How to be Prepared (and Reach More People) as a Podcast Guest with Adriana Baer

“ Think about what your goals are for this episode and simultaneously be aware of driving your own agenda. Look, most of us are being guests on podcasts because we want to expand our network and we want to grow our businesses. But it’s really clear when your agenda is more important than the host or their audience right? You might be like, “Oh, I really want to pitch my thing or I want to sell my…whatever.” So every time the host ask you a question, you kind of derail it into another place.

Now, you can sculpt this intelligently. There are plenty of opportunities to watch good versions of this and terrible versions of this if you choose to suffer through any political debates. You’ll see somebody asked a question about, you know, education and turn the answer around into an answer about gun control, right? So there’s ways that you can tell the stories you want to tell, but the way to do that is to listen.” – Adriana Baer

Joe Casabona: I want you to imagine that you’re going to give a talk on a topic you know really well. You spend time on the presentation, rehearse it a hundred times, dial in the slides, and you are feeling great. You get to the conference, deliver the talk, and you think you nailed it. But when you ask for questions, one person raises her hand and says, Non nous parlons pas anglais (No, we don’t speak English). That’s right. You just delivered your talk in English, and the entire audience speaks French. You made an assumption that you knew the audience. And the conference host made that same assumption.

Now, the effects or the embarrassment may not be as strong if you guest on a podcast and don’t know the audience, but that can cut against your credibility and potentially waste your time and the audience’s time. That’s why you need to be prepared.

And that’s exactly what public speaking coach and fantastic podcast guest, Adriana Baer, is going to talk to us about today. We chat about everything from research to storytelling, and she even has a few bonus tips. And be sure to stick around until the end for a special bundled deal that we are offering together.

I want you to look for these top takeaways.

• First, podcasting is a gift. While the rest of the world lives in five second soundbites, being a guest on a podcast gives us the time and space to flex our expertise.
• To be an effective podcast guest, you need to do your research, understand who you’re talking to and how you can help them. You don’t want to be speaking a completely different language.
• And finally, you need to tell good stories. You do that by having some prepared, but also by actively listening to your host, hearing what they’re saying, and relating stories that drive your point home.

Be sure to stick around for the pro show, because Adriana and I are going to talk about how we prepare for a podcast, both as guests and as hosts. If you want to listen to that conversation ad free, you can become a member over at [streamlined.fm/join], or if you’re listening in the Apple podcast app, you can just click that subscribe button and get access to the entire back catalog. Again, that’s ad free and extended. I know you’re gonna love this conversation because you loved Tom Schwab’s conversation from a few weeks ago.

And so without further ado, let’s get to the intro and then the interview.

Hey, everybody. And welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps busy solopreneurs and creators grow their business without spending too much time on it. I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And each week, I bring you interviews and case studies on how to build a better business through smarter processes, time management, and effective content creation. It’s like getting free coaching calls from successful solopreneurs.

By the end of each episode, you’ll have 1-3 takeaways you can implement today to stop spending time in your business and more time on your business or with your friends, your family, reading, or however you choose to spend your free time.

All right. I am here with Adriana Baer. She’s a public speaking coach. I’m really excited to talk about our topic today which is, How To Be a Good Podcast Guest because I mean, I want good podcast guests. And I want to help more people be better at podcasting in general.

So, Adriana, how are you today?

Adriana Baer: I’m great. How are you?

Joe Casabona: I am fantastic. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Adriana Baer: My pleasure.

Joe Casabona: You, like every great public speaking coach I know, I’ve met at Craft and Commerce, which is, it’s you and Mike Pacchione both guests on this show now. Sorry if any of my friends are podcasts or are public speaking coaches and I just excluded you, but I want to really dive right into this because I think this is a really meaty topic. So, I’m going to start from this position. Why do I even want to be a podcast guest? Like, what’s the benefit for me?

Adriana Baer: I think these days that podcast guesting is such a gift to all of us as creators and entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders, primarily because the rest of our world is functioning in five second soundbites. So, what’s awesome about being a podcast guest is it’s long form. So, you actually get into some meat of what you do and your beliefs and who you are and your authentic voice. And it’s so hard to let people into your brain with an Instagram reel, X, Tweet. What do we call them now? X? Tweet? Zeets?

Joe Casabona: Zeets? I’m sorry, I’m going to edit that out. I think they’re just called posts now. Boring old posts.

Adriana Baer: Okay. Well, boring old posts that are, you know, 246 characters or whatever. It’s very, very hard to get people’s attention on a larger message. And so, I think that being a podcast guest is very important.

As a guest, it’s kind of a relief because I feel like I can be more true, be more myself, share more with the audience than I ever can even in an email or a newsletter. Because you get to hear my voice and get to know actually more about me. And usually, podcasts guesting opportunities are conversations. So, It’s more interesting.

Joe Casabona: I love that point about the world functioning in five second sound bites. I spoke to the King of Clarity, Steve Woodruff a few weeks ago, and he talked about the same thing, right? Like we live in a world where everyone is competing for our attention and you know, it’s not just like our social media versus other people’s social media. It’s like our social media versus their social media and Netflix and video games, right?

Adriana Baer: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: And it’s really hard to communicate a good message in that short amount of time. But when you have the breadth of a podcast, right, you can really dive in. And I think I would challenge anybody who says like our attention spans are getting shorter. Somebody recently said that to me, and I’m like, people are gonna…people are willing to consume long content if it’s good content.

Adriana Baer: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, how many shows have you binged recently? You know, and you’ll watch a lot of that content back to back a couple hours at a time because you’re leaning in and you’re compelled.

Joe Casabona: Yes.

Adriana Baer: I think that when we have to make content that’s so short as creators as well and as business owners, it’s really exhausting. Because we have…we feel like we have to continue to feed the beast and feed those algorithms, and we’ve got to generate content every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day, depending on what platforms you’re on. And it’s hard to feel like you’re really sharing with people what you’re passionate about and what you’re good at in that short amount of time.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, it’s impossible to really showcase your expertise in let’s say, 30 seconds, right?

Adriana Baer: Mm hmm.

Joe Casabona: Like, you are speaking fast and rushing and skipping crucial details because you gotta get it in that amount of time.

Adriana Baer: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: And I was talking to my friend, Cat Mulvihill about this because she was saying how, I mean, I hope it’s okay that I share this, but, this is a common problem for a lot of people. They want to write longer form, but they’re posting on social more often, right? It was a problem I had too. And did you?…I don’t know if, did you see Jay Klaus’s talk at Craft and Commerce about the sawdust? That really resonated with me. Because I was like, yeah, I write so many, I write a lot of words. My friends make fun of me for saying that because it’s like a weird thing to say. But I do. I write like 3,000 words a day, and I was like so worried about like, where’s my next LinkedIn post gonna come from? But like if I have these really long form blog posts, I can turn that into the short form content. So I’m demonstrating my expertise, and I’m getting that social content without, like you said, feeding the beast. Did you say that? Did I just make that up?

Adriana Baer: I did say that. No, I did say that. I also think that getting in front of other people’s audiences is really important when you’re building your business. And so much of, again, this kind of soundbite world, we’re a little bit in an echo chamber with just whoever we’re connected with on these various platforms or whoever is in our email cycle. And so being able to reach out and connect with other audiences that other people have cultivated, it’s one, it’s free marketing. Let’s be honest. And we all need a little bit of that when we’re building our businesses.

Joe Casabona: Amen to that. That’s, I’m so happy you made that point. It’s something I tell people all the time, right?

People will ask me, my students, my coaching clients, like how do I grow my podcast? And I always say, like, do podcast swaps or do guest swaps for that reason, right? Like, there’s a reason that headline bands have openers, right? And there’s a reason that TV shows will do crossover episodes, right? Because they’re borrowing that, like, lookalike audiences.

And so podcasting should be the same way, right? And so you want to make sure that, you want to make sure that you’re kind of promoting yourself in the way you want to promote yourself. And we’ll talk about that later. But if you’re getting in front of the right people and the right audiences like that, it can really grow your audience.

I’ll tell like an anecdotal story, I guess, because I was on Ask Pat 2.0, Pat Flynn’s, I guess now retired, like live coaching call podcast. And this is a situation where I’m not even really demonstrating my expertise, right? I’m like asking Pat to help me, but throughout 25 minute conversation or whatever, I am demonstrating my expertise. And that because it’s such a big audience, right? But it’s also a lookalike audience, like solopreneurs, creators. That grew my email list like, that was the most effective email list growth channel that quarter. Easy. And there were people who, like, bought my course from it. And so, I just, I can’t, getting in front of the right people like Adriana said, is so important.

Adriana Baer: What I think is interesting about what you just shared is another reason why I think podcasting…Podcast guesting is so valuable is that we are people with flaws and challenges and real human lives. And when we are sharing a little bit more about who we are and the nuances of our personalities or I have this question and then I say, I’m listening to it and I go, “Gosh. I have that question too.” I love that he was courageous enough to ask that. We feel a connection with the person being interviewed in a way that, again, when you just see the sort of toxic positivity culture or like, Oh, you know, I grew my email is to 10, 000 in two weeks. And we think, uh, I can’t relate to that or that’s not my person, or whatever that is. So when we’re on podcasts, you hear the ums likes mess ups personal stuff. Yeah, you know?

Joe Casabona: Right. Because you don’t need to like distill it into something super shareable, right? Like…

Adriana Baer: Mm-Hmm

Joe Casabona: there was, I won’t name names right, but I saw somebody’s thread, post on Threads, Content Strategy For 2024, 3X posts per day, 1X thread per week, 3 thread posts per day, 1 thread carousel per week, 1one LinkedIn post per day, 1 LinkedIn carousel per week, 3 Pinterest pins per day, 5 Instagram posts per week. Why? Like why?

Adriana Baer: Well, not just why, but then my question is…and when are you doing your actual job?

Joe Casabona: Right.

Adriana Baer: Because that’s just, that’s not even, that’s before you get the client. Then you’ve got the client.

Joe Casabona: Right.

Adriana Baer: And now you actually have to do your work. But that’s 30 hours of your life right there.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. And I’m just like, he’s calling this… Or she is calling this a content strategy, this person. And I wrote, what’s the benefit of this strategy? I was feeling very combative on Threads this weekend. And I didn’t get a response, obviously. Because there is…the benefit of this person posting that strategy was to get likes, right? Oh! great idea for likes. I’m going to do that. And it’s just like action without purpose is you’re not going to get anywhere. Right. You’re just spinning your wheels.

Adriana Baer: Right.

Joe Casabona: I really wish I had a better, a stronger way to end that scene. Action without purpose feels like a real pump punchy thing.

Adriana Baer: I Think action without purpose period is…

Joe Casabona: Yeah, right. Yeah action without purpose. Yeah, so I like the way you put it to you like toxic positivity, right? That felt very like all you need to do to grow your audience and 2024 is post every hour.

Adriana Baer: Feed Mark Zuckerberg

Joe Casabona: Feed the beasts. Yeah, exactly.

Adriana Baer: Line his pockets with your content.

Joe Casabona: I mean, he does need to fix his torn ACL now that he’s got, I don’t know if you saw that.

Adriana Baer: You know, I didn’t. And there’s a reason for that. I tried just to avoid.

Joe Casabona: MMA fighting, tore his ACL.

Adriana Baer: Which is, oh, of course, which is not to say that I don’t have Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, all those things. I do.

Joe Casabona: Yeah.

Adriana Baer: I just also have podcasts.

Joe Casabona: Let’s take a quick break for our sponsors and then we’ll get back and I’m going to ask Adriana why we need to prepare to be a guest at all. So we’ll see what she says.

And we’re back. Okay. so I gave people the question ahead of time. I gave you the question ahead of time too because that’s what good podcast hosts do? What we talked about the benefits of being a good podcast guests, but if people have read the title of this episode they’ll know that we’re talking about why we need to prepare to be a good podcast guest. Why do I need to prepare at all? Like isn’t that the hosts job to prepare and I just show up and answer questions.

Adriana Baer: You can do that. That is a thing you could do, but I do not recommend it. The thing is, when we do not know who we’re speaking to, our message is less clear. And I would say that the most important reason to prepare is to be crystal clear on your audience which is in this case, the host, but also on their audience who are all the people listening.

The difference between me speaking to a podcast of colleagues like minded solopreneurs, business owners and creators, the language I’m going to use talking to you is extremely different than the language I’m going to use If I’m on a podcast where I’m speaking to a corporate audience or speaking to teachers or speaking to millennials or Gen Z or, you know, it really shifts the way that you speak your energy and the language that comes out of your mouth.

And when, you know, I come from a background in the theater and one of the most important questions that we ask especially when an actor is doing a monologue or auditioning for something is, who are you talking to? And when you are clear on that, typically your message is clear. When you are not clear on that, you’re message tends to be muddy. It’s less effective.

So even if you have a host who’s asking you great questions, if you don’t know why you’re in that room, then you’re wasting your time. And you’re not going to be able to then use that material to further your message, your impact, your business.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. And like you said, right, that is your job and the host’s job, right? I think the worst public speaking experience I ever had was I spoke at NEPA BlogCon, which is Northeastern Pennsylvania BlogCon. I was a full time WordPress developer at the time, and I thought, oh, you know, what a great talk would be like 10 ways to optimize your WordPress theme. It was very technical like very, like I showed code snippets, and I thought it was a really good talk. I thought I deliverd it well. and aterwards, people came up to me and they said I thought your talk was probably really good and I have no idea what you said. It was a complete mismatch because it was developers. It was people who used WordPress to blog. and if I had known that I would have, I could have kept the same title and just listed 10 different things, you know, optimize your images or whatever. So…

Adriana Baer: I also think that knowing your audience lets you go off script which is so important both in live events and public speaking like you did, but also especially in podcasting. A lot of times people will say like, “Oh! Well, I just have my standard intro or I have my standard answer to XYZ questions”. The host may ask you, Hey, you know, a lot of hosts do this. And I have some thoughts about this too, but a lot of hosts are just like, so tell me who are you? How did you get here? What do you do?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right.Yeah.

Adriana Baer: Who are you and what do you do? And if you have your standard scripted answer, you’re going to sound scripted. What giving, I always say in my coaching work that’s within structure, there is freedom. So when you prepare, you give yourself these guide rails. And then within that, you can be more improvisational. You can speak off the cuff. You can sound like an actual human instead of somebody reading a script. Or, in your case, you can really connect with the people you’re talking to and not just who you imagined.

Joe Casabona: Right? Who I thought…

Adriana Baer: …in your head was going to be there. And it’s not hard. You just have to ask some. Ask, you know?

Joe Casabona: That’s exactly right. So conversely, right, I wish I could tell you that Adriana and I like set this whole thing, this whole vaudeville thing up, but we didn’t. But conversely, right? I taught a BA graduate class, right? on web development. So I don’t really know why this was like in the business school. It was like a database class. And so I’m like, “Great. I’ll teach them PHP and MySQL.” And because they already took the HTML course, they’ll already know that. But I decided to level set on the first day of class and I said, so I assume that you all have some programming experience and they’re like, nah, and I’m like, but you at least know HTML and CSS and they’re like, nope. And they said, you know how to use this certain program to get files on to your web server and they’re like nope. And I’m like I thought you all took this prerequisite and they’re like no. We all got written into this class. So I was like, cool. I’m gonna change the lesson plan now. On Day1, right?

Adriana Baer: Yep.

Joe Casabona: And that set us all up for success. And so…

Adriana Baer: Yes. I also had that experience teaching at a university level where I thought I was teaching theater majors and it turns out they were all taking it for their arts elective. I went, Oh, so you’ve the last play you read was, you know, Romeo and Julia in an eighth grade. Cool. I think we’re going to, I’m going to need to change my language here.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Which like, yeah, there is. That is so infuriating, like, I went to the head of the department, I’m like, you gotta stop writing people into this class. Like, there’s some assumed knowledge that now put us three months behind. And like, I also, I was in drama club from like second grade through senior year of high school. I did try, I did, right? Yeah, right, like I don’t know if anybody could tell this about me. I did try out for the play my freshman year of college and they were like, you’re really good, but we have a lot of seniors this year, so just like try out again next year. But then I became president of the computer science club because I’m so cool. But, so I was interested in theater, but I also took a theater class to like fulfill my like creative arts elective or whatever.

Adriana Baer: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: And I could just tell, like, the teacher wanted to die inside. Like, he’s just like, none of these people care about this, like I care about it. And I’m like, I’m sorry.

Adriana Baer: Except for you. You were there.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I was into it. I liked it. So. Yeah. I just like, that’s tough. Right? Like required electives.

So I want to touch on one more point you said here about like using different language for different audiences because as listeners hear this last week, Nikki Rausch was on the show and said the same exact thing from a sales perspective, right? where you need to get on a call with somebody and talk to them and then change your, not change the deliverable, but change your offer to use their language. Because then they feel seen and known. And I think it’s the same concept here, right?

Adriana Baer: Absolutely.

Joe Casabona: I love that.

Now, in the pre show you mentioned a thing that really resonated with me, because something that I tell anybody who will listen if they want to be an effective guest, they need to have some stories ready, right? They shouldn’t be just like spouting off facts, right? So, I had a couple of stories that I just told here. Usually when people ask me like, hey, who are you and what do you do? I don’t just say like, Well, I’m a podcast automations coach. I say, It was the middle of the pandemic, my wife’s a nurse, I have three children…right? Like, now, people are like, where is he going with this? And then I tell them like how I got to that point, right? So, um.. But you said like I don’t want to butcher it, so I’m going to throw it back to you. But you mentioned like plot points versus just kind of like spewing information.

Adriana Baer: Sure. sure. So as everybody basically knows these days, storytelling is an incredibly effective way of getting your message across. And there’s lots of books and lots of people who have written about this. But I studied dramatic literature and theater for 20 plus years. And so one of the things that I like to talk about, and it gets a little nerdy, so, come along with me in my nerd land is storytelling structure. Because there’s a big difference in telling a series of plot points and bringing an audience along with you on a journey.

And there’s a researcher named Dr. Paul Zak who actually talks about this quite a bit. And what he and his research team found out was if somebody is telling a story with a dramatic arc, and I’ll explain what that is in a second, the listener of this story has an oxytocin response. So literally hormones in our bodies release and oxytocin is the hormone that makes us feel connected.

Joe Casabona: Yeah.

Adriana Baer: Right. So we know this without Dr. Zak’’s research. We know what it feels like to be listening to a story or leaning into a play or a podcast or radio episode. Everything, right? This is what kids want before that time. We feel connected to the storyteller, but not if they just list. Well, first I was here and then it was here and then it was here. Right? So, what I like to talk about as a basic storytelling structure, and you can just take this and kind of plug and play a little bit is it’s really just a five point structure. And really, there’s only one thing that’s the most important to me. important thing.

So your five point storytelling structure is this.

First, I was here, then something happened that sent me on a journey. Then there was a turning point, then I assimilated that journey, and now I am here. Right? So five points. I was here, then something happened, there was a turning point, Then some more stuff happened and now I’m over here, right? And that turning point piece is often, sorry, that first piece is often that conflict. So for you, I was going along living the dream. I was being a person in the world and then COVID. Right. So that’s your inciting incident. That’s the thing that kicked it all off. And I struggled and I built and I struggled and I built. And then finally I realized, oh my gosh, I’ve replaced my income. So then I did some finessing and now I live in the world in which this is my full time life, Right?

The alternative of that is like, I used to be a web developer. Nah, then I started coaching people and now I coach people.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right.

Adriana Baer: No one cares. No one cares, but when you talk about, you know, these kind of moments of change and especially that turning point that’s super, super important, that’s what gets people leaning in again

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. Right. This sounds very similar to the Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the but and therefore rule. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, right? But they basically say if you can have a bunch of story beats and put, and then in between, you’re screwed. Cause that’s boring, right? It’s like this happened and then this happened and this happened. But in between each story beat, you could put the words, but or therefore, right? Now, you’re building momentum and tension. because like, there’s a reason for the things happening. And it’s not just like. Oh, well, I need the character to be here now. So he’s just gonna be here, right? And I really love that. That’s something that’s like, that’s really…I’ll link to that in the show notes. You can find all of the show notes over at [streamlined.fm/343].

And by the way, in the pro show, we’re about to get to our big act three, which is how do we prepare to be a good guest? Adriana and I are going to talk about how we prepare for a podcast, both as guests and as hosts. So if you’re interested, you can become a member of the pro show over at [streamlined.fm/343] or if you’re listening in Apple podcasts, you just press that subscribe button and subscribe right in the app. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.

So I love this because what we’re talking about here and why you need to prepare is you want to know your audience and you want to have a good structure for what you’re telling. A good story structure for what you’re telling because that’s going to help you resonate more. It’s going to give you a much more effective guest appearance, right?

Adriana Baer: And honestly, let’s all just say it like it is. There’s millions of podcasts that I could be listening to. You’ve got to get me to listen and to stay listening within the first minute, that’s generous. It’s more like 10 to 15 seconds, right? So if the very first time I hear your voice, it’s a list, a laundry list of things you’ve done accomplishments or whatever, and some other things which we can talk about traps that happen with podcast testing. Then more often than not, that person’s going to click off. And that not only makes you a less successful podcast go guest for your goals, but it also doesn’t help your host, right? Because ideally, your host sees your episode numbers and they’re like, wow, they shared with our community or people were really interested in that topic. They’re then excited about that. They feel supported. They feel more likely to share your episode again. That kind of thing.

So you really do want to capitalize on that beginning energy and make sure that you’re really speaking to the people that you are speaking to.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. And podcast hosts, I’ll just tell you here, like, don’t ask the, tell us who you are and what you do question, right?

Adriana Baer: It’s so boring.

Joe Casabona: And it’s like, I can read that, right? I don’t, I want to get in, like we did here, right? We, tiny preamble, right? But the way the listeners are hearing it, they’re going to hear Adriana’s you have heard, I should say, Adriana’s voice first, right? Because I found some good clip for the cold open, then you heard me tell you what you’re going to learn and why you should listen. Right? But I don’t, again, I don’t just say, well, you’re going to learn this and this and this. I’m going to write some really good punchy copy. Hopefully you thought it was punchy, dear listener, right after this to hook you again. And then we get into the interview where it’s like, oh, now you’re revved up. You’re like read, you know, I just kind of gave you like a podcast trailer for this episode.

Adriana Baer: Yes, you did. And a lot of podcast hosts will also in their pre roll, they’ll read the bio of the guest. And then immediately ask the guest to tell us essentially their bio again.

Joe Casabona: Which is why, and so let’s kind of move into how do we prepare, right? Because as a podcast guest, you’re probably going to get the tell us who you are and what you do. I’m going to tell you, don’t just straight up answer that question directly. Kind of ignore that question and tell a story. But I do want to ask Adriana, I want to ask you, what you think here.

Adriana Baer: Yeah. I agree. So I think in terms of, so there’s multiple steps of how to be a good podcaster. Podcast go guest and how to prepare, right? One of those things is content. And we’ve been talking about that a lot. So preparing us a nice tight introduction and knowing that you’re probably going to do some kind of who are you, where were you? And guess what? The way to find that out is to listen to previous episodes because you will know right away is this. The style that the host does, right? So you want to prepare also by listening to past episodes, and we can talk about more of that in the pro show. and so making sure that your introduction story is really interesting, tight and relevant.

And then, you know, you want to think about what your goals are for this episode, and simultaneously, be aware of driving your own agenda. Because I do think that one of the traps, a lot of times, look, most of us are being guests on podcasts because we want to expand our network and we want to grow our businesses. But it’s really clear when you’re agenda is more important than the host or their audience, right? You might be like, “Oh, I really want to pitch my thing or I want to sell my whatever.” And so every time the host asks you a question, you kind of derail it Into another place.

Now, you can sculpt this intelligently. There are plenty of opportunities to watch good, good versions of this and terrible versions of this. If you choose to suffer through any political debates, you’ll see somebody asked a question about it. You know, education and turn the answer around into an answer about gun control, right? So there’s ways that you can tell the stories you want to tell, but you, the way to do that is to listen. You really have to listen and be present for the conversation because the host will give you the opportunity to talk about your stuff or you’ll do it organically. But that only comes up when you’re really present and you’re really listening. And you want to do your homework as we’ve talked about before.

Then there’s the sort of external stuff, right? So we’ve got a lot of podcasts these days are recorded for video. And so you got to find that out in advance, and then you need a good setup. You need to make sure that your light is good, that your background makes sense, that it’s not going to be distracting. There are really simple visual things you can do that don’t cost very much money. You don’t need a ring light. You can use, you know, desk lamps from Target like there are ways you can make your setup just a little bit more professional. And this is something I always find fascinating that it’s actually harder for our brains to understand language if we can’t see people’s faces.

Now, if we’re listening to a podcast, we’re not trying to see people’s faces. So the visual piece of the experience turns off and our brain focuses entirely on our ears. But when we’re watching something and the person’s dark, it’s extremely frustrating and it makes it harder to understand. So, there’s all these different components as well, right?

And then of course, it’s a podcast, it’s an audio medi so you need to sound good, right? And Joe, you give us so many resources, I mean, resources upon resources for good microphones, good headphones, all these things. You don’t have to spend a ton of money, but if this is part of your business plan, if this is part of your marketing plan, then treating your podcast guest experiences professionally, it’s going to go a long way.

I’ve had guests on who were…this was a shock, who were podcast guests themselves and didn’t use a microphone for our interview and weren’t wearing headphones even when I had. I told them they should in advance. And they were hosts. And I, you know, it took three times as long to edit that episode and that makes it really hard on the host, right? So you want to be thinking about not only how good you sound, but also what are you doing to make sure that you’re invited back.

Joe Casabona: Or, I mean, I’ll tell you straight up, I’ve had people who’ve shown up no headphones, no microphone. In my head, this person was also wearing like a, like one of those beaters, like one of those undershirts. But I can’t, I don’t know if I just like am making that up in my head after the fact.

Adriana Baer: That would be the costume that you would put him in though.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I said, you have to wear headphones. He’s like, I don’t own headphones. And I’m like, that’s a lie. I was like, you like, there’s a little checkbox, right? Like I, Adriana, you pointed this out, right on my booking form, I make you kind of like say, I’m going to wear headphones and you have to tick this box because they’re so important. And usually people will say like I’ve been on other podcasts and they never made me wear headphones. And I said, well, those people are just being too nice, right? And I’m like a stickler act and so I actually ended up not recording with this person like it’s just, something that the quality is really important to me, and if you’re going to show up and not really care about the quality for my guests, I can’t trust that you’re going to deliver quality content for them either.

Adriana Baer: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And that’s an interesting statement, isn’t it? That’s really subtle. You’re saying if you’re not prepared from this technical standpoint, I don’t actually think you know what you’re talking about. That may or may not be true, but that’s the impression that’s being put out there.

I was recently a guest on a podcast for somebody who puts out many episodes a week and they were shocked that I was wearing headphones when I showed up. And I thought, well, if that’s consistently a problem for you, so, this is a note to the hosts out there, if that’s consistently a problem for you, you need to tell people in advance, and have them solve that problem for you. Because he hadn’t set any expectations for me as the guest at all, right? So sometimes you need to know these, you need to know these things in advance.

The other piece of the preparation puzzle that I think is very, very important and probably the least talked about is actually how to warm up your voice and how to warm up your body because often I think like the, you know, the number four trap, so if one is about introduction and two is driving your own agenda and three is forgetting to do your homework or show up professionally, then four is a lack of vocal energy. And that can kill a podcast interview, right? If you’re too casual, too laid back, too far away from the mic, if you don’t know how to use your voice to illustrate your point, if you have mumble mouth or, you know, any number of tricky pieces of your articulation, then your interview will be less successful and people will be less likely to listen to it.

And again, makes a lot more work for whoever’s doing the editing or the mixing afterward as well, which is frustrating. So there are, it doesn’t take a lot of time actually to do a vocal warmup or to do some breath work. And people always forget that their body is a part of their voice. So it’s like, Oh, I’m going to be sitting. And so I’ll just whatever, but actually our voice comes from the lower part of our abdomen is where we get our breath support. So you actually do need to be mindful of the whole container that you’re working with. It’s not just your content. It’s also your body, your breath, your voice.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I love that. I actually like when I was kind of first started podcasting, I would stand to do my podcast interviews because I felt like it gave me more energy. And again, I mentioned Cat earlier in the show, but, you know, she, one of the things that she says that she’s like a video presentation coach, I guess is maybe the best way to put it.

Adriana Baer: yeah, yeah.

Joe Casabona: She said like the camera steals your energy. And so you need to, right? You can feel like you’re being really energetic, but you’re not coming across as energetic because the camera…so I think that’s so great.

Adriana Baer: And I actually record a lot of online courses and many of them I do standing even in my own home office. Because I, again, I agree. I feel like my energy is better. I feel more grounded. I’m probably more interesting to look at, you know, and it’s not just my face.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. You’re, you’re switching it up and things like that.

And then good microphone. There was USC had a study by Norbert Schwartz is his name. He did a study that basically found if your audio quality was bad, the people listening to you trusted you less because when the listener is focusing more on trying to understand what you’re saying, they’re not really listening to you in a comp, in a way that aids comprehension, right? So like, if they can’t understand what you’re saying and then all of their energy is going towards that, then they’re not gonna, you’re not going to establish much authority with them because they’re not focused on the right thing, right? So…

Adriana Baer: That’s right.

Joe Casabona: I’ll link to that study in the show notes as well, because that was, that’s a really interesting one. And I think it just shows that like spend 50 bucks..

Adriana Baer: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be a huge amount of money.

Joe Casabona: I’ve always said that if I were a podcast booker, like if I was somebody who booked people on podcasts, I would just send them 100 microphone. Like here, here’s this, here’s how to use it.

Adriana Baer: Fancy people podcasts do that. They send their guests the microphones that they want them recording on and then they send them back.

Joe Casabona: I’ve thought about doing that. but I mean, luckily my niche is like solopreneurs and creators, so a lot of the people I’m interviewing already have better gear than what I’d be sending them. But yeah, for sure, if I was, I mean, I do this for another show where I interview like local business owners who are probably just using AirPods. And since they’re local, I could probably just like drive over a microphone to their house, but, or wherever they’re recording. But, I think about that regularly, like how If you just like tack on 50 or 100 bucks to your fee, or to the setup fee, and just buy them a microphone, right? Now, they look really good, your agency looks better. So there you go, free advice for y’all.

Adriana, before we go, like you just gave us like a four, like, I don’t know if this was prepared, but you just gave us like a four point framework on how to prepare for a guest really well, that was like stealthily done, but you also have a course that is, as we record this out now, right? Awesome.

Adriana Baer: Yup. It’s live.

Joe Casabona: About how to be a good podcast guest. Can you tell us about that?

Adriana Baer: Yes. It has a very simple title. How To Be a Successful Podcast Guest.

Joe Casabona: Hey, that’s very clear.

Adriana Baer: Ba ba. And it’s a quick one. It’s a quick course. You can get the whole thing done in just about an hour. And it talks about a lot of what we’ve talked about today, but of course a little bit more in depth. So, what to prepare in advance, how to look good on video, how to sound your best, four traps to avoid. And then I give you that bonus of how to warm up your breath, your body, and your voice right within that. So that is on my website and…

Joe Casabona: yes, all right. So, Audrey and I were talking about this because I offer a podcast guest audit where people can come to me and give me a recent interview they did and the goal of that interview. And then I will provide you with a loom video and written honest feedback for how you can improve in the future. And we feel like this is a really good one two punch right? How to prepare and then how to step up your game, Monday morning quarterback style, right?

And so we are offering a special deal where you can get, if you get both of them, you will get 98 off of the combined package. So, I don’t like to say prices on the show in case they change, but, you can find that link over at [streamlined.fm/343], where you will have the opportunity to buy one of our products and get the other one with that special deal. So I’m really excited about that.

Adriana Baer: I think it’s really cool, Joe because your feedback is extremely good. Yeah. I’ve learned you know, and for those of you who haven’t actually watched, Joe has some times where he’s shared feedback he’s done for other people, which I have watched and then learned a ton. So even the feedback I’m not paying for, I’m learning from. So yeah, I think it’s really exciting. And I hope you all take advantage of it.

Joe Casabona: Because I mean, like what you got here from Adriana is just like a taste of what you’re getting in the course. And I like, I can’t, I mean, Tom Schwab was on the show a few weeks ago too, right? Talking about how a good podcast interview, like a good podcast guest spot, is not just like a one and done thing. You can get like 40 pieces of, or 30 pieces of content, something like that from a good podcast interview. So like, why wouldn’t you spend a little bit of money. Get really prepared, and knock it out of the park? You know, most people who show up for podcast interviews are not necessarily as prepared as they could be. So, I think this is great. Yeah.

So, yeah. You can find a link for that special offer over at [streamlined.fm/343]. Really excited about that.

Adriana, thanks so much for coming on the show. If people want to get in touch with you, where can they find you?

Adriana Baer: Best way to do it is through my website, which is in the show notes, and it is [adrianabaercreative.com]. And that has all of the links to my courses, my one on one coaching, LinkedIn, Instagram, blog, newsletter, free resources. I’ve got a free hook on there for you about how to start your speeches without boring your audience. So there’s a bunch of resources right there for you.

Joe Casabona: Nice. Love that. So again, that link, [adrianabaercreative.com] you can find everything at [streamlined.fm/343]. If you want to hear the ad free extended version of this conversation where we’ll both talk about how we prepare for a podcast, you can become a member at that same link. Or if you’re listening in Apple podcasts, you just hit the subscribe button and get immediate access to the entire subscriber catalog. So, I think it’s a pretty good deal, especially over there.

Adriana Baer: Easy, peasy.

Joe Casabona: Super easy, brilliant, and convenient. Adriana, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

Adriana Baer: Thank you.

Joe Casabona: And thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. And until next time. Get out there and build something.