The Podcast Guest Checklist
What to do and what to prepare, from the moment you are booked to the week after it airs.
Most guests prepare by worrying. They rehearse the fear of going blank instead of preparing the three things they actually want to say.
This is the checklist I give clients before a podcast tour. Print it, work down it, and check things off. The preparation section is the one that changes the interview. Everything else on this page just removes the ways an interview can go wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
The one thing, if you only do one thing
Get on a video call with a colleague, pick a topic, bat it back and forth for ten minutes, record it, and then watch it back together.
That single exercise does more than everything else on this list combined. It takes you out of your own head and shows you what an audience actually sees, which is almost never what you were worried about.
Being on the show is the easy part
Success in Media prepares executives, authors and founders for the interview itself: the stories, the structure, the calls to action, and the practice that makes it land. Jess Todtfeld is a former ABC, NBC and Fox television producer with 13 years behind the desk deciding who was worth booking.
Speak with JessLast reviewed September 2026. Approximate street prices in USD, checked September 2026. Prices move. Treat these as a range, not a quote.