The Podcast Guest Checklist
What to do and what to prepare, from the moment you are booked to the week after it airs.
To prepare for a podcast interview: confirm the format and platform when you are booked, listen to two recent episodes, write out the stories you want to tell, pick one problem to diagnose rather than solve, and practice on video for ten minutes and watch it back. On the day, set the camera at eye level, wear wired headphones, and look at the lens.
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.
As soon as you are booked
0 of 7The week before
0 of 9Thirty minutes before
0 of 11During the interview
0 of 10After
0 of 6Common questions
How do you prepare for a podcast interview?
Listen to two or three recent episodes to learn the host's pace, then write out the answers and stories you wish you could share rather than trusting yourself to think on your feet. Pick three specific stories, decide the one problem you will examine in depth, and rehearse on video for ten minutes.
What should you not do as a podcast guest?
Do not open with your credentials, do not solve the audience's problem so completely that they feel finished, and do not save your call to action for one plug at the end. Generic answers and self-indulgent answers are the only genuinely bad ones. Rambling is forgivable, being forgettable is not.
How long should podcast answers be?
Long enough to tell one specific story and short enough that the host can steer. As a working rule, answer, then stop. If you have covered the point and started restating it in different words, you passed the end of the answer about twenty seconds ago.
Should you ask for the questions in advance?
Yes, and most hosts will share them or accept suggested questions. Asking is normal and signals you take the booking seriously. Use them to prepare stories rather than to write a script, because a memorized answer reads as memorized and stops the conversation being a conversation.
What should you do after a podcast interview?
Ask when it publishes, then plan what happens when it does: two or three clips for social, an article built from the transcript for your own site, and a link a prospect can find before a sales call. The interview is the raw material, not the finished product.
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.
Get DetailsLast reviewed September 2026. Approximate street prices in USD, checked September 2026. Prices move. Treat these as a range, not a quote.
As soon as you are booked
- Confirm the date, the start time AND the time zone in writing.
- Ask how long the interview runs and whether it is live or recorded.
- Ask whether it is video or audio only, so you know whether the room matters.
- Ask which platform: Zoom, Riverside, SquadCast, StreamYard or something else.
- Send your bio, a headshot and your links, or confirm your booker already has.
- Ask how they want your name and title said out loud.
- Put a 30-minute block before the interview on your calendar, not just the interview.
The week before
- Listen to two or three recent episodes. Note the host's pace and whether they interrupt.
- Write out the answers and stories you wish you could share. Think on your seat, not just on your feet.
- Pick three specific stories. Specific beats general every time, because specific is what makes a listener think that is me.
- Change one or two details in any client story (age, gender, industry) so nobody recognizes themselves. Never invent a story.
- Decide the one problem you want to examine in depth rather than solve in full.
- Write two or three micro calls to action: ask yourself this, try this today, ask someone in your life this.
- Decide your one irresistible offer. An assessment beats a PDF download in 2026.
- Practice on video for ten minutes and watch it back. Watching it is the part that does the work.
- Run the two-column review: what you liked on the left so you can repeat it, what to improve on the right. Not what you hate. What to improve.
Thirty minutes before
- Restart the computer. Quit Dropbox, Drive, OneDrive and anything else syncing.
- Plug into ethernet if you can, and have the phone hotspot ready as a backup.
- Camera at eye level. Books or a box under the laptop if you need them.
- Sit about 15 degrees forward. Whatever is closest to the camera reads largest.
- Put a Post-it with an arrow right next to the lens so you remember where to look.
- Wired headphones in. Test that the host hears you and you hear them.
- Check what is behind you and tidy it. A real curated background beats a virtual one.
- One light in front of you, slightly above eye level. Kill the window behind you.
- Room-temperature water within reach, not ice water.
- Phone on Do Not Disturb, notifications off, calendar alerts silenced.
- Tell the household. Put a sign on the door if that is what it takes.
During the interview
- Look at the lens, not at the faces on the screen.
- Head, hands, body. Keep your hands in frame so you are not a talking head.
- Examine and diagnose the problem before you solve it. People recognize themselves in the diagnosis.
- Be the doctor: examine, diagnose, prescribe. The prescription is your call to action.
- Tell the specific story rather than the general principle.
- Give the audience something to do today, not just something to think about.
- Answer, then stop. Let the host drive.
- If you stumble, just say the sentence again. On a recorded show it gets edited out.
- Skip the credentials preamble. Generic and self-indulgent are the only genuinely bad answers.
- Land the point, then look at the camera.
After
- Ask when it is expected to publish, or let your booker track it.
- Do not chase the host for the recording. That is your booker's job if you have one.
- When it goes live, pull two or three clips for social.
- Turn the transcript into an article for your own site. It is proof, and the AI search engines want proof.
- Add the episode to your site so a prospect can find it before a sales call.
- Note what you would do differently. Then do that next time.