Conducting Guest Interviews in the Health & Fitness Niche

Conducting Guest Interviews in the Health & Fitness Niche

Hi, I’m Jamie Kennedy, the executive podcast producer at Brave Moon Podcasts. In this episode, I’m excited to share my insights on mastering guest interviews in health and fitness niche. I’ll guide you through the essential steps for researching your guest, crafting impactful questions, and avoiding common mistakes. You’ll learn how to set up your interviews for success, make your guests feel comfortable, and ensure your conversations truly resonate with your audience. I cover strategies like effective questioning, active listening, and how to keep the discussion engaging.

Whether you’re a seasoned podcaster or just getting started, my tips are designed to help you elevate your interviewing skills and make every conversation count.

In this episode, we talk about…

• Essential steps for researching and preparing your guest to ensure a smooth and engaging conversation.

• Techniques for crafting questions that captivate your audience and elicit meaningful responses.

• Common pitfalls in podcast interviews and how to avoid them for a more professional and engaging show.

Transcribed Podcast Episode

It's happening. You have your dream expert guest coming onto your podcast. Whoa. Your hard work has paid off. They said, yes, you're thrilled. Now it's time to figure out how to actually interview them. The good news is we're about to dive deep into the art of interview preparation, crafting compelling questions and avoiding those cringe worthy new host mistakes.

But before we dive in, let's just take a moment to breathe, inhale the excitement of podcasting, and exhale any doubts.

I'm going to mention really quickly who I am and why I'm in your ears. I'm Jamie Kennedy, and yes, I am a podcast expert and producer behind the podcast production company Brave Moon Podcasts. Today, I'm excited to let you in on some behind the scenes magic and spill the beans on how I make podcasting dreams come true. Podcasting from home is totally achievable. You don't need a fancy studio or a bank-breaking budget.

Whether you're a busy creator, a small business owner, or a wellness entrepreneur, I'm here to make your podcasting journey smooth and enjoyable. Hop onto my website and grab my free start a podcast guide. Now know you're eager to explore and discover the tools you need to grow in your podcasting journey. So visit those show notes and get started.

I'm just gonna do a quick little experiment for you. It was an ask from one of my listeners and I thought it sounded fun.

So I'm gonna turn off my sound mastering for one second, or I should say one sentence, because I want you to hear the difference. Sound levels off. This is me without any sound mastering happening. You're probably hearing background noise and the sound levels are probably off and you might even hear some heavy breathing.

Yep, that's me. Now I'm gonna turn it back on. What you just heard was me using the exact same mic and setup I always use, but the difference is I’m using Riverside’s AI-powered audio enhancement to sound better. Yep, that’s all it takes. Just a click of a button and a $15 a month subscription.

Anyway, on with today's show. It's so funny, it's so weird that I just said that because on one of the podcasts I helped produce, The School of Wellbeing, the host, Meg Durham, always says that, so I know exactly how I got that wording. All right, so let's talk about guest preparation.

Just like you plan your workouts or meal plans for your clients, preparing for an interview is crucial. Think about the guests' expertise and how it aligns with your audience. Remember, you're here to support your listeners with authentic and real conversations that resonate with them. There's a few key things you'll want to do before the interview.

First and foremost, you want to obtain as much information as you can about the guest. And really, you should be learning alongside of your listeners. Your listeners want to learn something about the topic that you're about to discuss with the expert guest. And if you become a sounding board for the questions and curiosities that your listeners have, that is the sweet spot for how you should prepare for this interview. There's a few key things you'll want to do before the interview. First and foremost, you want to obtain as much information as you can about the guest.

You'll want a photo of them to use in promotional assets and you'll want a short bio you can also use for promotional assets as well as for the episode show notes. So before the interview, you'll want to start researching your guest. Who are they? What do they love to do? What is their expertise? What do they want to talk about? Once you have a general idea of the things they feel most confident speaking to, you want to narrow down your interview questions so that you keep your listener engaged.

And this requires framing your interview questions in the right way. Right off the bat, you always want to start with a strong opening and set up questions that grab attention and set the tone. For example, what inspired you to study episode topic? So for this example, I'm going to use stress. So when setting up those strong opening and set up questions, you could use what inspired you to study stress or what is stress and why is it important to talk about?

The key here is to introduce the topic of your episode and what you'll be covering and lead your guests to share their overall expertise in this particular topic, like stress. Notice I did not start with, tell me about yourself. This is a big no-no, which I'll go into more detail in a minute or two. So once you've covered the setup questions, you want to talk about the struggle related to the episode topic.

These type of questions resonate deeply with your audience because oftentimes the struggle is exactly what attracted your audience to listen to that episode in the first place.

For example, if you're going to listen to an episode about stress, there's a huge chance you're thinking about the struggles already. How do I deal with stress? What happens to your body when you have too much stress? What causes stress? All struggles. It's where our mind naturally goes because

Not to get deep here, but as descendants of cavemen, we are ultimately looking for ways to survive. And the ways we learn to survive is through hearing what not to do. Learn the hard stuff so that we can be prepared to avoid it ourselves. It's not technically survival, as in it's not a saber-toothed tiger charging us.

But the way we survive in modern-day society is by learning techniques and tools to thrive, to stay connected to people, to move, to nourish. When we learn ways to do this, we are ultimately learning ways to survive in modern day society. Okay, so for the next portion of your interview, try asking, can you share a hurdle most clients face when experiencing stress? Or what is a common struggle people experience when faced with stress?

Once you've gone through a couple of struggle questions, it's time to figure out the how. How to overcome these struggles. Because, cavemen cat back on, that is what we came to learn. We want to know what we need to do to overcome these struggles. Think of yourself as a supportive coach guiding your listeners through challenges and your guests can help you do the same by answering your question. Example of questions here could be,

What strategies helped you overcome your obstacles with stress? Or what is the number one thing you'd recommend to a listener who struggles with stress? Last but not least, close with closing questions. Just like winding down a yoga session, you want to leave your audience feeling refreshed and satisfied. Questions to ask during this part would be things like, what advice would you give to someone starting their health journey? And

Where can people find you to connect about managing their stress? Your listeners will appreciate these actionable takeaways. Now that you've written out your interview questions, it's time to send them to your guest. Personally, I think it's really important to send them ahead of time. It helps your guests prepare, which ultimately means less editing time for you. Why? Because the guests will come to the interview more prepared and hopefully spend less time hemming and hawing over how to answer questions.

Their answers will be concise, which helps keep the listener engaged. This is the time when you also want to send them that bio, questionnaire, and ways to sound great from wherever they're recording. Another great idea is to have a pre-interview chat. It can't hurt to get on the phone prior to your call and talk about the setup of your podcast and what they can expect. Make sure that your guest knows to act as if this was the first time you've spoken.

If a guest keeps referring to a previous conversation you had prior to hitting start, it can unconsciously turn off the listener because they no longer feel they're part of the conversation. It's better if all three people involved, meaning you, the guest, and the listener, feel they're part of the very first conversation you're having and that they haven't missed anything important. When you've chosen an interview date, be sure to send an invite to your podcast guest.

When you’ve chosen an interview date, be sure to send an invite to your podcast guest. You know I’m in love with Riverside, so I’ll just mention that Riverside actually lets you schedule interviews with dates and times, which you can send to your podcast guests directly. It’s so much nicer to have Riverside do the heavy lifting for you! So invite your guests via Riverside or via your recording link on any other platform, and then get ready to hit play on the big day.

Now I really want to call out three common mistakes I see new podcast hosts make, as I think it will really help you as you prepare for your guest interviews.

First, the dreaded, tell me about yourself question, which I mentioned a bit earlier in the episode. Your guests are here to share their unique stories, not recite a generic bio. I've heard this so many times on podcasts and it's just painful, isn't it? Tell Me About Yourself turns into a long-winded 10-minute response and just drones on and on. It's not that the person's life is boring, no, no way. It's just that when you're asking this question, it's really hard to answer it quickly and concisely. And it's not even that a person will dive into their personal life or maybe they will.

But even just answering from a career perspective can take ages and is boring. So instead, even if you just add something like, tell me about how you got involved in stress management. That subtle difference will help the guest answer much more quickly and concisely. I don't know why more people aren't talking about this. When you're referring to your listeners, stop referring to them in plural.

85% of listeners tune into their favorite podcasts alone. This means you're connecting one-on-one with each individual, just like you do with your coaching clients. People don't want to hear things like, can you tell the listeners about, instead, word questions like, for a listener who might experience stress, what do you recommend? It's that personal touch that keeps people coming back for more.

The third common mistake I hear new podcast hosts make is forgetting to practice active listening. Okay, I get it. You have your list of questions, and if you're anything like me, you're nervous. You're not even sure if you paid attention to how the guest answered your last question. I get it. But the good news is the more practice you have, the more you'll realize just how important it is to practice active listening.

This helps keep you engaged and therefore your listener engaged and it allows you to follow up with your guest in real time. For example, what if your guest opens a can of worms you never considered when you were writing your interview questions? Allow for space to add questions as needed. Your guest will appreciate it, as will your listener.

Another way to practice active listening is to pick something out that the guest shared in their last answer and say, I love what you just shared about and then continue on with your next question after that.

All right, coach, here's the juicy part. My five hacks for leading engaging conversation.

Hack number one, the mirror technique. Reflect your guests' emotions. If they're sharing a triumphant moment, show your excitement. If they talk about struggles, convey empathy. Your kind-hearted nature will shine through as you naturally react to their stories.

Hack number two, be the thread weaver. Like a yoga instructor builds a yoga sequence that ultimately leads to a peak pose, weave your questions with meaning, like you're building towards something, and connect their answers to previous topics. If they mentioned what they ate for breakfast this morning, bring that back in at the end with a lighthearted ask if they plan to have it tomorrow morning. Show them you're genuinely listening and steering the conversation in a purposeful direction. This will be approved by the guest and the listeners alike.

Hack number three, the power of repeating. This is a gold technique for letting insights sink in and encouraging deeper revelations. If you hear something the guest says that's really special, let them finish what they're saying and then say, okay, I just have to repeat that for the listener. You said A, B, C.

Hack number four, the personal share. Don't be afraid to share your own experiences. This builds trust and shows your authentic side. Plus these stories become part of your personal brand and can be things you can continually come back to, which creates familiarity between you and your listeners. Key to drive them back to listen again and again.

Hack number five, the musical bridge. No matter how hard you try, sometimes Q &A can get boring. Try bringing part of your music theme before the beginning of a couple questions so that your listener's attention is caught and they tune back in. How can you do this?

Be sure to check out Podcastle for post-production editing. It's amazing. Okay, it's time. Embrace your strengths and let your personality shine. Don't let those overthinking tendencies hold you back. Embrace the beauty of imperfection. So, let's raise a virtual glass of wine to your brave podcasting adventure. Remember, each episode is an opportunity to inspire, support, and connect.

Until the next episode, keep those conversations flowing and keep being the amazing creator that you are. And as always, remember to stay consistent, stay passionate, and keep it real.

Ready to master guest interviews in the health and fitness niche?

We’re giving you our Podcast Producer's Trello Template for free! This easy-to-use template will help you keep your episodes organized, your team aligned, and your production running smoothly.

Whether you're planning interviews, managing show notes, or coordinating with guests, Trello’s template ensures everything stays on track. Say goodbye to production headaches and focus on what matters most—creating amazing podcast content.

Happy podcasting.

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