy schmate, I just want the content out, transcribed it, threw it into Chat GPT, and said this is my episode, how could I make it better?

45:21 And it said, well, you know, if you move this at the beginning and you did this, I ended up being the four cs of something, which it didn't make up. I had said all those four cs, but they weren't together, and it said, if you put these And then I was like, and I looked at it and asked myself, okay, I'm the human here, is that better? And I went, that is more organized, and I think it'll be more of a more effective on the content, and so I basically said, give me a bullet outline of the thing that you just said, because I don't want to read a script, and they said, okay, here's your bullet points, and then I just stayed on track with those, and it was like, ah, that was in the end.

46:02 I think it made a better Now I recorded my episode twice, so it takes more time, but in the end I now look at that first one as kind of the rough draft, and the second one is like, okay, that was practice, this one's for real. And so that was something that I Not sure I'm going to have the time to do that, but I think in the end I made a better episode. Ralph Estep Jr.: Now, you work with a lot of new podcasters, Dave, and while we're talking about AI, do you see a lot of new folks calling it in with AI, And what do you think about that? Dave Jackson: I don't. When they work with me, they kind of know they've heard my show, so they've heard me say, don't let AI make the content, write the content, speak the content, you know, like use it to enhance what you made, so I don't run into that a lot, but when I do interviews, there are many times when I'm like going, I get the feeling all these questions came from AI, and so that's something I hear sometimes, but I do see in Facebook groups where people are like, well, I just use AI for that, and I just, you know, and then I, if you're, if you are doing anything looking at AI, when you go back to Facebook, there was one, it was like record nothing and say everything, or something like that, but it was all just, you know, you just type it in and it and I was like, you know, that's that's not good.

47:29 So Ralph Estep Jr.: go ahead, BC, I know you got a question, BC Babbles: you had to follow up So recently I saw an article from Brains magazine talking about how you're not AI, so stop communicating like one from an author or writer named David Fisher, and he talks about in his article about how, despite how clean cookie cutter and kind of pristine AI can help make our communications, it still lacks this human, lacks the human in it, and it lacks our ability to sound messy and sometimes irrational, which helps us translate better to other people. I was wondering, if and when you're working with someone who kind of has a very AI-forward approach, what your thoughts on that are, and how you would kind of break that down for them as well. Dave Jackson: Yeah, I've seen multiple people that have gone into Riverside and have it remove the filler words to where it doesn't sound good anymore, because we need time to figure out what our next word is, so there are these little pauses, and now it's just somebody who talks over and over and over, and the words are kind of weird, you, and that's anything with AI, like, look, it can do this.

48:48 You know, look, it rewrote this sales page, and it only took me like a minute and a half, that Okay, great. How much? How are sales now? Are they up? Well, no, you know. So that's the thing that I see people, you know, I'm always like, don't people connect with people like we could. I live in, in about an hour south of Cleveland, and I remember I would go up and watch people don't talk about is his passes are insane, they're super could probably get a robot to throw it just as fast as accurate as Lebron James, but I won't connect with that, because still crushing it, way to go, Lebron, so I can connect with, I technology, but no, okay, whatever.

49:42 So you know, lean into your humanness. I still, as much, even if I have an outline, I'm just the way my brain works. I'm ADHD, I've never been like officially diagnosed, but talk to me for 10 minutes and you get. That guy's all over the place, and so when I have, when I have a bullet points, I will still, you know, throw in a so what I do is just make fun of I have a jingle that's like, okay, here comes another 10 second tangent, you know, and I'm like, well, if it applies to would still like this tangent, even though it's a tangent, I'll out, but there are times when I'm like, no, no, they'll still care about this. So, BC Babbles: I love that.

50:28 I love that. Going back to when you were talking about your, your prep sheets, when I do mine too, similar to you, I give topic prep sheet, this non-verbatim script, Dave Jackson: right? BC Babbles: Not in order. We're gonna pip my I go by BC Babbles on podcasts, so that tells you anything right there. So I love that approach. Dave Jackson: Yeah, and you have I'll give you an example. If I'm given, let's say 40 minutes to talk, and they go, so if you could cut it at 30 minutes and leave 10 minutes for questions, that'd be great. I will purposely write my script to be 25 minutes, five minutes sooner. Why? Because my brain is going to call an audible somewhere in there. I'm going to throw in an extra joke or something, so I'm like, and I get done after I've thrown in something new, and I'm right at 30 minutes.

51:13 So you kind of have to know who you are and how you work, and like, okay, I don't want to try to turn me into something that I'm not so right. Ralph Estep Jr.: Thank you, BC. I'm going to ask you the last But Carrie has a comment about AI. Go ahead, Carrie. Dr Carrie Madej: Okay, I love the example of Lebron James. Julian Edelman is a Patriots player who can turn on a dime on the field, right? He's the smallest guy, and he's just so scrappy. Oh yeah, people love him. Dave Jackson: Yeah, Dr Carrie Madej: so he's another example of like humanness and spirit. But what I wanted to say about AI is in Jordan Harbinger, again, Jordan Harbinger is very specific in his questions, and I think that separates him as far as an interviewer.

51:59 And I interviewed Ellen Hildebrand, who's a famous writer, and she was like, specific, I can't say the word being specific will set you apart, and AI is not that, so that's what I just want to say. Dave Jackson: Yeah, I interviewed a woman from the show Big Lash Energy, and to make a long story short, the I got surprised that this was on my calendar, one of those where I didn't do the research, so I was like, "Oh crap. So I went to Chat GPT, and I said, "I'm interviewing.. I cannot remember her name, but anyway, give me 10 questions that she hasn't been asked before. And it gave me 10 questions, and they were unique, but luckily we had technical issues. She was in a place with really bad inner yet, so we pushed it back a week.

52:43 I then went back and listened to like four of her episodes, and I was so happy because she had a great story and all sorts of insights and such. And had I actually been like, okay, well, I asked her a bunch of questions. So the reason Jordan asked such good questions is because he did the work, he read the book, he's done his research, and so that's that was a lesson of mine. I'm like, yep, Chat GPT gave me questions that she hadn't been asked before, but A, they audience would have asked if and B, I would have really So, Ralph Estep Jr.: all right, Dave, final question for today. If you could give every piece of advice that would guest interview more remarkable, Dave Jackson: what would it be?

53:32 Do the work. And so this is where why people don't do the work is because they've said I'm doing a weekly show and they're great, and I'm going to go to Pod Match, and I'm going to get a bunch of guests, and everything's great. And then they try to basically squeeze their life into their podcast schedule, and it turns out, and Ralph's going to talk about this tomorrow, your family, and things like that. And so that doesn't work. You have to look at your life and go, wow, that, that took me, you know, nine hours to do a 50 minute podcast. Okay, do you have nine hours a week to do a podcast? No. And that's when you don't do the work. That's when you're like, I'll just read the back of the book, I'll just ask Chat GPT. When you do the work, you come up with much better content, and Okay, do you have nine hours every other week, maybe.

54:21 Okay, well, then maybe you're doing a bi-weekly show, or you're going to do a shorter show, or maybe you're not doing interviews, because those take up a lot of time. So that would be my advice. Do the work, because in theory, if I wanted to, I could probably go to perplexity and get a lot of these answers a heck of a lot quicker than listening to your 20 minute interview, so it's got to be something different than that, and you know, get your personality in there, get the personality of the guest in there, and do the work. It's all about the content. Ralph Estep Jr.: I agree, Dave, and that really sums it up, Dave. How can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to contact you? And thank you so much for being here today, but. Can they contact you best?

55:03 Yeah, my main website, School of podcasting.com And, of course, if you need a website, go over to podpage.com So, I will throw one more question here. Gabe had a question about, let me find it. Oh, what's the most vital element that this should be included in your website? We'll close out with that. What's the most vital element in your website, because you deal with websites every day through Podpage, Dave Jackson: as always. It's a podcast question, so it depends. If you're trying to grow your Spotify links up front. If you're trying to make money with your podcast, work on a good lead magnet and have that newsletter right up front. Those are the two biggies. Ralph Estep Jr.: Awesome, Dave. Thank you so much for being here today. And I want to remind everybody to make sure you join us tomorrow for Winds of the We're going to talk about keeping those relationships strong while you're podcasting. So, Dave, thank you so much for joining us today. And for everybody, make it a great day today, everybody, and we will see you again tomorrow.