Starting a new podcast?
This week on Content Untapped we share our 6 top tips to build an engaging show that feels authentic and allows you to show the world who you are and what you do.
Discover how to:
If you find these tips useful, let us know! Hit us up on LinkedIn and let's start a conversation. Links are below
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If this episode sparks off any new ideas, we would love to hear them! Please email us at info@writebusinessresults.com OR fire us a DM on social media. Links to all our favourite haunts are below:
LinkedIn:
Instagram:
Starting a new podcast?
This week on Content Untapped we share our 6 top tips to build an engaging show that feels authentic and allows you to show the world who you are and what you do.
Discover how to:
If you find these tips useful, let us know! Hit us up on LinkedIn and let's start a conversation. Links are below
---------------------------------------------
If this episode sparks off any new ideas, we would love to hear them! Please email us at info@writebusinessresults.com OR fire us a DM on social media. Links to all our favourite haunts are below:
LinkedIn:
Instagram:
Hey, what's up guys? This is Ivan Meakin and you are listening to Content Untap, sponsored by Riot Business Results. This is a show where I go on a mission to unpack all those tiny little details that make up fantastic content. I report my findings back to you and I try and give you some practical tips that you guys can take home into your next project. If you do like what you hear, please do all those classic podcasty things you know, like share, subscribe, tell your friends about us all that kind of stuff. It helps us spread the word and reach more people just like you, which is awesome. Also, if you wanted to have a more in-depth conversation about what you're hearing today, just hit us up on LinkedIn. You can go to the Riot Business Results LinkedIn page or you can go to my own personal LinkedIn page and Fires a DM. We can spark a whole conversation there. Thanks, guys. Let's just crack on with the episode.
Speaker 1:I think what's really interesting is that when you're podcasting and when you invite a guest on, you give them the brief. It's all very casual and very conversational and everyone feels like they're super relaxed, having a good time, and then you count down and it's like three, two, one and then recording and all of a sudden everything changes. Things get really tense and everyone's like really polished and professional and it can create a little bit of like some awkward tension, especially for people who are like new podcasters, who just get started, because that record button is a signal to all of a sudden being like oh shit, things are getting really real and there's a natural default to go into like clean cut professional mode when in reality that's not helping the cause, the conversation, it's not really helping your audience, because they want the kind of the real, the authentic you, rather than this polished version of yourself who they could probably hear if they just picked up a phone and called your business. So how do we get around this? How do we go from the very get go, making our guests feel super comfortable, but also making you feel comfortable as a new podcaster as well, because the most important thing is, if you don't feel comfortable as a podcast host, everything else is going to feel slightly uncomfortable. Your guest is going to get a little bit tense, your audience will feel a little bit like this is a bit convoluted or forced.
Speaker 1:My recommendation is to just record as soon as they jump, as soon as they get stuck in. Like, honestly, no one's really going to. If there are things that are said as the interview, as the recording kicks in, they need to be edited out. They'll just be edited out, okay. And you could just be really blasé about it. They come on the call, the call's already kind of recording, and you could just have a quick conversation with them and be like, oh, by the way, we're recording, so let's just get stuck in. But when you can make it casual, make people feel comfortable, they will be giving you the most kind of personal or authentic answers to your questions. So definitely like that's a good one to keep in mind. So this leads me on to a next point.
Speaker 1:Quite nicely is that a lot of podcasters, and especially new podcasters, think of their podcast episode as a Q&A session or like an interview rather than a conversation. And that's like the end of the world, right, because if you have really great questions and you want your guests to answer them because you're genuinely curious, that can create some really great content. However, the issue that you get into when you're just firing questions off the bat at your guests every single time is you adopt this role of like a question master rather than industry expert on your own, and what can happen is they become the one, the source of the fountain of knowledge, and you just become someone who's asking questions, which doesn't really give you a chance to showcase who you are and what your story is, which is kind of what you wanted to. If you're releasing a business podcast, the whole idea of this is to get people familiar with you and who you are and how you work right, so they can make a decision as to whether or not you're someone that they want to work with. And if all you're doing is asking questions to your guests, you're not really setting yourself up as an authority expert. So a better way to kind of reframe this is your podcast is not an interview, it's a conversation.
Speaker 1:And if your podcast is a conversation, what kind of conversations do you have when you're at the pub with your friends after a few drinks? Right? You know what kind of conversations do you have when you're in flow and you're really kind of delivering the best possible content that you can. Lots of times, that will be sharing a story. You're sharing your own input, you're putting your own personal experience and expertise in that conversation and, to some degree as well, you're challenging what you're hearing.
Speaker 1:Not everyone is just having conversations and agreeing with each other all the time. That would make a very boring world if that was the case. Right, and it would make a very boring converse podcast conversation if everything is constantly just you guys agreeing with each other and shaking each other's hand and patting each other on the back and talking about how excellent folks are right. So being able to disagree with your guests in a in a collaborative and useful way is an incredibly powerful tool for a podcast host. This can be difficult I'm not saying this is easy especially when you first get started.
Speaker 1:You don't want to feel like there's this awkward tension or that you're grilling your guest or you just bought your guest on the show just to disagree with them. But if there is something that just doesn't seem right, you can challenge them a little bit by offering an alternative perspective Rather than saying, oh, I don't think this is true. You can soften that a little bit with however many other people think X, y and Z, or creating an environment where you're not saying but or no, you're saying yes, and how about this perspective? So you're leading a conversation forward and getting them thinking about their content and the good ones, the good guests, trust me, they will thank you for that because it will get them really thinking about their answers and it will stimulate them to go beyond just the normal surface level technical knowledge that they have. That they could reel off in their sleep. Because a lot of the times what you end up doing when you ask people questions is you send them into technical answer mode and this is the mode that they adopt most of the time, when they are probably on the phone with a sales call or on a client or just telling their or asking questions at work about what they do. That's not a very interesting conversation for them and it may not be a very interesting conversation for your audience as well. So if you can challenge them a little bit more, you're going to open them up in that way and get them thinking. They're going to go beyond the superficial technical knowledge and they'll actually start like really digging deep and that's where the good content lies.
Speaker 1:Ok, so most of the time with podcasting and from my experience anyway and from working with clients, there's two types of guests. There are the talkalots and they are. There are the silent people Probably have to come up with a better name for that. So there's a people who basically will just talk to the cows. Come home, they will ramble at you for the full 25, 40 minutes if you let them. Ok, and these people are very dangerous on the podcast because they won't be aware of it. They are very passionate, most of the time very knowledgeable, very passionate, and 80% of the time they're extroverts as well. So they may not be self aware that they're doing this. So don't take this personally. They're not here to hijack your episode because they want to make themselves seem much better than you, or they're not there to railroad your podcast and not doing it on purpose, or they just get themselves into a zone and they will talk, and they'll talk, and they'll talk.
Speaker 1:And you have to be strategic about interrupting them and making sure that they don't take control of the show. So if you ever do get yourself in a situation like that, where someone is rambling and rambling and rambling, you will have to interrupt them, and you could do this in a couple of ways. First, we could do it is just say it's just start talking. You know, just be brave and go for it. Boom, just like yeah, but how about? You know? Or just introduce a new point Straight off the bat. Some of them will recognize it and stop straight away. Some people won't and they will just continue to talk over you. If that is the case, you just have to hold your hands up and say look, so just say I'm going to stop you here. I feel like we're getting a little bit off topic. Remind them of the topic, and I've got quite a few things I want to cover with you, because I really feel like you're going to offer a huge amount of value in this area and we don't have enough time to talk about everything. So can we move forward in this new space? They will recognize that. They will thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Ok, I've never, ever, ever encountered a guest who rejects that. They're only rambling or they're only going off on one because you haven't stopped them, and sometimes they feel like they have to because they don't want any awkward silences, which, again, they can feel really uncomfortable around. Certain people could feel uncomfortable around awkward silences, so they will fill that sentence with more words. The other side of the spectrum are going to be the people who are like yes and no people. For me, these are the people I struggle with more.
Speaker 1:I think it's kind of like sometimes you bring a guest on and it's like feels like you're extracting blood from a stone, and this is no discredit to them. They have all the knowledge inside them, ok. They have every capability of answering this question in the right way. They are just maybe a little bit more introverted and a little bit less comfortable they have talking. They're not big talkers, they're more like deep thinkers, okay. So for these people, what you're going to need to do is unlock that information with better questions. So the rule here is never ask a closed question to these kind of people. In fact, closed questions in general are kind of dangerous. But to an extrovert like talker, a closed question doesn't really matter, because they'll just be like yes, and then they'll be into like offer a bunch of more information for free, okay. But with a more introverted, closed off person, what you're going to need to do is unlock that information with open questions why, what, how, these kind of questions that get them thinking about it a little bit different, a little bit deeper, and they may even offer you one or two sentences, okay. And if that happens, you just have to keep product them being like look, can we just explore this a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Is there a story that you have that can illustrate this point? Do you have an example of the past, when you were growing up, where you experienced these things, or? Oh, that's interesting. Why did you? What makes you think that? What makes you give me that answer Like I've never heard an answer like that before? Can you explain where that comes from? Again, these people will really thank you for that, because they'll probably feel awkward that they're only giving us an answer.
Speaker 1:This all stems down to you as a host, being a host, and when you first get started as a product investor, you may not feel like you're a host and you may not have adopted that identity yet, which can be challenging because it'd be easy to let, I guess, run away with it, because it's like oh, thank God, they're talking loads, which means I don't have to do anything, and it's like that's a really dangerous place to be because your show is no longer your show. It's just someone talking at you for 25 minutes, which no one wants to listen to really. So sometimes, especially in a business podcast, where normally you have about 25 to 40 minutes, and if a guest is really interesting or if they have like a really big repertoire or like a great profile. The danger is that you provide too many topics in the beginning in your brief or when you're building out your episode framework, episode plan. You are asking too many questions or including too many things in that. The danger of that is you are like skimming the surface on each topic without really digging deep and like offering real, like authentic value or any kind of authentic stories about that topic. So one way to like get around this is, in the planning phase you want to plan between I would say between three and five main like sections of the conversation and within those three and five you can have another kind of three to five sub points within that main topic. So it gives you enough of a plan to investigate on that topic, but also enough freedom for them to kind of play around in that topic. If for you as a host, your job is to kind of contain the conversation within that topic until you're ready to let it go somewhere else, it might naturally happen that way. Or it might be that you're staying on a topic for 15, 20 minutes and you've exhausted it and things are just going around in circles, in which case you have to be aware of that and pull yourself out and move on. But I would definitely only pick three to five topics and no more. Otherwise the conversation is going to go on for way too long or you're going to feel like you've only just gotten started on the topic before you have to move on.
Speaker 1:The scripting of the podcast is great if you can do it properly. Just don't feel wedded to the script if it goes off-piece. I remember when we were recording an interview for the Climb podcast and I was sitting down with an entrepreneur called Justin Breen, a really interesting guy. But what happened during that interview is that the conversation just went sideways, and not in a bad way. He basically came out with a brilliant line that I thought was absolute gold for this podcast and I needed to investigate it a little bit more. So everything that I had up to that point just went off and I knew this was going to give me the information that I needed for these 25 minutes to create a really great conversation. So I kind of zoned in on that and I broke that down into three different categories quite quickly. So that was a really great thing to be able to think about on the fly on where you see the opportunities in the podcast.
Speaker 1:But if you're too wedded to your script you're going to miss that. I would recommend not scripting at all. If you have a guest, I would have your framework, your questions. Maybe you could write them out, and if you wanted to read the questions to where that you wrote them, that's completely fine. But I definitely don't script an episode if you have a guest coming on. It's not going to feel like an authentic conversation.
Speaker 1:Scripts work really well if you are doing a solo podcast. So like I script mine when we do the monologues for content on tap they're like 50%, so it's scripted, 50% off-piste. And I find that really useful because I feel like if I'm running out of ideas, I change to go back to the script and I can reel off a piece of content and if I feel like I want to get a bit more creative and riff off of that, I can. So I think for monologue episodes, definitely a script is useful. Also, if you have a co-host with you, a script can be really useful as well because you can bounce off of each other. You can kind of write some jokes in there. You can make it feel authentic even though it's pre-planned. So if you are scripting with a co-host, I would recommend doing that. It also means that you don't talk over each other because you know your cues, and one of the worst things if you're trying to build a show with a co-host is you guys just like talking over each other's voices. Firstly, it's a nightmare to listen to and it's a friggin' nightmare to edit as well. So, yeah, definitely, script you're good for co-hosting. Script you're good for monologues and not so good for guests.
Speaker 1:When you first get started podcasting, it can be really difficult to have really great content all the time, and the reason why people end up being like a yes man or woman when it comes to if your new podcast is like, basically, that means just agreeing with everything your guest is saying and not really offering anything of value in exchange is because you don't have easy access to like core pieces of content in your head that you can kind of reel off, because it's a little bit stressful in the beginning, and when you're stressed you feel less confident, you feel a little bit less comfortable and therefore the easy thing to do is just to default to agreement. Now, one thing that I picked up when we was doing a lot of research on public speaking and I used to work for a company selling public speaking training courses and one really useful tool for a lot of the great orators you know Martin Luther King Jr's speech with I have a Dream and all of some of the best speakers in the world. They are able to compartmentalize pieces of content in their brains and they'd use them off the fly when in the right situation. Okay, well, whatever the situation arises for them, so they can riff in between those and then they have their core pieces of content that they can kind of pull out from memory. Now, obviously I'm not saying as a podcast host, you're instantly going to become like a Jonathan Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr, but one easy thing that can do is this can all be in your plan, right, because when you are planning your episode you're doing research on your guest. You're going to have a general theme or general kind of topics that you want to cover and within that topic, I guarantee you there's going to be sort of four or five, six things that you want to say.
Speaker 1:Okay, that you know really well that if anyone asked you as if you were in the guest's shoes, you'd probably be able to relost straight away. So what you want to do is try and collect those. Okay, maybe you have like one or two stories that you can recall from memory that are powerful and impactful. Maybe they're like emotional stories or maybe they're like kind of helpful ones. Then what you want to do is hold maybe two or three tips, actionable pieces of advice.
Speaker 1:So that means if a guest says you know, reels off something, a really cool point, you could be like oh yeah, we do an exercise with this and here's how you know someone listening could be able to implement what you're saying Like, do you agree? And they could be like yes or they could be like no, but then that starts to really put better conversation. So stories are great. Actionable advice to just having like little aces up your sleeve that you're able to use and reloft on a whim or when the situation arises. It's not because you don't know that you're not offering value, it's because that you're not able to recall it because your brain is so worried about like, what do I say next? And that gives you like a great arsenal of like oh, I'm straight off the bat, I come up with something good, and your guests are going to be like, oh shit, it's done as we're doing. You're going to feel much more in control of the conversation as well. So, yeah, those are some useful tips that I picked up on podcasting and creating podcasts with guests.
Speaker 1:I hope you guys find that useful. If you ever have any questions or want to like find some, get some free advice on podcasting or printing content in general, just fire me a DM. Happy to have that conversation with you. Until next time, keep creating content, keep telling stories and I will see you soon. Hey guys, thanks again for listening to another episode of content and tapped. If you are interested in finding out what we're up to at right business results create content to grow loyal audience please do get in touch at info at rightbusinessresultscom and we'll get back to you post paste. Secondly, if you wanted to continue the conversation about creating great content or anything that you're listening to on this show, give us a DM to the right business results LinkedIn page or you can DM my personal page and we can spark a whole new conversation about any of this stuff. We love having conversations about content, so more than that. Thank you guys. Thanks again for listening and I will see you next time.