28: Setting Up a Scheduling System To Streamline Your Podcast Interview Process
In last week's episode, I provided some resources for where and how to find guests for your podcast. Now that you've got some people interested in being on your show, let's talk about how to streamline the process of getting those interviews scheduled so it takes the least amount of time, energy, and frustration on your part.
In this episode, I'm providing three options for online appointment scheduling software, discussing my recommendations for confirmation and reminder emails, providing you with a list of questions and release statements to include, and walking you through my personal favorite program; Acuity Scheduling.
Note: To see the behind-the-scenes video of my Acuity Scheduling account, click the link in the resources section below.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android Devices | Spotify | iHeartRADIO | RSS
Behind-the-Scenes Acuity Video (This video was originally used in my course for starting a podcast that you can find a link to below. Please forgive the terrible audio quality. There was an issue with the settings in the screen recording program I was using and I didn’t realize it until afterwards.)
Free PDF Download: Podcast Interview Questionnaire
Acuity Scheduling (This is an affiliate link and is the program I personally use and love.)
Podcasting for Coaches on Instagram
Podcasting for Coaches on Facebook
My Launch Consultation Packages
Online Course | How to Start a Podcast (For Your Coaching Business)
Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 28 of podcasting for coaches. In this episode, we are going to talk about setting up an online scheduling system to help make your podcast workflow a little bit more efficient, and hopefully help save you some time and some stress and frustration. As a coach or consultant, I would hope that you already have a scheduling system in place. If you do not, I recommend that you get one immediately. There are a few different programs that I think even have some free accounts that you can test out. And I definitely recommend that the bare minimum doing this. And this will make it a lot easier for your potential clients or customers to schedule things like discovery calls with you. The great news is you can depending on which account you have, also use this to schedule your podcast interviews. When I first started podcasting A few years ago, I used a program called schedule once, which I know several people still use. It was I believe, either free or $5 a month and it absolutely served its purpose. And it convinced me that a scheduling system is absolutely fantastic and worth every penny. However, I did not love schedule, once the user interface was just not really that great, it wasn't easy to use. There were a lot of steps to do one simple little thing. And the free or you know, super cheap account had a lot of limitations on it that I just didn't like. Another popular one is calendly, which I have seen so many people use and having been a guest on several podcast, I know that this is super popular with other podcasters and coaches and consultants. I have never tried it myself. But I'm not a huge fan of going through the process on the guest side of things. I just don't really love the way that it looks. So it was never really something that I felt like trying for myself. I do however, use something called acuity scheduling. And I will of course have links to all of these programs, as well as a couple other things we're going to talk about in the show notes for this episode, which you can find by going to podcasting for coaches.com clicking on the main podcast tab and then going to Episode 28. I have used acuity scheduling. Now for years, I honestly don't remember when I first got my account, but I love it, I recommend it to everybody. And I of course recommend it to you as well. I do want to mention that the link for acuity in the show notes will be an affiliate link. But as I believe I've mentioned before, I never do affiliate links for anything that I don't use myself or really, really highly recommend. I have the pretty much most basic paid account that you can have with acuity, it is $10 a month because I'm grandfathered in I believe now for a new members is like 12 or 15 a month. And again worth every single freaking penny. I love acuity so much. It allows me to sync up my calendars so that I can maintain all of my appointments and calls super easily. I at the moment and not conducting interviews for this podcast, but I will be soon. And my original podcast I conducted interviews for two years. So this is something that I'm very familiar with using. And this 110 dollar per month account allowed me to schedule interviews for actually two different podcasts at once. And my business with several different types of calls for that. So if you're not familiar with using a scheduling system, what this basically allows you to do is instead of when you want to schedule an interview with a guest going back and forth via email, hey, do you want to be a guest? Yes, I would love it. Okay, well let me know what time is available for you. While I can do this Thursday. Does that work for you? No. But how about Friday? Okay, sure what time 2pm Yep, that works for me. Instead of doing this whole back and forth, which can get so frustrating. And really just bogged down your whole system, you can just say, hey, it's fantastic that you want to be a guest here is a link where you can schedule a time that works best for you. And it will take them to a page preferably on your website, where they can pick a time of what you have set for your availability, and they can schedule it right there and even add it right into their calendar. So something that could take a matter of days and multiple emails back and forth can now be done in a matter of about two minutes. What a scheduling system also allows you to do is when they pick that time that works for them. You can have it set up so that it sends them an automatic confirmation email with information that you put in there about how to access the call. Where it's going to be conducted what they need to know ahead of time, really anything that you want them to know, prior to the interview that will help make things easier for the both of you. So when I was conducting interviews for my original podcast, I would always make sure to including these confirmation emails, that they should have headphones and Apple earbuds were perfectly fine that they needed to be in a quiet space, so away from any Windows, or traffic noises. And even if they could turn off their AC or fans, because a lot of times people don't think about those things. And then I would always request that they hardwire into their internet connection, if at all possible so that we could have a stronger call connection. And then of course, I would remind them to make sure that they had all of their notifications on their device, and their phone on silent. Now for my businesses, I conduct all of my client consultations via zoom, I am able to put my personalized zoom link URL for a call in my confirmation email. So I don't have to follow up with someone after they've scheduled a call with me to tell them how to access that phone call. It's built right into my confirmation email. You can also set it up so that it sends email reminders. And this can include the same information from your confirmation email, just so that they get that refresher of what they need to do in order to be ready for the call. I personally have these reminders set for one week prior to the interview. And then 24 hours prior to the interview. I like to do the one week out because if people schedule interviews more than a week away, they tend to forget. So if you give them that week long reminder, it gives them time to look at their calendar, make sure they don't have any conflicts. And if they do give you a heads up so that you can get that rescheduled. And you're not finding that out of the last minute by them just being a no show or finding out when they get that 24 hour reminder. And then you're kind of left with a gap in your day. So one of the thing that is absolutely amazing besides automating these email confirmations and reminders, and the whole scheduling process, is the fact that most scheduling services will allow you to collect information when they schedule their interview. So how I always handle this, and how I recommend my clients handle it is that they collect any information they're going to need from the guest prior to the interview, or even afterwards for the show notes or social media promotions. So in the show notes for this episode, I'm actually going to have a download for you. That will include my list of recommended questions to include in your actual Scheduler. So when they go to schedule their call, they have to answer these questions that you have set up before will actually even let them schedule the call itself. So just to run through those real quickly. That is, of course their name and their title, if you want to reference who they are and what they do a bio if they have one in particular that they want you to read. And I recommend putting a character limit on this in the instructions for the field. That way, they can't give you some you know, full page bio, it needs to just be a quick little blurb that you can read in the interview. I also recommend collecting a headshot. And yes, they can upload pictures right into this form that they need to fill out. That way you don't have to go hunting on their website to try and find an image to use in your social media promotions, I recommend also getting their website address and their Skype ID because of course, I do recommend using Skype. And we are definitely going to talk about why I recommend that. And I also recommend getting their email address, of course. And then some other things to include that are gonna make it a little bit easier for you. Or if they have any URLs for any information that they're going to discuss, or any special offers they want to provide for your audience. And then also their social media URLs or handles so that you can tag them when you promote your episode after it's live. Because they are much more likely to share something if they've been tagged, you know, they'll retweet it or they'll you know, repost it on Instagram. They'll share it on Facebook if they're tagged as opposed to having to create that post themselves. A couple other things I recommend doing in this questionnaire as I like to call it is including a few statements that they have to agree to one is that they wear headphones, you will hear me harp on this so often because it is such an important deal. Your guests and yourself absolutely must wear headphones at all times when you are doing an interview. No ifs ands or buts that is a definite and I am going to be very disappointed in you. If you ever deviate from this for any reason. And this is to prevent there being an echo that will make the interview completely unusable. You will waste both of your time if you do not use headphones. So I always make this a statement generally saying something like I understand that I am required to wear headphones. Failure to do so may result in a cancellation of the interview. And then they just have to check the boxing they agree. I also recommend having some release or rights statements. So I want to preface this by saying I am not an attorney and I recommend having an attorney review these statements. I did borrow these statements from john Lee Dumas is Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. And statement one says I understand that by participating In the interview, I am agreeing to allow your name or your business name here. So for me, it would say I am agreeing to allow Britany Felix to record, distribute and disseminate the interview and podcast in any manner. And this would be required and they would have to check this box. Statement number two says, I am also agreeing to allow Britany Felix to retain rights to the produced media for potential future use in speeches, books, and in all other public distribution. So this covers you for social media posts, and if you want to use their image, and if you decide you want to give a presentation at a conference one day and you want to include this interview, for some reason, you can, if you want to write a book and have transcripts of your shows, you can absolutely do that as long as they agree to the statement here. And I make these statements required. So they physically cannot schedule their call unless they check yes to all three of these statements. So as mentioned, I'm going to have a link to the PDF that has the questions and the release statements that I just discussed. And they're going to have links to schedule once calendly and acuity scheduling. in the show notes for this episode podcasting for coaches.com. Click on the main podcast tab, and then go to Episode 28. In the shownotes, I am also going to have a video where I'm going to give you a little behind the scenes peek at what it looks like inside my acuity dashboard and how that's set up. And then I'm also going to take you through the process of what it looks like from a guest viewpoint to schedule an interview using acuity scheduling. So you can see how I have this all set up for my business and my podcast. And lastly, I do of course want to invite you to come back next week, where we are going to talk about how to actually conduct your interviews. Using this new scheduling system. You're going to have them scheduled and now it's time to actually do the interview itself. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you back here next week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you're wondering if now is the right time to start a podcast for your coaching or consulting business. Head on over to podcasting for coaches.com where you can either take a free quiz or schedule a one on one consultation with yours truly, thank you so much for joining me today and I will see you back here for the next episode.