How can podcasters build confidence during interviews?

Building interview confidence for podcasters involves prep, practice, and a positive outlook. Research your guest and topic well—it boosts preparedness. Practice interview skills, stay upbeat, and embrace active listening during the conversation. Relax with breathing exercises and welcome brief silences. Afterwards, reflect, seek feedback, and keep learning. With each interview, confidence grows—it's a journey toward engaging, insightful conversations!

Get used to watching and listening to yourself! It feels so awkward at first. "I hate my voice and I look funny" is most people's first reaction. But if you push through and get past that, there is so much to learn from watching and listening to yourself. Observing it yourself is more powerful than someone else telling you.

Active listening is a crucial aspect of building a good rapport with your guests. You can show your full engagement and interest in what they are saying by maintaining eye contact, nodding, and mirroring their body language. This level of attentiveness not only demonstrates your respect for the guest's input but also encourages them to open up more, leading to a richer and more insightful conversation. The primary goal is to create an environment where the guest feels comfortable and understood, which facilitates a natural and fluid conversation. When guests feel at ease, they are more likely to share candid insights and engage in a deeper, more meaningful dialogue.

One of the easiest ways to build rapport before podcast interviews is to actually follow your guests on one preferred social media platform and get to know them and engage with them there. You're likely to find information that's more personal and relevant, which can give you a competitive advantage during the interviews. Engaging ahead of time also helps you engage on a human level with your guests and look for potential shared values, hobbies or beliefs!

"Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome" is a motto that I apply to interviews. Improvisation helps you navigate through unexpected situations with ease, keeping the conversation engaging and dynamic. Adapting is crucial to maintain relevance and resonance with your audience, ensuring that the discussion remains pertinent and captivating. Lastly, overcoming challenges, whether they are technical glitches or tough questions, demonstrates resilience and professionalism, and solidifies your credibility as a confident and capable interviewer.

This is probably one of the most underrated things about podcast interviews! There is so much value in bringing joy during the process so that we can also learn about ourselves as much as we're learning about the interviewee! Podcast interviews can become powerful tools to become better conversationalists, but that won't come if we never listen back to the interviews. Make sure that you're including one personal success metric for each interview, such as 'was it easier for me to flow from the intro to the guest's interview', 'was I less nervous this time', 'did I get to enjoy the conversation'?

Over the course of 3.5 years, I have been podcasting on a weekly basis, and I have come to enjoy the process. Streamlining my workflow has taken a lot of effort, but I am committed to improving by just 1% every day. When it comes to interviewing my guests, I am always happy to do so because I am genuinely interested in learning from them. Not only that, but I want my audience to learn from them and connect with them as well. Although my podcast is in a saturated niche, I have a unique style and approach that puts the spotlight on my guests. I love amplifying their voices as much as my own.

Listen to your guest and respond to their answers to your questions. Often then best chats are the ones that appear between the questions. So yes, have a plan, but actively listen so that if something comes that you’ve not thought of you can follow it and see what you discover. Be present and listen to your guest. The interview will sound more professional and have a brilliant energy.