How to Conduct a Great Podcast Interview

Interviewing people can feel quite daunting when you’re first starting out.

How do you ensure it is going to truly hit home for the listener?

Is it possible to make it memorable and meaningful for both the audience and the guest?

We’ll dive into the answers to these questions today.

Some hosts don’t even consider what might need to be planned for an interview—instead, opting to just go into the recording and see how the conversation flows from there.

On the other hand, many folks get stressed out about the idea of going in without anything planned.

These people end up over-complicating or structuring their show too heavily.

From experience, we know choosing to lean too far on either end of the spectrum doesn’t usually work out.

So, what does it mean to host a really great podcast interview?

Hosting a Great Podcast Interview

Fundamentally, two things really matter when you’re interviewing people:

1. You are having a natural, connecting conversation with another human being.

2. You are responsible for finding the answers to the questions that your audience has.

That’s it!

Remember you are speaking to another human being and you’re just trying to ask questions that your audience might have whilst listening.

If you can lead the conversation in a direction that is interesting for your listeners, then everything else takes care of itself.

With this being said, several core concepts make hosting a podcast interview much easier.

Let’s take a look at what this might entail.

Focus on Stories and Emotions for a Great Podcast Interview

Start an interview with a theme, a central insight, or a unique experience that your guest has that you’re trying to share with the audience.

From there, map out 3-5 questions that you want to ask throughout the episode.

Our suggestion would be to stick to 5 questions or less.

Otherwise, you may have too much information to cover and you won’t be able to go too in-depth on any one answer.

After this, your job as the interviewer is to encourage your guests to go deeper into their responses if they don’t reveal as much as you’d like to know.

What we find works well during a great interview is to ask about emotions and stories.

You’re asking about the emotions that they had when they went through this experience as well as the personal stories that go along with them.

People only really connect with stories and emotions.

Folks only truly connect with stories because it taps into that emotional piece.

How to Interview Someone for a Podcast

All you need to worry about as the interviewer is to have a clear idea of where you’re going, to have a little bit of an outline (with flexibility), and to go deeper on behalf of your audience.

One of the best interviewers of all time is Oprah Winfrey and that’s because she goes into the emotion and the stories.

If you go back and watch any of her previous episodes, her interviews are always centered around stories and human emotion.

This is because that is what really resonates with folks.

This will break down these concepts even further and bring more clarity to what it means to be a great interviewer.

Happy interviewing!