Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to the live stream. My name is Joe Casabona. You know that you're here. Thanks so much for joining. We're just getting started here so I'll give people a few minutes to kind of come in.
Get myself set up here and make sure I'm going to all the destinations I expect to be going to. It looks like I am on Twitter. This is like my favorite part of the day. I just kind of go through my profiles and make sure that I am live streaming where I should be.
There I am on LinkedIn going to YouTube where I am live and then finally, lastly, and at least, at least for me, is Twitch. I don't do a lot on Twitch. Not as much as I should. I also like I get it when I go to Twitch.
There's like an auto live stream playing and I hate that, but I get it. I get why. Okay, anyway, thanks so much for being here. If you are tuning in, let me know where you're coming from. Let me know who you are.
And I'll give you a little shout out on the live stream. Now, if you're new to these, I have two things that I do to help podcasters. One is my main show. It's called Streamlined solopreneur streamline.fm. I have an episode every Monday and then there's a membership associated with that.
But that's not what I'm going to talk about here today. The other thing is podcast workflows where I am creating and there's a newsletter there and articles for helping busy solopreneurs with a podcast improve their process so that they can keep producing a quality show without spending too much time on it.
So my two goals there are save you time like 10 to 12 hours per week while also allowing you to create a good show. I think that this is a worthwhile goal and something that I have focused the last like decade of my life to.
So if you are interested, you can head over to podcast workflows.com slash join and sign up for the free newsletter. Last couple things I see people are coming in. If you are here, leave a comment. Let me know who you are, where you're coming from.
And if you have any questions, I'm always happy to answer them, of course. So today we are going to talk about if you should stop doing interviews for your podcast.
Now this is kind of a hopper and issue right because most podcasts or interview podcasts and sometimes when I present this idea to people, they are a little bit taken aback. They're a little hesitant.
Because if you are not doing interviews, what kind of content are you creating? I think is the idea. And so there's kind of three areas I want to cover here for why you might not want to do interviews.
One is from a content standpoint. One is from an authority standpoint and one is from a workflows standpoint. And I should say right at the top here that I do an interview show.
Streamline solopreneur is at this point predominantly an interview show. I have been trying to, well, I've been making an effort to move in the direction of more solo shows with the caveat that I don't know that I would ever get rid of interviews for that show altogether.
But you know, never say never. I think that there's a lot of value for the mission. The mission of that podcast is to get people help a busy solopreneur streamline their processes right and optimize their business.
Mostly it's a very parents focused podcast because I am a parent. And so I want to save parents who are running a solopreneur business or even like a small business time. And there are a lot of really smart people out there beyond me.
And so their input and advice is welcome. That said, this has gone from a fully interview show to last year I was doing a solo episode every so often. Now I'm doing a solo episode every four ish episodes.
And I'd like to get to 5050. So that's my goal for streamline solopreneur my other podcast podcast workflows. That is a fully solo show for me it's me talking for 15 to 20 minutes, creating a great resource for potential customers of mine right potential coaching
clients. And so let's kind of dive into exactly why you should consider not doing an interview podcast right and maybe maybe you're still planning your show and you're thinking about it and you thought oh yeah it needs to be an interview show
because you are several years into it and you're like I only do interview shows how would I even consider doing a not interview show. There's there's a few things that we can walk through so I'll also point you to this page which I will.
I'll put it in the chat, which will show up in YouTube and I think twitch, but it's over a podcast workflows.com slash mini. It's why, you know, this is positioned as a mini podcast I definitely need to update it a little bit but here's where I make the main
focus that you should maybe focus on a solo podcast right a short solo podcast so let's start with the content standpoint. Right.
Maybe you've been in a situation right I think I know a lot of podcasters are in this situation where they have an interview lined up and then that interview gets moved or canceled.
And now you don't have an episode for next week. Or you have a guest interview where there are a lot of technical issues, or it's just, it just doesn't go well.
Their their side of the recording is lost or the whole recording is lost, or they go on a bunch of tangents and they don't really stay focused to the thing that you were supposed to talk about. I've had guests like that where I had them.
You know, I've had people on and we wanted I want to talk about a specific topic for my audience and they just kind of started promoting their own stuff a lot.
And then you're in a hard situation there because you're like well I just spent an hour or more talking to this person.
I came here to see. Sorry, I lost my train of thought because Matt Medeiros coming in here saying I came here to say no good day sir.
Matt, thanks for being here. I almost I accidentally almost clicked the band button.
So, but Matt, Matt's coming here and say no you should not stop doing interviews.
And maybe that's true. Maybe I'll get there. But so anyway, maybe you're you've done the interview and it wasn't very good and now you're considering well what should I do with this.
Is this wasted time? Is it lost the annals of history? What do I say to the guest where I'm like I nixed you know oh I had to nix our podcast or podcast recording.
And there are ways around that but the point is a lot of things go wrong with podcast interviews or can go wrong with podcast interviews.
I say this as somebody who has been doing podcast interviews for over 10 years, right?
The internet connection is really bad. The guest is not using headphones or they're using the built-in microphone or they're calling in from their phone or they're trying to record in a coffee shop.
These are all things that have happened to me.
Back in the day before Riverside was a thing, my guest forgot to record their side of the audio.
And so I only had my side of the audio. There was one time where I forgot to use my mic and I used the built-in mic and so I ended up recording, re-recording only my side and combining them later.
So and that's not even like the content side of things.
So from a content standpoint, having solo episodes can help you deliver more focused, high-value content tailored to your audience's needs.
Because this is the other thing, right? I vet my guests pretty well.
We have a pre-interview before we record. I do some research on the front end before even inviting them onto the show.
If they pitch me, I look through some of their stuff and I make sure that it would be a worthwhile recording.
And to be honest, the pre-interview in at least one instance has gone poorly enough that I said, I don't think this is going to be a good recording.
And we stopped it right there. And that's like uncomfortable, but it's really important for me to deliver good content for my audience.
And so if you're not doing interviews and you are focusing on solo shows, then you can create focused content because you understand your audience best.
Your audience trusts you and then you can kind of anticipate their needs a little more instead of leading a guest to the conclusion.
And so that's the first thing. I think that you can create great solo content. You don't need to rely on a guest.
This is obviously going to rely heavily on what your podcast is about. If your podcast is about telling other people's stories, then you're going to have to do interviews, right?
But if your podcast is around your area of expertise, then you can create really good shows.
You don't need to bring other people on to teach them. They can learn from you.
And this is the second point that I want to make, right?
And maybe the strongest point, to be honest with you, is from an authority standpoint, if you started your business or your podcast to build your authority and your expertise and maybe grow your business, right?
And you bring somebody else on. The spotlight is going to them. The authority is going to them.
You have to be a fairly skilled interviewer to keep the spotlight on both of you and have the conversation on both of you.
And then honestly, in that instance, right, if you're trying to keep the spotlight on you, it comes off as a weak interview.
Maybe the guest is upset that maybe they've wasted their time, right?
And so if you are doing solo episodes, you, the spotlight's on you, right? There's the classic hero's journey, right? From Joseph Campbell and Don Miller talks about it in Storybrand, where in a story, we have the hero and we have the guide.
We are not the hero. The listener is the hero, which means that when you have an interview, the interviewee, the person you're interviewing, is probably the guide.
They are the Obi-Wan Kenobi to your listeners, Luke Skywalker. They are the Gandalf to your listeners Frodo, right?
And if you're trying to build your own authority, you want to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. I always want to be Obi-Wan Kenobi.
You want to be Gandalf because you want people to trust you and understand that you know what you're talking about.
And if you, again, if you started your podcast to build your business and build your authority, it's a lot harder to do that with an interview.
So if I take, and if I take both of my shows, right, The Streamline Solo Prenuer, formerly How I Built It,
that was always an interview show. And I feel like I got lucky, not in the sense that like, oh, I lucked into creating really good content and being a good interviewer and generally curious.
But I lucked into a different monetization model because I don't know how many people know this, but when I first started my podcast, this is the one I started in 2016.
I had one before that, that was terrible. No offense to anybody who I did that part.
It was like me and a few friends from Scranton, we talked about things that we didn't really know much about and we did it on Skype and it was not very good.
And it was like mostly because there was like five or six of us. And like, that's just a really hard thing to do on a podcast, especially if the moderator is especially bad.
So anyway, when I started How I Built It, now the Streamline Solo Prenuer, my goal was to interview WordPress developers specifically around a thing that I was teaching in my online courses so that I could point people to,
hey, if you are interested in learning how to use paid memberships pro, I have a course on how to use paid memberships pro.
And the problem with that was I had way more guests than courses and I didn't do a good job of kind of cross promoting that.
And I didn't prove to anybody that I could teach them effectively how to use those tools, right?
Like talking to the, like my friend Jason Coleman was my first ever guest, he was great. And interviewing him does not tell the audience that I can teach them how to use paid memberships pro or the beaver builder guys, right?
And they, I mean, they were hugely helpful in promoting my course because it was a really good course, but like, I'm confident that my podcast converted no one who didn't already know me to buy that course.
And the reason I looked into it, into a monetization model is because other people reached out and they're like, hey, we really love what you're doing with the podcast, we'd love to sponsor it.
And so I started to make money that way through sponsorship. And then like, I, you know, I was like conflicted, should I even promote my own stuff when sponsors are paying me? And now of course I feel like, yes, right?
It is your, and if you feel uncomfortable, then like have three sponsorship spots and use one of them for your own stuff, right? Like maybe give your own stuff equal time to the sponsors.
But I was really conflicted at that time. And, you know, it was part of the reason that I was unable to really leverage my audience early on and I'm doing a much better job of that now.
And Streamline Solo Prenuer has obviously changed, right? I'm not interviewing WordPress developers anymore. I'm interviewing busy solopreneurs who are probably parents and trying to save time in their business and teaching my listeners how to save time in their business.
But I am doing more solo episodes as well. That's more of a behind the scenes look at how I'm running my solopreneur business. It's not doing a really good job of showing people that I can help them with their podcast.
But Streamline Solo Prenuer is also like, you know how people say like those who can't do teach?
Streamline Solo Prenuer is me doing, right? With a successful podcast. It's depending on who you ask in the top one to four percent of podcasts, right?
I think it like routinely charts number one in good pods, maybe. Alex, hey, thanks for being here on hanging out on X. That's been a really fun platform for me to stream to.
I feel like it really boosts the numbers, which is weird because none of my other stuff on X ever does well. But thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.
So anyway, Streamline Solo Prenuer is kind of the place for me to perfect the craft a little bit, right? Do the interviews all for the membership.
Try the solo episodes, see how they resonate and then take that information back to my coaching clients. And that's where podcast workflows comes in, right?
I have a podcast called podcast workflows where I teach people how to create a good podcast, how to save time and improve their podcast workflows.
And that is only me. Very rarely will there be a an interview with another podcast expert. Not because I don't want to, not because I'm like anti that, right?
I'll like cross publish Streamline Solo Prenuer episodes over there. In fact, I'm doing one with my friend Sarah St. John, right?
We had a podcast interview and she talked about her tools and I think it would be very valuable to the podcast workflows audience.
But that is solely for me to create a resource for people who are considering hiring me for coaching or they're interested in being a better podcaster and like the best way I believe to win clients is to be really, really generous with everything that you know.
And podcast workflows is the place for me to do that. So that is only solo episodes.
Video like a dad. Thanks for being here over on YouTube. It looks like thanks for tuning into the live stream. Appreciate you.
If you have any questions about anything I'm talking about, definitely feel free to drop them in the chat. If you're watching on LinkedIn or X, I will periodically check over there for comments because those are not pushed to me.
If you are on, well, actually it looks like X is somehow.
But if you're on, so I guess if you're on X, Twitch or YouTube, they're pushed to me. LinkedIn is not. So if you're on LinkedIn, I'll be checking periodically.
So those are my two podcasts and and one is interviews and that is sponsored all the way. And my goal there is just to create really good content and tell a good story.
My goal for podcast workflows is to establish my authority and my expertise. And I don't feel like I'd be able to do that effectively. If I was doing interviews and bringing on other podcast coaches or other podcast experts,
because they are the expert and again, nothing against them. A lot of my friends, right? Matt Medeiros is here. He's a well weathered podcaster who has a wealth of experience.
And I love chatting with him.
But the goal of podcast workflows is to show people I know what I'm talking about, not to show people that I know people who know what they're talking about. And I hope that makes sense, right?
Maybe that sounds selfish. Oh, Alex, again, just moving to YouTube. Love that.
YouTube is great. YouTube is definitely my favorite place to stream. I mean, it helps build my channel. I do have super chats and super stickers enabled.
But it's just like it creates a nice resource for me, right? And like something else I haven't, I didn't mention in this live stream, right? Is that my, this is going to be a place where I'm kind of testing out topics for the next book I'm writing,
which is tentatively called podcast cheat codes. I have gotten mixed feedback on the name, mostly because like if my niche is busy solopreneur parents who have a podcast and want to save time, then it should be like a clearer for them.
But also, you know, busy solopreneur parents who have a certain age where we remember like the cheat code guides that you could buy for Nintendo or any SNES or whatever, with all the video game like cheat codes that you could put in.
And so like that's definitely like for people of a certain age and I am of that certain age. So I really like that idea.
And like probably like the tagline will be something about really who the book is for. I just read write useful books, super great.
I've written six books before this one with the aforementioned Matt Medeiros. And I still got a ton out of that book. So highly recommend.
Oh, Neil, thanks for being here, Neil Viglio tuning in makes perfect sense to me. We all want to lift each other when possible. But we've also got got to pay bills.
And you can't pay them if you're feeling icky about self promotion amid your cross promotion. This is a real really well put Neil generally is really good at putting things in a really good way right just like a very direct way.
And this is true, right? If we if you're starting a podcast or a YouTube channel or a whatever.
And you have a business like you have to self promote.
I tell my kids all the time like my daughter when she wants something she seven when she wants something.
She will like walk up to me and sigh heavily and look at the thing she wants and then look at me and then sigh heavily again. And I just I go Trees.
What do you want? Like you have don't ask don't get.
Like I can't start a podcast where my goal is to get more coaching clients and then do the podcast version of sighing heavily and looking at the thing and then looking back at my audience and like frowning and sighing again.
I have to be like hey, if you think this advice is good and you believe I can help you hire me because if the free stuff is this good, just imagine how good the paid stuff is.
So I really love that. Thanks Neil.
Glad you appreciated that.
And then Alex saying wow we got an active chat today really excited about this been pondering ways to do more audio video content to promote siren affiliates.
Considering the exact format you're discussing here this is this is great. Thank you Alex.
We should chat like send me a DM because I think this is right this is really important we want to.
I think this is like a million years ago now and in internet time this is like pre pandemic so it's like even like 400 million years ago.
But in 2018, Seth Godin said that podcasting is the new blogging because podcasting I'm paraphrasing here is the generous act of showing up right.
And it's really easy for us to feel smart me because we see smart me right any anytime someone sends me a LinkedIn request without a message.
And their title is like digital marketer I'm like 20 bucks says I'm going to accept this and they are going to pitch me immediately and that's gross right or the emails that you get from these people who that one guy was like, I can increase your
views up to 10 million viewers in a week or whatever.
And I'm like one is inclusive of up to 10 million right you didn't say 10 million you said up to 10 million and what anything between one and 900 million 999999 is up to 10 million so like it's really easy to feel smart me but like
you are doing a podcast or a live stream like this, where you're just teaching and not not really directly selling on yet 10 no up to 10 million right so it's like five.
But like, I mean, but this is the point right like our BS detector is high everyone's BS detector is probably a little bit high, especially like, depending on the niche you're in.
Right and like Alex you could probably testify to the fact that some people just see the word affiliate and are like skieved out by it right like.
So showing up on a podcast or a live stream like this and being genuine and showing like showing people that you care more about them getting some value from you then giving you some money is really great and so this is what I like about
podcasting I also tell people like podcasting is the like the 15th date like social media is like the first date and podcasting is like the 15th date right so most people aren't just stumbling upon your podcast, and they might right like you optimize right.
I'm all about like optimizing the title and the tagline in the description, so people who are looking for that type of content can find it.
But nobody is like, most people aren't like clicking through like on a social media posting like, hey, here's a 30 second clip from my podcast now go listen to the whole thing.
Right because that's kind of like saying.
You say to your friend like hey I'm going to just go for a walk I just need to like stretch my legs and they're like why don't we run a marathon like no I just I just want to take a walk I'm not ready to run a marathon so.
I think that anyway, creating good content for people and being genuine is really important, and you could do that with a solo show right because you're just kind of brain dumping.
The immediate pitch is so off putting. Yeah, I don't even respond to those I just immediately like this can if I if I was like dumb enough to connect with them.
I will immediately like unconnect from them right because that's like it's such an incredible waste of time for everybody involved like I can't imagine that works.
I must but like, you know, my VA last year like I hired a VA for a short amount of time.
She connected with me on LinkedIn, but she didn't immediately say like hey do you need a VA she was like hey really like your content hey blah blah blah hey we should.
Like what's your VA situation like.
And then I was like hey we should do like a live stream together like this is really useful and like it was a good fit.
And like the lead time was like probably six months right and I hired her for a little while and she helped me out and so you know it's all about their relationships and again like being genuine.
That's so much of what I want to prove to people.
That's not snake oil.
Yeah, love it.
Neela saying great analogy about the marathon exactly why people need to be educated that tick tock is not solving podcast discovery like gurus claim.
Yes, it helps it's not the solution.
Also, like tick tock knows that right because like they had you used to be able to connect your rss feed to tick tock.
And then like associate a short form video with an episode and they killed that like they knew that wasn't working because that's not what people wanted from tick tock right.
You know you're you don't want to you're not going to a gas station for sushi probably.
You know you're going to a sushi place and so people need to be in the right mindset if they're going to like sit down and listen to you for 20 minutes or a half hour.
Oh yes they know.
So, yeah, so I think that being genuine showing up in the right places is really important.
And yes, like, like, use your podcast on social media to share genuine things from like I always tell people like a short form clip.
That's like a teaser for the episode is not the way to go right like find a complete thought.
And then like maybe get people onto your mailing list right because that there they'll be closer like.
If I'm still I'm going to overdo this analogy like this is like I'm really good at coming up with analogies, but then like I definitely overdo them.
The newsletter is like training for the marathon right it's like people find you on social media it's really easy for them to click and just sign up for your newsletter that takes a few seconds and then
they can go back to doom scrolling or whatever they were doing right and then you are in their inbox and you can say hey I have a new like you're on this mailing list because you want to learn X, Y and Z.
I just did a podcast episode about X, Y and Z. Check it out or subscribe right like you like you want to push people incrementally towards your podcast that's why I say it's the the 15th date and not the first right.
You're not asking for the marriage proposal on the first date probably unless your Ted Mosby.
Yeah, but like you know if they're on your mailing list and they see oh like maybe I should check this podcast out oh I'm going on a car ride right like I'm going to be in the car for an hour or two.
And I want something to listen to maybe I'll check out this podcast right.
My friend Chanel Basileo was on. Thanks Neil thanks for being here. I really appreciate it I know it's like probably later for you right if you are where I think you are.
So thanks so much for being here and for your input always always appreciated.
My friend Chanel Basileo was on Jay Claus's podcast today with my other friend Becky and Becky Davidson. BPD is usually called her. But a lot of people call her I guess.
And Chanel said that she got some really interesting insights from readers that she does these amazing like if you haven't seen growth and reverse like growth and reverse calm check it out.
She reverse engineers how people grew their mailing list and like the things that work.
And they are very long like thousands of words.
And they're all like and they're all really well done right.
And she got feedback from readers that like hey I love your newsletter.
I usually end up reading like reading them all in one sitting like once a month.
Like they just binge her content right because they get the email on Sunday and maybe they're not ready to read that on Sunday right they're not going to stop what they're doing to read that but they want to read it and so they pocket it for when they're ready right.
And the pocket not the service but like put it somewhere safe for them to read later is what I mean.
I guess maybe that's where the name came from but.
So your podcast is the same way right your listeners need to be in the right mindset they need to be ready for it.
Okay so I've gotten a little bit off the rails here but this was really good thanks to everybody showing up in the chat I really appreciate it great conversation happening today.
Always always good.
When there's like crickets in the live stream it kind of it feels like I'm just like kind of like yelling down a hallway.
And an empty school I guess but so thank you everybody for for the fantastic chat.
Okay so talked a little bit.
Growth in reverse Alex what was that website I'm going to type it in actually here I'll bring it up on the big screen.
So you all can see it growth in reverse dot com and I will maybe be better about going to a not 404 site like typing it better.
Okay there we go.
So it is growth in reverse.
This is my friend Chanel she's great huge fan of her work.
Also lives relatively close so we get to hang out off you know every so often so big fan of this newsletter Chanel does great work and like also she really she's she helps me she's going to help me make this point right because
her newsletter grew really quickly in a very short amount of time because she was doing deep research or is she still does doing deep research creating great content generously showing up.
And now she has people asking her like hey will you audit my newsletter hey do you have a community where I can meet other people who are trying to grow their newsletter.
Do you have a course where I can learn from you.
And and you know she started the newsletter because she was curious and she decided to share what she was learning and she just gave her first main stage talk at Kraft and commerce that last week because she's been generously sharing so
newsletter is her medium.
For some people pot like I fully believe in podcasting that's definitely my medium I obviously talk a lot I write a lot but I talk a lot.
And so generously share is maybe the right I mean the name of this the name of this live stream is like should you stop doing podcasts interviews because that's like a question and it's a little bit inflammatory and hopefully it got some of you here to learn some good
stuff but like if you follow like better edges law of headlines right the answer as Matt said earlier is usually no when the headline is that because if if it's a question then it's open ended right if I fully believe you should stop doing podcast interviews I would that
was is what it would be called but I think there's a lot of reasons to not do podcast interviews or not only do podcast interviews so especially if you're trying to create content to establish your authority.
A solo podcast is better that doesn't mean you can never have guests but your focus should be on how can I best teach what I know to my potential audience.
And that brings me to the last point here that I have prepared which is the workflow standpoint right.
When I put out a poll or a survey to my audience.
I was a little and I should I should probably bring this this stuff up but I was a little bit surprised at the results because I thought for sure.
For the question like where do you feel you spend the most time.
The answer was going to be editing but it seems like the people on my list.
Are you they're not editing which everybody should edit edit your podcast.
They're either not editing or they've already like that's something that they've already outsourced right and so planning and create like planning the content coming up with content showed up a lot.
And I get it right if you're doing interviews you want to vet you don't want to just have any schmuck who's like I can come on your podcast.
Someone pitched me one time and they're like hey I want to come on your podcast and talk about my conference and it has to be our interview has to be out by July 1.
And I'm like cool what you're talking about is a sponsorship.
You want me to talk about a specific thing for a specific amount of time.
That's a sponsorship.
If your conference was about you know how to how to better use your iPhone or something.
Kind of better use your iPhone and you want to come and talk about like the top three things most people aren't doing with their iPhone.
Maybe that's a good topic right but just like saying like hey I want to talk about my conference right or like hey hey my book comes out next month.
Have me on to talk about your book that's a terrible pitch.
But hey my book I'm interviewing Katie Brinkley in a couple of months about her book called the social shift.
But like first of all I pitched her right because her book is great and what she talks about is great.
But we're not just going to talk about her book we're going to talk about like a specific section of her book.
Hopefully that'll get people to buy her book right.
But my point here is that you have to vet your guests.
You have to do some research.
If you're not doing it lazily then you also have to come up with good questions right because you don't want to like you don't want.
You don't want your guests to be on like the press junket that like movie stars are on right where they just kind of sit in a room or like go from booth to booth and get like the same questions from correspondence from a bunch of different TV networks and radio shows and YouTube channels right.
You don't want them to feel that way because if you've ever watched like a like a press junket supercut it's like lots of the same stuff.
You want the interviews to feel unique and like they're delivering value specifically for your audience and that takes a lot of work.
Not to mention booking them and getting them on the call and like again my friend Sarah St. John is a podcaster and we spent 40 like there was some.
Super weird technical issue that was affecting her microphone and her headphones and it wouldn't record in Riverside or squadcast until we ended up having to do zoom and then I had her use quick time to record her side of the audio.
So that like we didn't get like this weird compression and she's a seasoned podcaster like if that had happened to one of my guests who is not a podcaster.
It might have taken longer or we might have had to scrap the interview and so there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong and interviews there's a lot of time consuming stuff the editing is harder because even if you hire an editor like you have to send them both.
You know your audio and their audio and if it's like one file then like the dog barking while you're talking but they're not talking like can't be taken out and so there's just a lot more.
Like where with this like I just did a solo episode last night well yesterday evening about time tracking that's coming out in a couple of weeks for the streamlined solopreneur and sent it to my editor and I was like.
Super easy edit just clean it up and send it back right because like he like he levels my audio.
You can like I hate I hate that you can hear my breath like when I breathe.
But like editing it out completely sounds unnatural and he whatever he does is great like whatever he does.
To like make it sound like I'm not gasping for air every time I talk but I'm like more like naturally breathing is really good and so send it off to him and he'll clean it up and send it back right so that's like that's a lot easier.
You can control the content better and you're and it's going to save you a ton of time and then finally finally.
You can batch episodes right even if you're only interviewing for like 30 minutes it's going to take more than 30 minutes right you're gonna get on the call you're gonna chit chat and warm up a little bit you're gonna record.
You might go an hour anyway depending on how verbose your guest is I talk a lot.
And I'm very like and actually if you do like a super cut of recent like of interviews I do you will probably hear me say at some point I'm sorry I've been talking for a long time let's stop here do you have any follow up questions right like.
Without a doubt because they asked me something I'm really passionate about and then I go off and I would edit that down right I always make notes for what to edit down some people don't do that.
You can control that with a solo episode right you even if you go off topic you can stop recording or like just edit that out and then keep recording.
And so it's going to be easier and then you can batch those episodes so if you're shooting for 20 minutes.
You can record two or three episodes in an hour maybe like an hour and 10 minutes right.
Or you can record four episodes over an hour and a half and now you have a month's worth of content where no one canceled on you and you're not panicking at the last minute.
So that's my case ladies and gentlemen of the jury for why you shouldn't do interviews and again heavy caveat this depends on the mission statement of your show.
If that like Conan O'Brien's podcast would be nothing without interviews but Conan O'Brien ain't put like he's not trying to get hired right his his podcast is not to help him land more clients or get more customers.
His podcast is a thing that he's able to do and control without some network hiring Jay Leno instead right like without pulling out the rug pulling out the rug from under him.
Same thing with Joe Rogan right like Joe Rogan's podcast would be nothing without interviews right like he would just spend his time.
I don't know probably talking about all the comedians who steal jokes or something.
That's right I'm old school old school disliking Joe Rogan.
For like that I don't know that just felt weird and petty right but.
But if if you are trying to also like if you like Joe Rogan that's fine.
He's not my cup of tea and I can't listen to his podcast in the car with my kids anyway because he's got a potty mouth.
So.
It really depends on the mission statement you show if you're like Alex right and you're trying to.
Engraciate yourself with potential customers and tell people like how to effectively do affiliate programs.
And then like you could be like by the way like siren affiliates is a really good thing right like here's why we do things differently right.
I should also I'm making an assumption Alex that like siren affiliates is like for people who want to do affiliate programs.
But maybe like it's a way to manage affiliates or something like that like.
Alex is still here I'm really sorry.
If you want to give me like the elevator pitch I can I can correct that on the record right but.
The point being right if you have a show and you're trying to establish your expertise or you're trying to put out good.
Good content.
That helps people you don't need to do interviews right.
If you're if you're an outdoorsy person.
You don't need to have Bear Grylls on your show you can tell people the five the five most important things you learned being in the woods.
Dead on dude thank you.
Great.
So you know.
Check out siren affiliates I certainly will this is really timely actually I just interviewed my friend.
Justine Gallia also at ConvertKit.
About like what makes a good affiliate program and so.
Maybe you know could be some good synergy or something else to mention.
Because I'll be talking about affiliates on streamline solo canoeing a little bit but.
That's a topic I know nothing about and so I shouldn't have talked about it right.
That's like.
I think maybe that's the main that's the main takeaway here.
Because even if you if you have a solo show.
Your topics should or if you have a show about your expertise you should focus in on.
The things that you can really help people with and then you can always bring other people on.
To.
Talk more about the things you're unfamiliar with right.
I get sponsors on my podcast I'm I've been doing it for a long time I'm a sponsorship coach which with Justin Moore.
But when I had him on my show.
I you know this is something that I cross promoted with podcast workflows because.
I learned a lot of what I know from him and if your only goal right now for your podcast is to get sponsors.
Justin's a better guy to go to right.
So I think that's really I think that's really important right there's no black and white answer obviously but.
If you are trying to put out a good podcast.
Trying to save yourself some time and establish your expertise.
And create like tighter content solo shows are the way to go.
I really believe that I also feel this is not something else I said now I'm like in a soapbox a little bit but.
Everyone is everyone has an interview show.
Everyone has an interview show the first few podcasts were like white guys talking about Apple right.
And then like and then how stuff works right.
But it's like like a couple of people going deep on a topic.
Then as remote interviews got easier.
People started doing more interviews and now they're super easy with tools like zoom which I don't think you should use but like Riverside and squadcast.
Super easy right.
Cam live super easy.
And so that's what people are gravitating towards now.
And if you have an interview show.
It's easy to just be like well we're going to have a casual conversation right a casual unedited conversation.
No one wants to hear that right.
No one wants to especially if you have a friend on like I had my friend James Laws on my podcast a while ago.
And we went on I called them side quests we went on a bunch of side quests.
And I let my listeners know in the beginning like hey James and I go on a lot of tangents in this episode.
I put chapter markers in so you could skip over them if you want.
And so the people who didn't care or maybe knew both James and me.
Listen to the whole thing and the people who were just there to talk about like how it's like two older guys are trying to use tiktok.
Which I think is what we mostly talked about.
You know they were able to get that.
So.
Gosh I forgot why I started that point but it you know it's.
I guess I've run out of steam here oh yeah.
It's easy to like rest on your laurels and just say like I'm doing an interview and we're going to have what I think is an interesting conversation to other people surely will to.
And not put a lot of effort into your episodes when you're doing a solo show.
You want to make sure you deliver right so I do an outline sometimes I fully script it.
You know like when I write an article for a podcast workflows I'll use that as the basis for a script for that for that episode.
And now I have two pieces of content.
But I find myself putting more effort into the solo shows because I don't want to do what I've done here right live streams are a little bit different.
This would be this would make just like a God awful podcast episode without heavy editing.
So if I'm going to create and I'm going to because this is like one of the topics I want to have in my book.
I'm going to create a better outline than the one I had here I'm going to fill it out more and it's going to be tighter and it's going to be 20 minutes or less.
And doing that gives people something that they can listen to quickly.
That will deliver a bunch of value for them.
Okay.
Thank you everybody for being here lots of comments lots of great discussion people have just joined if you're just joining you have a question about doing interviews or solo shows.
Let me know.
I'll keep an eye on this and over on LinkedIn if you're on anything but LinkedIn it should get pushed to me.
If you're on LinkedIn I will try to figure out how the comments work there because it's confusing sometimes.
So I'm really sorry if you left a comment and I haven't heard and I haven't seen it or addressed it.
I'm not I haven't seen it come up either in my notifications or in the comment section on LinkedIn so.
But yeah I'll wait a little bit I'll vamp a little bit.
And then if questions are coming in I'm happy to answer them so.
I'll point you to podcast workflows.com slash join again because this is the kind of stuff I talk about all the time.
I'm working on a new email for the welcome sequence there.
So like a dad thanks for being here thanks for the info really appreciate it really appreciate you hanging out here and watching what sometimes became very soapboxy.
But anyway I'm working on a new first email for the welcome sequence to kind of set the tone a little bit for the email right on Mondays you get the latest episode of Streamline solopreneur.
But because it's a podcast focus newsletter there's also a behind the scenes section about something interesting that happened behind the scenes for that episode right or something I was considering for that episode so.
You'll get a little bit of a behind the scenes look at how I am producing my 75% interview 25% solo show podcast that is sponsored actually I think I have a full deck of.
Excuse me of sponsors coming up sold all the inventory which is pretty rare and very exciting so you'll get behind the scenes look there.
Wednesdays it's always like a little amuse-bouche to what the live stream is going to be so that's like where the focus thoughts really come in.
And then if there is a Friday newsletter that's usually going to be longer form you know something about maybe one of the three things and podcasting that I do on Thursday on Thursdays that come out on Fridays or something else like that so.
Lots of valuable stuff there hopefully for you over a podcast workflows.com slash join Alex thanks for for being here.
I appreciate you and.
And everybody who tuned in thanks so much for your comments.
And, Jeanette thanks for being here man. Really excited to see your name pop up thank you so much. I'm glad you didn't get too much of me yesterday. Jeanette and I are in a mastermind together where I got some really really great advice yesterday so.
Yeah thanks thanks so much for being here. Okay, I think that's a good place to leave it we are at five to the top of the hour and I need a drink of water from my stream line solar pretty much drinking vessel but I'm not going to do that in the mic because that's gross so.
Okay, thank you so much for watching again head over to podcast workflows.com slash join if you want to join the mailing list and until next time. I'll see you out there.