4 Tips to Make You a Better Interviewer

I think back to all of the jobs that I've ever had in my life. And I have to say that I'm so grateful. I was never in a position where I had to do a lot of interviews on a regular basis like to hire people for their career or for a job. But I will tell you, I had a position when I was in college, I worked at the Student Center at Texas State University in San Marcus, a shout out Bob Cats, eat him up cats. But I worked at the LBJ

So there are going to be some resources, YouTube videos, previous episodes. And all of those are going to be linked in the show notes. So I wanted to tell you like straight from the get go, where you can find the show notes for today's episode. So you can go to Krystalproffitt.com/episode340, for everything that we're talking about here today. So if you're on a run, you're driving right now, totally cool. I'm going to share with you all the things but if you want to follow up later, and dig a little bit deeper into interviews, and how to get better and all the things I'm going to have those linked in the show notes. So I wanted to tell you that, but let's dive into this. So I have four tips to make you a better

First and foremost, number one, I want you to ask better questions. This is a skill. You can learn this if you're like well I thought my questions are pretty good if you're having crappy interviews or you are just not happy about the quality of the interviews that you're having with your guests. You need to ask better questions. And I say this as like the tough love like you have to you have to make the effort to develop better questions. Now, what do I mean

Number two, pay attention to interviews that you love to hear. Love to hear like, I hope that right now you're thinking about a particular podcast that you're just like, oh my gosh, so and so is the best interviewer there is I love the way that they talk. I've talked on here before that I love armchair expert. I love DAX Shepard's interview style is so incredible. And I think that it comes from one he's just a super confident person. And he just ask really amazing questions. But I always listened to it. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I love that. He's asking the question. Like he beat me too. The question I was thinking about, like, oh my gosh, I wish that, you know, he would ask this question. And then he asked me and I'm like, Oh my gosh, like this is so good. So I pay attention. And there's other podcasts that I listened to, again, going back to asking better questions that they asked these questions. It's like yes or no and I am bored out of my mind. I feel like I'm listening to a lecture that is like in a class that I wasn't even supposed to be in but I'm forced to stay here because someone asked me to give them feedback on their show. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is like pulling teeth. This is awful. I pay attention to that, too. So if you're listening to a show, and you're like, that was a terrible interview, why? Why was it a bad interview? If you listen to a podcast, like I love smartlace, this is another podcast I love to listen to. And when I listen to them, I just love so much of the rapport that happens between the co host and the little inside jokes that they have little digs that they have against each other. Again, this is a comedy podcast. So it's very specific to their genre and their category of how they produce their show. But I pay attention to that, why do I love listening to it? Why do I just really get engaged and fully invested in what they're talking about? It's because of their interview style, and how they ask questions and how they show up. And again, I'm delighted whenever they ask the question that I'm thinking about, which brings us to my third

Which this is what you have to do. Okay, this is my third tip for you. You have to think about what questions your audience has, and ask those to your guests. So it's okay to come prepared with questions to an interview, I have a YouTube video that I can show you what I do to prepare for a podcast interview. And it's going to show you the behind the scenes of my Google Doc and all the things that I do. But I am not afraid to go off script. So if someone is, you know, I have a guest on my show. And if they're talking about something, and they mention a topic that I know, my audience wants to know more about, I'm not going to look at my questions that I wrote down and say, I can only ask these things, these are the things that I have to stick to this is the script. No, I say, Ooh, tell me more about that. My audience would love to hear your story on that topic. And I just start chasing the things that I know my audience wants to have. Right? They want the answers to those questions. And yes, this comes with time. And it also comes with having a deep understanding of who your audience is, and what kind of value you can offer them. So don't shy away from questions that you feel it in your gut, right? Like, I feel like it's part of that casual conversation. And maybe this is more of my style. But I love it when something comes up. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, I have to ask them this question. Like, even if it's silly, I'm like, Okay, let's talk about this for a second. Because like, Let's sit here, because my audience would be so curious to know, X, Y, or Z. So I brought an example. And I again, this is going to be linked in the show notes. But I know that so many people in this audience know who Amy Porterfield is, you know that she has online marketing Made Easy podcast. I've talked about her many times on this show. And I interviewed her on this podcast. And one of my questions, I knew I kind of had it written down. But I just knew in the back of my head, I'm like, I don't know where I'm gonna throw this in. But I have to ask this question, because people that are in this audience that are super fans of hers, maybe they've gone through her digital course Academy program, or they've gone through List Builder society, like they are in some way associated with knowing who she is and listening to her podcast, they would get this question. Okay, ready? My question was, where did you get your signature statement? If you're multitasking? Come back to me. I wanted to know, I genuinely wanted to know. And this is another tip for you. If you have a conversation, if you have your mentor on your podcast, or someone you've always wanted to talk to has some the question that you really wanted to know like, this is something that maybe she had talked about it before in a live stream or a podcast episode, but I just genuinely wanted her to say, on the podcast, where that came from, because it's so directly correlated with who she is. And she says it all the time and her content, if you ever heard her podcast, watched her on a live stream. Like she says that all the time, if you're multitasking, come back to me. I have a picture I'll share in the show notes as well of when I met Amy, back in 2019. I had a shirt created that said on it. If you're multitasking, come back to me. It's something that her me her and her team always joke about still to this day. But I wanted to know where did that come from? Because I knew my audience would want to know the answer to that question as well. So think about the questions that your audience has. And if you don't know your audience well enough to know what are the things I'd be asking, then you need to check out I have an episode. That's all about understanding your audience better. So I'm gonna link to that in the show notes as well. So again, the show notes,

Now we're on number four. Tip number four. To make you a better interviewer. I kind of mentioned it earlier. But this is a concept that I just call be genuinely curious. I want you to be genuinely curious about your guest. Because what I have seen is the best interviews come from a host taking the audience on a journey. And they ask questions that go deeper into a conversation where listeners really feel like they're a fly on the wall. And again, I'm thinking about armchair expert, the way that DAX and Monica, again, they have this rapport between each other as co host and people that are just friends in real life. And they know each other very intimately. They can make these little inside jokes and they can ask questions about their guests to their guests. And just be deeply curious to know more because they're like, Oh, I know our arm Cherry's would be really interested to know, blah, blah, blah. That's another cool thing that you can do to when you have an audience like that. And you're able to name your community always talk about our content creator community that we have here, our podcast community, but it's really important that you are genuinely curious about your guest. This is where the best interviews come from. I think about watching someone like Oprah, right? I used to watch Oprah on TV as a kid. And of course, I've seen her become this giant mogul that she is today. But she is a fan, freaking tastic. Interviewer, it is why she is the person that interviews all the celebrities, she talks to literal royalty, and she just does a fantastic job at it. She makes it look effortless. But I feel like she is genuinely curious. You can see it in her body language and the way that she asked questions and yes, maybe she plans everything out ahead of time. This is exactly what I'm going to ask people. And I'm going to do it in this order and everything. But she seems to be genuinely curious about the people that she's speaking to. So I want you to start practicing this, ask yourself, How can I really flex my genuine curiosity to the people that I'm speaking to. And it's a skill you're interviewing is a skill. So if you feel like I'm a terrible Interviewer Right now, good news, there's nowhere to go. But up. There's nowhere to go. But up from here. It does take practice, putting those reps in talking to different types of people. And I actually have a podcast episode that I'm going to link to in the show notes, that's all about how to be selective with your podcast guest as well. Because what people will come to me and say is, I just I don't have great interviews on my podcast, I can never get it to hit right or always feel this disconnect with my guest. And I start talking to them. And maybe we're on a coaching call, or I've been I've done this on a Facebook live before. And I get to the root of the issue. And they're not attracting great guests to their content. And so in the selection process of getting a guest on their show, they're like I really don't want to talk to this person. But they're here they scheduled they took time out there on the calendar, I have to do it. And I'm like, No, actually you don't. You don't have to talk to whoever you are scheduled. And maybe you have a virtual assistant or someone on your team that is doing all the scheduling for you. And you go to the day of and you're like, hey, I really don't want to talk to this person. Or we had a terrible interview. And I don't really want to air this episode, because it was so awful. I have had interviews that I've never aired. Have ever said that here on this show. There are literal podcast episodes that I've created full interviews that were terrible that I did not err on the podcast, because my duty is not to my guest because people will tell me this all the time, like well, you know, they took their time out of their day to be on my podcast, and I owe it to them to or that episode. No you don't. Did they pay you something? Did they actually pay you money for you to be on the podcast? If so then maybe you probably do have some sort of legal obligation for you to air that episode, but none of my guests sign anything on my show that says I will absolutely without a shadow of a doubt, air their episode on any given specific date. That doesn't happen. Because what happens on this podcast is I am super selective with the people that I have, because my duty is to you, the listener, my audience, my duty is to serve you. And I can only do that if I bring people on this show that are going to add value that are going to open up and when I am genuinely curious about their journey, they're going to share those parts that they feel like would add value to this podcast. So I feel like we kind of started with some tough love. Now we're ending with like a stern, hey, this is how I feel about my show. These are my principles when it comes to podcast and interviewing. And it's not even just podcast, we've talked about interviewing, but this goes for live streams, if someone were to be a guest on a YouTube video or wherever they would be a guest. So I want you to think about how can I be a better interviewer and maybe even find, here's a bonus tip, find someone that you love their interview style, and see what pieces of it you can model in your own content. I think that this is really important as look at the people that you admire that make fantastic interviewers, you like their style, you like the way they talk, or maybe you just love the guests that they have on their content. Follow those clues. Those are clues of success. Because if you think that they're amazing, then there are probably other people out there that love that type of style and content as well. And you can mold that into your own version of how you want it to show up in your

So quick recap. Okay, the four tips to make you a better interviewer. Number one, ask better questions. Number two, pay attention to interviews that you love to hear. Number three, think about questions that your audience has and ask those to your guest. And number four, I want you to be genuinely curious about your guest. So again, we're going to have all the tips and resources and what we talked about today linked in the show notes, go to Krystalproffitt.com/episode340.