We are doing a throwback with today's episode. I mean, not really, I guess, yeah, we can call it a throwback. But what we're really doing is we're throwing everything back to the beginning of the podcast process. Yes, we are talking about planning and getting basically everything ready before you ever start recording your show. So a lot of what we've been talking about here on the Prophet podcast has been practical steps and easy
to follow guidelines. But I want to strip all the fancy things away from what we've been talking about, you know, we've had some podcast strategies and speaking and like doing some really big things. But I feel like it's time to strip it back
down to the basics of podcasting. And what we're going to talk about today is something that I often get asked, and it is about recording your podcast for an interview, like how do you actually break things down and segment different pieces of the recording process to make it easier on yourself? So that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how
to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?
So I've realized in going back and looking at some of our most recent episodes, I was like, man, we've been talking about some really big strategies. But at the end of the day, This podcast was really created to help the beginner podcaster. So I wanted to do a throwback, which is why we were talking about that at the beginning to the beginner podcaster. Because I know and if this is you, I want you to raise your hand, I can't see you. But we all know like, well,
we'll know right? We'll know who exactly you know who you are. If you've been listening to the show for a while, and you still haven't started your podcast, I'm calling you out. I'm just I'm just I'm lovingly calling you out as your podcast coach, because I know you're out there, I see you. Not really, that's kind of creepy, I shouldn't say that. I don't really see you. But I know that a good chunk of this audience is a bunch of podcasters that are either stuck in the creation
process. You're stuck in your own perfectionism, or you are terrified to hit publish on the content that you've created. I know I see you because I interact with you on a pretty regular basis. And I know exactly who you are. So this is especially for you because I wanted to break down the practical steps of recording podcast interviews, and what it looks like. So I'm going to share, like I said, the step by step practically like this is what happens, this is the steps that you
can do. But I also want to let you know, this is what works for me. And I know different podcasters have different systems, different strategies. But what I do best is sharing what has worked for me the tried and trued ways that has given me the ability for us to be on episode 257 of this podcast and have almost half of those be interviews. Like I know what I'm talking about when it comes to systems and processes. For your
podcast interviews. And the more and more I talk to people in our podcast community, I'm realizing that we have a really good mixture of both solo podcasters and interview podcasters. So for you solo podcasters like don't do now Don't say I don't need that I don't ever do interviews on my show. I have no desire to ever do an interview on my show. But what if Oprah calls you come on? Like, what if Amy Porterfield says I would love to
be on your podcast? What if the dream person you've always wanted to interview all of a sudden said, I would love to be on your show? Are you just going to turn them away? Are you going to say no, sorry, that doesn't work for me. I'm not going
to do No, come on. And I think honestly, the interview can give you so much more than just speaking as a solo podcaster I'm not saying that I'm advocating more one for the other because y'all know like this podcast can be a hot mess at sometimes where it's like oh She did an hour half long interview, but then she did a 15 minute episode The next week, like what is actually happening, we don't follow the rules of formatting around here, we just show up every week, okay,
like this is something that I want to be known for is like Krystal is consistent, you may not always, she's not predictable. And I'm okay with that I'm okay with not being predictable in the content that I create and how we show up. But I want you to know, I'm going to show up. So that's my little like two cents throwing into throwing my hat in the arena to let you know that I don't believe
that one style is better than the other. But I do think that everyone can learn from how different people have their systems and their processes set up behind the scenes for their podcast.
So let's get into this. Right. So if you are setting up. your podcast interviews, I want this episode to be kind of like the demystification because breaking down the process is something I wish I would have known. before I'd ever done my first interview, I set up basically what you hear today is an evolution of what I thought a podcast interview was supposed to look like, behind the scenes, doing it really wrong many, many times. And then it's evolved into
what we have here today. Because in the beginning, all I knew was listening to podcasts that I'd listened to for several years listening to their interviews, and guessing what they were doing. Well, if you're just getting started, I don't I'm taking the guesswork out. I'm just gonna tell you exactly how I conduct podcast interviews, because I think that this would be helpful information for someone who's just getting started.
So number one, first and foremost, when you're setting up a podcast interview, is you have to think about the format. Okay, I was gonna say you, you have to consider the format you have to think about but if you need tips on formatting a podcast episode, I'm gonna link to some resources in the episode description or you know, the show notes. So KrystalProffitt.com/Episode257, is where you're going to find everything we talked about here today, because I've done several YouTube videos
about formatting a podcast. So if this idea is really foreign to you, you're like I What do you mean formatting. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it. But there are many, many podcast episodes in YouTube videos we've already created about finding the right kind of format for you, your show and your audience. But you do have to take this into consideration when before you ever
book any guest. This is the mistake I see a lot of podcasters doing is they jump straight into the guest before they've ever thought about the format. And then they're in the middle of an interview. And they're like, this is not what I imagined because this person's been talking for 45 minutes. And we were only supposed to do a 20 minute show. And they're still talking about the story of their life, what is actually happening.
So the reason why I want you to establish the format that you're going to have for your show is so you can set the expectations, right? Like as the host of the show, it's kind of like hosting a party, you kind of get to set up the expectations, right? Think about a party. Are people supposed to bring food? Are they supposed to bring some kind of drink? Is it a gift? Like, do I need to bring a present? Is it a housewarming party? Is it a pool party? Is it a costume party? like can we just
show up 20 minutes late, and it's fine? Like what time is the party ending? Oh, you expected me to stay the whole time? Well, actually, I was just trying to duck out about five minutes after I got here, you've got to set the expectation of how you are going to host your podcast. In order to do that you got to know what's going on. So before you start booking all these guests and setting everything up to like have these incredible people on your show, you need to set the guidelines for
how everything's gonna go down. And that is the format. So you have to know a few things in order to make the flow of the actual interview, the actual conversation really worked out best for you. So I'm gonna give you a breakdown of how interviews have worked for me. And how like if you go back, you can go listen to even the recent episode that we just did in the last episode with Andrea was the podcasters and Instagram episode, if you go listen to it, you will hear everything
that I'm about to tell you. Okay, like literally the outline for the format of this episode. That episode will be like I'm gonna put it in the show notes. But it's five steps. Okay, and like I said, if you go watch any of my content on formatting an episode, you will see this is exactly what I teach and I talked about, but the first is you You have to have a hook. And for me, I record we're gonna
talk about recording in a second. But I record these in segments I talked about, I don't do a lot of editing, right, you will hear me say that many, many times. If you're brand new listener just know, I don't do a lot of editing, it doesn't take me long to edit the podcast. Because of the way that I record and how much planning I do well, in advance way before I ever hit the record button, I've usually done a ton of planning because it
makes my life easier. It cuts down my time editing my podcast, because of all the planning and the segmenting, but I will record my hook, I will record or I'll upload my podcast theme next, and then I will have the guest bio or their intro, then we will have the actual interview. And then there's usually an outro, with my calls to action or, you know, telling them where to go grab the show notes or whatever important information that I think the listener needs to know. That will be
in the outro. It's pretty simple, right? It's not complex. That's five steps, five steps, five pieces of a podcast interview. And I may throw in some ads here and there. But that's basically the template that I use for all of my episodes, all of my podcast interviews, the interviews do look a
little bit different than my solo shows. But it's basically the more complex format, which is why this is the one I chose to teach you here today and to talk about because the interview has a little bit more complexity than if I'm just doing a solo show. Okay, are you with me? So the first thing we talked about is the format. And like I said, if you need more content on this, I'm going to have it linked in the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode257. Okay, I want you
to go check that out. If you're confused about the format, you don't know how long your episodes need to be any of that, like we we have content on that.
So the second thing we're going to talk about is recording. So I talked a little bit about like, I'll do the hook. And then we do the guest interview and the bio, or you know, the guest intro and the bio. But what I typically do and how this works is I don't record any of that until the interview is done, I will typically schedule the call with the guest, right, I'll use calendly. Or maybe we'll go back and forth an email if a time doesn't work well for
them. But we will get the guests scheduled first, like let's get on the calendar, then the second thing I will do is make sure I have a solid plan for what we're going to talk about during the interview. This actually makes my shownotes a lot easier to create because then I have a rough outline for what we're going to talk about. And it
makes the interview go better. Because I'm not just like, Hey, what's up what so what you want to talk about now, like I have questions, I do preparation, I do my due diligence to understand my guest and what they bring to the table. But I don't do any of the recording. I don't go record their intro or anything like that until the interview is finished. So once the interview is recorded, you know, we've we've scheduled it, we both show up or excited, we record the thing, then
we're done. Then it basically sits in the queue for me to process it like I will leave it in squad cast, and it sits there until I'm ready to edit it. And then when I'm ready to edit it, depending on how long it's been since I've done the interview, I may have to go back and listen to the whole thing and edit the actual interview. Or I will just be like, Oh yeah, that wasn't that was like two weeks ago, I know exactly what we talked about. I know our biggest takeaway that I want to
share with the audience. So I will record the hook. And then I will add in the podcast main theme, and then I'll do the bio and the intro, which is really short, because I don't want that to be super long. I don't want all the information like they're going to learn about the guest while they're listening. I just want something that's pretty quick at the beginning as their intro. It's usually what they send to me behind the scenes
like in calendly. I have a step in there that says hey, give us your bio, the information you want us to share and most of the time I'm reading that so spoiler alert if you didn't know that most of the time when I'm doing an interview, I am verbatim reading the bio that they have sent to me.
Starting a podcast can be super overwhelming. How do I know well because I've been there I have been in your shoes. If you are just now in the creation stage of getting your podcast up and running. Then I invite you to check out Proffitt Podcasting. This is my digital program that teaches you all the ins and outs of
how to start Launch and market your podcast. I want you to go check it out and see if it's going to be the right fit for you if you're looking for a way to understand exactly how podcasting works, you want to know how to create content, how to launch your podcast, how to get it on all the players, but most importantly, how to tell people about it without feeling like you're alienating your friends, your family, your neighbor like, I
want you to go check out Proffitt Podcasting. So go to KrystalProffitt.com/course, to learn more about Proffitt Podcasting and to enroll today, KrystalProffitt.com/course, to check out more. Okay, let's get back to today's episode.
Then, whenever we like we would upload the audio of the actual interview. Then we have our outro. And then we have the music at the end. And then it's done. I know that like I just tried to condense all that down into a super simple process. It's not I get that if you're especially if you're just getting started, you're like Krystal, you just like breeze through that, like it was so easy. What is easier for me because
I've been doing this for a while. But I want to share the behind the scenes, the practical steps because you can do this too. This honestly has not changed that much from the very beginning of how I started doing interviews. I've just gotten better. And the process has evolved over time. So if you're like, oh, man, that just I like the idea of having a hook and then having my main theme. But I don't know if I want to do a podcast, like their intro and their bio, I think I just want to get
straight into the interview. Awesome. Awesome. Do it that way, do whatever works for you. And I'll have interviews that I listened to where they don't do anything at the end. Like once the conversation is over with the guests like that's it. That's there's no outro it just they play their outro music and it's done. So I want you to take these ideas, and really just see like, what could really work for me, how can I use this for my podcast, but I will typically not go back and
listen to the whole interview. This is a question I get asked a lot. Do you go back and listen to everything and then go record the other pieces of the segments? And I don't I normally do not. And one trick that I learned is I will go back and listen to the whole episode when I do an interview. I don't typically do that when I do a solo episode. But with an interview I will because
I'll have to remember didn't their dog bark. And then they have something in the background that they were like, Oh, you know what I need to like can we pause for a second like one of their kids walks in one of their kids is screaming you know I need a snack or one of my kids is screaming I need a snack. This happens a lot more. Editing is an amazing thing whenever it's stuff like that
happens. But I will typically starting I guess this was probably about three months ago, I started listening back to episodes at 2x speed. Some people can do this, some people can't. This has been my saving grace. So in Hindenburg, there is a setting where I can listen like I have on my headphones. And I can listen to the audio at 2x speed. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. So it makes me editing a 30 minute episode be chopped down to just 15 minutes. And it's so much easier, so much
easier. I can like bounce through the thing a lot faster cut things that need to be cut, and then it's done. I'm not spending hours and hours and hours editing. Because again, I did all the work up front to plan and prepare and really concentrate on the highlights that we wanted to have for this episode. But also, I'm doing these little tweaks and tricks behind the scenes to make my editing life a lot easier. So that was number two.
So first, we talked about format. Second, we talked about recording. And third is you got to edit it all together. So again, I kind of talked about recording. But my other thing that like I don't know if you would call this like a defining factor. I don't I don't think that's the right way to say it. But one of my principles that I learned probably about a year into my podcast journey. It's just something that I learned about myself, maybe it's a quirk, maybe
that's just what we'll call it. It's a quirk about me that I know now, and I've learned about myself but I'm not great at planning an episode recording an episode and editing and publishing the thing all in one setting. That is not how my brain operates in it. I think it was right after I read the one thing and I'm pretty sure I read that in like 2019 which would have been after my first year of podcasting, but I read the one thing And
then talking about doing specific tasks. And like really like batching, your work and getting all of that done. Like if you're working in one creative flow to only do those tasks like great example today, I'm batching a lot of podcast episodes, but y'all, I'm not editing them. I'm not editing all these episodes, like back to back, I'm just recording them. And then maybe I'll come back tomorrow, and edit them and add in the music and do all that, but I'm just trying to get them
recorded today. So my recommendation for you is if you're going to be batching, let's say you batch four interviews over the course of two days, because you want to you're like, Okay, I want four interviews for the month of July. And I want to have them all done well in advance. So I'm going to go ahead and record the interviews, awesome.
Just focus on recording the interviews, just focus on your guest and the people that you're going to talk to and having an amazing conversation, and really digging into the good stuff that you know, your audience will love. only concentrate on that.
And then whenever those are done, only go into one episode at a time and edit that one episode or do the recordings that you would need to have for all of the intros or all of the segments, all of the outros all of the BIOS, like whatever it is, but don't try to record edit, record, edit, record, edit. Don't do that to yourself, y'all, it's hard. I can tell you, I create so much content, it is hard to plan a piece of content recorded, edit it and publish it all on one setting. I don't do
that. And I never want y'all to think that that's what I do behind the scenes because it is not it is not I will record and then I'll let it sit there for a few days. And then I'll come back and edit it. Or I'll record and say okay, yeah, that one's done. I don't even think I need to listen to it. Again, it's just you know, let me chop it up edited a little bit, but then it's just done, I
upload it and schedule it to be sent out. Okay, like, and this process may not work for everybody, but it is what works for me.
So I'm going to do a quick recap. So the first thing you have to do in order to record your podcast, interviews and segments is figure out the format first and foremost. And I've done a few episodes and YouTube videos on show guidelines, like your like how to create show guidelines for your podcast, I recommend once you have the format figured out, create some show guidelines that you can send to your guests and let them know hey, by the way, this is a little
bit about my audience who they are. And here is some information about the format of the show, right? Like, I'll introduce you while we're recording live, or I'll you know, you don't have to worry about saying your links, because I'll put those in the show notes afterwards. And don't worry if your dog barks, your kid comes in screaming like, I like to put those things in there. So my guests know. That is what they can expect whenever they do an interview for the
Proffitt Podcast. So formatting is very important. The second is recording, don't try to record everything because I'll hear of people saying they're so stressed out. Because they recorded this hour long interview, then they were like, Oh, I tried to go and record the intro and the outro. But I was tired. I was tired after the interview. And I'm like, yeah, you just talked to someone for an hour, and you probably had a really engaging conversation. And maybe your brain is a little
wiped out. And you're like, I don't even know what my name is right now. Because I'm really tired. I get like I've had those days, I've had those interviews. So don't feel like you have to go and record everything before the interview or even right after give yourself a little whitespace to figure out what you really want to say in the intro in the outro in the recordings, however you want to splice together your episodes, but you
don't have to do everything in one sitting. And that brings me to the third point editing everything all together. I recommend absolutely splitting up these tasks over a few days if you can, okay, and I know that that workflow won't work for everybody because a lot of y'all are solopreneurs, right? You're solo podcasters you're doing this on your own. You're like I don't have an editor I'm doing it myself. Like I only have two hours on a Saturday for me to get all this
stuff together. Because I have a full time job like I get it, I understand it. But if you can spread some of this workload out over a week's time, so you're not having to task switch between recording, editing, planning, publishing, marketing, like all the things okay, I want you to make this process enjoyable. Make it where it's something that doesn't stress you out. It's something you're excited to do, right like that's what this is really all about. I want podcasters
being excited. about creating their content. It's why I love what I do. It's what gets me excited. Whenever I know that you are enjoying the process. Oh, y'all, this is a fun episode today. I was I was really fired up to talk about this because we haven't talked about formatting in segments and a podcast in a while. And it's, again, why I wanted
to do a throwback to the basics. And if you're interested in learning more about the basics, if what I talked about here today is just feels so over your head, and you're just like, Oh, my gosh, I didn't even know I needed to think about podcasting in this way, then you might be the right fit for our course Proffitt Podcasting. So I know I've talked about it several times. We've had
lots of ads in the show about it. But this is just a shameless plug right now for all of you pro Proffitt Podcasting students out there, like y'all know, you're like, Oh, yeah, Krystal already talks about all this in the course we talked about formatting, like she shows you step by step, how to create your show guidelines that you can send to your guests, and all the things so if you feel lost, make sure you go check out the show notes, KrystalProffitt.com/Episode257, to dig into how
Proffitt Podcasting can help you and how you can learn more about it. Because we have a lot of fun in the course. And I make podcasting fun, I make it enjoyable. But the thing that I do really well is breaking these complex ideas, these complicated structures, whether it's the tech or the software, and I break it down in a very digestible way. There are very short videos, we have PDF workbooks
that help you go through the course. And I would love for you to join us in there if you are ready to take your podcast journey to the next level. And I called you out earlier, but if you're the person that's been listening to the show for a while, and you still you still have not started your podcast, you are probably the perfect fit for Proffitt Podcasting, I'm just gonna throw it down. Like I feel like I just threw the gauntlet down.
Like, I believe that there are a lot of you out there that are trying to figure out how to do podcasting on your own maybe even jumping around listening to podcast episodes, trying to piece together YouTube videos. You don't have to do all that you can just join us in Proffitt Podcasting.
So again, go to KrystalProffitt.com/Episode257, to learn more about Proffitt Podcasting and how I can help you. But that's all I have for you today. So make sure that you follow this podcast wherever you're listening. And I would love it if you would leave us a rating and a review. I love reading all of these. They're so much fun. And I just so appreciate this podcast community because y'all are what keeps me coming back every single week. And it just makes it so much more fun knowing that
I'm not doing this by myself. I'm actually talking to other people on the other end of this microphone and I'm so appreciative. appreciative, I can never say that word, right. I so appreciate all of y'all being a part of this community. But that's all I have for you today. So remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.