Tips for When You're Interviewed in Public: You May Be the Guest, But You Are in Charge
Your heart flutters a little bit before the interview starts. What if I say something stupid? What if I say something I regret?
A thousand thoughts fly through your head, and then you remind yourself of the most important thing.
Breathe.
If you need to gather your thoughts, if you need a moment to orient yourself, take a breath. Take a sip of your water or coffee.
You’ve got plenty of time. No rush.
You may be the guest, but you’re actually in charge.
There’s a skill I learned from a career coach several years ago. It’s called Media Placement. The idea is simple. You go into the public interview (podcast, talk show, panel discussion, etc.) with 1 to 3 things that you want to communicate to the listening audience.
Then, every question you’re asked becomes an opportunity to find a way to communicate those goals.
Take the first question in this podcast episode, where I’m interviewed on the show Publishing Disrupted.
The first question is, “Tell us about yourself, Katherine.”
There are a thousand things I could say. In most interviews, I’m asked about my specialty of religious trauma and spiritual abuse, so for a question like this, I might tell my one- to two-minute origin story of how I started studying religious trauma.
But on this podcast, the audience is new and aspiring authors and people in the publishing industry.
I’m an emerging author, and I was excited to talk about my author journey and my two books. I could’ve talked about spiritual abuse. Instead, I started with the present day and how we were in the anniversary month of both of my books. I talked about my habit of rereading my books every year. This placed my books in front of the audience while also giving them a glimpse into my author life.
In other words, I addressed why they were listening to the episode to begin with!
My main goal going into this interview was to talk about the author life and building a sustainable author career through the unique lens of my personal journey, one of trauma and abuse.
You’ll hear it in the episode. I rooted every answer in that goal. I did talk about my story of growing up in a high-control religion, but I connected it to my development as an author and how my writing helped save me.
I could’ve talked about the nonprofit I founded or my current coaching business and work with trauma recovery clients. And I did mention those things when prompted by the hosts. But I didn’t stay there long. I wanted to talk about publishing, writing, and my books.
So that’s what I kept bringing the story back to.
Recap: Decide what 1 to 3 things you want to communicate in the interview. Find a way to bring every question you’re asked back to those things. You direct the interview. You decide what you want the audience to know about you.
And as someone who spent five years on the interviewing side, hosting two different podcasts and interviewing over 100 guests, I can tell you that hosts appreciate when you come prepared.
Pro tip: The host usually forgets the question they asked you once you start answering it anyway! So say what you want to say!