Phylicia Pough (00:00:00) - Hey friend, welcome to another episode of the podcast. So glad that you are tuning in with me today. We are going to be talking about improving your podcast guest experience and why it matters. So you may be wondering why are you talking about podcasting? Why are you talking about the guest experience? And I want to share that a little bit with you. So at the mom CEO suite, if you're new here, in addition to curating experiences for mom partners, we automate business and podcasting processes for mom Preneur Service providers. But still, you might be thinking, okay, why the podcasting piece, right? So as a mom in business and at the Mom CEO suite, we're all about building a business in a sustainable way. We're not trying to build these online businesses in a way where we're going to get burned out. And podcasting, if it's done right, it can be an amazing sustainable marketing strategy. And I'm going to dig deeper into that in a future episode. But to be honest, personally, I have fallen in love with podcasting and behind the scenes in my business I am going all in on podcasting as my main marketing strategy.

Phylicia Pough (00:01:21) - It's so flexible I can record from bed if I want to. Right now I'm in my closet recording. I'm comfortable on the floor. I've recorded episodes at 3 a.m. I can bulk record and the flexibility of it, it just really fits my lifestyle as a mom with a little one at home. And I know that many of you also have the same type of lifestyle. And so with podcasting, the message, it still gets out. It's evergreen. And then I can repurpose that content for for social media. And so that's why it's included in the mix at the Mom CEO suite, because I really, truly believe in its sustainability for my partners. And when you couple that with our automation strategies for podcasts guest management, it makes this an even bigger win for all of us. Okay, so that's why I'm talking about podcasting in the guest experience. But why does the guest experience really matter? So I found that when you talk about or when you look at podcasting as an industry and you look at the information that's available or the services that's available, the majority of what you will find is related to launching your podcast or producing your podcast, producing and editing your podcast.

Phylicia Pough (00:02:49) - I've seen that there is a gap and nobody or not a lot of people are talking about the podcast guest experience. And so this episode is going to be good for you. If you have a podcast, if you seriously podcast for your business, if you interview guests or you're aspiring to do that, this is going to be a great episode for you because not only does your podcast production matter, but the podcast guest experience also matters. And why does it matter? It matters because it's going to help build a positive reputation for you as a podcast host. Think about it. If you give your podcast guests an amazing experience, then they are going to be more likely to refer you to other people. If you have a process that is very high level and streamlined and they are going through it and they're feeling good throughout the process, then that gives them a taste or an example of what it would be like to work with you. And then also, not only would they refer you, but they probably would be willing to work with you if they have a good experience with you.

Phylicia Pough (00:04:06) - So you're building your rapport as a podcast host when you provide a high level experience to your guests. And then also it increases the likelihood of them sharing. You have to think about it If your experience for your podcast guests is not great, and I've had some of these experiences and so that's why I can speak to it where it's not an organized process where they're constantly asking you or doubling back for information that you already sent them because they're not organized, not giving you any type of preparation with questions or having to go back and forth in email, trying to figure out a time that works for the interview, showing up late for the interview and not showing up for the interview at all. These are all things that diminish the experience for the podcast guest And so if you are the guests, you have to think, would you then share out this episode to your audience and to your community, right? Because when you're sharing something to your audience in your community, you're basically. Whole signing this other person and their platform.

Phylicia Pough (00:05:28) - Me personally, if I don't have a good experience with you, I am not going to share. I don't care if I spend an hour talking to you, I'm not going to share it out to my community, into my platform, because I then do not co-sign how you operate in your business. And then that would be a bad reflection on me if somebody from my community and audience then has a bad experience with this same person. So you have to think about that. On the flip side, if you provide a great high level experience, then they are going to be more likely to share out their episodes, share it with their community, and that is going to get more people listening to your podcast, which is ultimately what we want as podcast hosts, Right? Okay. I've talked a little bit about why I'm talking about podcasting in the first place, why your podcast guest experience matters. And so how do you then really. Began to improve your podcast guest experience. So I'm going to give you guys a few tips, but I want to let you know I'm going to be hosting a master class where I'm going to dig deeper into these tips and I'm going to be giving you tangible strategies that's going to help you to streamline your podcast guest experience.

Phylicia Pough (00:06:51) - This masterclass is going to take place on Friday, July the 14th, from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern Time. And if you want more information about that, just go to the show description. There's a link or you can go to the mom CEO suite com slash masterclass to get all of the information there to register. But let me give you these tips. So, number one, you want to create a well thought out process that keeps your guests well informed in a timely manner. Okay. This is so important that you actually sit down and spend some time thinking through each step of the process. Now, I have a podcast guest management system, and so everybody who is a guest on my podcast, they go through this process. But the first thing that I did was I sat down and I thought through all of the things that I would need from them, all of the things that I would need to communicate with them. And then I started arranging them in some type of chronological order and then adding time frames to things like how far in advance did they need to know X, Y and Z? And so there's a lot of other little things to consider.

Phylicia Pough (00:08:07) - But just to get started again, think through a process that is going to keep them well informed. Okay, so well informed about what's happening, well informed about what you need from them, just keeping them well informed and in a timely manner. Okay. That's the first thing. And then next, you want to optimize your touch points. So what do I mean by this? There is such thing as communicating too much and communicating too little. So optimizing your touch points really means finding that balance between over communicating, right? Because you don't want them to be overwhelmed with all of the information or all of the tests that you might have for them. But you also don't want to under communicate where they are in the dark, where they are missing information, where they're just clueless. So you have to find that balance between over communicating and under communicating. And so optimizing your touch points really looks like, for example, if you're sending them an email, are you putting five tests? This is just hypothetical because you shouldn't have five tests for them to do, but are you putting five tasks in one email of things that you need for for them to do and send back to you? That would be a little bit overwhelming.

Phylicia Pough (00:09:39) - So you have to figure out how to get the information you need but requested in a way that does not overwhelm your your guest. So that is optimizing the touch points. And again. I'm going to in the master class go over these strategies in a real time. I'll show you guys my personal podcast guest management process, and you'll be able to see specifically what I mean when I say optimizing your touchpoints. And then finally, you want to leverage tools in automation to maximize your efforts and streamline the experience. So in the last episode, if you did not listen episode 21, go take a listen. I talk about the specific tools that I use in my business to produce my podcast and also what I use for a podcast guest management. So actually you can listen to the last two episodes because it was a little two part series, but we're also using a podcast as a marketing strategy, and producing a podcast does take a lot of energy and it does take a lot of work. And so you want to be able to maximize your efforts wherever you can in a way that you can do that is using automation to send communications or obtain information from your guests.

Phylicia Pough (00:11:04) - So that way you're not having to do these things manually. And then streamlining the process really means that each guest is going through the same experience. So guess A is not going to have a five star experience and then guest B is going to have a one star experience. Everybody should have that same five star experience because you have mapped out the steps you have. This well thought out process is streamlined and everybody is going through it and they're going to get the same information in the same time increments. So it's very streamlined. There's no question about what's going to be happening and when it's going to be happening. So again, just to do a quick recap how you can begin to improve your guest experience number one, you want to create a well thought out process that keeps your guests well informed in a timely manner. Number two, you want to optimize your touch points, meaning you want to find that balance between over communicating and under communicating. And then number three, you want to leverage tools and automation to maximize your efforts and streamline the experience for your guests.

Phylicia Pough (00:12:19) - Okay. Now, if this is something that you are saying, yes, this sounds amazing, but I could use a bit more support. I could use more specific strategies about how to do this. Then you definitely want to check out the upcoming masterclass. Okay. This is going to be a live 60 minute masterclass on Friday, July the 14th, from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern. The class is called Beyond the Basics Advanced Techniques for Seamless Podcast Guest Management. And I'm very, very excited about it because you're going to learn strategies to transform your guest management process from basic to exceptional. And I'm going to be going over specifically the phases of a solid guest management workflow. I'm going to go over the specific automations that's going to make your guest management process easier. I'm going to show you how to create a streamlined process from start to finish and how to elevate your guest experience. So again, if you want more information about that, go to the show description, click the link or you can go to the mom CEO suite.com backslash master class to get all of the information there.

Phylicia Pough (00:13:31) - And so I hope after listening to this episode, if you are a podcast host or an aspiring podcast host that you really take away that it's important to prioritize your podcast guests management the same way that you prioritize your clients in your business. That's the same way that you need to prioritize the guests for your podcast, especially if you are using your podcast as a lead generator for your business or one of your main marketing tools. Okay. And so if you guys have any questions about anything that I've said, go ahead, shoot me a DM on Instagram. I would love to chat with you, otherwise I will see you in the next episode.