As podcasters, our goal is to offer our listeners what we in public radio call “driveway moments” — those moments when listeners have to stay where they are (even their driveway) until they hear the end of the story.

But at least half the success of any episode depends on the quality of your guest.

But for most podcasters, finding, choosing and scheduling the right guests is a crapshoot. As a result, the process is stressful.

It can be inspiring instead.

Here are three ways to dramatically improve the quality of the guests on your show:

1. Get clear on the difference between a topic and a story.

   A topic might feel narrow when it isn’t. For instance, “How global warming is affecting Colorado” feels...sorta...narrow, but it’s a topic. Topics are difficult to cover and typically pretty dull. A story is narrower: “Why the native trout are disappearing from the Smith River in SW Colorado” is a story. (The answer, of course, would be “global warming.”) Now you can search for someone who understands your topic, has personal experience with it, and who can talk about it with authority.

2. What’s at stake?

   Listeners connect to emotional moments, moments that make them feel something. So your guest needs to care deeply about the topic at hand. So there must be something at stake. In this example, your guest may be a biologist who’s anxious about the plight of these fish, or about local fishermen, or about what these trends portend for the larger ecosystem. They may be concerned about an impending action (say, potential development) that might make things much worse for the fish unless they can stop it from happening. And this guest — this character in your story — must be actively involved, not just a talking head. We want to hear stories about lived experience, especially lived experience through conflict.

3. Pre-interview, pre-interview, pre-interview

Unless your guest is a public figure and it’s impossible to chat with them ahead of time, I believe taking this one simple step will improve your podcast by 100%. Once you’ve researched potential guests, don’t simply invite them on your show. Ask for a brief pre-interview. When you talk with them, assess their level of knowledge about your topic. Ask them to tell you one story, from their own experience, about it. In addition to vetting their expertise and possibly the stance they take on the issue, listen for “good talkers.” Is this person lively? When they tell a story, do you feel like you’re there, in the scene? Do you care? And how personal are they willing to get? On podcasts, candor matters.

Want more guidance like this? This is a tiny taste of the lessons we provide in our new course, Podcast Liftoff: From Creation to Promotion, Get Your Podcast Off the Ground. Podcast Liftoff will help you become the host you want to be. It’ll help you create a podcast that has listeners talking about you and your show — and telling their friends, “Wow, you have to listen to this!”

Podcast Liftoff distills years of knowledge and experience into a step-by-step course that's also fun, easy to do, and inspirational. Best of all, it’s actionable at every step along the way.