How I Chose My Guests [Day 12 30 Days of Podcast Notes]
September 12, 202600:06:32

How I Chose My Guests [Day 12 30 Days of Podcast Notes]

My early guest list came straight out of my own orbit — Jason Coleman first, then Rebecca Gill, Brian Krogsgard, Corey Miller, Carrie Dils — and my first big guest, Chris Coyier, said yes far earlier than I had any right to expect. Someone eventually pointed out that my roster skewed heavily male, and while I hadn't done it on purpose, I hadn't been mindful about it either; I've kept it close to an even split ever since. The other thing I decided early and still hold to: a guest owes you their time and nothing else. No required social shares, no prep homework, no strong-arming. They're doing you a favor.

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00:00:00 --> 00:00:05 Hello and welcome to episode 12 day 12 of 30
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 days of podcast notes here on the streamlined
00:00:07 --> 00:00:11 podcaster. Yesterday I talked about the tools
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 really over the past couple of days. I've been
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 building up to this, but this was an interview
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 show and I very specifically wanted it to be
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 an interview show. So how did I choose my guests?
00:00:21 --> 00:00:26 How did I do outreach? Where did I go wrong?
00:00:27 --> 00:00:34 I So first of all, I don't think I had some blind
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 spots that were made clear to me that I'll get
00:00:37 --> 00:00:41 to in a minute. But at first, I reached out to
00:00:41 --> 00:00:46 a bunch of my friends. So my very first interview
00:00:46 --> 00:00:52 was with my friend Jason Coleman, who he and
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 his wife run Paid Memberships Pro, one of the
00:00:55 --> 00:01:00 earliest and best WordPress membership plugins.
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 They supported my work for a long time when I
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 was, you know, I was doing like these YouTube
00:01:06 --> 00:01:10 live stream trainings and I did one for them,
00:01:10 --> 00:01:15 which they sponsored very generously. So my first
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 guest was Jason Coleman. My second guest was
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 Rebecca Gill, another friend of mine from the
00:01:21 --> 00:01:25 WordPress space. and I really enjoy talking to
00:01:25 --> 00:01:29 and learning a lot from her. And again, just
00:01:29 --> 00:01:34 people in my immediate orbit. So Brian Cogsguard,
00:01:34 --> 00:01:38 Corey Miller, Carrie Dills, who also had a popular
00:01:38 --> 00:01:42 WordPress plugin at the time. My first big guest
00:01:42 --> 00:01:47 came super early and it was Chris Coyer. If you
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 are in the WordPress or if you're in the web
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 development space, you know, Chris Coyer, and
00:01:51 --> 00:01:56 I could not believe he said yes. It was really
00:01:56 --> 00:02:01 generous of him to come on the show. And he wasn't
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 necessarily, we didn't talk about a WordPress
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 project per se, but he was very familiar with
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 the WordPress space. And so really grateful for
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 that, but something that was pointed out to me,
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 and this is the thing I alluded to. Though, I
00:02:15 --> 00:02:19 mean, in my... This was like kind of not fair
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 now that I'm looking at the early guests because
00:02:22 --> 00:02:26 two of the first five guests were women, but
00:02:26 --> 00:02:31 I was told I was very male heavy, white male
00:02:31 --> 00:02:38 specifically. And I think that person didn't
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 like me very much and was also kind of a rabble
00:02:41 --> 00:02:46 rouser to say the least. But I did. You know,
00:02:46 --> 00:02:51 I mean I wasn't doing anything Yeah, I mean I
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 I feel like that was an unfair assessment looking
00:02:54 --> 00:02:59 at You sure there were stretches where it was
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 like all white dudes But I didn't do it on purpose
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 and it did Grateful to that person for bringing
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 it to my attention and so I did make a very concerted
00:03:09 --> 00:03:13 effort after that and I think I've more or less
00:03:14 --> 00:03:19 maintained 50 -50 split and so anyway that was
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 something I didn't realize was important may
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 not I mean I think it isn't I shouldn't say that
00:03:24 --> 00:03:30 I didn't realize it was something I was necessarily
00:03:30 --> 00:03:34 doing and so it certainly wasn't on purpose it
00:03:34 --> 00:03:38 but it also wasn't mindful and so If I had been
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 in a different industry, maybe it would have
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 been different. I was talking to a lot of developers
00:03:44 --> 00:03:48 and Maybe stereotypically a lot of developers
00:03:48 --> 00:03:53 are dudes Again stereotypically, I know a lot
00:03:53 --> 00:03:57 of female developers, but So that I think that
00:03:57 --> 00:04:03 was like my only big stumble probably But I really
00:04:03 --> 00:04:08 am very grateful to those early guests They came
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 on they shared not all of them were friends.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 I mean Jeff Sheldon from Ug Monk came on the
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 show Was really gracious with his time. He had
00:04:17 --> 00:04:21 not known me personally Now I live very close
00:04:21 --> 00:04:27 to Ug Monk HQ I did not at the time and so You
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 know, maybe he recognized my name because I had
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 been a customer for a very long time but very
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 Very generous of the folks who were coming on
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 the show. So those were the guests. I always
00:04:39 --> 00:04:43 I never asked them to share I never required
00:04:43 --> 00:04:52 anything of them outside of the time that they
00:04:52 --> 00:04:59 were generously giving to me To come on the show
00:04:59 --> 00:05:00 and I thought that was really important, right?
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 I never asked them to come up with questions
00:05:02 --> 00:05:07 or do prep share and I think a lot of that is
00:05:07 --> 00:05:11 there's a lot of BS in the podcast industry now
00:05:11 --> 00:05:12 with that where it's like do you agree to share
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 this on social media and with your blah blah
00:05:14 --> 00:05:19 and with your mailing list and the person is
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 doing a favor by coming on your show and providing
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 a ton of value to your guests they don't owe
00:05:23 --> 00:05:27 you anything else you are not paying them and
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 I think that you should honor and respect that
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 and I've always done that and I try really hard
00:05:32 --> 00:05:36 to do that I've since updated my automated email
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 to say like, hey, if you want to, here's the
00:05:39 --> 00:05:46 link. But I don't expect anything. And I certainly
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 don't strong arm it. And I don't think anybody
00:05:48 --> 00:05:53 should. All right. That's it for this podcast
00:05:53 --> 00:05:58 note number 12 in 30 days of podcast notes. I
00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 hope you enjoyed it. If you are enjoying this
00:06:00 --> 00:06:01 series, be sure to subscribe wherever you're
00:06:01 --> 00:06:06 listening. If you run a solo business and you're
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 doing everything yourself and you want to stop
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 doing everything yourself, but you don't want
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 to hire a team, I've got you covered. I do something
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 called SoloOps for solo business owners. You
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 can learn more. Join my mailing list and learn
00:06:19 --> 00:06:23 more about that over at streamlined .fm slash
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 join. There will be a link in the show notes,
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 but that's it for this episode of the Streamlined
00:06:27 --> 00:06:31 Podcaster. Thanks so much for listening and I'll
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 see you. tomorrow.