To know what to say on a podcast, write the answers you wish you could give in five to seven minutes, sort them into three columns with one word headings (such as problem, solution, call to action), and practice giving a little from each column in every answer. The three headings are your roadmap.
What should you say on a podcast as a guest? Answers you have written ahead of time and organized into three categories you can remember. Podcasts give you time, and that is the danger. Without a plan, you ramble through the first idea and never reach the best ones. This is the system I teach.
Why do long lists of answers fail?
We are not trained actors. We cannot remember long lists of answers, and we think we can. If you are a publicist helping a client and you write out long lists of answers, chances are the client reads through the first one or two, starts a story, and ends up all over the map. Not good.
The fix is a message system that lets your brain access the answers and deliver a three part answer that excites people and gets them to do something. If you want the structure side by side with the media interview version, see the message grid and the three part answer. This article is the podcast guest version.
How do you write the answers you wish you could give?
Pick a topic first. You need to know what you will be interviewed about. For me it is media training, communication techniques, or how to give a speech. If you are in healthcare, choose a specific healthcare topic. If you are in finance, make it specific, like how to keep more of your money in tax season.
Then take a blank piece of paper and give it five to seven minutes. Write the answers, not the questions. Imagine the host says, "Jess, I am too lazy to come up with good questions. Write down all your answers and I will ask whatever lets you say them." You are actually given that gift, you just do not know it. Less than five minutes and you will not have enough. More than seven and the exercise never stops.
This step matters more than people think. Most guests worry about the questions: what if they ask this? We will get to questions. First, load up the perfect answers on paper and then in your brain. If you look at your page and think "if I said half of these, it would be an amazing interview," you are in good shape. If not, write a few more.
What is a message grid?
The old 1960s media training told you to have three messages that you repeat over and over. In the old days the person interviewing you was a reporter. Now it might be a podcaster, or somebody at a conference with a phone. If you only repeat three answers, the host is left with those same three answers. That does not work any more.
Instead, turn a sheet of paper sideways, draw two lines to make three columns and one line across for headings. Read your answers for common themes and give each column a one word heading. Any heading works as long as your brain can reach it when a question comes.
- Problem, solution, call to action. A tax season guest talks about the problems people face (not enough information, not enough help), then the solutions, then what listeners should do today.
- Facts or details, benefits, call to action. I worked with a CEO who said his facts were not hard numbers, so we called the column details. Benefits come from the sales world, because people buy into ideas the same way they buy a car: not "it has radial tires" but "it is the safest car on the road."
- Anything else that fits. One cookbook author called her first column "what this is," the second "easy," and the third calls to action. Her book had five ingredients in every recipe, so she could explain very quickly why it was easy.
Most people only play in column one. They stay with the facts until the host says "we are almost out of time" and they blurt "wait, I have other stuff." The goal is a three part answer in every answer. Those three headings are your roadmap. A host asks a question and you can make your way to a little something from each column.
The call to action column is important. It can be a brand mention combined with a call to action, such as telling listeners to go grab the five ways they can save on their taxes at a specific page. It can also be "ask yourself this one question." There is a power to questions: when somebody asks you one, your brain goes to answer it. You just did it.
Remember too that podcasts live on. The episode ends up on your website, in your newsletter and in your marketing for years, so it should be good enough for you to use long after the host's audience hears it first.
What if you get stuck naming the columns?
Use one of my examples and try it on for size. Problem, solution, call to action is a good default. As you transfer your answers, ask whether the ones you line up are problems, whether they are solutions, and what the calls to action might be. It gets easier, and you will begin to spot your own categories.
How do you practice a three part answer?
Write a few basic questions, the five Ws from journalism (who, what, when, where, why, and maybe how), and hand them to a friend. If nobody is available, post the questions on the wall next to your camera and look to the side, as if the host were there. Read the first question, such as "how did this come about," and answer with a little something from column one, column two and column three. Then tie a bow on it and move to the next.
Now watch it back. Keep the usual two lists: what you liked, which you do more of, and what to improve. For this exercise, also check each answer. Did you get anything from column one, column two and column three? Sometimes you will get all three, sometimes one, hopefully not zero. Often you forget the call to action. It is new, and you are warming up a muscle. Soon you will give more calls to action in everyday conversation too, and get people to do what you say.
For a bonus, practice again while you use your body language, so you rehearse both at once. For the body and voice side see podcast guest body language and voice.
Where to go from here
Once your grid is built, add a few quotable lines inside it (podcast sound bites for guests) and learn to move from any question to your answers (how to answer podcast questions without dodging). For a related read, try key messages for media interviews.