What Do I Do With a Bad Podcast Interview?

I was at an event this week, and there are a lot of questions about what to do when you have a bad interview. I've got some solutions for you.

Well, first things first, when it comes to bad interviews, we like to blame the guest for their bad audio. We like to blame them for not delivering value (and the first thing I'm going to say is not going to go over well), that is your fault. Yep. If somebody didn't bring value, that's because you didn't do enough research to figure out, is this person a good fit for my audience? Am I convinced they're going to bring value to my audience? If they have bad audio that's because you didn't say, "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm not going to let you come to my audience sounding like that." Come back, when you get a better microphone.

We kind of go with this mentality that if I let that guest go, there aren't any other people that want to be on my podcast. And that's just not the case. There's also always the ability to do a solo show.

Now with that said, what happens when you get surprised and somebody you thought was going to be good isn't? Well, one way to fix this is to turn it into what I call a narrative-style podcast. So instead of a question, answer, question, answer, take out the good parts, throw away the bad parts, and just weave in a story. (Example)Hey, I spoke with so and so who is the person that does such and such, and I asked them about this. And here's what they said, play the good clip. Another thing that they do is yadda yadda (whatever it is), and you're telling the story now.

Because you know the answers, you can then come up with a story. So that's one way to fix it.

The other question I heard was, well, what if there's nothing there? That's just awful. This didn't bring any value to my audience? Can I take it down? I again say it's your show. You can do whatever you want.

And it seems a little rude. It's kind of like, Look, I  invited this person over to my house and then I kicked them out. Well, yeah, that's true. Again, this is where it's your job to make sure this person is the right guest to come into your house. But, you let them in. Well, think about this. You have your whole family, your whole family is in your house. And that family is your audience, and you decide to kick the guest out. So who is mad now? While the guest. Who's not mad? Your family, you take care of your family first. 

But here's the other thing. As someone who gets interviewed on a fairly regular basis, (I was interviewed three times yesterday). I was there. I don't need to go back and listen to the episode. I will definitely promote it if somebody gives me a link. But I don't go back and listen. I don't go back and listen to see how you edited me. I didn't listen to see what you kept in what you did. I came in, and I did the interview. I'm more than willing to promote it. But I don't go back and listen, because I was there. I know how the interview went.

So a lot of times we're worried we're thinking, if I pull this down, then the guest is going to be upset with me.

No.

The guest isn't looking at your website every day to go to their interview. So if you don't tell them, they're not going to know that the episode has been pulled.

The other thing people think I have to keep everything the interviewer said. No, you can cut out a lot. The one thing you want to avoid, and it's really, really bad is do not edit the answers from the interview to the point where you are making them say something that they didn't say. You're taking things away out of context, you're rearranging words.

I have rearranged questions. I interviewed somebody, and about 20 minutes into the interview, they dropped an awesome, just Golden Nugget. I was like, Oh, I can't wait for my audience to hear this. Well, I didn't want to hope that my audience waited 20 minutes for this nugget. And I put that question right at the beginning. So don't get too worried when it comes to editing your interviews. If you're doing an interview show. It's your show. You know your audience, you know what they want.

I'll give you a great example. I interviewed Adam Curry, one of the men that invented podcasting, and he was talking about something very technical. And I said right up front to my audience. Hey, if you're looking for the super technical stuff, Adam talks about it on his own podcast, that podcast index.org go over and get it there because I feel that if we leave this super technical stuff in here right now. It's going to go over your head. And I don't want to confuse you or bore you. So I let them know if you're looking for that stuff, here's where you can find it. I've cut it out, Adam was not offended. Adam knows that I know my audience. And he wants to deliver value. In fact, that's his whole thing value for value.

So and that's the bottom line. You always want to deliver value for your audience. You want to get to the good stuff as quickly as you can. Do not ask them, "Tell me a little bit about yourself." Because if you ask that to me, I could start with Well, I was born in Akron, Ohio, I was a paperboy when I was 12. A better question might be Dave, when did you know you wanted to be a podcaster? Get your guest telling stories. So many people love to include the backstory, I actually do the opposite. I bring out the golden nuggets, I get them telling stories, I get them delivering value. And then I asked them, Hey, tell us how did you get into this? Because people don't care about the person until you give them a reason to care about that person. And that's because they've helped them in some way.

 I've got more tips on interviews, I'll put a link out in the show notes. Go to podcast consultant. com/97 as this is Episode 97. Thanks so much for listening. If you need help with your podcast, I would love to help you go out to podcastconsultantcom you can click on the Contact button, and schedule a strategy session. I will help you avoid all those podcasting pitfalls and mistakes. We're gonna make you sound professional. We're gonna make sure you don't spend money on equipment that you don't need to buy. We're gonna get you out to all the different directories to help promote and grow your show. Thanks so much for joining me on my mission to rid the world of boring podcast. Until we meet again, I'm Dave Jackson from the School of podcasting. I want to be your podcast consultant.