When prepping for your next podcast episode there are many steps you might want to consider before you hit record. Implementing a great workflow with structure, planning, and a healthy mindset, will make the recording process so much smoother. It doesn’t matter if you are recording an interview, creating your own solo episode, or even if you have a roundtable of experts, you’ll need a plan to create episodes that your listener is going to love each and every time!

Before you hit that record button, learn:

  • The steps you need for planning each episode
  • How your mindset matters before pressing record
  • Why giving yourself room to pause allows you to capture the perfect voice for your listeners

Links to Explore from this Episode:

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Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hey, welcome back to the show. This is episode number 60, planning, structure and mind set. Before you hit record, a sample workflow for recording your episodes.

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MARY:

Recording a podcast can be very simple, as easy as plugging in your microphone into your laptop, loading up your recording software, and hitting that record button. Then you just start talking, right, and you’ve created a podcast episode. Simple as that. [LAUGHTER] I’m laughing because there’s just so many other pieces that come into play before you even ever hit that record button. And that’s what this episode is going to be all about. 

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Now, before you ever hit that record button, it doesn’t matter, really, if you’re creating an episode that’s going to be a solo episode, interview style. If you have a panel, it doesn’t matter. When I worked on radio, this was always called show prep. So if you were on the air at the radio station, you always needed to prepare yourself for what you’ll be talking about. So essentially, this is the same thing show prep for your podcast. So I’m going to give you a sample outline or workflow of what I go through during show prep for my podcast. And I took a lot of these tips straight from when I worked in radio. So before any of this can happen, you got to plan what you’re going to be talking about. So what is your theme? You need to outline your episode. So if you’re thinking specifically, okay, solo, what are your talking points then? List out some bullet points about your theme and hit some marks that you actually want to deep dive into, such as why you decided to start this episode for your listener. You want to open with maybe their challenge or their pain point, and then you’re going to get into all the details of that theme of your episode, your talking points, what you actually want to share, the meat of your episode and then closing it out. What are your call to actions? What do you want your listener to do after listening to the episode? 

Same thing if you’ve got a guest, how are you going to open the show? Is there a story arc that you want to share with your listeners? Was there a journey that the guest went on that would be very relevant for your listener to hear? Part of this is creating questions for your guest. So another point I want to make is you got to do your research. If you have an interview coming up, who are they? Have they written a book? Have they been a guest on other podcasts? What about if they have their own podcast, you’re going to start diving into their content and figuring out who they are and what piques your curiosity about them so that you can ask some questions that your listener will be really interested in. Have they also written blogs or articles you want to peruse and scan it so that you are finding some key points that you want to share with your listeners and create questions around those points. This is such a great way to check out who they are and get a feel for their vibe, especially if you didn’t get a chance to do a pre-interview with them. 

So find those notes and make sure you highlight what excites you, which means it’ll excite your listener as well. Research needs to happen too. If you’re doing a solo episode, was there something that you had talked before in the past or maybe you wrote a blog post about that you want to translate into your podcast? Did you do a talk recently with some slides and you updated those slides and you’re like, oh, I have these new points that I talked about that I want to try out on my podcast as well. Or maybe you had just read a new book and you’re like, I need to quote something in there. You got to go and do that research so that you can share all this knowledge with your listener. 

[MUSIC IN]

So after outlining your episode, we’re going to get into something I call script analysis. I’ve said before, with your podcast, you don’t necessarily want to read a script. That is something that is quite hard to do, especially as a newbie, you’re going to sound like you are reading. So unless you’ve actually been trained to read a script, even though I call the script analysis, it really is still a lot of the bullet points that you’re writing down for what you want to talk about. But sometimes there is still a script to read, such as your guest bios. Maybe if you have a sponsor, there are some sponsorship lines that you have to say write these scripts out to fit your voice and if you can, edit them, especially with guest bios. I actually never read a bio as it is given to me because it might not actually be relevant to my listener. For your listener, you need to use what your listener will be interested in and think back to why you asked the guest to be on your show in the first place. So those are the things that you want to say about them, your guest, from their bio. And I’ve seen a lot of bios in my day. They are meant to be quick we’re on a podcast, but a lot of bios that I see that I get are like a resume. It lists all these accomplishments, they list all of these things that they’ve done, which is great, but it’s just a list and it’s not very exciting. So feel free to condense and use what you know about them to accent their bio and make it really come alive so that the listener can say, oh, this person is cool, versus they went to this university, they have this degree, they did this amount of years in business. They had this award and that award, and I mean, those are great. Those are really great. But for a podcast bio, not very exciting. So I always rewrite those with my listener in mind. 

Another part of script analysis is always proofreading things that you have to say. And by proofreading, I mean actually saying it out loud. When I worked at the radio station, we had a writer who used to just scan the script before he gave it to us, or he would mumble it and you’re like, okay. And it timed because our scripts usually had to be like 30 seconds, for example. So he just mumbled it and he was like, it’s 30 seconds. But by the time I got it, you need to read this. And when someone reads this with emotion and passion, it’s going to take more than the 30 seconds when you just mumble something. So always proofread things and say it out loud because that is your time to practice. You might find some tricky words or maybe you realize that something is quite a tongue twister. So you’re going to rewrite that or you realize, oh, my gosh, I actually have no idea how to pronounce this person’s name correctly. So I’m going to have to go and ask them how to pronounce their name correctly. These things you never know until you actually start saying it out loud. So proofread your script as if you are actually going to say it in your recording. It’s great practice. 

The last thing for script analysis is to look at your outline to see if there are any tweaks to be made for storytelling. Part of that story arc that I had mentioned earlier, is there a specific question you need to ask to go from one point in the story to another point in the story? Or maybe in your solo episode? You started with this big, broad question, the okay, the intriguing part to get your listener interested in the theme of the episode. So with that open loop in your solo, do you need to close it? Do you have any loops that need finishing? Because people’s brains love closure. Maybe there was a cliffhanger that needs to be resolved. Look at your outline and make sure that you have a full story arc. So beginning, middle, and end. 

[MUSIC OUT]

All right, I already mentioned this earlier, and it is about your ideal listener. Listener focus is key. You want to keep your ideal listener in mind whenever creating your episodes. Anything that you have a question about, you need to ask your ideal listener, such as, if you think you have this perfect guest to come on your show. Well, are they perfect? You need to ask if your ideal listener would be interested in this person and what they have to say. What did they do? What does your ideal listener want to know about? What will help them more? And will this guest provide that information? Is the guest’s information pertinent for your ideal listener? And essentially, why would they care? Why would they care about this person coming on? If you’re wondering if you should ask the guest a certain question, then you ask your ideal listener hypothetically, you ask them first. Would they care about all the details about your guest’s background? Or can you go right ahead and ask a direct question straight to the juicy stuff? Will your ideal listener need background info first? Or are they one of those people that loves to do their own research? So you’re going to add a bunch of links in your show notes instead. Your ideal listener will help navigate your content. So always have your ideal listener in mind. 

[MUSIC IN] 

This, of course, goes with mood and tone as well. How do you want your listener to feel? This is always my ultimate question. If you start with that, you will always be in service to them and the episode will always be as great as it can be in the moment that you have and in the time that you have to create it. I take this from a page from my manager when I worked at the radio station. We worked on so many commercials at any one time. I’m talking like stacks of commercials. And he always said, the commercial will be perfect in the time that you’ve given it, because I know that you’ve given it your all in the capacity that you have in that particular moment. We’re not striving for perfectionism here. And in fact, you can’t be perfect. There are so many different ways that a podcast episode can go. When you’ve got a guest, you never know how they’re going to answer it. When you’ve prepped all your questions, sometimes you don’t even need to ask any of them because the conversation was so great, or you’re struggling because the conversation wasn’t so great. 

So if you start with how you want your listener to feel, that energy is going to come out of you. Your mood will affect your voice, which will then be absorbed m by your listeners. So if you’re nervous and frustrated, they’ll feel that energy. If you’re excited and enthusiastic about what you’re talking about, they will feel that and hear it in your voice as well. And so when I say speak with spirit, I mean it with full enthusiasm because your listener will take that with them on your show.

[MUSIC OUT]

And even though this episode is about before hitting that record button, I’m going to give you some recording tips as well, because this is part of that mindset that needs to happen before you hit that record button. Okay so, number one, if you have a guest, give your guest comfort by letting them know the conversation can be edited and in fact will be edited, right? We’ve talked about that. So that if your guest makes a mistake or they want to rephrase or they want to say, you know what, no, let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about this instead. They can. A conversation is so free-flowing that you never know where it’s going to go. So give your guests that comfort in knowing that they can rephrase if they need to. This is where having a skilled editor will make all the difference for your show. But if you’re recording a solo episode, knowing the same thing will help you as well. We don’t have to be perfect, but we can take our time to recollect our thoughts. If something you have on paper doesn’t quite translate as well when spoken out loud. Like okay, maybe we did proofread our notes beforehand, but then when we finally go talk about those bullet points, something just doesn’t quite add up. So we can pause. I do that a lot as well with my podcast here, and then I just take them all out, all the pausing, so that you don’t hear it and it’s not distracting for you. 

Another radio story here. Back in the radio days, there would be announcers who love doing what we called a one-take-wonder. But even seasoned professionals are never that good. And honestly, you know what, sometimes it does take a little bit of direction. Like I’ll just say to them, that was awesome, but let’s see if we can do it in a different version. And sometimes that second take is even better. But for podcasting, that’s not what we’re after. We’re not trying to perfect a script here. We’re not looking for one-take-wonders. We want you to be you. So in order for you to be you, you might need some time to recollect your thoughts. So give yourself that pause and comfort in knowing that you can always edit that out later. 

[MUSIC IN]

A lot of the points in this episode can really go back to my episode about perfectionism. You should go back and check out episode number nine, starting a Perfectly Imperfect Podcast. Or also episode Number 13 permission to Be Yourself Behind the Mic. Or also episode number 34, that’s also a good one, be the creator, not the critic. I highly recommend you go back and listen to those, and even if you’ve listened to them, it’s always a nice little dose to hear them again. They’re short and sweet little solo episodes just like this one. And so they’ll just give you the hit that you need to get a little bit outside of that perfectionism one hit wonder that you might be after. But before we go, I thought I’d give you one last tip. I have my voice connection cards that I send out to some of my clients sometimes, and each one is like an affirmation card for your voice. And so I would love for you to give your voice some love. We rarely think about our voice and how much it is working for us every single day, especially being a podcaster. So one of the cards that I pulled today says and this is for you to say yourself out loud, my voice is love and loving. My voice is love and loving. So thank your voice. Say it out loud to yourself. Okay, repeat after me. My voice is love and loving.

[MUSIC OUT]

So before you hit that record button, I hope you get yourself into the right frame of mind. You have your outline all ready to go, and what was the ultimate question you want to ask yourself? How do I want my listener to feel? All right, now go hit that record button and go and speak with spirit.

[MUSIC ENDS // PAUSE A BEAT // OUTRO – SHOW CLOSE]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

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