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Through six years of podcasting, I've done a lot of guest interviews and if I'm being honest, I didn't put a lot of thought into who I invited on. If someone sounded interesting, I usually said yes. That wasn't a big deal when I was just podcasting as a hobby, but once I started running a podcast like I business, I realized I needed to be more thoughtful. I had a limited number of guest spots and I wanted to use them well when talking with clients. They want the same thing too. So to become more selective with your guest, I identified five roles someone can play when they appear on your show. I'll break down each role, how to approach the interview based on their role, and how they add value to your listeners and your business. By the end, you'll have a repeatable way to choose guest intentionally. Instead of leaving it up to chance, let's get into it. Okay, so through the rest of this episode, I'm going to be breaking down five types of guest and illustrate an episode format that will be engaging for your listeners. I'm going to share some tips on how to approach an interview with this kind of guest. And yes, I think every guest or different role of guest might have a little bit different approach. And finally, how these guest interviews can support your business. I think every kind of guest can support your business in a little bit different way. So let's get into it and start with the very first role and that is the client. So this could be inviting on a past or a current client who shares their story and outcomes in a way that benefits the listeners. Two easy formats to do with your clients are behind the scenes of a client win or what changed before versus after working together. I'd suggest starting with the struggle, not necessarily the success, and focus on the decisions, mistakes, the turning points, and ask a lot of questions around those three things in these kinds of interviews. As a host, I think your role should be a facilitator. You should be of course guiding the conversation and asking the right questions to get through the decisions, the mistakes and the turning points. But I don't think you need to promote yourself, your services or over credit your process and these kinds of episodes that's gotta come out naturally. Instead, just pull out the lessons that the listener can apply immediately. Based on the journey that your client went through, these kind of guest interviews can be a huge help to your business. This allows you to showcase your work in action and demonstrate results without necessarily having to be really pitchy or salesy. It can take a lot of the concepts or frameworks that you teach in your solo episodes and make them a lot more tangible. You know, this is essentially taking those ideas, those concepts, and then offering real world examples to your audience. Like, hey, I taught you about this concept in my last solo. Here is a client of mine who applied that line of thinking and this is the results that they got. Of course, these episodes are great for social proof for future clients. A listener might be thinking to themselves, ooh, I have a similar issue. And then through an episode like this, you can illustrate how you would take them through the journey to overcome that particular issue. All right, rule number two is the subject matter expert. These are guests that you have on because they have an expertise that you can't necessarily fill. Subject matter experts can be great if they have similar audiences with complimentary services. Think a financial planner inviting on a tax professional. In these kind of episodes, you can bring a lot of clarity and deep insight to a very specific problem that your audience cares about. Other examples could also be specialist, either internal or external, that you've worked with before, or just appear another content creator, another business owner that has a really strong viewpoint and is somebody that has some deep expertise. I would approach these kind of interviews by anchoring on one clear problem. Whenever interviewing subject matter experts, pick topics where you can dive deep on. You don't have to discuss their life story, their backstory, or a lot of theoreticals. Instead, ask for examples, frameworks, opinions that that subject matter expert can really bring to the table. As a host, it is your job to be a translator. You need to translate their expertise into plain language that your audience can understand. And you want to do a lot of pre planning before you interview a subject matter expert so that you can curate a list of clear questions that make this kind of topic digestible and applicable to your specific audience. As I mentioned, avoid long bios, backstories, or any kind of generic advice that people can find anywhere. Subject matter experts can help your business specifically and your podcast by expanding the scope of content that you can offer. If you don't have an expertise on something and your audience wants that expertise, these subject matter experts will be a great addition to your guest lineup. It's also going to strengthen your authority as someone who curates expert advice and positions you as the go to whenever someone is looking for help. Instead of me needing to personally go out and find a tax expert, I can go to my financial planner and I know that they've already selected the tax expert and on their podcast, I don't need to find another Tax professional podcast. I know that my financial planner is bringing in a tax professional and curating the topics that I care the most about. What is it? You don't necessarily need to know every answer, but you just need to know the person who knows those answers. And these kind of guests demonstrate that well, and of course on a personal basis too. This is going to strengthen your personal network and generate potentially a long term referral opportunity. You could even potentially turn some of these kind of relationships into co marketing or joint offers or other collaborations with this kind of expert. Maybe you can serve their audience if they're a podcaster or social media or a blogger by doing some kind of swap. All right, rule number three is the audience expander. These are people that can introduce your show to new listeners. A couple examples could be people with active newsletters, engaged social media audiences, or community leaders that are platform owners. Think about people who run both paid communities or free communities. Maybe they curate live events or they own some kind of media. I do think we need to put a reality check on this one before we dive too deep into it, because having a large or well aligned audience doesn't really matter if this guest is not actually going to share their episode with their audience. So I think from the get go, expectations should be set so that there isn't a misalignment and you're not having this person on just so they can gain some more of your audience. I think these kind of relationships work best typically when you already have a connection with the audience builder and when the value goes both ways. Meaning if you're able to give them exposure to your audience, they ideally will reciprocate by sharing it with their audience as well. Also, I don't think these audiences have to be on the same platform. I don't think they have to have a large podcast. A lot of times audience expanders can be a great fit if they don't have a podcast because they want to podcast more and they don't have audio or video podcast listeners. Instead, it might be better if they are a writer or they're on social media or they are some kind of platform owner like we mentioned above. Okay, so how do you make these kind of episodes engaging for listeners? First, pick a topic that's super shareable. Pick a topic that you know is going to be broad enough that if they share it with their audience, their audience is going to have some interest as well. You might also think about creating additional content especially that highlights them any kind of quotable moments so they have more content that they can share. This also might be a kind of episode where you invest in higher quality. It could be adding video if you're an audio only podcast, maybe even renting a studio so you can invite this person in and that you know you're going to get quality content that they're excited to share. So let's talk about how having an audience builder helps your business. Well, of course it's going to expand your reach and improve your discoverability. If they're introducing you to a large new audience, hopefully some of that audience is coming over, checking out your guys's podcast episode you created together and then maybe sticking around and continuing to consume your content. This can also provide social proof and build awareness for your show in general as other audience builders might see that you've had someone on their show and then you're going to be able to tap into other higher end guests that have large audience as well. Guest Role number four is the potential client. These are people who look like your ideal client, but I will put a caveat on, this is the guest role that I feel like you have to be most careful with. A podcast interview should not feel like a sales call in disguise. If a guest shows up expecting that they are going to have a great conversation and share their story, but then leaves feeling pitched, it doesn't matter if they're a potential client, the trust is gone and they're never gonna buy from you. I will admit that business is often a byproduct with guest. I've had many instances where I've gotten to know a guest through an interview. The conversation goes well and then after the episode we're just naturally starting to talk about working together. I think that is totally fair. The key difference here is intent versus outcome. If you want to intentionally use your podcast to create leads though, there is a better approach that you can use and that's using opt in formats like live coaching calls, audits or hot seats or AMA style episodes. These kind of episodes make it clear from the start what the expectations are. The listener is raising their hand for help and you are offering guidance and creating content together. These can work really well because your listeners actually get to see a real representation of you in action, coaching or giving some guidance. They're also typically highly relatable episodes. Any kind of question that you're routinely getting from a potential client is probably something else that one of your listeners or ideal listeners is experiencing themselves. And the nice thing is this potential client or this guest is using the specific language or explaining situations like your Ideal listener would too, instead of an expert like yourself would. So, how to approach these kind of episodes to make it engaging for your listeners? Well, first, ask questions that highlight real problems and let the potential client, the participant or guest in this episode, lead with their situation. And then as the host, I think it's best to narrate your thinking as you go. Explain a little bit more why you're thinking, the things that you're saying out loud, and do a good job throughout the episode summarizing the lessons in real time. And hopefully I don't have to say this, but I will avoid pitching opportunities if it makes sense, will appear after interviews to discuss how you could potentially work together long term. But I don't think that should necessarily be on air while you're recording. How do having potential clients as guests help your business? Well, first things, these kind of episodes are going to position you as helpful and capable once again without being pitchy or salesy. These are similar to having a client on your show. You get to demonstrate your expertise live and allow people a glimpse into what it would look like to work with you. You also get insight into real pain points. If done right. You're listening to the potential client and writing down the way they describe their pain points, the situations they find themselves in, what they care about the most. This is really good information, not only for future content, but for you to apply to your business and the approach that you're going to have with your clients. And of course, if done right and you build rapport with the potential client as a guest, these are going to be natural, warm leads that are going to emerge after episodes and potential people that you can work with pretty quickly after an episode. Okay, so up until this point, we have talked about the client role number one, the subject matter expert role number two, the audience expander role number three, and the potential client role number four. Our final role is the relationship builder. These are guests that you have on because you want to strengthen or start a meaningful connection. Some examples could be someone that you admire or you follow for years, a peer that you want to know better, or someone in an adjacent industry that it would make sense to really get to know, potentially because you're trying to build a collaboration. How can you make these kind of episodes engaging for listeners? Well, first, let the excitement show. If you're really excited to talk to somebody, then you, your listener's also going to get excited because of how excited you are. But I will put a caveat on that. I think you should approach this as a curious peer and not as a super fan, you still want to ask questions that your audience wouldn't think to ask and dive into stories that they've never shared before. If this is someone that you admire, this is also probably someone that your ideal listener admires too. One interesting approach that I do whenever I'm having a relationship builder on my show is I'll expand my interview time, I'll add another 15 minutes, and I add that into the end of the interviews so that after we're done recording, I have another 15, potentially 20 minutes in the post conversation to continue to get to know this kind of guest. I think if one of the primary goals that you're having a relationship builder on your podcast is to build that relationship, well, then allow enough time not to only record the content that you want to record, but also just to have chit chat off air. These kind of guest interviews are of course going to help your business because they're going to build long term relationships and future collaborations. And in all honesty, if you're excited to build some of these relationships, it's going to continue to get you excited about your podcast in general. So those were the five guest roles, but I will throw out one bonus role and that is the wildcard guest. These are guests that don't neatly fit into other roles, but the conversation feels, feels worth having. You're just genuinely excited to talk to this person. Some examples could be people who work in causes you you care about. It could be friends or people that you want to support. Maybe a friend is launching a new business or project. Maybe a peer is releasing a book or course or creative project, or just somebody that you respect who's doing meaningful work that doesn't have the perfect guest angle for your show. These are the kind of guest interviews that are going to make podcasting feel human and just less transactional. And I think this category of guests should give you permission without guilt. If you allow 10% of your guest interviews to be total wildcards, I think that's a really good approach to podcasting. This is important because it is going to keep podcasting fun for you. It's got to prevent burnout. It's got to help you with the long term consistency. And in all honesty, I don't think every podcast guest interview needs to be optimized. Yes, there should be some intentionality, but. But at the same time, you podcast because it is fun too. And if someone doesn't perfectly fit into the approach that you're taking with your podcast guest, well, that's okay. If every once in a while you allow yourself to say yes to someone that wouldn't necessarily fit so those are my six podcast guest roles for coaches and advisors who have a podcast, I hope this gives you a clear way to think about the different roles guests can play on your podcast and helps you be more intentional with both guest selection and and how you approach the interview itself. So my challenge to you is before you book your next guest, consider two questions. What role is this guest playing? And what would make this episode a win for me and my business? This shift alone can stop you from treating every guest the same and start designing each episode with real intention. That said, there is one critical piece that you can lose sight of in all of this, and that is your listener. If you focus too much on the guest and not enough on how the guest serves your audience, your guest episodes will quietly underperform, downloads are going to dip, retention's got to drop, and listeners are going to stop getting excited when they see a guest interview in your feed. So if you want to make guest interviews something your audience actually looks forward to, head to the next episode. I'm going to break down the common mistakes I see in guest interviews, the things that turn listeners off and how to fix them so that your audience looks forward to your guest episodes again.