•We recommend the title of your show be something independent of your company and sync up well with the interests of your Dream 50. For example, our client avatar at Predictive ROI (Sally) is ambitious, and she wants to learn new things and is looking for practical and tactical strategies for moving her business onward to that next level. Because we know this about Sally, we decided to name our podcast Onward Nation and give it the tagline, “Learn how to think, act, & achieve like today’s top business owners.” Develop a name for your show that your Dream 50 will be drawn toward.
•You also ought to consider filing for a federal trademark to protect your show name. The last thing you want is to build a popular podcast only to find out the hard way that you infringed on an existing trademark in the process.
•Once you know the trademark is clear, register the domain name for your podcast.
Next you will need to define the “vital priority” and “vital metrics” of your podcast. Both of these topics were covered in depth in Chapter 2; now you’ll need to enter them into your Project Sheet.
The final ingredient—being able to describe your podcast to someone who is not familiar with it—is important because your approach to this will be used as the foundation for your intro and outro scripts in Chapter 10: Stage 3.
YOUR STRATEGIC PLANNING CHECKLIST
Schedule a ninety-minute kickoff session with you and your team.
Be prepared to lead a discussion around the content and thought leadership the podcast should create in order to align with the vital priorities you defined earlier.
Work with your team to define the vital metrics for the podcast. How will success be defined and measured?
Enter all of the data into your Project Sheet and share it with your team.
CHAPTER 9
STAGE 2:
GUEST EXPERIENCE AND WEBSITE GROUNDWORK
Welcome to Stage 2 of production for your profitable podcast. Your overarching goal for completing Stage 2 is to put a system into place that ensures that your guests have a good experience leading up to their interview. We call this the Guest Advocacy System. It’s a strategic process that cares for your guests between when they register for an interview on your show and when the interview takes place. The Guest Advocacy System will help your guests prepare for their interviews.
The strategy consists of an easy-to-use online registration system, automated thank-you and reminder emails that feel personal, reminders via text message, a question list, an equipment list to make sure guests sound as great as possible, and a marketing guide guests can use to help them get maximum exposure from their interview. In total, the Guest Advocacy System consists of numerous communications designed to make guests feel well cared for and to help build anticipation for the interview.
This chapter also includes instructions for how to set up the scheduling software and email templates, as well as examples of checklists so you can have a top-notch Guest Advocacy System at the ready.
In addition, Stage 2 will guide you through the process of collecting the initial website groundwork so your team can begin building a site that will serve as your podcast’s digital headquarters.
Lastly, all emails, Question Flows, and other templates are available in their native file formats for you to download for free at PredictiveROI.com/Resources/Stage-2.
Now, let’s move into Stage 2. Figure 9-1 highlights this stage’s production process.
The Project Sheet template in Figure 9-2 (see pp. 92–93) is available for your free download at PredictiveROI.com/resources/Stage-2. As with documents in Stage 1, it, too, is a Google Sheet template so you can copy it into your Google Docs account and then share the file with all of the members of your team who are involved with the production of your podcast. The Project Sheet is designed to help you and your team keep all of the tasks within Stage 2 moving along efficiently. There are many moving parts in Stage 2 so the Project Sheet is a valuable asset for keeping the process organized.
You and your team will likely need one to two weeks to complete Stage 2.
FIGURE 9-1
FIGURE 9-2
Recipe 1: Initial Documents
This is where you will create the majority of assets necessary to complete Stage 2. For example, you and your team will create your Question Flow for guests as well as a series of confirmation emails and a sound guide; you’ll also make some decisions regarding a third-party scheduling software that will enable you to automate much of your Guest Advocacy System.
In my opinion, a top-notch Guest Advocacy System includes an online scheduling system, calendar integration, and the creation of interview reminders and equipment recommendations for guests. It not only provides your guests with what they need in order to be great on your show, but also provides you as the host with the critical information you need in order to facilitate an excellent interview.
All of the sample emails in this chapter are available as templates that you can download for free at PredictiveROI.com/resources/Stage-2.
Let’s begin with your Question Flow, which is your list of questions in the order you plan to ask them during your interviews with guests. This is not a random set of discussion points or poorly crafted, amateur questions that are interesting only on the surface. You need to be strategic. Every question matters when putting your best foot forward with your guests.
Your questions must be top shelf so that when prospective guests review them as they consider whether to accept or reject your invitation, they will be impressed by your business acumen. Write questions that are not typical and organize them into a flow that makes logical sense.
Begin by asking a couple of “break the ice” questions. Then after some rapport has been built, you can take the discussion deeper with your third question. Ultimately, your questions need to sync up with the topics you want to learn more about and the knowledge you want to pass on to your audience. The answers your guests provide should help you better understand their businesses so you can evaluate if there could be an opportunity between your two companies in the future.
Figure 9-3 and Figure 9-4 are examples of the two Question Flows we use at Onward Nation. Figure 9-3 shows the standard set of questions that we have used for the majority of our episodes. However, there have been a number of guests whom we have invited back to the show for a special encore interview. In those instances, we want to ask them a completely different set of questions (Figure 9-4). But the encore questions build on the momentum created during their first interview.
I encourage you to follow a similar process. Your guests and your audience will appreciate your attention to detail.
Recipe 1 continues with the creation of several confirmation emails each of your Dream 50 prospects will receive once they complete the registration process to appear as a guest on your show. We recommend using ScheduleOnce as your scheduling software and as your primary distribution point for the confirmation emails.
We selected ScheduleOnce for the system because of its ease of integration with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Infusionsoft (our preferred CRM). We have found ScheduleOnce to be easy to work with, offer great support, and straightforward to install and set up.
FIGURE 9-3
FIGURE 9-4
You and your team should also take the opportunity to integrate Schedule-Once with a Gmail and Google account for the host so that when interviews are booked, they are dynamically added to the host’s calendar.
We interact with each of our Onward Nation guests as many as ten times before and immediately following the interview:
Touch 1: personalized guest invitation from me including interview Question Flow sample attached. I will provide you with a template of the invitation in one of the upcoming stages.
Touch 2: booking confirmation email sent via ScheduleOnce with interview questions attached for a second time. The guest received the questions the first time via my initial invitation (see Figure 9-5).
FIGURE 9-5
Title of email should
be: Booking Confirmation V1.
Everything in brackets and bolded is a variable that needs to be changed manually by you or your team.
Font sizes for paragraph text is size 12.
Everything in brackets not bolded is a system dynamic field.
Delete interviewer headshot space from email template.
The guest headshot is an attachment type field in the form build.
Subject: Your interview time with [Name of interviewer or podcast] is set!
Your interview booking is confirmed.
Dear [Customer name],
Your interview booking is confirmed. Please see below for more information. DOUBLE CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR CALENDAR’S TIME ZONE IS ACCURATE.
Here is the [list of questions] I will be asking you.
In addition, [here is a guide] to make sure we make the most out of our time and make sure you sound great!
Booking details:
Time:
[Starting date and time in customer’s time zone]
Calendar event:
If the event is not already in your calendar, you may add it from here:
[Calendar images and links]
Your information:
Your name: [customer name]
Your company: [customer company]
Your mobile phone number: [customer phone]
Touch 3: booking confirmation email sent to guests along with interview questions and “Sound Brilliant” recommendations. Please note: We attach the questions on multiple occasions because when we did it only twice early on some guests commented that they didn’t receive the questions. However, once we moved to three distributions we have not received another complaint (see Figure 9-6).
FIGURE 9-6
Your booking is confirmed
Dear Stephen Woessner,
Your booking is confirmed. Please see below for more information. DOUBLE-CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR CALENDAR’S TIME ZONE IS ACCURATE.
Here is the list of questions I will be asking you.
In addition, here is a great document detailing how to make your interview sound amazing!
Booking details
Time:
Thu, Jan 7, 2016, 01:00pm–02:00pm
United States; Central time (GMT-6)
Cancel/Reschedule
Calendar event
If the event is not already in your calendar, you may add it from here:
Your information
Your name:
Stephen Woessner
Company:
Predictive ROI
Your mobile phone:
+1 (608) 498-5165
Please note: By participating in the Business Rescue Roadmap interview, you agree to allow Stacy Tuschl, LLC to record, distribute, and disseminate the podcast in any manner. You also agree to allow Stacy Tuschl, LLC to retain rights to the produced media for potential future use in speeches, books, and in all other public distribution.
Touch 4: twenty-four-hour reminder email sent via Infusionsoft (or whatever email distribution/CRM system you decide to use). We integrated ScheduleOnce with our Infusionsoft account, which pulls all of our guest information into our CRM system so we can easily send future follow-ups and promotional campaigns to our guests—and only our guests (see Figure 9-7). Please note: ScheduleOnce integrates with several other platforms. Infusionsoft is not a prerequisite to being successful in using ScheduleOnce.
FIGURE 9-7
Title of email(s) should be: Customer Notification One Week V1, Customer Notification One Day. V1, Customer Notification One Hour V1.
Everything in brackets and bolded is a variable that needs to be changed manually.
Font sizes for paragraph text is size 12.
Everything in brackets not bolded is a system dynamic field.
Delete interviewer headshot from email template.
The guest headshot is an attachment type field in the form build.
Subject: Your interview with [Name of interviewer or podcast] starts at [Time and date]
Your interview is starting at [Time and date]
Dear [Customer name],
Your interview is starting in just [x number of days or hours] at [Starting date and time in customer’s time zone]. It is going to be AWESOME! Please see below for more information. Any questions you have, feel free to reach out to [interviewer email].
In case you need a reminder of the questions, you can go here.
Also, if you didn’t have a chance to look before, here is a guide to help make sure your interview goes smoothly and sounds great.
Booking details:
[Starting date and time in customer’s time zone]
Calendar event:
If the event is not already in your calendar, you may add it from here: [Calendar images and links]
Your information:
Your name: [customer name]
Company: [customer company]
Your mobile phone: [customer mobile phone]
Please note: By participating in the [Podcast Name] interview, you agree to allow [Legal name of entity] to record, distribute, and disseminate the podcast in any manner. You also agree to allow [Legal name of entity] to retain rights to the produced media for potential future use in speeches, books, and in all other public distribution.
Touch 5: forty-eight-hour reminder text. Guests have told us they value the interview reminders we send via text in addition to the email reminders. We have had only one guest miss an interview due to forgetting.
Touch 6: twenty-four-hour reminder text.
Touch 7: sixty-minute reminder text.
Touch 8: Send a “Thank You” email immediately following the interview.
Touch 9: Send a “Preview Links” twenty-four hours before the guest’s interview airs.
Touch 10: Send a “You’re Live on [Insert Your Show Name]!” the morning a guest’s show airs along with the link on your website where they can find their show.
We developed the following “Sound Brilliant” Guide as a way to help guests get prepared for the interview from a technical perspective. You will want your guests to sound as crystal clear as possible. The quality of their audio affects your listeners’ willingness to continue listening to your episode. If your guest has a bad headset, no headset, noise in the background, or any of the myriad of other noisy distractions that can occur, your listeners will move on to another podcast.
Sound Brilliant!
Thanks again for agreeing to be a guest on my podcast, [insert name of your podcast here]. I want you to sound as brilliant as I know you are. Part of that’s on me as your interviewer. But part of it is as simple as having the right equipment to record the conversation.
I want you and your brand to be represented in the best possible light, so please read through the list below and make any of the suggested adjustments you are able to make prior to our conversation. Following these suggestions will enable us to make the most of our time.
The Environment
NOTE! If it is a bad audio recording we can do only so much in post-production editing! Remember, garbage in, garbage out. So please make sure you review this so my team and I can make you sound great.
Turn off all nonessential programs on your computer to enable our recording to happen with less potential for technical glitches or unplanned pings or chimes.
Find a quiet place for our conversation.
Make sure all potential noisemakers are turned off or taken care of ahead of time (phones, email, kids, pets, etc.).
While we’re doing our interview, please don’t bump the table, scoot things around your desk, click pens, or anything else that might make noise. It’s amazing what the mic can pick up.
Have a glass of water nearby during our chat . . . you may need it.
The Equipment
The microphone and speakers that are built in on your computer won’t provide the sound quality we need. They’ll mess with your volume/tone, and we’ll get feedback. So please don’t use them.
Even a microphone that is built in to your earbuds is better than your computer microphone.
I’m not suggesting that you need to buy a microphone or headset. But if you do a fair amount of these kinds of interviews, you may want to consider it. If not, ask around. You probably know someone who owns this sort of equipment and would lend it to you.
Make sure your computer speakers are turned completely down and you’ve set your computer’s preferences to know that you’re going to hear sound through headphones or earbuds instead. This will help us avoid feedback and electronic echo in the recording.
I know it’s the twenty-first century, but if you can, please use a wired computer connection (not wireless) if at all possible.
Thanks again for agreeing to chat with me. I can’t wait to connect my audience to you and your smarts. I promise I will do my best to make you sound brilliant!
[Your Name]
[Your Company]
[[email protected]]
Each of the emails you send via your Guest Advocacy System should include a legal disclaimer. You want to ensure that you have clearly stated, multiple times, that you are free to use and distribute the content from the recorded episodes.
Recipe 2: ScheduleOnce Account Setup
It is time to complete your ScheduleOnce account setup so you can pull in the content you created as part of Recipe 1. The outcome of these simple steps will be a confirmation email.
As a host, I find it helpful to have all of a guest’s contact information at my fingertips (see Figure 9-8). On multiple occasions, due to a simple mix-up, I have attempted to connect with our guest via Skype and the person didn’t pick up. But the guest did answer a cell phone. You can’t be nimble on your feet like that if you don’t have the mobile numbers handy. In addition, if you don’t have guests’ mobile numbers, you won’t be able to use ScheduleOnce to send SMS text reminders of your interview.
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