Podcast Interview Tips to Stay Spontaneous and Genuine

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Laura McRae interviews media and executive communications coach Carmen Braidwood

Laura: Welcome to Podcasting for Business Owners. I’m Your host, Laura McRae, a podcast consultant, educator and self confessed podcast nerd. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast or want to grow the one you have, you’re in the right place. Hold on to your headphones and let’s go. Hello and welcome back to Podcasting for Business Owners, the podcast that helps you share your story, lead your industry and grow your network through podcasting. Today I’m thrilled to have Carmen Braidwood with us. She’s a dynamic media professional who’s gone from producing local radio shows in Western Australia to becoming one of the most trusted voices on air and an inspiring media and executive communications coach. She offers media training and confidence on camera coaching. Carmen’s journey through radio, television and media coaching has given her incredible insights on how to connect authentically on camera and in conversation. In today’s episode, get ready to learn how letting go of rigid podcast interview preparation can make for a more natural, engaging interview style that resonates with any audience and how to do it. Hello, Carmen, and welcome to the show.

Carmen Braidwood: Hi, Laura. Thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here with you.

Laura: Thank you. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you help people build confidence on camera?

Carmen Braidwood: Well, I would say the answer to that question is that I’m a freelancing TV and radio presenter who noticed that there was a need for really everyday people to learn the skills that are required to be interviewed or to show up or, be on camera in the media. And that’s not because of traditional media. You know, I work in television and radio, so broadcast, it’s not because of broadcast, it’s because of new and emerging media, things like social media and websites and, and the need to use those to promote not just businesses, but also personal brands or to do a video interview for a job. I realised that there was a need to show everyday people how to do what we’re doing right now, to speak into the lens of a camera, because you’re recording your podcast here over zoom, and to do so in a way that represents you well. So with that in mind, I, yes, created a confidence on camera programme. I still work with executives and senior leaders to handle their traditional media appearances, but I also love to help them drive the narrative of their own stories into the new media space by creating content for social media and websites.

What’s the most memorable or unexpected thing that’s happened during an interview

Laura: So what’s the most memorable or unexpected thing that’s happened to you during an interview?

Carmen Braidwood: So when I’ve been interviewing somebody either or. Well, I’ll give you this example. I would say the thing that always sticks in my head when I think about a, memorable interview, interviewing experiences. When I was on breakfast radio in Perth and we did a telephone interview with Robbie Williams, the famous singer, and the coolest thing about that interview was that Robbie was sitting at home in England and he mentioned what each of us were wearing in our photo on the website that promoted our show. And it might seem like a very little thing, but that would be the only time I’d ever got any sense that the celebrity that interviewing had taken the time to find out who was interviewing him. You know, if you’re not aware of what goes on behind the scenes, a, ah, Robbie Williams would promote a tour or an album and he would bank up, I don’t know, 50 interviews across Australia, if not the world, in a couple of days, you know, and they just knock them out really quickly. And very often you could tell if you were just part of a long list of media interviews that somebody has had to do that day. And the thing that really, really impressed me was that he took it upon himself, thanks to the wonders of new media, to find a way to connect with us and our audience more readily. And that’s probably going to lead us to one wonderful tip, right? If you are going to be on somebody’s show as the guest, do that person the honour of getting to know them first. And it’s not about stroking the ego of the presenter, as clearly it did for me as a host at the time, it’s about their audience. So if people are listening to your podcast, Laura, they’re doing it because they like you. They’re doing it because they care about what you’ve got to say. I’m the imposter. I’m the new one and I’m on test here. I’m on audition right now to win over your fans, right? So if you’re going and doing an interview, it’s really important to do that. And then on the flip side, as interviewers, it is obvious, right, we really need to be the ones to do

00:05:00

Carmen Braidwood: the deep dive into the person we’re talking to first so that we can anticipate some of the things that this person, our guest, might say. And, yeah, that blew my mind. And I’ve never forgotten about the day that Robbie Williams bothered to, Google me before we chatted on the radio.

Laura: Yeah, that’s so good, isn’t it? Like you say, it gives you that more special connection, I guess, when they do that too, doesn’t it?

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, yeah. An opportunity for a little humour for our audience to connect with him even more. I mean, obviously Robbie Williams wouldn’t necessarily be an imposter, but I think the problem that high profile people have when they give interviews is that you might have people with a preconceived idea about you in that audience and they might be listening to say, well, let’s just find out if Robbie Williams is a good guy or not. And they’d be waiting for any piece of evidence possible to find that confirms a bias they might already have about you.

Laura: That’s interesting. Yeah.

Over preparation can be dangerous when interviewing musicians, Carmen says

So what are some of the biggest challenges people face when interviewing, especially when they’re new to it?

Carmen Braidwood: Over preparation?

Laura: Me? Guilty.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, I did the same thing. I remember one of the first interviews that I did on live radio was with the band members of, Mental As Anything. And you know, this was 23 years ago now. So even then, Mental As Anything were already a band that had kind of had their heyday and they were doing the greatest hits kind of tours around Australia. But the thing is, I was inexperienced as an interviewer, and I built that thing up, right? It was a two or three minute interview on a breakfast radio show, very busy show. And they were coming to Our Country Town. And really, I needn’t have worried about learning the entire back catalogue of Mental As Anything and use, that time to go, oh gee, what was the inspiration behind track number three on X album when this song went to number one? You know, like, doesn’t matter, right? Mental as Anything. By then in that Country Town were a band that most people knew about. I probably should have said something to them like, gee, I bet you’re looking forward to coming to Outback Wa to Kalgoorlie. Have you heard much about Our Town? Right. That would have been unique, completely authentic and natural in terms of the human conversation you would have with them. But I got all distracted by the back catalogue and feeling like I was too young, inexperienced, because at that time I was only, you know, 20 years old or something and I was thinking, oh gosh, they’re going to catch me out as a fraud. Because here I am working on a hits and memories station for oldies, listening to the radio, respectfully to the oldies, all these tunes, of course, and I had my own personal hang up. So maybe saying like, I’m, bringing. You bring a personal hang up to these things. And that’s where the over preparation comes from. Because we kind of think, oh, I don’t want to look silly Or I don’t want people to realise that I don’t understand X, Y, Z or you know, all of those things. But in the case of music, and I think this applies to a lot of experts, most of our audience, they don’t know everything about the subject matter either. And your job as the interviewer is to be curious and to ask questions that extract interesting answers about interesting topics from your guest. So I would say one way to avoid that over preparation. And the reason over preparation I should add, is a problem also is that we get bogged down by our list of questions and what we miss out on then is the gold that can come from the awesome follow up question. So I say to the mental as anything bandmate, gee, have you heard of Kalgoorlie? And he goes, have I heard of it? Lived there for five years. And I don’t know if that was. But I could miss gold like that. Right. It might not be on the Internet that this person lived in your town and you’re not going to expose that and find out about it until you ask the more curious question and then they give you a little bit of a response. That is your next piece of gold that you’re going to follow along and extract more gold. But you will miss that if you’re sitting there reading the notes because your next question was better make sure I asked about the band having a rift in 1975 because you weren’t paying attention. Right. So over preparation is extremely dangerous. So we’ve, we’ve instead got to stick to things like a, ah, a mud M map, a little plan for what you think the interview might go, but allow ourselves to be in the moment and listen to the interviewee and like I say, look for those little breadcrumbs if you like, that you’re going to piece together to create an even better story and an even better set of content than

00:10:00

Carmen Braidwood: you might have if you just asked the same stock standard questions that every other interviewer has asked that person to date.

Laura: Yeah, and this is where I struggle because I’ll go with a big list and I’ve got a list that I sent to Carmen of questions to check she’s okay with the way I’m hoping the interview goes. But yeah, so how would you. I wouldn’t know how to go about doing a mud map because I’m too much of an organised control freak. And I’ve noticed it too when I’m doing interviews that when the subject goes off track and it’s interesting, but I’ll still go back to my questions, and it doesn’t link together. And then sometimes I have to edit other parts into the episode after to make sure it links together. So I’m making the rod for my own back, really. I’m making it harder for myself. So how do I stop doing this?

Carmen Braidwood: Well, a bit of trust is really involved. Right. So the more podcasts you have done, you’ll start to feel like you don’t need that safety net of 10 questions ready to go. And instead, maybe you’ll have a safety net of three questions that are there just in case. And instead of sending a guest a bunch of questions that you plan to ask, which can be overwhelming. Like, my experience even just then with you was like, oh, to be honest, I didn’t even get time to read all of those questions. You’re not really helping them or yourself if they haven’t had that preparation. I’d instead say, look, these are the key areas my audience are, interested in. Is there anything else that you think would be pertinent that we talk about and sort of just throwing it back on them? And they will then actually give you the mud map. You know, they’ll say, oh, well, you better make sure we cover off the biggest mistake most amateur interviewers make.

You should ask your guest specific questions that are relevant to your audience

And then I imagine we should talk about. So you get your mud map from your guest, ideally, and then you have up, your sleeve these questions that hopefully are relevant to your audience and. Or they could be questions that, you know, will extract a really interesting response, because maybe you found out that there’s something cool about this person that, you know, we don’t already know a lot about or, you know, just would be interesting listening, then you can have that ready to go. Because I know you. You know what you’re talking about. And I imagine anyone listening to this podcast would be the same. They’ve probably been doing their thing that they do for a long, long time. They have a lot of natural expertise, and that means they have a lot of natural curiosity as well. So we’re just learning to trust that curiosity and letting things go in terms of what you planned, because the plan very rarely comes to fruition. And if you’re too hung up on it turning out how you planned, and, you’ll get those weird moments you have to edit out and rejig later because, the conversation just doesn’t flow.

Laura: Yeah. And like you say, you can miss out on the goal, too.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, if you’re being too rigid and sticking to that set plan of questions, you’re not going to ask the follow up question and you will have your head buried down in your notes of 10 different questions. The other big problem with asking your guest to take a look at questions before now there is a lot of media that will, television particularly will go these are the three questions you’ll be asked. Please have a look and be prepared because they’re on more of a time frame. But the big problem, if you go giving the wrong and particularly an inexperienced guest a bunch of questions to prepare, they will prepare. The danger is that they will rote learn a bunch of answers and they’ll be dealing with an even worse case of over preparedness than you the interviewer has. And unfortunately all your listener gets then is this kind of robotic back and forth that could have been created by AI. You know, our best defence against AI content on the Internet right now is to have human conversations because those are the things that us as everyday thinking sentient beings are going to be able to tell and differentiate from stuff that’s made by robots.

Laura: Yeah, you’re so right as well actually because I did have a guest who I did send the questions to and she did really prepare and ended up reading off the script but she could read it well so it was good. But yes, she was over prepared. And also I found as well when I’ve done that I’ve sent the questions to a guest, I like to do it a couple of days before so that they’re prepared. But then within that time of sending them and actually doing the interview I’ve changed my mind that I don’t want to take it down that course anymore. And I’m like oh, I’ve already sent them the questions, now I feel bad if I change it and I’ve ended up recording an interview I thought could have gone better.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, that’s a really important reflection. Is it? You know, and the other thing along with a change of mind that you must consider is that the world circumstances could quite literally change, right? There could be breaking

00:15:00

Carmen Braidwood: news that it is important you address and you decide to run the podcast two weeks earlier than you planned because it is just so important you could get the scoop of this entry. But because you’ve sent these pre prepared questions and there’s this kind of tacit understanding that you’ll only go down this route, you miss out, right? The broadcast media, by the way, Laura would never allow that to hold them back. Right? If you ever do a, you know, television or radio interview and you think you’re going to going to Be asked the questions that you were given at, ah, notice. No, that’s just not going to happen. They can be breaking news. And if you’ve got the boss of the bank that has caused the news there with you, you’re going to ask them that question. And I think any podcaster is within their rights to say, oh, look, question without notice. Tell me about this. Especially if you’re pre recording, there’s an opportunity there to take the interview the way you would have liked anyway, and chances are, ah, they’ll be okay. But yeah, I’m, definitely not saying no. Preparation. Preparation is a wonderful thing. We must have it. Otherwise we’re going to have structureless, meandering conversations that in reality aren’t all that interesting to listeners. And you know, we really shouldn’t be so naive and egotistical to think that our aimless conversations are interesting to people. They’re not. They need to be targeted to the audience member who is listening. That is where you should put your preparation. It’s not in overly detailed questioning and responses.

Laura: I’m going to break the rules now and look at my list of questions.

Carmen Braidwood: That’s okay. It’s your safety net and that’s fine.

A pause is totally fine in new media interviews, right?

Laura: What techniques do you use to stay calm and confident even if an interview is going off script or gets a little bit awkward?

Carmen Braidwood: A pause is totally fine in new media. In broadcast media, the one thing in a pre recorded setting that cannot be used by your interviewer or your interviewee is a pause. Right? So say you’re in the middle of your interview and you’re interviewing other people and you do get a bit flustered. It’s fine to have a pause because you can edit it out. And in a live setting, say you, you know, take your podcast on the road and you’re going to do your interview at a pub and partner with the pub and sell tickets. And you know, in the middle of all the excitement, you’re like, I don’t remember what I was going to say. Your pause in that live environment is only going to make people listen harder. They will just lean in. Pauses are wonderful. They are dramatic, they are curious. they make people feel things. They also make other people say things. So a skillful interviewer, will ask a question. What’s the weirdest thing that ever happened to you during an interview, Carmen? And they’ll shut up. The best thing you can do at the end of a question is stop talking. Because humans love to fill silences, right? So this is a great interviewing tip. Ask the question. No more and if you do need to justify a question, do that first. you know what I mean by justifying the question. You know, like, oh, Carmen, you’ve worked on, you know, radio shows and TV shows and interviewed people all over the place. What’s the weirdest thing someone said to you on tv? Do it that way. Don’t say, what’s the weirdest thing someone said to you on tv? Because you’ve, you’ve done interviews all over the place. Like, that causes a thing called talk over, which is annoying for podcast editors to edit out. And it doesn’t make use of, your guest time effectively either. You know, your guest can fill that detail in if need be. You can use those justifications, though, to help draw stories out of reluctant talent, I like to call them. You will invite the odd person on who’s not a chatterbox like me, and they will really struggle to give you detailed answers. They’ll struggle to paint a picture with their storytelling. And you might know a little bit about the gold that’s waiting there from them. So we use a strategy of getting people to repeat things back to us. So as interviewers we can say, gee, Laura, you’ve got an amazing story, you backpacked all over the world and met so many interesting people, and now you’re settled here in Perth, Western Australia. That must have really informed your decision to make this podcast. Tell me, how did it get started? And you then will probably draw a few of those things into your answer. And it just means it’s a great device for getting a guest to say something that you would like them to. It can also be a very good device for getting someone to say something that they don’t want to. Right. So, gee, banks are all big evil corporations. You’re just trying to screw us out of our money. Is that the reason you’re going to start charging for us to take money out of the bank? That’ll be a trick that can be used on radio,

00:20:00

Carmen Braidwood: for instance, to get a boss to say something that they don’t, want to. A well trained boss will very confidently and positively answer that question. They’ll avoid all that negative chit chat. But they’re important strategies. We just want to always make sure that we end on a question rather than bringing that pause in and then trying to talk some more afterwards. So a pause will work wonders.

It’s really important to put your guest at ease on your podcast

Oh, and the other thing I had to do today to get onto this podcast, because I’m recording it with you, from my home, and there’s stuff going on here like it’s holidays and there’s adult children in the house doing stuff. My husband’s got a day off and he’s doing some pressure cleaning outside. It’s been noisy for the last hour. My blood pressure was high as we started. I think I was a little rattled in the nervous system and I really needed to take a moment. And that can happen during the chat that you know, you have with your guest as they arrive on camera or in the studio. It’s really important to put your guest at ease and as interviewers we can pick up on their vibe or their energy. We can tell if they’re a bit nervous. So sometimes having that chat first, just that little reacquaintance and I got quite good on live radio of doing that with people who were just being rushed into the studio during a three minute song song and that you tell they’re quite nervous. So it’s just about finding a little common ground to connect on first. And so they knew that they were going to be safe when the mics go on.

Laura: Yeah, it’s good to have that 10 minute chat or so at the beginning and make sure that’s scheduled into the podcast. Yeah, yeah.

Carmen Braidwood: Being really deliberate with your timing.

Laura: I was listening to Stephen Bartlett’s book over the weekend and he was saying about his podcast Diary of a CEO but his is recorded in a studio and he does research into the guest’s favourite music and plays that when they come in to make them feel relaxed.

Carmen Braidwood: Isn’t that awesome? That is beautiful. And there are things like that, you know, we can find out about certainly public people very easily. But it’s not hard, I suppose with a bit of investigation to find out about somebody who doesn’t have an online profile. A few things that are just going to make them feel comfortable, you know, their favourite drink or snack that’s waiting for them as they walk in or what else could you do? There’s so many things to help put them at ease. I remember an Andrew Denton story about interviewing Michael Stipe, the guy from REM and he was able to get what was a story that he wouldn’t want to tell but he put him in a circumstance where he felt safe to do it. And I think it was because he brought in like a drinks cart. It had something on there that got this story out of him. It was masterful. So you can do it on the flip side. You can make people feel good but you can also take them to a place they might not want to, but they will go there anyway.

Laura: That’s interesting. I’ll go and find that and I’ll put the links to that in the show notes too. I’d love to hear that.

Are there any differences between interviewing for TV versus a podcast

Are there any differences between interviewing for TV versus a podcast and what should podcasters keep in mind?

Carmen Braidwood: I think the key difference is the time. It’s time, isn’t it? Like podcast format, by its very nature, it’s open ended. You can have a, you know, four hour podcast, I suppose, if you really wanted to. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing. Right? It’s a bit like movies. We’ll sit through a two and a half hour movie if it’s great. we’ll also fall asleep if it’s not. So we need to gauge as podcasters how long is appropriate. But yeah, you’ve got more time in interviews. You have more time to pause to try a line of questioning that you haven’t really thought through, but you just thought, maybe I’ll chuck this out there and see what this person has to say. You have time to chase a rabbit down a little warren, if you like. That’s what one of my bosses used to call it. If someone just says something random, you go, what do you mean by that? Let’s just examine that. On television, you just wouldn’t. Right? So you have about three minutes per package. Like that’s a whole story. Generally on a news bulletin or even a, lifestyle or travel show like I work on, we only have three minutes for the whole story usually. And then the interview itself might be just one section. We might have two interviews within a whole story. So there’s really only looking for 14 second responses from people in that format. Otherwise, if we’re doing a chat show, it’s pretty rare that we’re going to be the one invited onto a TV talk show for half an hour and they do a whole feature episode on us. You know, that’s a, rare and reserved experience. Generally we might get on the TV news and give an interview in that environment. It’s about three minutes, the whole chat. So three minute chat, three or four questions, you know, no more than 30 to 45 seconds per answer. And whereas here

00:25:00

Carmen Braidwood: in podcasting land, I think some of my answers in this last half an hour have been like 10 minutes. So yeah, you’ve got different rules that are placed on you as the guest and also you, the interviewer, about how long you can really spend with that person on those two formats.

Laura: God, that would be hard keeping something down to three minutes.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, it comes from Knowing your message, it comes from learning the most concise way to deliver that message and maybe even learning how to say the same thing three times over.

Laura: And so that’s the beauty of podcasting too, because they’re easier to edit because they’re mainly just audio.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, that’s right. You know, we don’t need you to deliver things in one crisp little chunk. You can take things out and turn, you know, my 45 minute ramble with you into something that’s easy to listen to in 25 minutes.

Laura: Well, I love your rambles. Your rambles are always very interesting.

Carmen Braidwood: Thanks. And they said it’s nice to be in a format. I know that when podcasting first came out to all of us in radio, we all saw the opportunity. We thought it was fantastic. The first thing we all noticed is that you can swear, like, wow, wow, swearing. And I remember there were all these radio people who went out, myself included, and guessed it on podcasts and just like swore our heads off. It was totally inappropriate. I’d never talk like that in front of my mum. And you should always aim anywhere in a public setting, I believe, to speak the way you would in front of your mom or your grandma or how you’d like it printed on the front page of paper these days. But we weren’t aware of that. So once we got over that, then we saw the opportunity to just have more candid conversations and explore things that we wouldn’t normally get to in a very restricted broadcast setting.

Laura: Well, you’ve given me some great tips here and I’m actually looking at my list of questions that I’d pre written and realised I need to just skip through them because you’ve covered a lot of them already.

Carmen Braidwood: Well, that’s it. Isn’t that good? So you’ve learned that you can have a conversation with somebody and draw out all of the value that you wanted for your listener who’s hoping to become a better interviewer as a result of this. And it’s come anyway because you know what to ask. You don’t need to prepare so much next time.

Laura: This is on my list of questions. Can you share any? Go to techniques for keeping the conversation flowing naturally, especially if there’s an unexpected pause like you spoke about earlier.

Carmen Braidwood: I guess I’d say it’s picking up on those little things, you know, looking for the added detail that isn’t being said. I think there’s a lot to be learned when we read between the lines. So if somebody drops something on you, like, yeah, that was a tough time and then proceeds to tell you something else that doesn’t really reflect it being a tough time. You’ve got an opportunity there to go, oh, okay, when you said it was a tough time, what do you mean by that? What made that time so tough? Just looking for. Without feeling like you’re invading somebody’s privacy. It’s really just picking up on a little something that there’ll be a nuance to the way people speak to you that’ll make you think, oh, there’s more to that. You know, they could share with you that a big thing happened in their life at a certain time and, and we could say, well, look, it was surprised to me that you’d had that happen to you. Could you share with our listeners a little bit more about, about how that felt at the time? You know, and I think that for the most part people will be happy because they’re in this intimate circumstance with you and they’re already sharing. They’ll be happy to deliver a little bit more detail. And if they’re not, what’s the worst that can happen? They’ll say, oh, look, I’d rather not go into that, let’s get back on topic. And then you’ve got your safety net of some other questions to go through.

Have you ever been in a situation where it’s got a bit awkward

Laura: Have you ever been in a situation like that where it’s got a bit awkward and you’ve had to steer it in another direction?

Carmen Braidwood: Well, yes, we have been walked out on by Clive Palmer, who was, yeah, a notorious political figure in Australia. That happened to us on FM radio when I worked on a breakfast show in Perth. And you know, that was a bit awkward, I suppose. I think by then though, I wasn’t, I didn’t ever feel like it was a problem if the interview went awkwardly. To me, it was all still enjoyable listening.

Laura: But he’s known for doing things like that anyway, so that would be no bad part on yourself, would it?

Carmen Braidwood: That’s right. You just put it down to that personality and yeah, to be honest, nothing other than with maybe talkback callers. When I did talk back radio on a news station, there would be the occasional moment with someone like that where I’d be surprised by an attack personally at me and those scenarios. Maybe, I remember feeling a bit. Oh, I don’t quite know if I handled it right. You know, sometimes your emotions can get stirred up. You know, that is definitely something to really look out for, particularly with contentious issues. But otherwise I wouldn’t say, even with a politician

00:30:00

Carmen Braidwood: who’s kind of pushing back, it’s Kind of their job to do that, CEO, who doesn’t want to answer your questions is like, I would just ask the same question a different way a little bit later. I think that it’s our job as people in media and as podcasters, you know, to find out, hold people to account, find out the detail behind stories and particularly with important controversial issues. You know, it was our job to get that information out. And you kind of knew you had the listeners. You know, the listener was in your corner in that scenario. And I think it’d be the same with podcasters. If you really felt that something went against your values in terms of the answer you were getting back from a guest on your podcast, then I think you’d be well within your rights to, to say, well, can you give us a little bit more context to what you’re saying there? Or let me ask you the same question a different way. How would you feel if it were your mum that experienced that thing? I don’t know. You can certainly, yeah, go around it. You don’t have to keep badgering. At the same time, you might let the conversation flow elsewhere, go with them a little bit and then come back to it. Yeah, I think that it’s not the end of the world.

Laura: Yeah, that’s a great idea.

How do you approach interviewing people with different personalities or communication styles

So how do you approach interviewing people with different personalities or communication styles?

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, it’s always important, I think, to allow your guest to come to where your show is. If your show has a certain vibe, you do want to try and in, that pre chat and the pre interview, you want to bring them up to your level. If they’re, say, a bit of a slow talker or a bit of a quiet talker, you want to try and do things. You encourage them to stand up or to have a sugary drink or whatever it might be, just so to get them to the right vibe. And that can sometimes be achieved by meeting that person where they are at first. Right. So if you’re finding them and they’re quite low energy or their communication style, you’re thinking isn’t going to land with your audience, it is okay to help prepare them. You know, you’re kind of their media coach as you’re getting started for a podcast interview. So I wouldn’t hold back from saying, you know, look, I find standing up during podcasts to help me with my energy. Would you want to give that a try? Are you in a situation where you could move your desk around and, and have your microphone a bit higher? Because that definitely lifts people’s energy. And you know, you could even say something like, have you done anything like this before? And that might unearth that some of this fractured communications coming from nerves. So just a chance to help them navigate those nerves. The other thing that comes to mind is, accessibility. So you may interview somebody who doesn’t speak well for, you know, many, many reasons that they can’t help, you know. And so can you counter that immediately? Can we say, look, just so you know, we are running, captions under this interview and in zoom here you can do live captions as you go and so you can justify to your subject, your interview subject, the person, the talent who’s there with you, but also the listener that you might take the odd pause to read what was said or to even get clarification from that person or from their carer about what was said. Right. I’ve even encountered a question recently in a media training from a senior executive who uses hearing aids. And they said, look, I need support to be able to do a video podcast or a television interview, one where I had to look at the camera and because I would struggle at the same time to read the lips of the presenter or at best, what could I do? And so I said, really? I’ve seen it before and we would do it. You can make sure that they come with someone to sign for them in the studio environment or if they need to be on camera to sign next to the presenters so that the person on camera can actually look at the sign and answer the question that way. At the end of the day, if you want to talk to somebody, and particularly if you want diverse voices, then yeah, the more you can do to make someone feel comfortable, the better. And that might be one of your exploration questions in your discovery application form or you know, pre interview form that you’d send out, say, do you require any assistance with your communication or pick up the phone and do that pre interview? No one, no one, no one, no one makes it onto TV or radio without a pre interview. Those are a big part of the producing process and we can absolutely borrow that as podcast hosts.

Laura: That’s amazing. I never thought of that before.

Carmen Braidwood: Yeah, that quick little phone call is a good chance, isn’t it, to get to know that person’s communication style.

Laura: I guess that’s like going back to what we were saying earlier about having that 10 minute chat and seeing how they are and what the energy is. Yeah, yeah.

Carmen Braidwood: I think that people don’t often know how they’ll respond in these circumstances until

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Carmen Braidwood: they’re there and neither do you. So during your little phone chat beforehand, that would be when you’d say, hey, have you ever done anything like this before? Or is, you know, what happened last time? How did it go, do you think? And you can then just think about what they might need from you to feel great. Amazing.

Laura: so thank you very much, Carmen. And so lastly, where can we find you and connect with you?

Carmen Braidwood: Well, if you Google Carmen Braidwood Media My name is made up of lots of words, right? One car, two men braid, like the hair and wood as in a tree. Right. I quite like that way of explaining it to people, even though it’s cumbersome and long. Or you can find me on Instagram. I hang out there a lot. Carmen Braidwood Media or come and connect on LinkedIn and tell me that you heard this interview on Laura’s podcast. I’d be delighted to chat to you.

Laura: There and I’ll put all the links in the show notes. Thanks so much Carmen.

Carmen Braidwood: Be easy. Thank you so much. Laura had a great time.

Laura: I don’t know about you, but I learned so much from this episode. I’m going to attempt to not be so rigid with my podcast interviews going forward, which I know is going to be a big challenge for me, but I know I need to start. I’ve since watched the interview with Andrew Dent and Michael Stipe that Carmen was referring to earlier. Michael Stipe is notoriously difficult to interview. During the interview, Andrew wheels out a table and on the table there’s a record player with a Patti Smith LP and a bowl of cherries next to it. This reminded Stipe of a certain time in his life and immediately made him more relaxed. It’s been said to be the most relaxed interview that Stipe has ever done, and it’s all because Andrew wheeled out this prop to make him feel more comfortable. I’ll put a link in the show notes to the video I’m referring to. Thank you for tuning in to Podcasting for Business Owners. Until next week, Happy podcasting. If you found value in this podcast, please leave a five star rating and a reminder view would be even better. Your support shows that this is a good show which will attract high profile guests and in turn deliver greater value to you. This podcast is produced and edited by me. Don’t waste your time on editing. Let me help you with your podcast. Check out the links in the show notes to get in touch.

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