You and your guest can call your show up to 15 minutes before air time for any last minute discussions and to make sure you can hear your guest and they can hear you. When you set up your call, you can and should set it to open with everyone silently. Obviously, you want to unmute your guest as soon as they are seen on your control panel to have entered the call. Anyone who joins the call will join in silence. You can turn them off and mute them again as your questions pop up in the question prompt when you start answering questions after interviewing your guest.
Don’t start recording the show until just before the show begins.
Here is a basic format for a talk show where you would interview a guest and then open the call for questions from your interlocutor / participants:
o Do you introduce yourself to your show by introducing yourself? . .
Welcome your listeners and chat participants. . .
(Please indicate the name of your program and what it is about) example:
This is (Your name) and I want to welcome our callers and conversationalists to (Your Talk Show Name) where we discuss all things (Your Show Topic). We will be interviewing (Name of your guest / expert), of (Your company or website) regarding (what is your guest an expert). The interview will last approximately XX minutes and then we will take questions.
o Next, make a formal introduction to your interviewee: a sentence or two about your background, accomplishments, and your business (or what you and your guest have decided).
o Welcome your guest formally – Example: Hello (Guest name), I am very happy to have you on (Your program name).
o Start your interview by asking things like how your guest got involved with your area of expertise, how long has he or she been working in your area of expertise, etc. Be sure to mention any books or training courses the guest has written.
o Continue the interview segment by asking the questions you resolved with your guest during the pre-interview call. Your interview with your guest / expert shouldn’t be longer than 30 minutes, but if it does, don’t worry.
o Before finalizing the personal interview with your guest, make sure to connect your product or website or whatever it is that you are promoting. If you are an affiliate, you want to have a redirect page on your domain that goes to your affiliate page on your guest’s product site.
o You will have your Teleprompter open on the left side of your computer screen and the TalkShoe Control Panel open on the right side of your screen. You can look in the question track and say the username with the first question you want to ask your guest.
If they are a chat-only participant, ask their question. If the caller is on the phone, unmute the caller and say “Hello, your (username), we like to keep things by name here, so who are we talking to? They will say their name and then you say “From the producer board, it seems you have a question about (Please use a shortened version of the question or its main topic),” Would you like to clarify that or perhaps expand your question?
o Then give the question to your guest. Let your guest have plenty of time to answer the question, but if you have a lot of questions on the sign, cut them diplomatically if the answer is longer than 3-4 minutes, saying “That’s great (name of guests), we have a few more questions. we need to fit into the time we have left today. (Use your own judgment on this tactic.) Then silence the last person who called, (Don’t stop talking, go directly to the next question on the signal), saying ” Y The next question is from (Unmute the next caller with a question and do the same with that caller and their question.
o Once the questions have been answered or you have answered all the questions you have time for, remind your listeners of the product your guest is promoting and any website they are promoting.
o Remind everyone on the call what the name of your show is, when your next show will air and who your next guest is and what the topic of discussion will be.
o Close the session by saying something like – Well that’s it for (Name of your show) – I want to thank our guest (Name of guest) and all of our participants in the show – until the next time it’s (Your name), saying (whatever your catchy line is).
o Stop recording. Typically, your recording will be available to download or listen to via flash media within 24 hours.
o You may want to download your show and reload it for podcast listeners. (See resources for free editing software.)
You can format your program any way you like. The format example above is just that; An example.