- I am continually impressed with the caliber
of guests we get on our podcasts.
Rand Fishkin, Steli Efti, like, amazing people.
And if you go to our podcast,
you can check out the entire list.
But I'm more humbled than amazed by this
piece of feedback I've gotten more than one time.
Which is, a guest will do the show,
and then, during the after interview,
they'll say how amazing the questions
I was asking were.
Or how I was able to dig a level deeper.
And it's not a hard thing to do.
So in today's video, I wanna go through
how we prepare for podcast interviews
and how you can do similar to ask better questions.
The main thing I'm trying to avoid
when it comes to podcast interview questions
is I don't want to ask a top performing guest
something he's heard a million times.
So off the bat, questions that can go
in the garbage are how did you start your business?
What was your biggest failure?
Basically anything John Lee Dumas would ask
on Entrepreneur on Fire.
No offense to John.
He has been on the podcast.
We had an amazing conversation.
But those basics, I always assume
they're covered in other places
and don't wanna cover anything like that.
So number one is, think of common questions
and then throw them out.
Number two is, when thinking of a question,
picture the answer in your mind.
And if the first word out of their mouth
is a yes or no, I throw the question out.
And this is from our Tim Ferris video.
We're gonna link down in the description
how he asks questions.
The amount of yeahs or yes's that Tim Ferris
gets from his guest is almost zero
compared to most other interviews
because of the way he thinks through
his questions before asking.
And then the other piece is to look at
other high-profile interviews these
entrepreneurs have had.
I interviewed Dr. Alex Mehr.
He's one of Tai Lopez's business partners.
He runs this company called Mentor Box.
Had a top five dating app.
A big get for the podcast.
I was very humbled and happy that he
found it worth his time to come on the show.
So before the interview, I listened to
Nathan Latka's interview with him on The Top.
Let's show a quick clip of that.
- [Alex] It's kinda the first time that
I've actually built a business around a passion.
So I've always been a bold creator.
You know, I'm the guy that when I go out with
my friends or we go, you know,
on vacations and this stuff,
I'm the guy to read a book in the corner.
- [Interview] (laughing) Saying don't,
don't bug me.
- [Alex] (laughing) Yeah don't.
- Nathan covered the basics.
He covered the revenue.
He covered why Dr. Mehr started his company.
He covered everything that I would've
asked him if I hadn't done the research.
So I didn't have to.
And I'm more than comfortable telling people
if they don't like the one level deep questions
that we ask on the podcasts to go listen
to The Top, or go listen to any of these
other interviews with the entrepreneurs.
So that's usually all it takes to do research.
Listen to one basic, surface-level podcast.
Good service-level podcasts are
The Top with Nathan Latka.
He loves to dig into the numbers
and some of the backstory.
Entrepreneur On Fire with John Lee Dumas,
he loves to ask the basic entrepreneurial questions.
And Rocketship.fm is another one where
they go into the basics of the entrepreneur.
If that's not enough, or there's no interviews
that work for them, luckily a lot of these guests
have podcasts of their own.
For instance, Barry Katz has been interviewing
hundreds of people on his podcast Industry Standard.
So it was enough to read his Wikipedia page
and listen to a couple of these interviews
in order to get a sense of who Barry Katz was.
- [Barry] No one actually tells you the actual
truth of what they are thinking in their head.
Which is, look motherf (bleeping) I'm getting
to that next level ahead of you.
- [Guest] Um hmm.
- [Barry] Okay?
It's me.
- When I'm doing this and it is someone like Barry Katz,
where they haven't been interviewed a lot,
I'm looking for places where they're
telling their own story.
Or the guest is asking them questions.
And usually it's enough to listen to
two or three episodes to get a very good idea
of who the person is.
And then running through that same system of
identifying what the common questions would be,
and then skipping over those questions
and going deeper.
And the third way is finding smaller YouTubers
and looking at those interviewers.
For instance, I just got off a podcast interview
with Dan Martell who has been interviewed on
almost every large podcast.
He was on Entrepreneur on Fire, he was on
all of these big shows.
But sometimes there's gold in finding interviews
that have under 500 views.
Like this one where Dan Martell goes on a rant
about something the podcaster says.
- Really, really excited to have you here
because I know how precious your time is.
- Dude, I just want you to know, I'm gonna stop.
I hate when people say that because our time,
it's not about who's more valuable.
- Okay.
- Like literally, I appreciate it.
You can say that, but I think people need
to stop saying that.
(laughing)
I never say it.
I've literally never said to a mentor of mine,
I know how valuable your time is.
Well who (bleeping) cares.
- Yeah.
- Sorry I'm going off on a tangent.
- Watching those smaller podcasts,
you see a lot of those rants,
because they're less experienced interviewers
most of the time.
So they make a lot of those rookie mistakes.
You get a better idea of what the common
questions are the guests might be asked.
And it's easier to pivot around those.
If you have your own podcast,
or any questions about podcasting,
lemme know down in the comments.
And any questions on the topic of interview research,
or anything when it comes to podcasting.
What are you struggling with?
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