175. Let's Audit Your Guest Process (Pre-Interview to Post-Interview)

Sara Whittaker 0:01

Sara, your podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business, but how do you manage it all bring in new listeners and convert those listeners into customers. That's what the show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whittaker, classroom teacher turned podcast manager, and I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators.

Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of podcasting for educators. I am your host, Sara. And last week, in episode 174 we talked through whether or not you should have guests on your podcast, and we also touched on some of the hesitations and the challenges that come with having guests on your show. Today we're continuing that conversation. We are going to walk through four systems that I believe you need if you're having guests on your show, and if you're not a systems person, I get it, but I really think that these are systems that you need in place. They can look a little bit different for everybody, but I think that having these set up is going to make your life so much easier. Is going to make your guests feel prepared, which is probably going to make your episode that much better, and having these things set up will help you get the most bang for your buck out of this interview experience with your guest. Okay, so system number one that I think you need to have set up is a system for reaching out to guests. So this can be very, very simple. This can be an email template that you have that you're going to send to people when you want to invite them onto your show, and in this email, you really want to have some important things in here. You want to have information about your show and who your listeners are, so that the person that you're pitching can decide if it's a good fit for them, and so that they can really understand who they will be speaking to if they come onto your podcast, you can include some information about yourself, and you can include some information about what this interview process would look like. You can let them know what the next steps would be if they want to be on your show, what they can expect for the actual interview. How long do your interviews typically last if you are somebody who has been burned in the past of guests never, ever sharing episodes. You could even put in this email when the episode goes live. We do expect that guests share the episode and have something along those lines in there to set up those expectations from the beginning. And of course, you want to include some information about why you are pitching this person, why you are inviting them onto your show in the first place. Why are they a good fit for your listeners? What are you hoping that they could come on and talk about and why is that going to benefit your audience? And so you could have kind of this templated email, and then you can customize it depending on who you are pitching to, but really that information that I laid out first is going to stay the same in terms of what your show is about, who your listeners are, what to expect. And then you would customize that information about why you're inviting them onto the podcast. And then you could also have a templated email or like a canned response for when people pitch you. So if you get pitches for your podcast, you could have a template that you send back that either says, This is not a good fit at this time. You could have one that says, hey, I'm booked on guests right now. Can you follow up in six months? You could have a canned response saying, yes, you know that would be great. I'd love to have you on. Here's my scheduling link, kind of email. Okay, so that is the first system. Second system that you need to have in place is a system for scheduling. And this is so, so important. If you have ever had guests on your podcast and you don't have a scheduling system set up, then you probably know that there is a lot of back and forth of, hey, does this date work for you? No, it doesn't. Can you do this date? No, that doesn't work for me, and it's this, like tedious process of finding a time that works for both of you, and a lot of times, that's why people avoid having guests on in the first place, because scheduling can be a nightmare, but not if you have a system for it. Yes, this takes a little bit of time to set up, but once it's set up, it's one of those things that can be so automated you don't even have to touch it. So you need to have some sort of calendar system where people can go and book an interview time with you once you've invited them on, or once you've said yes to their pitch, you're going to have a scheduling link, and I will back up and say I would never, ever make this scheduling link public to everybody, like, don't put this on your website. Don't put this in your Instagram profile, because you want to really vet those people before they can schedule an interview time with you. You want to make sure that they're going to be a good fit for your show. So I think the most common platform that people use is Calendly. That's what I use. You can set up a free. Account on Calendly and have this work for you really, really well, you don't have to pay for this. They do have paid options. But right now, I'm on the free plan of Calendly, and it works just great. So I recommend having a calendar set up. I always encourage people to pick a few times per week that they can have set as regular availability. Don't have Monday through Friday open whenever you don't have other things on your calendar. Pick a few times that are pretty consistent times that you are available. Maybe that's nap time, if you have kids at home with you. Maybe that is in the morning, because you like to do these kinds of things in the morning, whatever it is, pick a couple days per week. Pick a couple time slots for each of those days. Of course, these are not all going to get filled. It's just going to give people some options of times that work for you, versus doing that back and forth, of what time works for you, what time works for you, you're setting the times the guest is going to pick one of those times, so you've got your calendar. And then when they book their time, I encourage you to have some sort of intake form that they fill out so that they are giving you all of the things that you need, headshot, bio, whatever you need ahead of time, so that when you go to produce this episode and do show notes and things like that. You have everything you need. You don't have to go chasing them down. I make this a requirement for this form to be filled out, so again, you're not having to resend this form. This is all automated. You can set up this automation inside of Calendly. Okay, so they're booking their time, they're filling out their form. They're getting an automated confirmation email that tells them their time. And then, depending on where they get, an automated confirmation email that tells them their time, so they can add it to their calendar. And then, depending on what you use to record some recording platforms like zoom, if you're using zoom, you can integrate that with Calendly so that it will, it will automatically create that Zoom link for you. It's going to include that Zoom link in that confirmation email, and it's also going to send it to you. You don't have to touch anything. And then kind of a another piece of this to take those automations further, I've recently set this up, and it's so nice. Now when people book their time on Calendly, I have it connected to my project management system. I use click up, and so when somebody books on Calendly, it now creates a new episode task for me in my clickup, so it will pop up in my clickup with everything that I need to know about that guest. All right, so first two systems were a system for reaching out to guests, a system for scheduling. Number three is a system for pre interview prep. Now, all of that stuff that I talked about for scheduling is automated, which is so fantastic, but then I do like to send a another email between the time that they book, so after the time that they book, but before our actual interview, and you want to make sure that you're sending this a couple days, or, you know, a week would be great before the actual interview, so that the guests feel super prepared. And I did leave out one thing with scheduling. I also have an automated guest guide be sent with their confirmation email. So it's a guest guide that tells them, you know things about, like, use a microphone and headphones, turn your notifications off, just kind of like what to expect for the interview. Okay? And then I have a pre interview email. So again, create a template that you can have, that you can then customize. But this is going to lay out the specific details of the interview, the final questions that I want to make sure that we discuss on that interview, so that the guest feels prepared. Even if you're having a conversational type of episode, you still want there to be a main topic of the episode and main talking points that you want to get through, and that you want your listeners to hear. So you want to finalize that in this pre interview prep email, I like to include the link again. I like to include the time expectations and final questions, and then give the guests the opportunity to ask any questions before we sit down and have this interview again. Can be a template plug and play. Does not have to be time consuming, okay? And then that fourth system is going to be some sort of system for after the interview. This can be another templated email that you send to guests with links for the episode, any kind of deliverables, if you have graphics, share those with them, so that they can easily take those and share them with their audience. I also, at this time, like to ask them to leave a review. This is a great opportunity to make that one to one ask for a review on Apple podcasts. Okay, so the purpose of this email is to let the guests know when their interview is going live and. And giving them things that's going to make it really easy for them to share with their audience. A bonus during this post interview time could be and this is something that you could talk about before you actually do the interview, but you could discuss doing some sort of collaboration promotion, and this works really well in the form of an Instagram reel, or it could be an Instagram carousel, but something that you guys could collaborate on to have on both of your social media pages. A reel is really fun because there's just so many fun things that you can do with it. And then it would be posted to both of your pages, which can really extend your audience for both of you, and then a super, super bonus, truthfully, this is something I've always wanted to do, but I just have never had the time to put this together. But you could even go as far as creating some swipe copy for the guests to use in their email or for captions on social media. Obviously, this would only work if they are a business owner who actually has an email list, but providing them with some swipe copy about the episode, you could even just pull from your show notes, really, as I'm thinking about this. But the point here is to be giving them things that they can just pull and use so that they are sharing this episode. And I'll just real quick say, if you do all of this and and you're finding that people still are not sharing your episode, I've worked with people who actually have a contract that they have guests sign before the interview that that says, Yes, I agree. I will share this episode in X, Y and Z form. So that's always an option too. That's kind of a personal preference if you wanted to put something like that in place. Okay, so to review those four systems, I think you should really have in place if you're having guests on your podcast. Is a system for reaching out to guests or responding to pitches, a system for scheduling, a system for pre interview prep and a system for post interview, communication,

promotion. All right, guys, thank you so much for being here today, and I will catch you here next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going, connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support in launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course, the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time you.

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