🎤 Goodbye 2022 (Issue 109)  December 30th 2022

Does This Promo Make You Want to Listen?

I'm agnostic on Gary Vaynerchuk. He's an interesting guy, but not somebody I follow online simply because I don't connect with him.

But ... Gary was recently on a podcast called Diary of a CEO and this is the promo video.

Like him or not, it's compelling – nice clips and great use of music. And a great example of the power of editing.

And the host came off like a genius ...

Unfortunately, the interview itself wasn't nearly as good as the promo. The host tried, but it's very hard to break through the hard shell of some guests.

Still, regardless of who you're interviewing, if you want to "go deeper" with your questions, I think you should make that attempt. The guest can always refuse to answer. Or, like Gary Vaynerchuk, hijack the question and go off on a tangent.

Here are three things you can do in order to set the stage for a great interview to happen:

1. Do a Pre-Interview - A quick, 15-minute call a couple of days before your interview will help you establish rapport ahead of time and allow you to know where your guest is mentally and emotionally. Even if you already know somebody or have had a previous experience together, a pre-interview will help set guests at ease and let them know they're taken care of.
2. Make Space for a Great Interview - A pre-interview and all the work you do before you start rolling tape sets the space for somebody to open up to you when you are recording. But you also need to extend this work to during your interview. For example, making sure producers, engineers, and company reps aren't in the way of the connection you have with a guest, such as staring blankly at you and the guest as you record your interview.
3. Ask Your Question and Shut Up - Silence is powerful. Don't mess up a moment for the guest to open up to you and answer your questions (or more) by talking too much.

Make Them Feel You

This is an article about storytelling and it's worth a look. But pay attention to this quote from Pharrel, which is something he said after reviewing music by Maggie Rogers, three years before she was nominated for a "Best New Artist" Grammy, when she was a student at NYU.

I have zero, zero, zero notes for that. And I'll tell you why. It's because you're doing your own thing. It's singular. It's like when the Wu-Tang Clan came out, nobody could really judge it. You either liked it, or you didn't. But you couldn't compare it to anything else. And that is such a special quality. And all of us possess that ability, but you have to be willing to – [long pause to find the words] – you have to be willing to seek. You have to be willing to be real frank in your music, and frank in your choices. Most of the time, people say, "OK, I'm gonna make this kinda song, so it ends up sounding like something we've heard before, felt before, yanno? But your whole story – I can hear it in your music.

Have you ever seen a live performance by Freddie Mercury? Whether you like his music or not, you can't deny his showmanship.

As we leave this year behind to start fresh in 2023, I encourage you to take more chances with bringing your true self to your podcast. Listeners know when you do. And this is the top thing that will enable you to grow your podcast this coming year – it will make everything else that I cover here and on Build a Big Podcast much more powerful for you.