So What? How to be a good podcast guest

Well, hey everyone, happy Thursday. Welcome to So What, the Marketing Analytics and Insights live show. I am Katie, joined by the one and only John J. Wall. Hello.

Chief Statistician of Trust Insights, all around swell guy. I'm here. I've got the numbers. We can make it happen. Uh this week, Chris is uh at the uh May Con event in Cleveland.

He took the stage this morning uh to really great reception and feedback. He told us talking about the future of marketing using large learning models. Um so definitely check that out if you can. Any other replays, you can also go to where can I get the slides.com and check out his talk there. Uh so today, John and I are talking about how to be a good podcast guest.

Now, this is a topic that people when we s when we posted and there goes my light. Uh, when we posted that this was gonna be our topic this week, um, a lot of people have expressed interest because we often talk about making a podcast and how to be a good host and what questions to ask in the interview. But we thought we would sort of flip it to the reverse of what if you're asked to be on a podcast? How do you continue to ask to be asked to be on podcasts? And so John, because you have uh oh gosh, 15 years of podcasting experience.

Um, you started when you were 15. Right, right. Unfortunately, I'm still having the podcast. Had I, you know, done this right, I'd already be wealthy and retired, but here we are. Um, you know, so we'll talk about lessons learned.

Uh dealing with a bad podcast host. So if you're a guest and the host is just kind of sucking wind, how to salvage it so that you still have a good interview. And then how to measure your performance as a podcast guest? This was one that people expressed a lot of interest in of what the heck does that even mean? So, John, as uh an OG podcaster, where would you like to start today?

Yeah, well, it's you know, this as we always do, right? You have to back up a bit to your strategic reasons, like why are you doing this? And you know, what are your five P's? Like you you need to sit down and say, Okay, you know, yeah, it's great to do podcasts, but why are you doing this? Like, what's the goal?

Are you just trying to get your voice out there? Are you trying to push a product? Are you trying to promote something else you've got going? Um, is it more to learn about a specific vertical or to become established as an expert there? So and all of that stuff changes everything that happens downstream, you know, because for some things, like if you're promoting a book, like you don't care, you will just get on every single podcast with every, you know, Tom Dick and Harry and talk about anything with anybody as long as they get the link right to the book.

Whereas if you're trying to prove expertise or you're you have a specific cause or view of the world that you want to get out there, you really want to take the time to make sure that you're matched with the right platform and the right audience. And yeah, you know, it's funny you had a lot of people wanting to hear more about, you know, how to handle a host or how to deal with bad questions and all that kind of stuff. And again, that's strategic too. You kind of have to look at these as they come in or look to the ones you're gonna reach out to and say, is this the right one for me? Like how am I gonna handle this?

How am I gonna deal with it? And I mean, it even gets crazier too. If you're doing more mainstream stuff. Like there are guests and shows where you're expected to fight and disagree and have a, you know, bad experience, which is more because it's for the entertainment of the the the people watching. So yeah, there's a bunch of places to go.

But I guess it we can definitely start with five Ps. What are there stories that you are, you know, you think are closest to what we want to talk about today as far as where people need to go? Yeah. So and I think you're you're where you mentioned, John, of what is the purpose of doing these interviews in the first place is really important. Um when we first started Trust Insights, I thought that I needed to be doing just as many interviews as Chris for awareness, but I didn't have a strong story to tell at that time.

And so it was hard because I would get on these podcasts, and the first thing that people would ask me about was Chris. And that wasn't necessarily the right story because it wasn't really talking about the company. It was just sort of talking about people who were curious about Chris Penn, you know, the futurist, the speaker. Um, and so I had to take a step back, you know, I had to really dig deep and figure out what is the purpose of Katie Robert being interviewed on a podcast, Katie Robert being on a stage talking about something. And it actually it took a couple years for me to really figure out what my story was and how it benefited the company.

Um, and so the purpose for me is to drive awareness to the company for marketers and other professionals who are trying to understand technology, but not in a futuristic way, but in a more pragmatic, what do I need to do today kind of way. So I I look at myself as the one-on-one version of the really advanced technology, not in a, you know, I am catering to a lesser audience, but in a way that I'm trying to represent people who are newer to a lot of these concepts. Yeah, and that's right at the heart of what we face with so much of this stuff. As a marketer, we see this all the time, is that you know, the audience is irrational, right? Like we definitely thought many times we were like, well, we have the Trust Insights way of doing things that Chris Benn has helped put together.

Basically, any of us can go and talk about this process because it's, you know, it's the first 20 steps you take. You know, it's not the stuff way out in the horizon that Chris works on as side projects. It's all there. But what yeah, we just run into over and over again is like, yeah, people will pay $20,000 to get Chris. But if anybody at you or I are like, well, you know, we actually do the exact same deck and we'll do it for $5,000.

They're like, yeah, no, we really want Chris Penn to come, you know, they they just have that celebrity mindset. Um, and and then they have ulterior motives too, right? A lot of them maybe they don't care at all about the topic. They're looking at Chris's 225,000 Twitter followers and they're like, this could really provide our event. You know, him saying he's speaking, we're actually buying advertising.

It has nothing to do with uh, you know, having him on the show or whatever. So yeah, yeah, the you make a great point in that you having your red thread, you know, that Samson Webster talks about as far as here's you know why I speak, this is what I do, this is where we go. And that gives you yeah, a solid map for you know where the next stop should be. So, you know, classic one for me is always marketing over coffee related stuff, right? So, as host of marketing over coffee, I am always looking for opportunities to further promote the show and highlight the expertise of not only myself but trust insights and you being you and Chris so there's a clear um map of where to go to that like I'm not going to hit a bunch of other marketing podcasts to talk about what they've got on right the the idea is that I go on to the sewing podcast where they decide to do their once a year episode on what's happening in marketing for sewing people for tailors and for you know whatever but you you bring a different message and a different story and it makes you a valuable guest.

So it's not that you're kind of rehashing or challenging your hosts for expertise you're going in a very specific and clear direction. And uh you know and then the easy five P one is like I have my new book I need to sell more copies. So I'm gonna be on all these podcasts. And then that one is a different approach. Yeah that one you will go on every single marketing podcast and just not be promoting your own podcast.

It's not competitive you're saying hey here's my book you know go get the book download the first chapter do do all this stuff. So yeah you know what what you want to accomplish um definitely to set up the dominoes for figuring out who to deal with and um if you're gonna take a podric if you're going to ask or if you're asked if you're gonna take it. So what you know you've been interviewing guests for you know a very long time on marketing over coffee. So sometimes it's you and Chris and you have a really easy uh rapport back and forth you sort of know when to pick up and put down the conversation with each other and give each other sort of that equal airtime. But when you have a guest, what are some of the what are some of the guests that things that your guests on your show have done wrong that have caused you to sort of heavily edit the show.

And I would imagine that one of the things is not knowing when to stop talking. Yeah, uh, but it's um the key thing is it's just like the same as on being the guest side is that as the host, you have to do all your homework. You know, like no for marketing over coffee, nobody gets invited on the show if I haven't at least heard the person on another podcast or watched a YouTube video or something. Like I already know that they can speak coherently. They don't have to have done 20 keynotes, but I at least I'm gonna watch some things and say, okay, yeah, this person can represent themselves and present themselves.

And then we have it good in that, you know, we're covering marketing and tech and these are we're usually always dealing with professionals. So I have never had anybody that couldn't just like give their introduction and make their pitch and you know kind of get people in the right direction. So but if you're not you know as lucky as us to have people that are already running their mouths as a profession, um the thing you do with guests is it's unfortunately, you know everybody thinks so much of podcasting is supposed to be organic and just off the cuff, but it's really prep and rehearsal. You know, you sit down with the guest beforehand and yeah and I do this a lot with our guests even even though they're pros with what they do, I say, okay, look, we have the big story and it's like for a lot of authors it's like okay so you have this new book out about um organizational behavior and behavior and management. And I having read your book, here's the five things that I think are the biggest things and I'm gonna hit you in order with these and even have it mapped out.

We have a, you know, a tried and true thing of we shoot for around 25 minutes because that's the average commute or gym, you know, treadmill workout or whatever. And it's broken into three acts. We have, you know, there's kind of an intro to establish what's going on and then dive deep in the second part to um, you know, kind of set up some conflict or figure out what the challenges are and how they solve them. And then third part is a wind down, and we always close on something more personal and individual to highlight them as a uh, you know, as a full human being, not just like some kind of business machine. And, you know, they know that there's going to be breaks between those two slots.

That's where the sponsor slots go, two 60 minute slots. And even as far as reviewing the sponsors with them, hey, have you ever done any business with LinkedIn? Are you running any LinkedIn ads? Do you want to chime in? Because we, you know, seen and proven that these organic ads where people just kind of say, Oh, yeah, I, you know, I use HelloFresh.

Those meals are great. We love them too. Like that makes for great sponsorship opportunity. And in a perfect world, if it's something that actually leads into content that you're talking about that's worthwhile and educational, that's just a complete killer. It's basically makes the advertisement invisible.

It's it doesn't slow the conversation at all. Um, so yeah, lining up what the big story is going to be, having the list of questions. And I go as far as I have a Google doc that I do for every interview. And I say to them, look, you have full edit rights to this. Like go ahead and change that.

And for like I don't know, like most people who are doing event prep, you know, at first I was like, oh my God, do I really want to give them access to this whole thing? But Google Docs does have full version control. Like you can go back and say, okay, show me the changes they made last week. So you can just go in and scan and see what they've messed up or what and what they've deleted. You know, you have to be mindful of if there's topics that they're not gonna want to talk about, can't talk about whatever.

Um, but yeah, so having that written plan and rehearsing a little bit. Um, yeah, I rarely have to go as far as setting up a dry run, but sometimes, especially if their gear is questionable, you might want to even say, like, okay, here's the stream yard link, you know, let's hop on at one o'clock tomorrow and just hop on and answer a few questions or whatever. Just make sure that their video is good, their lighting's good, their sounds good, that they kind of know what the heck they're doing. Um, and if they're working with a PR person, you know, the PR person can jump in and you don't have to take the heat for that. You can just say the PR person, look, get them a good microphone or you know, get their lighting fixed, uh, you know, because we want them to look as good as we can.

And then as far as running your mouth too long, that's not a concern at all. Cause it we make no bones right up front. It's like, look, the show is gonna be heavily edited. Okay, so we're gonna have a conversation and we're gonna go wherever we want to go. And but if you if I ask you something and you don't like the answer or don't think it's the right place to go, just say that and we can delete the whole thing.

And yeah, there's a lot of times for people where they go a little bit too far, and so you can just clip out a chunk from the center to tighten it up and make it more interesting. Or the other one is people have uh it's either time savers or confidence things, but they'll say things like, I'll just say, like, what's the state of the inj industry? And they'll say, Well, from what I see, I think that, and you can actually delete that whole chunk. Like, we know it's what you see. And, you know, don't just say that you think this, like you stand behind it, that that's you, and you can jump right to the meat.

And that keeps the conversation tight and rolling. And it basically just makes everybody sound smarter, which is uh the ultimate goal that you've got that NPR sound. Um, as a podcast guest, you brought up a lot of really good points. And so one of the things that as a guest, as you were trying to determine if the fit is right, I think the preparedness of the host is a really good indicator as to whether or not it's going to be a solid episode that you're comfortable sharing. Um, I've been on quite a few podcasts, and I would say nine times out of ten, I'll get some sort of prep email from the host or their production company ahead of time saying, you know, this is what to expect.

You've probably done this before, but here's the list of questions we're likely to cover. You know, if you want to do a prep call, we can do that. And then they'll say, you know, we'll share with you the episode before it goes live in case you want to, you know, make any corrections or anything like that. And sort of like as a guest, knowing that you still have control over your story is a big deal. The other thing that I had to learn uh that I wasn't doing very well on my first couple of, you know, outings on a podcast was getting my bio down like pretty quickly because people want to just move past that and get into the conversation.

Chances are if they're listening to your episode, they already know who you are. And so you don't need to spend, you know, five minutes going through your pedigree of all of your accomplishments. It's boring. People want to move past it. They already know who you are, they're listening, they're engaged, so keep them engaged by moving into the thing.

And then um, you know, as a guest, you know, telling jokes, that kind of thing, it's fine, but being too self-deprecating and sort of second guessing your own accomplishments does not make for good content. It makes you come across as really insecure and people will start to question why they're listening to you in the first place of like, well, you know, I know I'm a published author in the pharmacoepidemiology journal, but eh, it's not really that big of a deal. I really just, you know, straightened a couple of periods. Like, none of that's true. Like, I really am a published author in the pharmaco epidemiology journal.

I can spell it and pronounce it, which is an accomplishment unto itself. And those are the things that, like, that's the reason why people are inviting me onto their shows because there's accomplishments that I've had in my career that I need to just stand behind. I don't need to parade them around for the entire show. But I also don't need to make myself like you know, basically like undermine my own accomplishments just because it's weird to talk about yourself. It's weird to talk about yourself, let's be honest.

For a lot of us, like people like, oh, tell me about what you're doing, what you're working on. Like, it can be really uncomfortable to toot your own horn, but that's the reason you're in these interviews, is so that you can do that. And if you're not comfortable doing that, then you definitely need those dry runs and those practices. Um, you know, as a guest asking for a list of questions ahead of time is always a good pro tip. And if the host is like, well, I don't have a set list of questions, but here are the topics we could talk about, you know, to your point about that prep talk with the we with you, you know, the editing in the Google Doc, like that's huge for people who aren't as comfortable, even if it's just, you know, a podcast interview.

Yeah, absolutely. Right. So the and there's a bunch of things to unpack from that as far as if you're the guest, then a lot of it just depends on how good the host is, right? How fast the host establish you as an expert, and then how fast does the host move into what's the pitch and the interesting thing. So, as somebody that wants to be on the show when you're listening to their other episodes, you can see if they have the the chops to do that in a perfect world, you'd hear something just like the classic radio stuff you'll hear all the time of if they start with a sizzle reel, right?

If they start with a 30-second clip of the guests saying something really provocative or way out there or crazy, like that really establishes as hey, this is an interesting interview. And then another one is a lot of shows will, you know, the intro will roll, and then a lot of times the host will come on and say, Hey, today's guest is so and so. This is what they do, but that's all recorded at a different time. Like the guest didn't even have to sit through that. Maybe they have the guest say, Okay, tell us who you are, and then they have a mark that they hit of like, okay, here's where the questions actually start.

And then when they go edit the show together, that's actually where you show up. Like you're already warm and you're on the topic and they've introduced you. So, um, yeah, having an understanding of what you're expected to do before you get there is huge. You know, like, am I gonna do I need a 30-second intro for myself? Do I need to talk for two minutes to establish myself?

Or do I, you know, kick out with a huge story to blow things out. Um, and the other one you said, always ask for the topics and questions in advance, you know, because even if they can only just give you like four topics, I always have a list of four or five related stories, you know, for those topics when I sit down as a guest, because that way when they start talking, you can say, Oh, yeah, that reminds me of the time. And you know, you're always using stories to illustrate the points because it has to entertain, right? We if you're just educating or reading out of your textbook, it doesn't stick, right? I mean, you could get a Harvard or an MIT education with all of the YouTube videos of all this stuff out there, but nobody does that, nobody sits through that stuff.

You have to have a human hook. Um, otherwise people just don't pay attention and they get lost. Well, and that's you know, that's one of the things that as a guest, um, you know, one of the things we want to cover is dealing with a bad podcast host. And so, you know, I personally have never done like media training or anything like that. I know a lot of people who go on book tours, uh have done media training.

So basically, media training for those who don't know, is your it's a basically a boot camp for being interviewed, um, that'll sort of like it'll give you the skill set, the tools to, you know, gracefully move away from topics you don't want to cover, um, how to answer things, you know, succinctly, how to tell better stories. And so sometimes I'll be listening to an interviewer or a podcast, and I'll think, huh, that person could definitely could have used some sort of a boot camp. But as a guest, you know, you even with all of the preparation in the world, if you get asked a curveball question. So for example, and John, this is something we talked about a few years ago, uh, questions not to ask female guests on your podcasts. Um, I've lost track, and thankfully it doesn't happen as much anymore because I think I've pretty much put my foot down that I will not do interviews that consist of asking me about any sort of um, you know, bad experiences of being a woman in tech.

Like I won't do those interviews. I won't answer those questions because that's not the story that's important for me to be telling at this time. Um, and so if you're a guest and you're in an interview and they start asking those questions, I think one of the things that we don't realize is it's okay to say no and to stop the interview and say, this isn't working. This is probably not the best use of my time and your time, because these are not questions that I think my audience wants to be hearing me answer, you know, whatever the situation is. But it's you can try to redirect a get uh a host, and I've had to do that a few times as they start to get off track into things that either I'm not an expert in, which has definitely happened a few times.

There's an assumption that I'm Chris Penn and I'm not. Um, number one, I'm much, much taller than him. Um, but you need to have the ability to sort of recognize this is going off topic. And you know what? It's okay as the guest, you're still in control of the story.

Like I may be sitting as a guest in marketing over coffee and marketing over coffee is John Wall's podcast, but it's still my story that's being told. And so I need to speak up if it's not going in the right direction. Yeah, and it's it's like running judo with that kind of stuff, you know, because if the questions start veering off, um, you know, you can just keep steering it back. And the host if the host doesn't get the message after the third or fourth steer, well, that's fine because they're gonna have to edit that up somehow and make it work and it's gonna be hell. So if they're smart, they will steal out of that.

And then another big thing with that is to do your homework ahead of time. Yeah, it is somebody worthy of your platform. You know, I mean it kind of gets played as everybody's like, oh, everybody has their show, and you know, please consider me as a guest. But go in saying, no, like I have this important story to share, and you know, you might not be worth my time. I mean, yeah, I'm not Tony Robbins, but I do only have, you know, I can do 10 hours worth of podcasts a week.

And if your show isn't in the top one million, you know, you tell me why I should spend my time with you. Like, why should I answer your stupid questions? And um, so you know, when I get a show request that comes in, I always check Hrefs, go see how many links the show has got. Uh has the website been up for five years, or did it just turn on last quarter and they're getting two visits a month. Look at the Apple reviews, um, see what they're doing over on Spotify, you know, get a feel for the show and check their whole social presence and the discussions they're in.

You know, is this person going to talk about you across all channels and get you some traffic and is the thing going to get heard? Because and you know you might want to do, I know I do the same thing of I kind of like have the 10 I want to hit and I'll let one or two fall in there of people that I think you know they have no audience or fans but they're just going to be thrilled out of their mind to have you on and make a good show. And you never know too maybe one of those will hit or maybe you're just getting to spend some time with somebody who you might you know be able to help or they might be able to help you in the future with something else. So it's always fun to kind of make some time for those but definitely make sure you're prior prioritizing the ones that are going to you know get you in front of more people and is an audience that's proven to want to hear the kind of things that you talk about and that you know it's going to resonate. It's not going to be like oh you're just the person filling the seat this week I I mean you can speak to this every time I get an inbound request I immediately send it to you and say is this legit?

Um you know because I you know I personally haven't been in this industry as long I've now you know been in the industry for a while but not still I don't know people the same way that you and Chris and others who have been doing it in the industry longer than I have know people. And so I always you know check with my trusted network first of do you know this show? Do you know this host? And do I have anything that I need to be concerned with, you know, for this kind of person. So there's definitely been a couple of uh shows a few years back that it's not that I regret doing them, but I wish I had done more homework on the host themselves because the experience being a guest wasn't that pleasant.

It wasn't, and they weren't shows that I was particularly proud of. Um, and that's just sort of my inexperience of being a podcast guest or some sort of interview guest of, you know, it's okay to say, I don't think this is working. But also to your point, John, like do your homework, be prepared. You know, if you you know go online and you see that you know, John Wall, you know, isn't the basketball player and you were really hoping to be on the basketball players podcast, but instead you have John Wall of Marketing over Coffee, you need to decide, does that fit my purpose? And that goes back uh to your original point, John, of the five Ps.

Why am I doing this in the first place? Is it because I'm just excited that anybody's willing to talk to me? Or do I really have a story that I need to be telling to a specific audience? Yeah, and you know, we can hit some of the other ones here as far as platform and performance, you know. So you've done this guest thing now, like where do you want to is it working for you?

What's it, what is it getting done? Um, some tips on that that we always have. One is dedicated URL. You know, if you have your book is time to win, but you have maybe time to win with a two, you know, number two, like T-I-M-E-2 W-I-N.com. If you have a dedicated URL, you can actually see, hey, did we get any traffic over here for these kind of things?

Uh giveaways are another one. Any podcast you're on, if you've got something you can give away, just say, hey, hit me up on social media or email me here. I I I recommend don't giving your email on a podcast. You're better off giving like a socials or LinkedIn so that you can get them. But yeah, give away signed copy of the books or come get a free analysis of your site or what for us for Trust Insights, there's always we've got another report going.

You can get Chris's latest uh woefully incomplete prompt uh report killing it right now. Um so check that over at Trust Insights. Um giveaways are perfect too, because you'll get the feedback. Um interesting thing though, and I've kicked this around a lot with other podcast networks, is it's not like ads in that when you are a guest on a show, first you're gonna have to wait till the show drops. Some shows record six that maybe months before it even hits the airwaves.

And then the fact that a lot of episodes, it'll take 90 days to like get up to speed and get the full amount of clicks that and downloads and listens that they normally get. You know, the whole crowd doesn't just show up in the first hour, it's downloaded. So yeah, with a digital ad, you know, in three days, you know you're done and you're not gonna get another nickel out of it. Uh I talk to vendors all the time that it's you know three years in. We have Hrefs just got a lead last week.

They haven't sponsored marketing over coffee since like 2020, you know, and it but it's these episodes are out there. People want to hear from Simon Sinek or Seth Godin or whoever or Debbie Millman. And, you know, there's a quote in there to go to the website, download a thing and go. That's right. Marketing over coffee.com, get your coffee hot fresh delivered, top 20 episodes and bios, sign up for the text line, follow us on LinkedIn.

But that's a really good point because you're now we're into the how do I measure my performance as a guest? And you have to be prepared to give people some kind of a call to action in order for them to to do something that's measurable. And so, you know, you can you can look at the podcast episode as a whole and say how many people listened, but that might be completely out of your control because you know, the networks that this podcast is published on may not be the networks where your particular audience is. And so, you know, you need to be sharing the episodes that you're proud of. To your point, John, you know, giveaways, really easy to remember URLs, like, you know, if you shortened it to moc.com, people can remember that marketing overcoffee.com, also super easy to remember.

Um, you know, and push people so that you can see, okay, I did this thing and it brought people to my uh to my download page, to my website, to whatever it is. So I recently, uh, you know, to toot my own horn a little bit, I recently did a podcast as a guest uh with my good friend Brooke Sellis. I did her the marketing agency show, which she has through Social Media Examiner. And because of that episode, I got an invitation to speak at an event and I got a bunch of new followers on LinkedIn who reached out to me specifically with a message of I heard you on Brooks Podcast. Um, and I'm really interested in learning more about you and your company.

And so for me, mission accomplished, you know, I got some very tangible, measurable things out of that. I got better awareness and I get to continue the conversation on stage at social media marketing world in 2024, which, you know, is kind of cool. Yeah, no, isn't and that's something that we see all the time. You know, we joke about the buying a private jet podcast. Like if it only has four listeners and one buys a jet, that's the most successful podcast of all time with your four downloads.

You know, it doesn't matter. You don't need to be Joe Rogan. You just need to get some people over the line. One thing to help out with success with those programs too, as you're doing those, is make sure that your marketing and sales teams are fully aware that they have those programs. In fact, a great thing to do is um let them use that as a giveaway.

You know, if you've got a if there's a show that's covering the topic that you are involved with, have the sales and marketing people say, Hey, you know, you want to learn more about what this is, go listen to this podcast over here, 30 minutes. Because yeah, there's a lot of sponsors we have where, yeah, the sales and marketing teams are just like, yeah, we get leads from that. You know, we like expect a lead or two. So sponsors may not even care about downloads or any of that stuff. They're just like, yeah, we're getting our two or three deals a quarter.

Like, that's awesome. That's well worth the money we're paying. We're gonna do that. So yeah, it's it's it's funny. Now, and another the really weird one, you'll get the devil's deal where you know, you get these podcasts where you don't like the host or you don't like the audience, but you know it's a good fit for what you're doing.

And so you have to wait in there and figure out like, okay, how are we gonna do this with a guest who's gonna beat on a host who's gonna beat on me, or you know, who knows where it's gonna go, or you know, they have a reputation for asking, you know, questions that are way off base. You just have to kind of get your best padding on and you know, go show you show your judo, see if you can throw and redirect and you know, still get your message out there because yeah, sometimes it's it's worth taking the hits. Well, and I think that's where to your point about preparation is key. And so, you know, making sure that you know, here's the exact story that I want to be telling on this show, and I'm not gonna deviate from it, you know, putting up those guardrails, saying to the host ahead of time, this is the story I'm gonna be telling. I will not answer other questions or you can try, but it's it's not going to go anywhere.

Um, you know, you just need to stand your ground and say, this is the story I'm gonna be telling. Period, done. And then you can say at the end, great, if you enjoyed that, you can learn more at trustinsights day.ai slash prompt sheet, which is really easy to remember. And so for people listening to this episode or watching this live stream, our call to action today would be go to our website and download our free uh prompt sheet, which tells you how to assemble really strong prompts for generative AI. You know, and so we would be able to measure the referral traffic coming into that particular page to see where are people coming from?

Were they coming from, you know, this live stream, or were they coming from something else or replays or you know, we could measure the effectiveness in that way. Um, but to your point about just sometimes you have to suck it up, it's really hard because to your point, they may be the wrong host, but they're the right audience. And so you have to decide, is it worth it? Is it worth me possibly doing any kind of damage to my brand or my reputation to take this risk? And that's you know, that's a question only you and your team can answer.

Yeah, exactly. And it's this is kind of more advanced level stuff, but we see this like especially with panels at trade shows. You know, ultimately you kind of get to a point where like you might be a lot better off picking a fight than trying to explain something to um, you know, your co your host there, because you know, a fight will get you heat in action, especially if you're on the right, you know, because there are a lot of people who are fine with like, I'm gonna take the I want to create a fight under any circumstance because I know it generates heat. And so they're you know make outrageous claims and say ridiculous and stupid stuff and if you're the one that drops the banhammer and you know calls them out as inappropriate or completely out of right field and wrong that actually can can do you well. Um you'd mentioned another thing too I wanted to loop back on was humor too is another thing.

The an easy key if you're not comfortable with humor you're not sure which is really unless you've road tested it you're not sure whether you're not sure or not um you have to figure out if something works but an easy hack is to always have the jokes as part of and in involving the content itself. So if you are talking about a survey and you're like oh yeah one of the guys fell down the stairs it you know it's not a joke that's unrelated to the content. So if it's a bad joke, people will just blow right through it. They'll just ignore it and maybe not even think it's a joke. Whereas if you try to just like grab some random joke off the web and plug it into your thing like that's where you get the really awkward weird moments that you can't recover from you look horrible.

So the if you want to experiment with humor, keep it in line with the content and then you really it's pretty much foolproof and if the jokes crash and burn. Yeah. No and I think that that's solid because I've definitely listened to some episodes I've probably done it myself too where I where you know you feel the need to keep the story going and suddenly you just make up a joke or like a funny anecdote on the big thing is just falls flat to be genuine and be yourself and you know, don't try to concoct a persona and uh, you know, these, you know, really uh detailed stories that never happened because they sound more interesting than what really happened. Um, you know, to your point about the uh, you know, the airplane, the what is it, the jet engine? The private and jet the private, the private jet podcasts, you know, there's gonna be someone out there who resonates and it might be, it might be the right person who reson who your story resonates with.

Um back to measurement, you know, the thing that occurs to me too is that if you're using social listening tools, then you can start to see if the conversation that you're having is having any sort of impact on uh the different social platforms where your episode is being shared. If there's a transcript uh included, Chris actually last week on our live stream, um, which you can get old episodes, older episodes at trustinsights.ai slash YouTube, we talked about using generative AI to repurpose content. And one of the things that we talked through was repurposing your episodes as a guest on other people's shows to pull the transcript, to pull the video, to repurpose it. And so those are other ways that you can make the most of being a guest. You can measure the success of the interview by your ability to repurpose the content in a meaningful way.

So if it was like just a crap interview and you're like, I would never want to repurpose this, then you know, it's a crap interview. But if it's something like, you know, the talk that I had with Brooke a few weeks ago, I'm gonna get a lot of mileage out of that, which to me is the mark of a really, you know, Brooke did her homework. We had a prep meeting, but also, you know, I, as the guest, came prepared because I knew what she was gonna ask, and I wanted to make sure I was making really impactful statements in a very short amount of time, which is not easy to do. And they didn't all work. Yeah, right.

Well, and that's another part of the dance that when the host is putting the show together, and you, as the guest, is that you could have it fully scripted, and there's nothing wrong with that, too. Like you would know that every minute we're here, we're gonna hit points and we're gonna be on the mark. Or you can start to let the conversation be more organic. But yeah, you totally have a risk with that of like you could have three minutes that's just garbage that you're gonna throw in the trash can. And if this is somebody important that you've only got 25 minutes with, you know, you losing three minutes is gonna kill you.

So, you know, that's like when people are making TV shows, there's not a minute that's not planned because they're they're spending money and and the meters running. Now, in podcasting, you can run long and it's nobody cares. There's you know, barely an extra nickel spent. But yeah, you kind of have to make that trade-off of like, am I gonna do I think I can find some weird gem that nobody's ever talked to this person about that's educational and entertaining and funny, or are we just gonna hear some weird story about their pet iguana that you know is not gonna make the final stuff. Um you could have to do that on the fly and let it rip.

I would say as a guest, it's never a bad idea to have some of those pet iguana stories prepared. Um, because I would say a lot of times, you know, to your point, you sort of have the three acts of marketing over coffee. And aside from the work that you're doing, the story you're telling, hosts a lot of times want to dig into who you are as a person. And so be prepared to answer, like, you know, what's a fun fact about you, or you know, what's a you know, anecdote from your childhood, or you know, what was the first pet you ever had? Like, be prepared with some of those, like have them in your back pocket.

Even if you tell them over and over again on every single podcast, that's okay because you're going to be hitting a different audience every single time. And so it's okay to tell the pet iguana that you used to put a harness on and walk down the street, and people would line up on their sidewalks and you know, have their, you know, flies ready to feed the iguana because it was such a cool part of the day. And then the ice cream truck ran down the street and almost hit the iguana. And then, oh my gosh, you realize you probably shouldn't be walking in iguana in the street in the first place. Have that story ready because it's going to be a really interesting contrast to the work that you're doing, but make sure you know what that story is.

Don't make it up on the spot like I just did, unless I did a really good job and then it's a true story. It's true. Yeah, having and easy go-tos are, you know, the last couple books you read or the last couple movies you watched, you know, some kind of culture thing that you've done. But yeah, it is funny. And that is one great thing with marketing over coffee stuff.

You've seen is, you know, you have somebody speaking for 20 minutes about some marketing analytics thing, and then you're like, what are your hobbies? And they come out with something that you totally didn't expect out of right field that's, you know, fun or funny or interesting, or you never thought this person would be into that kind of stuff. And that can make for, you know, entertaining interview. It makes it for something fun to listen to. Or you could do what Carrie Gorgon and I did and turn it into a whole separate podcast of the fun hobbies that people have outside of work.

Because what we realized was that people, you know, that you were interviewing on things like marketing over coffee would also then like slip in, like, oh, and by the way, like I've been to space. And you're like, well, that's a conversation we don't have time to have, but I definitely want to dig into. Um, you know, but so as a guest, you know, you're an interesting person. There's a reason why people want to talk to you. So just be confident in that.

And then you can measure it by uh, you know, if you give them a call to action, you know, John, to your point, have a giveaway, drive them back to your website. Those are some of the best ways to measure. And then other ways to measure is are you then invited onto other podcasts or interviews because of the show that you did because the content was that good. Always hits. Yeah.

I've got a copy of Seth Godin's new book. Mention it on social. You can have it. We'll throw that out of my giveaway there. Just as a treat for anybody that's muscled through it today.

All right, John. Any final thoughts for uh people who are either new to being a guest or have been a guest for a long time and maybe just need a refresher? Yeah, no, just get out and do it, right? And have your cheat sheet of the points here. At the end of every interview, you should be able to look at your list and say, okay, yeah, I hit those three key points.

You know, maybe it completely went off the rails and it's gonna be a disaster, but at least we did what we set out to do. I think that's solid. Know your story, know what you want to tell. All right, John, until next time. Here we go.

We're gonna try in the exit. Let's pull the ribs. Thanks for watching today. Be sure to subscribe to our show wherever you're watching it. For more resources and to learn more, check out the Trust Insights Podcast at TrustInsights.ai slash TI podcast.

At our weekly email newsletter at TrustInsights.ai slash newsletter. Got questions about what you saw in today's episode? Join our free analytics for markers Slack group at TrustInsights.ai/slash analytics for marketers. See you next time.