My podcast went live a little over seven weeks ago and we’ve now got our first eleven episodes live. I was reflecting about the journey to date and thought I’d share some of my initial learnings over this period. Overall the process has been pretty smooth and problem free. We do have an audio agency working with us to assist with the audio editing and creation of show notes, and we do the interview planning, recording and marketing of the podcast internally. Nonetheless, I’ve still learnt a lot during this time. Here are a few tips so far:

Interviews can get cancelled 

As a monthly podcast, I need do record four episodes each month and whilst I started with a small bank of episodes ahead of where I needed to be, I learnt that podcast interviews that have been lined up can fall through. People can change their mind or they might not get corporate permission to be interviewed. Losing an interview without much notice can throw the schedule and make me scramble to get back ahead (which can take time).

Interviews can get postponed

I’ve had a few interviews postponed at the last minute because something came up with the person I’m interviewing. Fortunately, these were quickly rescheduled, but as I don’t leave the gear fully setup all the time and I’m still new so want to test the audio setup, it has wasted a bit of my time getting setup and then having an interview rescheduled at the last minute.

Shorter interviews are harder

My first interviews were pretty long - around 60 minutes and my initial inkling (based on the stats) is that this is longer than most people want to listen to. Even though there is lots of goodness in there, I’m now trying to cut some of the small talk and get to the value asap.  It’s a hard balance as the small talk sometimes uncovers great gems!

A two-step interview process is a big ask

As I want to deliver maximum value in the interview I do want to speak to my podcast guests before we record so that we can work out a focus area for the chat and make sure they can share an achievement and take us through the process, learnings and results. However this means we need to book in for a preparation call and then the podcast itself. It can be a bit of an ask to do this. I’m now trying to keep the prep call short and while on that call, to book the interview time. I’m also trialling doing the prep call directly before the interview in some cases. This does means I have less prep/thinking time about where the conversation will go, so I’ll be checking to see if it’s possible to still get as much value out of these interviews.

Listen before you launch 

It’s important to listen to the finished audio before you launch. Whilst we don’t do a high amount of editing, (basically just topping and tailing plus removing any glaring issues), it’s vital to make time to listen to the soon to be launched episode. It insures it is correct and is equivalent to proof-reading your work before you make it live. I’m sure the lessons will continue to come given that I’m still new to this podcast thing! If you haven’t listened to the Interactive Minds’ podcast yet, please listen here and leave us a review. We would love to hear what you think!