043 Podcast Guest Wrangling 101 🤼
How to be a generous, prepared, loved, and all-round legendary host when someone joins your podcast. 🫅
Ideas Discussed This Episode + Episode Timecodes:
00:00 - Guest locked in! Now what?
00:15 - Welcome to the final instalment of our guest mini-series.
00:44 - Why research matters and how to prep right.
03:36 - After the episode: don’t ghost your guest.
03:47 - Sharing assets, thanking them, and helping them share.
05:30 - Wrap-up with tips on future cross-promotion and swaps.
Podcast Guest Wrangling 101 🤼
Got the podcast guest? Great! 👍 Now let’s make sure you don’t fumble the hosting. Let’s start with practical tips to prep, host, smile, and follow-up your guest episodes with class and confidence.
Getting the guest on your show is only the beginning. Even if it may have taken a lot to get them there. Being a great host starts with good preperation. Know your guest, share your structure, share your value, and calm those pre-recording nerves with a simple and tidy prep doc. A little bit of planning means you both show up confident and ready to shine.
During the actual podcast recording, remember it’s a conversation. Not a battle of egos or a one-person monologue 🎭 Listen like a human being and not a robot waiting to ask the next question. Respect their time, their words, and their boundaries. Your audiences are here for value and entertainment, so give them that in spades ♠️
📚 Episodes You’ll Also Love:
038 Unusual Ways to Monetise Your Sound
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031 Beyond Downloads: What Is Podcast Growth
Discover why success isn’t just about numbers and how guest stories, listener loyalty, and engagement can make your show truly impactful
007 How Do I Get People to Listen to My Podcast?
Learn smart promotion techniques (social snippets, SEO, shareable guest content) that help your episodes, and your guests, get heard by more ears.
After the convo is done, and the mic is off, don’t just vanish. Make sure to send a thank you message, let them know when the episode is going live (if you know), any engaging snippets, and make it dead simple for them to share it when it does go live. Tag them in posts and link to their website, share their stuff, and offer to guest swap if it fits their vibe. If all this feels a bit much, I get it, this was supposed to be easier than doing it solo right? 🥲
Zoë Wood of the Video Confidence Coach the host of VIC Podcasters is your secret weapon for making guesting less stressy. Let’s chat, find me at vcc.training.
TIME FOR A QUICK QUIZ 🤓
What should you do after the podcast is recorded?
A) Nothing, you're done
B) Email a thank you and links
C) Ask them for money
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Answer: B) Email a thank you and links - Follow up is the best investment you can make for your podcast to succeed. 🧡
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[00:00:00:00 - 00:00:04:02]
You've got it. You finally got the guest on your podcast. Now it's time to make them shine.
[00:00:05:11 - 00:00:06:12]
How do you do that?
[00:00:15:13 - 00:00:39:17]
You're listening to the Vic Podcasters podcast, your bite size slice of podcasting know-how. We're here to connect Victorian podcasters, whether you're just starting season pro or stuck in the one day I will phase, stop dreaming and dive in, join our email list or hop onto our Facebook and LinkedIn groups for updates, resources and a supportive community because podcasting is better when we do it together. Vic Podcasters is proudly produced on Waterung land.
[00:00:44:01 - 00:03:33:09]
This is the third and final episode of our podcast guests mini series where the first episode we talked about why do you even need guests at all and the second episode where we touched on where to find great guests. So today we're going to focus on how to be a good guest host or not necessarily an interviewer because when you have guests on your podcast, you're not necessarily interviewing them all the time. Sometimes you bring them on just for a chat or maybe you're bringing them on to help host the podcast yourself. But ultimately you still need to be a good host, especially if it's your podcast. Before you begin, you need to prep for the guest or you need to prep for the interview depending on how you're talking with them. Make sure that you research, research, research, research. Know your guest, know their work and know their angle. What are they bringing to the podcast? Don't just slap someone on because maybe they have the credentials or they look good. Actually check out what they're about so you're not bombarded when maybe your thoughts don't align or maybe it's actually useful that your thoughts don't align. Either way your audience wants to hear from both of you so make sure you're prepared. You can do a pre-chat or a preparation document which I like to give my guests whenever I do have them on. I do haven't had a guest episode in a little while but this helps calm the nerves and also sets expectations not just for you but also for them. And my recommendation is that you do both. You provide a prep document honestly less than maybe an A4 page, less than of things that are useful for you and for them, maybe even a quick little checklist. And just before you're about to record, making sure that everyone's settled. You have about five maybe ten minutes before you actually hit record, before you start recording the episode to get everyone all settled right for the interview or the chat. And also making sure that you share your questions or topics that you're going to talk about beforehand. You don't necessarily need to script especially when there's two or more guests. Like it's very hard to script these things. You're not a director, you're not a Hollywood producer. Make sure you give them some direction of what you actually want to talk about and then you can carry on from there especially if they are an expert in their field. During the recording itself make sure you give them space. Let them talk. You're not in it to a debate. And even if your podcast is a debate podcast, giving people space to talk and clear their mind also makes you look like a very good host. Just FYI. Make sure to stay present and just don't think about your next question or the next thing you're going to say. Do some active listening like we did in primary school. And one last thing that I will mention is make sure you watch the time. Respect their schedule and especially if they're busy making sure that you have them or record them only for as long as you said they would. And you can always go a little bit over time wise, not necessarily in the time that you've booked, but for your podcast because you can always cut back. But if say for example they're busy, make sure you respect their time and their schedule by not going to over time.
[00:03:36:00 - 00:03:43:08]
The VIC Podcasters was brought to you by the Video Confidence Coach. That's me smashing your marketing mayhem with killer video strategies. Love ya!
[00:03:47:11 - 00:06:30:04]
After you've done the recording and double-checked the recording and made sure it actually works so you don't need to come back to them later being like "Hi, can we do it again?" Make sure you thank them with like a quick email or a message or even just as the recording finishes and you're checking the files and everything. Make sure that you thank them and it is a really big impact. You have no idea how many podcasts that I've gested on where I have heard "squat" after the fact and I felt kind of used and I didn't even feel like sharing the podcast after the fact because I didn't know when it was being released and it didn't really feel like that I was contributing to anything. In those moments make sure that you send a thank you even if it's just a generic email. Also make sure that you give people timelines on when the podcast will be released. By sharing links and assets, make it easy for them to promote your episode. People who love this guest are going to also love you so make it easy for the guests to promote them. Even provide maybe some snippets of audio or the podcast cover art or even some tools that they can use to help promote your podcast more than once because again always have it be useful that you can promote something more than once. It is allowed, there isn't a rule against it. When you do share the podcast and when the podcast is out make sure that they tag and shout you out on the socials and show appreciation public. I'm sure your appreciation publicly. Both like both you and them. So when you tag them you're also getting access to their audience but they are also doing the same for you. Now if everything that I've mentioned in this little mini series or in the episode today has overwhelmed you just a teensy bit don't worry check out our Pitch Perfect guest email template pack which is in the show notes or in this episode's description. One final tip I'll give for you about being a good guest host is to offer to return the favor to guest swap in the future or cross promote any of their future relevant podcast episodes. It's always a win-win. You're wanting to help people grow but also your guests want to also see you grow too. So making sure that you follow them up and offer to share their most recent episodes is always going to be a good win. That's a wrap. Remember we're here every week to share quick tips, updates and the occasional bad joke. Feeling inspired? Good. Now hit record or go to the show notes of this episode for a backstage past experience of the Victorian podcasting scene. The Vic Podcasters would like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the watering people of the Kulin nation. The traditional custodians on the land on which we work live and play. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. We stand with the traditional custodians of these lands in working towards a more equal future. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. And remember, podcasting doesn't have to be a solo gig.
The above episode description and transcript were generated with human knowledge + ai.
Photograph of 4 members of VIC Podcasters who met up in Geelong.
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