How To Be A Brilliant Podcast Guest (Nailing The Interview!) with Colin Gray | 051

Have you ever considered being a guest on a podcast?

If not, you're missing out on a huge opportunity.

But how should you go about securing your first podcast interview?

And how could you be better prepared for it?

So when the host hits the record button, Your interview goes as

smoothly as possible, and you come across as an amazing podcast guest.

I'm joined by podcasting expert, Colleen gray, to guide you through nailing

your next podcast appearance on this episode of architecture business club.

The weekly podcast for solo and small firm architecture

practice owners, just like you.

You want to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm John Clayton, your host, if you're a small practice leader or

sole practitioner in architecture.

Struggling to find clarity or reach your goals.

Consider working with me.

I have a personalized one-to-one support through coaching consulting, mentoring.

This tailored approach helps you navigate your unique path to success.

Whether it's growing your practice, working fewer hours or building

your team, I've got you covered.

Just click the link in the show notes to book a call with me to

discuss your options or email John J O n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

For more information.

And let's discuss being an amazing podcast guest.

Colin Gray is a podcaster, speaker, PhD and founder of thepodcasthost.

com and Alitu.

Thepodcasthost.

com is a huge audio, video and written resource on how

to create a successful show.

Alitu.

com is a podcast maker tool designed to help you create your podcast in

the easiest way possible and with full creative control, including call

recording, audio clean up and more.

Audio editing, building your episode and hosting your show.

To access free courses and resources to get started in podcasting,

head over to thepodcasthost.

com forward slash start here.

Colin, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Hey, thanks for having me, John.

Nice to be here.

Oh, it's a pleasure to have you here.

Colin, when you're not podcasting, you've got a ton of interests and

hobbies outside of work that I know.

Could you tell us a little bit about some of those hobbies?

I know cycling is one of your passions in particular, isn't it?

Yeah, if the weather's, uh, if the weather's good or even

if it's bad, to be honest, I get out on the bike, um, as much as I can.

I like, uh, if it's nice, I'll get out on the road bike.

Uh, I love kind of going around and seeing the parts of the Highlands, um, near where

I live and if it's muddy and wet, mountain biking's better in the forest with

the mud and the, the, uh, the wetness.

So yeah, good fun either way.

Oh, that sounds awesome.

Yeah, and where you're situated up in Scotland, I mean, that's

a fantastic place in the world to be for the mountain biking.

Yeah, really lucky actually.

Yeah, it's great.

Um, so yeah, plenty of places to go.

Yeah, down in Norfolk it's a bit flatter I'm afraid.

So, um, mountain biking and mountain walking is, uh, is not the best

hobby to have down in Norfolk.

It's flat as a pancake, um, so

Oh, good for the, good for the road biking then.

Well, you say that, you know, but, um, because it is so flat, that even

road biking can, well, it can be quite tricky because of the, the winds coming

in across the, the plains, if you like.

So, uh, yeah, that's it can be, can be quite a challenge doing the road biking.

But yeah, I miss the mountains though.

I used to live in the Northwest and, um, go mountain hiking and things.

So, um, yeah, very, very envious of you being up in the Highlands.

Yeah, it's good.

It's good.

Very lucky.

Yeah.

So we're going to talk Being a podcast guest how how meta is this

I'm talking about this on a podcast.

Absolutely.

I feel, I feel pressure here as a guest trying to tell people how to be a guest.

So I'll do my best to perform.

Oh There's no pressure it's fine.

We're all we're all friends here.

So why should Architects in particular, because this, the audience that we

have with the show, it's architects, architecture practice owners typically.

And I'd dare say a lot of them haven't, haven't been on a podcast.

They might listen to podcasts, but there's the vast majority of them probably haven't

even considered going on a podcast.

So why, why should they consider going on a podcast?

Oh, there's a whole bunch of reasons, but I mean, the kind of core ones

for anyone running a client based business really like architects or anything similar

to that is that it's just really, it's one of the best ways out there to build.

Yeah.

Authority and trust in your niche.

So to get out there and really show who you are as a person, you know, you can get

your brand out there as much as you like your, the name of your company, you know,

your branding, all that kind of stuff.

At the end of the day, we all know people buy from people and therefore they want

to know the people behind this company, or at least they're even more likely to buy

from a good brand if they know and like and trust those people behind the brand.

So podcasting is such a good medium for that because it's an in depth medium,

which means that you get to spend maybe like half an hour or an hour.

with somebody in your ears, you know, you're in their ears talking through

your expertise, sharing your views, showing like who you are, what your

values are, all that kind of stuff.

And it's also a really personal medium.

So you get to spend all that time with them, but equally, it's quite

easy to speak on a microphone.

in a conversational way, just having a chat with the host of the podcast.

And because of that, you come across as just a real person, just open and honest.

And that combination of transparency, openness, honesty, combined with

the length of time you spend with people, it just builds huge trust

and huge kind of, um, authority.

And it makes people really get to know you, to trust and much

more likely to buy from you.

As a result,

I couldn't agree more.

over the summer.

Huge fan of podcasts myself, also being a fellow podcaster.

Think the thing, particularly that thing you mentioned about building trust.

I think there was, um, there was a study that Google did a number of years ago.

And, um, it's a figure that's been bandied around quite a bit about the

amount of time that people need to have with you to, to build up that know, like,

and trust before they're ready to buy.

And that was something like seven hours.

You think, well, that's a long time, isn't it?

But if.

You've been appearing on podcasts and you've been a guest and you share those

with people and they can they can build up You know a few hours quite quickly

if you've done a few podcast interviews, so it's definitely something Yeah,

something people should explore for sure

Yeah, for sure.

And if you're, if you're picking the right shows as well, you know, when

somebody is starting to get into a topic, if they're a podcast listener, that's

who we're aiming for here as getting on to podcast, uh, podcast as a guest.

I know from my experience, what about yourself, john?

Like if you get into something or you're interested in a project or something

new, you just dive into like 5 or 10 different podcasts around that topic.

So if you can manage to kind of blanket cover those 5 to

10 podcasts in your niche.

These people will hear you like again and again.

And you'll build up that time without even having to run your own show.

You can start to build that authority, that visibility

really across a whole industry.

It's just really useful.

Have you, is that yourself, John, as well?

Like you always end up subscribing to 20 new shows every time

you get into something new.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's one of the first, um, places that I go if I want to learn something new, then,

um, yeah, I head to my podcast player and, um, I'll be searching on there.

I've got a long list of, um, like a listening list, if you like,

of episodes to work through, um,

I never finished my list.

That's terrible.

Yeah, sometimes if I find a new one, I really enjoy it,

then I will kind of binge it for a while, and then I might set it to one

side and then come back to it later.

But yeah, there's just so much great content out there now.

absolutely.

Yeah,

same.

if somebody was thinking about, well, this sounds pretty cool,

like maybe I could be a podcast guest, how should you pitch yourself to a

show as a potential podcast guest?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, this is, this is worth talking back and forth cause

you'll have lots of experience people asking to be guests as well.

Wouldn't you, John, but.

I find the way that I think about it is that they're, it's well worth

spending or taking half, if you find you want to get into this, it's well

worth spending half a day or even a day starting to plan out who you are

as a guest and what you have to offer.

And the way this breaks down for me is the biggest part is really.

Picking out two or three things that you have a unique viewpoint on.

So something really specific within your niche.

So as an example, John, like some, you'll have had lots of people

in architecture on your show.

What's like a, what, what stands out to you as one of the most

unique kind of points of view somebody has given you as a guest?

Like, have you had anything like that?

Anything surprising?

That's a great question.

We had.

an architect on recently and they'd they'd recently taken a huge change

in direction with their practice.

They actually closed their original practice and started up a new practice

and their ethos was all around specialization and collaboration.

So that was something that, um, I think a lot of people within

the industry aren't quite as.

keen to embrace, particularly the idea of collaborating.

I think really what we were talking about was with the specialization, just

kind of sticking to the bit that they do best and not feeling like they had

to do everything like a full service that they could just do perfectly.

Part of a project and they could work with another partner practice that

could help deliver the other part.

So that was something that was a little bit of a different viewpoint that I

think there's a lot of mileage in it because it's not, I don't think that's

that unusual outside in other industries.

But I think there's in architecture, a lot of people think that, oh, we were expected

that we just have to offer this all in one

thing.

I love that.

That's a really good example.

Yeah.

So there's somebody who has really taken on something that other people

would disagree with potentially.

And that's when you know that you're onto something in terms

of a way to pitch yourself.

If it's something that you can speak about, you have experience and

you can tell some stories around.

And you can show how you've helped, uh, sort of build success with this approach.

But then again, somebody else might say, Oh, no, I don't like that.

I wouldn't do that.

That is gold.

So it's like anything that people get, that's different.

That's what you call differentiation because you can be different.

Like everyone, every architect will say like, we, uh, we

provide great quality service.

That's not differentiation because no one will disagree with that.

But if it's something like, We don't do actually, we don't do the

planning permission sides, we just do the drawings for you, you know, and

other people will say, Oh, but we do.

So it's the, it's the disagreement that suddenly makes it

something that's quite unique.

So yeah, I love that example.

Um, so that's how you stand out to podcasts.

You bring something that is just a little bit.

Different some kind of different viewpoint.

And I would say you can probably almost certainly think of two

or three of these for yourself.

If you're out there listening, like there'll be two or three things that

you talk about that you maybe disagree with other people and you're in a

friendly, you know, friendly disagreement with other people in your industry.

And they're the things you want to talk about.

So Note them down and then start to build it out, like build two or three sentences

that really pitches how you have expertise in this and how it can help the audience.

And that's where it finishes up.

It starts with that unique viewpoint, but it finishes up

with how this helps the audience.

And that's how you get in front of podcast hosts, because if you can say

like, here's something different that I talk about, you probably haven't

had your show before, and here's how I think it'll benefit your audience.

Those are the two parts that really hook people in.

To get you on the show.

And I find that when we were working with people who are creating new

podcasts, who want to start promoting it as a guest, you can do that in

half a day, even a couple of hours.

If you can know yourself quite well, but half a day, a day at the

very most, you can put together a really good pitch around that.

Yeah,

that exercise that you've recommended people do, I mean, really

that could underpin, um, positioning themselves as a thought leader, that

they've, they've got something that they, it defies convention, that they

have a unique viewpoint on something that actually would not only be.

be really powerful in terms of a pitch to an industry podcast, but

also that's something that they could use as a basis for any other content.

Like if they wanted to position themselves as a thought leader in the industry,

that's got something to say, that's got some different ideas to share.

That would be awesome to also share that stuff on other platforms as well.

So really, really valuable exercise.

Yeah.

In

yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

fact, I'm gonna add that to my, to-do list, Colin, because I

think I probably need to, um, drill down on that a bit more myself.

It's, you know, and it takes nearly everyone can, and even

if you've done it before, it's worth doing every six months or every year,

at least because you come up with new things all the time, like things change

trends in the industry, or even just the way you think, or your experience,

like a lot of these unique viewpoints can come from the way you did something,

whether it was deliberate or not.

Maybe it was like completely messing something up.

And trying something different as a result of that, and then that can create

a unique approach because you say, this is something that a lot of people

did do, but it didn't work for me and therefore I changed it in this way and

so maybe that's going to work for you.

So yeah, it's definitely worth reviewing on a regular basis.

Absolutely.

Just a final point, I guess, on the pitching, I mean, you, you

mentioned earlier about, you know, I must get a number of pitches

coming through to be on this show.

I, I do, I do get, um, pitches that come through and often they come through as

an email and most of them are terrible.

They're really, they're blatantly just a template email that's exactly the same

that's sent to every single podcast.

And they just swap out and say, Oh, I really loved this episode.

Copy paste, and I love the guests, you know, copy, paste, drop this in.

And often it's from agencies, but the.

architect or person has employed like a PR agency to help get them on podcasts.

And their pitches are terrible.

I had one just last week and there was, it was nothing to do.

Like, I mean, it was loosely somebody for the construction industry, but this is

a architecture podcast about business.

There was just no connection or correlation between what this show is

and what that get I mean the guests could have been Perfect fit for another

show, but they really hadn't done the research They hadn't gone to the trouble

to listen to the trailer or to to read some notes about the show or to To

even listen to an episode, you know, so

yeah, that's it.

It doesn't take much to stand out.

Actually, there's, there's two sides, isn't it?

The trouble is that many podcast hosts just ignore pitches altogether because

they get so many of those crappy ones.

So you have to find a way to make it stand out as something

different from just a pitch.

It has to be some proper personalization at the start, like actually giving them

some feedback on a recent episode, a topic that they actually talked about.

In the recent episode, as in you have to have actually listened to it, but

I mean, you've got such a higher hit rate by doing that, that it's worth.

I mean, you're probably listening to these shows anyway, because

it's in your industry, most likely.

So maybe there's 10 podcasts that you listen to in the architecture industry.

So pick one that you're going to concentrate on for the next week.

Listen to a couple of their episodes, pick out one or two things.

That you can give them feedback on that.

You can ask a question around and then say below that.

By the way, I would love to contribute.

Here's three things that I can talk about in a unique way.

And here's the benefit that will give your audience that kind of

thing can make a huge difference because it's so different from the.

copy and paste pitches that you and I both get tons of.

yeah, yeah.

Don't do that guys.

Don't copy and paste.

Um, If there's anyone listening to this episode that thinks like, wow, I'd, I'd

love to be on the architecture business club podcast, I'm expecting some, some

good quality pitches now, um, after that advice that you've shared, Colin.

So, um, being interviewed on a podcast though, like if, if you do

pitch to go on a podcast and you are successful and you do manage to secure.

Uh, guest appearance on, on your, on a show, actually

being interviewed on a podcast.

It can feel nerve wracking if you've never done it before.

So what would you recommend we could do?

The things we could do in advance of the interview itself.

To be better prepared

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's no question, especially when you're on your first five or 10

interviews or you've not just, you've just not done it that much before.

It can be, can be a bit scary.

The key is I think around this prep, it's actually that serves double duty.

It gets you on the show.

When you're doing all this prep around the uniqueness, your

value, all that kind of stuff.

But equally having done that prep makes you feel more prepared, which actually I

find always settles the nerves of people, especially when they're in the early days,

you can take it an extra step, though.

Like one thing that I'll often recommend people do, and I still do these days

even, um, is you tee up the host with actually some prep questions.

Like, so for example, the normal thing is that as a guest, the

host will send you questions.

So you're going on a show, the host will say, well, here's

10 things I want to ask you.

And that's fine.

That actually helps settle the nerves a bit.

So if the host doesn't do that, by all means, you can get in touch

and ask, like, what are the types of questions you want to ask me?

But even if they don't, and you can also do as an extra separate prep is to

send some of your own, like say here.

So we've agreed to talk about this one unique viewpoint that I have.

That's great.

Here's four or five questions that I find really tee up.

My best stories here.

My best examples here.

My best.

You know how I can describe the frameworks, the workflows.

Here's maybe three questions actually that walk me through.

They help me walk you through the workflow and mean that I don't have

to speak for five minutes on my own.

You know, um, instead I can say a little bit and then you could ask this

question and that jumps me into it and it will still sound quite natural.

So I find.

That little thing.

So the prep in the first place around the topic itself makes a big difference.

But then actually talking to the host back and forth and giving them

a few tee up questions actually makes a big difference, too, because

you're comfortable with those.

There are things that you know exactly what's coming.

You've got good answers to.

And that can really set the nerves a fair bit too.

Um, and I suppose beyond that, do you ever do things like, uh, you know, vocal

warmups or, uh, you know, just some deep breathing or anything before a show?

John, do you ever take any of those kind of more general, you know,

mindfulness, wellness type approaches?

a little bit.

Yeah.

I mean, I wouldn't say like I go through like a whole breathing

routine or anything, but I usually just make sure that, um, first

I'll do, um, sort out the tech.

So often I'll like restart my computer, make sure there's no

updates going on in the backgrounds.

And then I'll get set up and logged into the software that we use nice and early.

I always have a glass of water uh, to hands in case I need to,

um, clear my throat or anything.

And, um, I do usually, um, we always plan questions in advance, so we

always make sure that we, we know what the topic is going to be and that we

send questions to the guests as well to make it as easy as possible for

them to show up and for them to feel relaxed and comfortable on the day.

particularly if it is somebody that hasn't been a podcast guest before.

But yeah, I'll do, I'll do a few, take a few deep breaths and maybe do a few do re

mi fa so la ti s or whatever, you know.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, it's, it's a lot of people think of it as a bit kind of woo

woo or whatever, but it's becoming more, more mainstream nowadays.

Meditation, breathing exercises, that kind of stuff, isn't it?

And it does make a difference.

If you just take 10 sort of mindful breaths, just, you know, breathe

in slowly, breathe out slowly and just concentrate on your breath.

Like you would, if you were meditating on something, it really

does like lower your blood pressure a bit, ease some of that tension.

So that can make a big difference.

But do you know, I will comment though, you, you did this really

nicely as well, John, like you do have a really good prep process.

So we obviously chatted before the show, uh, we talked through the

topic, we went into something unique.

So the fact that, you know, a lot of the time people expect me to

just say, do I just podcasting?

And I'm like, All right, but it's, there's quite a lot in there.

This isn't going to be any kind of unique viewpoint.

Do you want to kind of dig into one particular place?

And it's usually me leading that as a guest, but you didn't, you,

you were like straight away.

Okay.

So like what, what like really specific thing can we dig into?

And we ended up on this topic around guesting.

And then we dug into like a few questions and you were talking, both of us

together, we're talking about a few good questions, a progress for the episode.

And that took us, you know, 20 minutes.

Wasn't that long?

And then sent them through afterwards.

So I had this list of questions in front of me and I just

took 10 minutes beforehand.

Um, even as somebody who like speaks at this stuff all the time, I still

took 10 minutes beforehand because I had these questions to just note

down a couple of things I want to make sure I covered on each one.

And all of that like just makes you so prepared that

it's almost hard to be nervous.

Yeah, it just makes so much difference.

I think that, um, one of the things that you mentioned there, which I wish I'd

thought of, Several months ago, I've, I've been a guest on a number of other

podcasts and sometimes the preparation was better on some than others, but,

um, this with benefit of hindsight, had I thought with some of those shows that

weren't proactive about sharing questions in advance, if I'd have just sort of

taken that initiative and said, well, look, We're going to talk about this

topic, but here's a few questions that, would nicely lead in and nicely lead into

this topic and make sure that we cover these points and so we can have it so

it's conversational, because otherwise, sometimes you can get caught off guard

as a podcast guest that that you might have agreed that there's a particular

topic you're going to talk about, but then you can get a question that's

got thrown in there that can sometimes just catch you a little off guard.

so much.

And occasionally I've come off the back of those interviews and just thought, Oh, I

could have answered that question better.

Like if I, if I knew, if I knew that the question was going to be

asked in advance, I would have had a little bit of time to think about it.

And I would have read through those questions before the recording.

And I would have responded and given a much better answer, which is then

better for the listeners, because at the end of the day, this is,

it's about the listeners, isn't it?

We want to make sure that the content is is right for them and is resonating with

them and worth tuning in and subscribing.

totally.

I mean, it's, you know, you're going to invest probably an hour into the

interview, even if it's a half hour interview, there'll be a bit of

like start time, end time, whatever.

So it's going to be like an hour of your time.

So you can, you can so much amplify the impact that episode will have

by just investing even as much as, even as little as half an hour,

I would suggest even an hour.

Just in thinking about those questions ahead of time, sending them through.

The funny thing is like we, the person that's hosting the podcast will be

an expert in that general topic.

I'm sure usually a person hosting a podcast on something, they'll

know a lot about that topic, but it's your unique viewpoint.

They're getting you on because you know more about something particular

in that topic or about your experience.

So why let them You know, if I let them create the questions or lead

the flow of the episode when it's not their expertise, when it's not their

experience, when it's not their story.

So that's why it's kind of funny why a lot of interview shows, even when

some of these are really, I mean, when somebody is a really good interviewer,

they can tend to follow those rabbit holes, holes much more effectively.

But even a good interviewer can still take an interview off track and, and

still miss like great little questions, great little avenues to attack.

'cause it's not their area.

So yeah, you, you, it's your responsibility to make sure this

interview goes as well as it possibly can.

And I really don't think it takes that much prep around it.

Just as we've talked about just those questions, just those unique

view points makes such a difference.

I've shared that I've had a couple of experiences at being

a guest that Could have been better.

They weren't, they weren't a disaster.

They could, but they could have been better.

Have you had, have you had any experiences like that yourself, Colin?

Have you had any, um, times when you've been a guest where you

thought, Oh, that was, that was a disaster or that didn't go very well?

Remember.

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Now, back to the show.

Yeah.

Oh, definitely.

I mean, I've had some, I've had some bad interviews.

Yeah.

I mean, some through my fault, not their host's fault either, but , I

mean, the things that always stand out to me, the ones that always

stand out to me are when the, the.

The host is really, it almost seems like they're not even

listening to the questions.

They're not, sorry, the answers, I should say.

They're not even listening to my answers.

They'll just say, yep, yep, great.

And then ask someone else entirely different.

Often, you know, you're, you're good at this, John.

I've had lots of experience in this as well.

So I feel comfortable in asking you a question back, things like that.

As a guest, it's a real kind of superpower actually to turn it into a conversation

as opposed to just a Like a one way thing.

So asking you something back, it's actually, it creates a better chemistry.

It creates a better back and forth.

And there's so much of that is kind of like, I've asked questions back to hosts

before, and it's really put them off.

Um, like taking them off guard and like completely flustered them.

And to be fair, that's probably partly my fault back then, because

that was in the early days.

I wouldn't warn that I might do that.

So, yeah, there's been stuff like that where, um.

You know, people are so formulaic.

They'll have their seven questions in front of them and they're not going

to deviate from them in any way.

Uh, so it's just, it just takes away so much of the spontaneity, the dynamism,

the conversation, the chemistry.

That's what people come to podcasting for.

You know, I would read a blog post if I just wanted seven

questions, seven straight answers, but I want a conversation.

I want experience.

I want stories.

I want all of that stuff.

So yeah, it's funny.

Happens to the best of us, I guess.

we've shared and discussed some, some great ideas there for how people

can be better prepared in advance.

Do you have any other thoughts for the day of the recording itself?

There's a couple of things that you mentioned there that, you know, you

asked if I did as a host, things like breathing exercises, that sort of thing.

Is there any other recommendations that you have for someone as a guest

for the actual time of the recording?

yeah, yeah.

I do think it's really worthwhile doing a wee vocal warm up at least, even

if it's just a few tongue twisters.

Like just say some of your favourite tongue twisters like Peter Pepper picked

a peck of pickled peppers, I could say.

I didn't practice that well enough, but you know, just a few

of them makes a big difference.

And there's a, I don't know if there's an official name for it, but I call it

the fire engine warm up as well, where you just, you close your mouth and

you hum and you just go up and down.

So it's like, and

I find that may just do that for about a minute.

It makes a huge difference to how warm your vocal cords are at the

whole range and gives you so much more range in your voice actually.

So you sound far less monotone, you sound far more up and down and all that stuff.

It makes a big difference.

Yeah.

So those actually, they really are worthwhile doing.

Um, and, and the other thing you mentioned as well, John, like the tech,

like don't, Turn up and say, I've got an interview at one, so I can just open

up my computer at three minutes to one and just hit the link and go just, it'll

go wrong like two thirds of the time.

It does for me, even with John, you and I had some technical issues

because of my computer set up, even though I do interviews like this, like

all the time, it's still messed up.

Um, and we started five minutes late, so I'm not following my own

advice here, but open that interview link at least five minutes early and

make sure your cameras set up here.

Make sure you're on the right microphone.

Make sure it's all quiet around you.

Things like that makes a huge difference to

Absolutely.

Yeah, totally agree with those recommendations.

Something that I started doing as well is when we send the email,

like the confirmation emails through about the guest booking,

we send an email to the guest.

Also including a link for instructions of how to use the recording software.

So we use, currently use StreamYard.

So if you haven't used it before, It's a great idea to just, in advance, to just

log on to the website, check it out, and familiarize yourself with it a little bit.

And, uh, I mean, the tech isn't that complicated.

I mean, we're talking microphone, headphones, but if you're not

familiar with the software, uh, And things do go wrong.

I mean, I you mentioned your tech issue today.

I had one too.

My computer like decided to do an update beforehand.

And then when I log back in again, my mic had stopped working.

So, you know, these these things happen to all of us.

Yeah,

yeah, I think the key there's allowing enough time, isn't it?

Just, Not turning up sort of two minutes before and expecting

it all to go perfectly.

that's exactly a 5 minutes minimum.

Yeah.

So we get, we've been invited to a show.

We prepare for the interview.

We turn up in good time on the day of the recording.

The recording goes absolutely amazingly.

So what then?

Like after, after the recording goes live for a guest, I mean,

is that it for a or would you recommend that there's things that.

as a guest that you could do to help leverage this great opportunity

that you've been given, you know, once the podcast has been published?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

There's a, there's a couple of things going to this, I think, John, I think it's

the, it's, it's how much effort you put into promoting that show for the host.

So like actually putting a lot of your kind of marketing and

growth equity into promoting that episode and we can jump into that.

But there's also the fact that it's a resource that you can use as well.

So you can ask the host.

So on the first that it used to be, you know, it was in

the early days of podcasting.

It was one of the best ways to grow your show.

It's actually to go and get it.

It was either to go and guest on other shows and therefore you can talk about

your podcast or the opposite way around.

Like if you go, if you get guests in, those guests will hopefully

promote that episode of your podcast to their whole audience.

And it's kind of died away a bit.

Like people have become so almost professional.

Guests that they go on too many shows that they just can't promote

them very effectively anymore.

They either promote too many of them or they just don't do it

anymore because it's too much work.

So if you actually, if this is your early days of guesting on a podcast,

take advantage of the fact that you can make yourself stand out as a guest by

actually putting a bit of work into it.

Into making sure that episode succeeds.

So if you have a, an email list, if you have your social channels, if you

have a website, a YouTube channel, your own podcast, then if you put a

bit of work into making sure that that podcast episode is the most listened

to episode of the last few months.

for that host.

That stands out.

They'll see that in their stats.

They'll see that you've sent a bunch of listeners to that episode

and it may really got some new people listening to their show.

And that stands out.

The benefits there are a couple of things.

First, you've got a friend for life.

This person will help you as much as you want in future.

But equally, they'll then recommend you.

to other podcasts as a guest.

And this is one of the best things, like podcasters know podcasters.

John, it's a big part of how you and I know each other.

So that person will then recommend you, you can say to them, by the

way, any other podcasts, you know, that might benefit from this kind

of topic that I'm talking about.

And that podcaster will go, Oh, of course, because you helped me grow my show.

So I have no problem recommending you to go on other shows.

So he'll then give you an email intro for, you know, two or three other podcasts

that he knows that's on the same topic.

So yeah, I think that works really nicely as a first one.

Like these days, John, do you get a lot of people of your guests, like

helping to promote the episodes quite well, or did you find that

experience that kind of died off a bit?

It's, it's mixed, I would say.

Um, I mean, we're 40 something episodes in, I think, um, around about that,

and Most of the time, like we do create some promotional materials and

resources for every episode and I will share those, but the main platform

that I'm on online is LinkedIn.

So I usually share a few posts, screenshots, maybe some short form

videos like reels, that sort of thing.

And we do share those with the guests as well, so they get all of those

assets that they can also share.

I would say probably.

75 to 80 percent of the guests don't, don't do anything with it.

And then there's sort of 20, 25 percent of the guests so far have been like on it.

They've, they've planned it out in their social media.

They've been sharing the reels on Instagram and Instagram stories

and, and putting posts on LinkedIn.

And I'm, I don't take that for granted.

I'm obviously.

They are helping themselves, but I think it's the ones that have an appreciation

for, for, for the opportunity that stands before them and understands marketing.

I think those, those guests tend to be the ones that have been keener

to, um, to share, to share stuff, you know, and to, to plan it out.

Um,

that kind of tallies with my experience, like a one in five for sure.

Yeah, and that'll make a bigger effort.

But those people stand out then, don't they?

Yeah.

yeah, they do.

Yeah,

the other side to me is the reuse of that content to something

that a lot of guests do not do.

Like john, we're talking here about being a podcast guest, potentially, you know,

even ahead of starting your own podcast.

It's a way of getting in front of new audiences without having

to go to the effort of starting your own pod and growing your own

audience, all that kind of stuff.

But these episodes that you go on, usually, normally the guest, the host,

sorry, will be absolutely delighted.

Um, if you reuse a lot of that content and post it out there on your own

channels because it still showcases their content still showcases their channel.

It's worth asking just in case, but you can take that episode.

You can ask the host.

Like, can I get a copy of the video for that?

The audio for that?

I'll try and put it out on some of my own channels.

Almost always they'll jump at that.

And then you can use that episode in all sorts of different ways that

you can cut out your own clips.

Like you're talking about doing that, John, for your own promotion.

But as I guessed, I might have different clips that I really enjoyed and and

might want to send to my audience.

You can post the whole thing, maybe on your YouTube channel, take out

segments, you know, you can use it in all sorts of different ways.

And again, That's that builds a bit more relationship with the host again,

because, because, like I said, you are still promoting their show at the end

of the day, but you're giving yourself tons of content equity, tons of content

to work with that helps you engage your own audience and really start to

grow that in your own channels too.

that's a great suggestion.

Another thing that I, uh, that guests can do often the, well, depending on the

hosting platform, often there'll be like a little podcast episode player that you

can grab a piece of code and very easily you can embed that on your own website.

So they could even.

Take that piece of code and that podcast on a blog on their own website,

or they could, um, sometimes people will put together, say, like a Spotify

playlist of the different episodes that they've been a guest on, and then

they can share that with their, their prospects and their own audience.

So there's, there's all sorts of things that we can do with this content.

So,

Yeah, yeah.

Do you know one thing I did, which actually worked really nicely

for me for the, at the time I did it was my about me page.

You know, when you're, especially if you're running a client business

or something like that, you write up your about me page, but you

can make it a bit personable.

You could even record a video or an audio yourself.

The by far the best resource I found that talked about me and showcased who I was

and my experience and stories and stuff was one of the best interviews I'd been

on that just talked about my background.

There was a, um, a guy I got to know in podcasting really

well who interviewed me once.

He was a really top class interviewer and he just dug into all sorts of stuff.

Behind the scenes, like about, you know, my experience, where, why I'd got to

where I'd got to all that kind of stuff.

And I used that on my about me page.

I embedded his episode onto my site.

Um, it showcased his podcast for anyone who was interested, but equally

it gave an insight into who I am and how I work and all that kind of stuff

that there's no way I could have kind of drawn that out just by myself.

It took somebody else doing it to get that.

oh, that's a brilliant idea.

I love that.

So, if somebody wanted to start their own podcast, what would

be your top recommendations?

The recommendations are always very simple and they are centered around

that exact word as well about keeping it simple as in a podcast is all about.

the content you put out.

It's all about the words you say, your ideas, your viewpoints, your

personality, all of those things.

It's not in any way about the gear, the software, the publishing

strategies, all that kind of stuff.

It's solely about the content.

Once you've mastered the content, once you're starting to create the best

possible content you can, once you understand your audience back to front,

their questions, their wants, their needs, their pains, you can create

content that really engages people.

Then by all means, you can optimize by getting better microphones, better

mixers, better software, thinking about publishing all that kind of stuff.

But in the early days, the first 10, 20 episodes, it's all about that content.

So on that basis, Pick a microphone and just plug it into your

computer and forget about it.

Uh, just choose a USB one.

I think you've got the exact same one as me in front of you there, John,

which is the, the RØDE Podcaster.

Is that right?

Yep.

So the RØDE Podcaster, great choice, hundred something pounds.

So high ish budget, but it just plugs in and then you forget about it.

Um, the Samsung Q2U is a great.

Lower budget still sounds great as well and then just record into one

of the various platforms out there that help you automate a lot of it.

So StreamYard does a fair bit.

It does the video and the audio you've got.

I mean, Alitu is our software platform.

Alitu does recording, but also does the cleanup.

So we automate like the noise reduction, leveling, all of that kind of stuff

designed really to help people just concentrate on the content.

But there's loads, there's other options out there.

So there are a couple of options, but there's loads of them.

But try and just find one simple platform that does as much of that

technical automation as you can, and then just concentrate on the content.

And I often suggest the first 10 episodes, once you've got that gear and

software set up, and by the way, sorry, John, I'll just a quick plug as well.

Like that link you said at the start, the thepodcasthost.

com forward slash start here has Two different things, one email course

and one page, both totally free, which will guide you through all of the, like

the simplest gear and software setups.

So go over to that one if you, if you want to just get the

detail on what these things are.

But in terms of the mindset, the thing I often talk about is.

Going with a, almost a live recording mindset for your first

10 episodes, if not way more.

And what I mean by that is forget about editing, forget about retakes,

forget about any of that stuff.

Pretend that as soon as you hit the recording button that you're live on air

on a radio station and you just go for it.

There's a few things that comes into this.

First of all, is it gives you, it takes away that crutch of editing.

Um, so that you actually get better really fast because you listen

back, you hear some of your crutch words, your ums and your ahs, and

everyone's got them in the early days.

So don't worry about that.

Um, so it helps you improve your speaking style really quickly in the early days.

And the second and the most important part is it takes away the most time consuming,

annoying, um, podcast killing process that we of your early days, which is editing.

Like that is just what kills so many podcasts is they'll record their first

episode and then they'll end up spending eight hours desperately trying to cut out

every little um and every little uh and every little mistake and every little trip

over the tongue and it's just not needed.

One of the great things about as we've mentioned a few times is how

open, how honest, how human they are.

And all of these things are human.

If you take out too much of that stuff, you're sanitizing it and taking

away quite a lot of your humanity.

A lot of what makes people connect with you is the fact that you're a

flawed, real human being that does trip over your tongue every now and again.

And you do say ums and ahs every now and again, although You can't go too far

in them and you want to improve them.

But does that make sense, Sean?

In terms of, I often say that, like commit to that in your first 10 episodes

and it makes things so much easier.

Yeah, that totally makes sense.

And that's it's great advice.

Yeah, keep it simple.

Don't overthink it I think often I think particularly with podcasting one of

the things that trips people up is the tech then they'll they'll overthink it

and spend weeks trying to decide which microphone to buy and which software to

use and You can always change it later it's better to just pick whatever is the

simplest solution to just get started.

Yeah, it's a really good point about just getting started too because

that is where, you know, like I mentioned the content is where the value is.

The content is what makes a success or a failure and there's the only

way to get good at creating that content, whether it's the planning

of that content, the how you speak to your audience, that just your simple

speaking skills, all that kind of stuff.

The only way to get great at all of those things is to do it

There's no like, there's no way to learn that ahead of time.

It's just you have to actually do it.

And therefore the earlier, the earliest you can buy a microphone and just start

speaking into a microphone, just start planning episodes, just start thinking up

topics and playing with what style, what format, what format you want to go with.

type of angle you want to take on your show, the earliest you can start

playing with that the better, because that's what makes a great show.

So yeah, just pick something and hit record and get out there.

It's great advice.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, Colin, what would be, what would be the main thing that

you'd like the listeners to take away from our conversation today?

I think the main thing is around the thing that so few

guests do, which is that prep really.

It's just to, you know, Go away.

If you really think this is something that can work for you.

And I think in a client type based business like architecture,

I think it's so it's even more powerful than in most places.

So I think it should work for just about anyone listening is going to

spend even a couple of hours just thinking like, what do I talk about?

Like what?

What are my views on architecture?

What could I offer?

That's relatively unique.

And that may be a little bit scary at first.

Often when I'm working with people on that, like they think, well, I

don't know what is unique, like, I'm not sure what, but generally if you

start thinking through it and spend that time and think through the last

few conversations you had with some colleagues, like You What were some things

that they found interesting or dug into?

Or what were some things you disagreed with them potentially on?

Or, you know, what do you hear in the media in your area that aren't

necessarily your viewpoints that you can give another, another sort of angle on?

Those kind of things are gold.

So putting that prep in, taking that first step of spending those two hours,

that could give you the confidence you need to really start to reach out to

some shows and get some appearances.

That's brilliant.

Yeah, I think, um, Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, the idea of kind of doing that prep work is so important and,

um, yeah, having, because I think when you're thinking about, Oh,

well, what have I got to talk about that's different to anybody else?

We all have stuff that's different, like they'll have as a architect,

they'll have processes that they do, ways that they work with their clients.

There'll be all sorts of things that will be different to other practices.

They might not realize it, but if they kind of take some time to just

think about it, that I'm sure that they'll uncover all sorts of gold

there that they can talk about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Often.

Often it can come from those mistakes.

Often it can come from things that went wrong.

So like if you had a bad experience with a client by accident sometime, then what did

you develop to stop that happening again?

And often that is something that is unique to yourself.

Yeah.

For sure.

Oh, that's, that's a brilliant one.

Yeah.

I mean, in terms of, um, stories, I mean, people love stories.

Like if you've got good stories that you can share that, and

particularly when things haven't gone so well, or you made a mistake or

something,

love a disaster.

love a disaster, but if you can sort of share that

and share a bit of vulnerability, like, look, Hey, we're not perfect.

Like we made a mistake here, but this is what we learned from it.

I mean, that's makes really good content.

Absolutely.

So was there anything else you wanted to add about the topic that we, we haven't

already covered in the conversation?

No, I mean, like, like we said, John, we, we planned this out quite

nicely ahead of time, which I hope is a lesson for potential guests out there too.

So now we've covered everything I think we wanted to.

Awesome.

Well, um, I just have one last question I'd like to ask, and this is

something I ask of all of the guests.

I love to travel and to discover new places, and I just wondered if you

could tell me one of your favourite places and what you love about it?

Oh, good question.

Uh, yeah.

Same.

Actually.

I love to travel.

Um, As well, find new places too.

Often to my detriment, I'll, uh, I'll sacrifice going to old places

that I love just for the sake of going somewhere new and then it won't

live up to what I hope sometimes.

But hey, that's part of life, isn't it?

One place I am really fond of, and we do go back to again and again,

actually, is the northwest of Spain.

So a lot of people don't really go to that part of Spain, but Galicia, it's called,

up in the northwest, just above Portugal.

And it's a cooler part of Spain, so you can go over the summer.

Um, my wife actually has a relative, an uncle, that moved up there, married

a Spanish lady and lives up there.

Well, actually lives in a few different places, but they summer

up there because it's cooler than the place they live normally.

Like it usually gets 40 degrees and dry heat where they live normally.

So they go up there in the summer.

And it's just such a beautiful place.

It's, it's quiet.

It's not very touristy.

It's got lovely beaches, great surf on that side of the coast as well.

Um, and the food, I just love Spanish food.

It's so good.

It's so kind of fresh and wholesome.

And, um, yeah, I always love spending a week there with my family, maybe

once every couple of years, at least.

Oh, that sounds fantastic, yeah.

I, um, I've, I've had, well, I would lose count.

I had lots of childhood holidays in mainland Spain and, um, yeah, yeah.

So we've, we've had a lot of, got a lot of memories from Spanish holidays.

And more recently my family and I have had, we've had a few

holidays over in Mallorca that we've really enjoyed as well.

We've got a place that we'd like to go back to time and again.

So the foods, yeah, the food's absolutely amazing.

Isn't it?

Oh, yeah.

So much.

Mmm.

Well, Colleen, thank you so much for being a guest on the

show and sharing your expertise.

Could you remind everybody of the link so that they can access those

courses and resources about podcasting?

Yeah.

Thanks, John.

It's been great to come on.

Really appreciate you inviting me.

Um, so, yeah, if anyone wants, we've got a, We've got a seven day

email course around starting a show.

We've got a seven day course around growing a show.

So even if you already have one, it might be worth a look.

And we've got a couple of different guides to beginning to getting started.

It's all totally free.

So you go over to thepodcasthost.

com forward slash start here.

That's thepodcasthost.

com forward slash start here.

Awesome.

And if anyone would like to reach out and connect with you online, where

would be the best place to do that?

I'm saying that you actually linked in as about the only social

media I use these days and even that is relatively sparingly, but if you

connect with me over there, I'll see it eventually and be able to get back to you.

But do you know what?

Actually, I shouldn't say that the best place to actually

get me is in our community.

So that link that start here link actually is a front page of our community, a

private community for podcasters or people want to guest on podcasts.

We've got space in there for that, and I'm in there quite a lot.

So if you actually have any good questions or want to, um, you know,

follow up on any of this stuff by all means, join the community and

you can fire me a message in there.

Oh, that's awesome.

Well, thanks again, Colleen.

Cool.

Thanks, John.

Next time I'm joined by Robert Wood burn park to talk

about communications in architecture.

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