5 Powerful Ways to Build Real Connections with Your Podcast Guests

If you look only at ROI from podcasting as how many sales can I get, then you’re missing a key benefit of podcasting, and that is making connections. Although in a roundabout way, connections and growing your network often will mean monetary benefits of some sort. At some point it can just be a little more difficult to track.

You may have had interactions on your podcast with guests, but have you ever found yourself thinking now what? When somebody comes across your path that you’d actually like to keep in touch with and have them in your network?

Today we’re gonna explore the connection side of podcasting, how to build real connections and what it can do for you. This is profits through podcasting where we help health-focused entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver.

None of us entrepreneurs would have businesses without people. However you wanna look at it. At the end of the day, it is people who buy from us, but depending on the nature of your business and your podcast, there are a variety of ways in which you can both give and receive value. It’s not necessarily gonna be super transactional, like someone listens to your podcast and then the immediately buy from you.

Or you have somebody on as a guest and they happen to know somebody who needs your services, and then you can make a quick sale. Those things can happen, but I would say they’re not the norm with podcasting. We need to be thinking of the bigger picture.

A struggle we can often encounter is connecting with a guest on your podcast, having a conversation, but then not really knowing how to take that a step further, not knowing how to grow and foster that connection rather than just letting it fade. And be forgotten about because in many cases you really wanna remain on someone’s radar.

If they’re a potential client or referral partner, or there’s some other way you could do business together. Just because somebody spoke to you one time doesn’t mean that they’re always going to remember you. When the need for someone like you comes up, that’s a big thing here. It’s just ’cause you had that one conversation.

Doesn’t mean you’re done forever and you’re always at the top of their mind.

Have you ever been to an in-person networking event or some kind of conference and you encounter somebody who’s just running around giving out their business cards to as many people as possible? They don’t even stay to chat. They just come up to you, hi, my name is this. Here’s what I do. Here’s my business card, and they leave again.

That person had the opportunity to make real connections, have real conversations, and be remembered. Most importantly, but instead they just opted for spamming the whole room. And that’s kind of what can happen. Not exactly the same, but in podcasting, if you don’t do something to push the relationship forward or be remembered, you will be forgotten.

And ultimately, you’re not gonna get much of a, a benefit back from that if the person that you had on doesn’t remember who you are. Okay. We don’t want to see the opportunities that we get through podcasting wasted. Especially if you are doing an interview show, you’re likely talking to a lot of new people.

How do you keep those people in your network and continue that relationship like we’re talking about here, keeping you top of mind when your services may be needed or someone comes up in their circle that may need the services that you offer. You need to be remembered by them. That’s a key thing. Just having that one interview doesn’t cut it.

Okay, so let’s get into our five ways to build real connections with your podcast guests. Way number one, attract and select guests with genuine alignment. So we’re talking research first. Outreach. This can vary depending on your strategy. Some people do interviews specifically to try and bring on potential clients to talk to and start that relationship, that connection.

Others are just bringing on experts, for example. So may be overlapping in fields and what they do, and they’re not necessarily going to have the guest as a potential future customer. So there are different methods, different ways you can go about this, but. There are overlaps here in the actual strategy in fostering a relationship, however, that is going to look in your case.

So when you’re looking for guests and reaching out to them and deciding who to actually have on your show, prioritize fit over fame. So seek pros whose journeys and values overlap yours. Don’t try to just have anybody on for the sake of it. Prioritize people who you could actually see wanting to build a relationship with.

And some of them of course, you’re not really gonna know until you have them on and have that conversation. But if you are doing your research and you see people, you come across people that really do seem like a great fit and you’d be really excited to talk to, try to prioritize them and get them on first.

Of course, keeping value at top of mind as well. We want to provide something valuable. For your audience, the show doesn’t purely exist just for you to go out and interview whoever you like. You know, we wanna think about it through that content filter of who our ideal audience and clients are. So when you identify these people, or as you’re them, do some proper research.

Listen to their podcast episodes they’ve appeared on, read their books and their posts. Note specific insights that. You heard them mention that really resonate with you and your audience’s challenges as well. So know about these people when they come on and prior, even to that, before you’re inviting them on or as you’re inviting them on.

Personalize that invitation. Mention specific things that you’ve heard them talk about that you really liked. And I know this can kind of get, seemingly a little old or, uh, burned out strategy when you see all the spam that comes around these days. One of the really hot methods of doing that now is, you know.

Hi, X really resonated with me you know, you just pull off their website or whatever. So you want to stand out and do it in a proper personalized manner, not this AI style where it’s just insert sentence here. make it clear to them that you actually did some research and you are familiar with their viewpoints and their content, and you can then go on to say, well, I’d love to explore that on my podcast and invite them on.

So you’re starting right from the very beginning, the invites. You’re building some rapport with them there. You’re standing out, the guest feels valued. They want to come on your show. You’ve already, right off the bat, started that on, the foot of, a real quality relationship. Not just someone looking to get whoever will come on their show on as a guest, but they can really see that you care and you took your time to learn about them, and that makes them feel good.

So the second way to build real connections with your podcast guests deliver a high value curiosity driven interview. So this plays off what we just talked about there. You want to prepare thoughtful, open-ended questions, go beyond the surface level, go beyond the same stuff that everybody else has asked them.

Let them see through your questions that you really did do your research and you really are interested in knowing more about them or their opinions or whatever it is. In the case of your podcast, if there are certain setbacks or breakthroughs that they’ve already talked about in the past, you know, you can bring those up in a way that gets new.

Angles from them, like new perspective that they haven’t really talked about before. You can lead them into some deeper questions. By knowing this sort of thing ahead of time, you can already cover, okay, I know this happened to you, but what was this like, or how did this go? Instead of having to uncover, the surface level stuff, we really want to go beyond that and then that’ll help form a deep connection.

When you are doing the interview, be fully present. You need to listen actively. This is one of the best skills that you can have, and it’s lacking from so many people because they are. As the guest is talking, they’re just thinking, what am I gonna say next? What am I gonna say next? And they’re not even picking up on some of the key things that the guest is dropping.

That could have been good roads to go down and discuss further. if you’re one of these people that likes to talk about yourself a lot. Keep that in mind while you’re doing the interview. don’t come back to everything they say with, oh yeah, that happened to me too, and yeah.

You know, you know, okay, right. we wanna keep the spotlight on the guest and there’s a fine balance. It’s not like you can never do that, but you don’t wanna have the guest on your podcast feeling like they’re just listening to you talk the entire time as well. So share your own relevant stories.

Sparingly, build mutual trust. You want to show that you can relate to them and that sort of thing, but we want to make sure that the guest is front and center when you’re doing these types of things, although it is a conversation. So that’s just the art of something that as a podcast host, you’ll have to know and understand As well with the conversation. Make it collaborative. So don’t only have it the questions that you ask them. Get some input from them. What are you seeing people struggling with these days? Or is there a certain angle that you’d really like to dive deeper on? There might be something on their mind.

It’s a great thing to ask towards the end of the interview as well. Was there anything that was on your mind that we didn’t get to? You never know. You’ll get some really interesting insights that way, or something will come up that the guest was hoping you’d ask about and perhaps you didn’t. Well, now you can talk about it.

So by doing all of this on the interview, the guests are going to feel very heard by the end. They’re going to tell other people about it and really want to share it as well. They’re gonna want to promote that interview ’cause they’re gonna remember, wow, this person did such a good job. You asked some questions I never thought of before.

I think it painted me in a very good light and I want to get that out there. Being memorable, of course, is what we really want. And then that opens the door for ongoing dialogue.

The next way to build real connections with your podcast guests, nail personalized, timely follow ups. This is where relationships can really grow. So you can customize this to how you feel it works best in your situation. But just as a bit of an example here, it’ll say, you know, give an immediate thank you 24 to 48 hours post recording.

like to do that. You can reference a specific moment or an insight that the person gave just to. Further solidify that you’re paying attention, you really valued what they talked about. So say whatever the case, I loved your story about boundary setting. It’s really what my listeners need at this moment.

Something like that, just to make that connection. and also, so they’re not wondering. Or forgetting, when does that podcast come out again? Or what’s gonna happen next? Because you can tell ’em on the call, this is probably gonna publish here, and I’ll be in touch. But they may forget, or they, you know, it’s always nice to follow up afterwards just to give ’em a quick reminder, here’s when it’s gonna come out approximately, or I’ll let you know when the date is.

I’m gonna send you these details. You’re gonna have everything you need to promote it, so just stand by for that, that sort of thing. So you’re telling them when they’re gonna hear from you next and you’ll be sending them proper materials. I love doing that and you’ve heard me talk about this before.

It’s really important to provide the guests with these things. If you want them to have any hope of promoting your episode, you want to make it easy for them, so let them know right off the bat that they can expect that and win.

It’s a good time to note there as well. If there was something that they mentioned that has some sort of time attached to it, like a project they were working on. You could put that in your notes to follow up on in a month or a few months later. How’s this project going that you mentioned, way back, you know, that kind of thing.

It seems like you remembered it when in fact you were just great at making notes and you specifically checked in with that person because of that thing that they said and they, they’re gonna think a lot of you and it’s just another excuse to end up in front of them and be on their radar.

At that point in time, once you’ve wrapped the episode, is also a great opportunity to do it now or later, like see if there’s a, a way you can introduce them into someone, into your network or a future collaboration, that sort of thing around now, or once the episode drops or sometime in the future. You know, if you have any sort of that thought like that in your head about what they might be suitable for, certainly you could bring it up now.

Just, I don’t wanna be too much too soon. So feel that out, see how it goes, and when might be the best time to actually do that. But certainly once the episode is done, you may need to make some notes. Then before it fades from your mind, what you actually had the conversation about. Fourth way to build real connections with your podcast guests.

Leverage the episode for mutual growth and collaboration. So this should be a no-brainer. Co-promote, be authentic. Encourage guests to share the clips and the graphics that you provide with them. do the same of course on your stuff. Cross post, tag them. Try to collaborate on Instagram posts.

Whatever you can do, whatever your social media strategy is, do that. If you can get them on for a quick Instagram live or something, that would be great as well. But do the best that you can to leverage their audience. Don’t just have them on and then forget about it and not be in front of their audience.

You know, that’s one of the biggest benefits of having a guest on your show. So you wanna make it super easy for them to do. The promotion and also make them want to do it because of, like we talked about, you did a really good interview and they’re excited to share and it’s something different or something they really have always wanted to talk about publicly, but never really had the opportunity or nobody asked them.

I also like doing this as well right after the interview, trying to connect on LinkedIn or Instagram. It’s a great time to get that while they’re, you know, they log to LinkedIn, they see your name. They’ll accept the connection or perhaps they’ll follow you back on Instagram while everything’s fresh.

You know, if you wait for a couple months down the road to do that, they may have forgotten who you are. what was that name again? And they, they don’t really care. So doing that social media connection stuff right after the interview is a great one as well. And then you’ve got that in place for when the actual episode goes live and you want to do the collaboration and tagging.

And that sort of thing. for specific guests, you may even want to invite them back strategically, like having a part two episode on a certain topic or something that’s evolved. If they said they were gonna be working on something and you want to have, uh, another episode, follow up to see how that goes, you know, that’s something to put in your notes for the future as well.

And you can consider joint opportunities at this point as well. I mentioned that a moment ago, putting it in your notes if there is anything that they mentioned that you might want to come back to later. But, as well, you know, not just introductions within your network, but if you really think like I have an opportunity here or something with this person, I’d love to work with this person.

It’s a great time to be thinking about that. And trying out some little things like the live that I mentioned. You know, a, an Instagram live for 10 minutes is like a low barrier entry to something more. They’ll remember you a little more by it, and then perhaps you can feel out that situation like, yeah, this, this person and I get along really well.

Maybe I should take that next step and think about some kind of thing where we work together or however that looks.

And if you can be a guest on their podcast as well, if they’ve got a podcast that’s really, really good. And now will be a great time to do it.

And finally, the fifth powerful way to build real connections with your podcast guests, cultivate authenticity and vulnerability as the glue. So share your own wellness journey openly. Guests connect when you’re real. It doesn’t mean to take the spotlight off them. We already touched on that briefly, but being memorable helps.

So, like I said, earlier, you don’t wanna make it all about you and be talking too much, but when the moment is right, when you can relate something or bring something up that you know would be of interest to them, or really shows authenticity and vulnerability from your side, those are the things that you would want to focus on.

Let them remember you for being that person that said this or was vulnerable or had that unique experience. So treat every interaction as relationship first. Think of with a conversation like how can you support this person? And when you have that in mind and value top of mind with the people that you encounter, you know, it’s hard not to have relationships naturally develop from that when you’re a giver rather than just a taker.

So there you go. Your podcast guests aren’t just bookings. They’re not just interviews to have on there, they’re potential lifelong connections in a world where relationships drive everything. And it seems more and more challenging these days to perhaps make human connections. You know, everyone has such short attention spans.

Everybody’s just out to do more, more, more. Get someone on the podcast, do the interview, you know, get the, get them out the door, get the next one on. So taking a moment to step back, focus on building genuine connections. It’s not gonna be with everybody, but. Be observant of who, the ones that would really be beneficial to be in your life and vice versa. Put the effort into those ones and do what you can for the rest. But don’t just see it as a another interview to just pass by.

keep in mind you’re not gonna form that deep connection with everybody. That you come into contact with. Just like you’re not best friends with everybody, it’s okay. We really just want to be observant. For those ones, that would be a great connection or they could offer us some value or we could offer them some great value, right?

Not gonna click with everybody, but it’s still totally fine. You can still keep tabs on them, on them and check in once in a while if you think that is is a good idea. But otherwise, focus on the best ones.

You wanna make sure that you do not miss those opportunities to connect with the people who would be great to have in your life and for you to be in their life. So keep this all in mind when you’re doing your podcast, if you’re having people on your show for interviews, and you’ll further increase that ROI that you get from podcasting that stretches far beyond simply transactional making sales through your podcast audience.

If you want these types of benefits and more from podcasting, but you wanna make sure that you look good, sound great, and are not being weighed down by the production process of podcasting. You just wanna do the recordings and have everything else happen automatically and professionally. That’s where East Coast Studio can help.

Visit the link in the show notes. Set up your podcast Vitality. Call with me today and we’ll see how we can help you produce one quality podcast episode every single week for the next year. Thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next time.