What’s the best way to get interviewees to reveal their expert knowledge on your podcast and provide value to your listeners?
For several years, I worked as a radio producer for an Irish national radio station, and I had the opportunity to study master interviewers at work.
While researching this article, I found many expert podcasters approach interviews with the same mindset and focused techniques as professional broadcasters.
So, how do you conduct an engaging business interview people will remember?
Here’s how to run an audio interview like a professional broadcaster in five straightforward steps.
Step 1: Research your guests in advance
The hosts of the radio shows I produced made time to read briefs about their interviewees and research the type of questions they were going to ask. They didn’t just turn up on the day of the interview and wing it.
This research process is equally important for professional podcasters who want to make their guests feel welcome and provide a superior experience for their audiences.
Joanna Penn, host of The Creative Penn Podcast, conducts extensive research before each podcast to ensure that her interviewees are relevant to her audience who wants to hear about writing, publishing, book marketing, and creative entrepreneurship.
“I target people to interview because I’ve read their book or heard them on another show. I will Google them, listen to their podcast, and visit their website,” Penn said.
As the host of the Runner Academy Podcast, Matt Johnson’s audience is different from Penn’s, but he also
Category: Radio
Dan Pink on How to Succeed in the New Era of Selling
Selling isn’t what it used to be.
And for most of us, that’s a good thing.
Gone are the days of alpha males who are “always closing.” Today, in the new era of selling that has dawned, many of us are spending much more of our time selling than we even realize.
This is the subject of Authority Rainmaker keynote speaker Dan Pink’s latest book, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, and he gives us an inside look — describing the tools and traits that are required (many of which you probably have already) — in the latest episode of The Lede.
In this episode, Dan Pink and I discuss:
Tips for building a network (hint: be genuine!).
How we’ve moved from buyer beware to seller beware.
Two reasons why humility has become an essential trait for modern-day selling.
Why “Always Be Closing” has been replaced by “Attunement, Buoyancy, Clarity.”
Dispelling the myth that strong extroverts are best-suited for selling.
Why the new era of information symmetry makes expertise and conscientiousness more valuable than ever.
How the concept of “servant selling” should be applied to content marketing strategy.
How to use extrinsic motivators and intrinsic motivators at the appropriate times to achieve the desired results.
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
Click here to download the mp3 | 62.5 MB | 33:55
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Here’s How to Answer the Most Important Question in Life (and Make a Living from It)
Why bother?
Each and every morning you and I both wake up and ask ourselves that question. Some mornings we don’t even think about the question, but answer it deliberately by jumping out of bed and bolting for the office.
In these cases, we bother because we care deeply about what we do. We feel like we matter. Then there are the other mornings …
Mornings where you roll over and eye the clock. The alarm will sound within minutes, but you have no desire to get out of bed. It has been a long week — and it’s only Tuesday.
On these days — which may turn into months or even years — you hate what you do and feel like you don’t matter. That’s a terrible feeling, and you need someone to come along and tell you it doesn’t have to be that way.
Fortunately, there is someone.
And that person is Bernadette Jiwa, a branding consultant based in Perth, Australia. She’s an Amazon bestselling author and just a plain, old-fashioned storyteller — who is, by the way, speaking at Authority Rainmaker this May in Denver, Colorado.
A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to talk to her — about her books, her blog, and her unique approach to branding. And ultimately, about how a business can satisfy customers by answering that terribly important question about life.
In this 42-minute interview you’ll discover:
Bernadette’s insightful response when I confessed why Copyblogger’s editorial department has a crush on her name.
What it
Sally Hogshead on How You Can Unlock Your Natural Ability to Fascinate
You have a natural ability to fascinate others that you may or may not be taking full advantage of.
And getting in touch with this “fascination advantage” can pay big dividends, both in business and in your personal relationships.
Sally Hogshead is a copywriter-turned-Catalyst who teaches you how to tap into your natural ability to fascinate by giving you a better understanding of how the world sees you at your best.
Those of you who are going to Authority Rainmaker this May will get to experience Sally’s passion, energy, and innovative ideas live and in person. She is one of the keynote speakers.
And in today’s episode of The Lede, we bring you a little taste of what that will be like. (Plus a special offer to take Sally’s Fascination Advantage for free so that you can find out what your archetype is.)
In this episode, Sally Hogshead and I discuss:
How Sally went from copywriter to Catalyst.
The critical difference between being merely interesting and being fascinating.
The archenemies: distraction, competition, and commoditization (and why they damage your marketing).
What the results of the Fascination Advantage assessment really tell us about ourselves.
The importance of having an Anthem and how you construct one.
How Sally applies her own ideas at home, as a parent.
Oh, and I hope you like the new music.
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
Click here to download the mp3 |
How to Learn from Your Successes
We all know about the importance of learning from mistakes. “Fail forward,” as they say.
But we shouldn’t just look at our successes as magical moments when everything went right and think these experiences do not hold significant lessons of their own.
In the last episode of The Lede, Demian and I discussed mistakes that have taught us valuable lessons. In this week’s episode, we flip the script and talk about successful moments that taught us just as much.
In this episode, we discuss:
The value of understanding how you accomplished an achievement.
Recognizing and honoring the co-creators of your successes.
Why passion and enthusiasm often accompany success.
The smart way to think about attention.
Overcoming imposter syndrome and trusting yourself.
Celebrating your successes, but knowing when to move on.
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
Click here to download the mp3 | 44.5 MB | 30:40
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React to The Lede …
As always, we appreciate your reaction to episodes of The Lede and feedback about how we’re doing.
Send us a tweet with your thoughts anytime: @JerodMorris and @DemianFarnworth.
And please tell us the most important point you took away from this episode. Do so by joining the discussion over on LinkedIn.
The Show Notes
Authority Rainmaker — Copyblogger’s second in-person, live conference, May 13–15 in Denver, Colorado that
How to Learn From Your Mistakes
Everybody makes mistakes.
And everybody should make mistakes. They are unavoidable when we step outside of our comfort zones. Avoiding mistakes means avoiding growth.
But we can’t repeat our mistakes. We need to learn from them. When we do, we turn negatives into positives and move forward. When we don’t, we simply run in place.
In this episode of The Lede, Demian and I share personal stories of mistakes we’ve made — some big and some small — and how we learned from them, and we describe the thought process necessary to do so consistently.
We discuss:
Recovering from technical errors (notably, a rather embarrassing one Jerod made recently)
Walking away from security in pursuit of happiness
Self-compassion in the face of mistakes
Why it’s okay to want recognition for your hard work
How to mobilize into action quickly when things go wrong
Letting go of stubbornness in favor of learning
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
Click here to download the mp3 | 43.0 MB | 31:07
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here to listen via Stitcher
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive
React to The Lede …
As always, we appreciate your reaction to episodes of The Lede and feedback about how we’re doing.
Send us a tweet with your thoughts anytime: @JerodMorris and @DemianFarnworth.
And please tell us the most important point you took away from this episode. Do so by joining
Lessons Learned from Conducting Two Monster Audience Surveys
You may be creating content in a niche with 1,000 other sites, but only you have your audience. And surveying your audience can be fertile ground for the kind of information and insight that builds your next transformative content series.
Just ask Demian Farnworth. He did it twice for Copyblogger in 2014 — and the results of his second survey will be posted here tomorrow.
We talked about his mentality in conducting these two surveys, his process, and the lessons he learned in the latest episode of The Lede.
In this episode, Demian Farnworth and I discuss:
Creating a survey to gain insights for a unique content series
Choosing the right survey methodology
How to survey your audience, even if your audience is small and you have limited resources
The golden rule of good content
What we’ll do differently when conducting our next survey
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
Click here to download the mp3 | 33.4 MB | 24:06
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here to listen via Stitcher
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive
React to The Lede …
As always, we appreciate your reaction to episodes of The Lede and feedback about how we’re doing.
Send us a tweet with your thoughts anytime: @JerodMorris and @DemianFarnworth.
And please tell us the most important point you took away from this episode. Do so by joining the discussion over on LinkedIn.
The