The Podcast Guest Checklist
What to do and what to prepare, from the moment you are booked to the week after it airs.
To prepare for a podcast interview: confirm the format and platform when you are booked, listen to two recent episodes, write out the stories you want to tell, pick one problem to diagnose rather than solve, and practice on video for ten minutes and watch it back. On the day, set the camera at eye level, wear wired headphones, and look at the lens.
Most guests prepare by worrying. They rehearse the fear of going blank instead of preparing the three things they actually want to say.
This is the checklist I give clients before a podcast tour. Print it, work down it, and check things off. The preparation section is the one that changes the interview. Everything else on this page just removes the ways an interview can go wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
As soon as you are booked
0 of 7The week before
0 of 9Thirty minutes before
0 of 11During the interview
0 of 10After
0 of 6Common questions
How do you prepare for a podcast interview?
Listen to two or three recent episodes to learn the host's pace, then write out the answers and stories you wish you could share rather than trusting yourself to think on your feet. Pick three specific stories, decide the one problem you will examine in depth, and rehearse on video for ten minutes.
What should you not do as a podcast guest?
Do not open with your credentials, do not solve the audience's problem so completely that they feel finished, and do not save your call to action for one plug at the end. Generic answers and self-indulgent answers are the only genuinely bad ones. Rambling is forgivable, being forgettable is not.
How long should podcast answers be?
Long enough to tell one specific story and short enough that the host can steer. As a working rule, answer, then stop. If you have covered the point and started restating it in different words, you passed the end of the answer about twenty seconds ago.
Should you ask for the questions in advance?
Yes, and most hosts will share them or accept suggested questions. Asking is normal and signals you take the booking seriously. Use them to prepare stories rather than to write a script, because a memorized answer reads as memorized and stops the conversation being a conversation.
What should you do after a podcast interview?
Ask when it publishes, then plan what happens when it does: two or three clips for social, an article built from the transcript for your own site, and a link a prospect can find before a sales call. The interview is the raw material, not the finished product.
The one thing, if you only do one thing
Get on a video call with a colleague, pick a topic, bat it back and forth for ten minutes, record it, and then watch it back together.
That single exercise does more than everything else on this list combined. It takes you out of your own head and shows you what an audience actually sees, which is almost never what you were worried about.
Being on the show is the easy part
Success in Media prepares executives, authors and founders for the interview itself: the stories, the structure, the calls to action, and the practice that makes it land. Jess Todtfeld is a former ABC, NBC and Fox television producer with 13 years behind the desk deciding who was worth booking.
Speak with JessLast reviewed September 2026. Approximate street prices in USD, checked September 2026. Prices move. Treat these as a range, not a quote.
Keep reading
- PodcastingThe Podcast Guest Gear Checklist
- Media TrainingTop 10 Podcast Interview Tips
- Media TrainingHow to Grow a Podcast: A 5-Step Playbook