In this episode, Jules talks about how to prepare your guests before you start recording.

Here are three steps for getting the best out of your conversation:

1. Brief your guests in advance. Explain the tone, give them some basic technical instructions and talking points or questions so they know what to expect. 

   
   



2. Try & do a short technical check with your guests in advance of the recording. This only needs to be 5 minutes but it will highlight any technical issues before the actual recording. It will also allow you to gauge how confident or nervous your guests will be and identify any good or bad topics.

   
   



3. Make the guests feel at ease when you start talking to them. When you check their sound, ask them what they had for breakfast/lunch, where they are, what the weather is like etc and find some common ground (dogs, children, holiday plans etc). If they seem nervous run through the questions to make sure they’re happy with them. 

   
   

Below are the technical instructions I share with guests for using Riverside. I’d recommend including a line about using bullet points if they want to make notes, rather than writing out their answers word-for-word:

- We record using a podcast recording platform called Riverside. This works in a similar way to Zoom or Teams. You don't need to download anything.

- Riverside will only work when you open it using Google Chrome or Edge as your browser.

- It won't work if you're using a VPN.

- Please join the recording from a quiet room with no air con and one that doesn't have bare floors/walls (as these echo). Bedrooms with carpets are best. Meeting rooms are usually terrible.

- Please wear plug-in headphones 

- Please make sure you have your mobile phone to hand with the voice recorder downloaded and ready to go. This will act as a backup recording of your part of the conversation.