How To Get High-Profile Guests For Your Podcast
Ezra Graham, News Nerds Podcaster
When kids were sent home from school at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ezra Graham decided it was a good time to start a news podcast. He was ten years old.
Era lives with his parents in a sparsely populated area about 12 miles from the town of Bozeman, Montana. Mentors who might have helped him with his new project were nowhere in sight. But, still, he was determined to start a podcast.
And so, Ezra did what nearly everyone did during those first days of isolation: he turned to the world wide web for ideas and information. He read reviews and tips from experts, purchased equipment with money he’d saved from selling the eggs his 30+ chickens laid. He decided on the name “News Nerds” for his podcast and built a website: newsnerdspodcast.com. He set up an online podcast account for editing and distribution. Soon, he was ready for his first interview.
But how was a ten-year-old kid supposed to find interesting guests willing to use their valuable time to talk with a fledgling podcaster from rural Montana? Well, he simply found their contact information online and then called and sent email messages until someone said, Yes.
During the first few months, Ezra interviewed renowned chef Alice Waters, legendary journalist Bill Kurtis, Alberto Gonzales (former Attorney General, George W. Bush administration), Dr. John Swartzberg (clinical professor, UC Berkeley), and many other prominent people. His persistence and determination made another of his dreams come true: A local radio station scheduled weekly broadcasts of News Nerds, Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. (prime time). Not many kids can say they deliver world news and high-profile interviews to online and radio audiences every week.
Which brings us back to you. If a ten-year-old kid can get important people to talk with him, you certainly can. Here are a few tips for finding contact information:
Network: Talk to friends and family and colleagues. If they know someone who might be a good candidate for an interview, ask for the appropriate contact information. Lots of connections happen by word of mouth.
Online Search: Use search words related to your topic or area of interest to discover who current experts or celebrities are. Museums, universities, nonprofits, and businesses list contact information on their websites.
Social Media: If you know the name of the expert you want to contact, do a search for them on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Once you find them, sent a connection request and then send them a private message.
Once you have contact information, email and call and email again. Put “Interview Request” in the subject line of your email message. Give a potential date for the interview, explain why you want to talk with them, and let them know how long the interview is likely to take.
If you haven’t heard back within a reasonable amount of time, print the original email message, put it in an envelope with a handwritten note that says something like, “In case this went into your Spam folder… “ and let a postal worker deliver it.
Any successful endeavor requires persistence. But whenever you feel discouraged, remember ten-year-old Ezra and push on to victory.
Here’s a link to my piece about Ezra and his news podcast. We also chatted with his chickens. Enjoy!
