Building Rapport With Guests and Hosts Before The Interview feat. Think Fast, Talk Smart

The guest / host dynamic is one of the most important parts of making a podcast interview interesting and engaging. But with remote work and coordinating busy schedules, it can but hard to find even more time to get to know someone before they sit down to record with you. But this aspect of production is vital to the success of Think Fast, Talk Smart. 

Jenny Luna is the Senior Digital Content Producer at Stanford University, managing all podcast and audio products for the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In this episode, Jenny and host Robert Li focus on the Stanford podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart which provides the tools, techniques, and best practices to help you communicate more effectively. It has also consistently held top spots on the Apple Podcast charts in the Business and Career categories. 

Robert & Jenny chat about the origins of the show, putting guests at ease and making sure they are prepped before taping, sourcing guests that align with the show brand, how they have grown podcast awareness to such an expansive audience and maintaining an engaging online community around the podcast.

The Word on Campus is produced by University FM.

Consistent publishing is key in building audiences

20:37: We were also really diligent about publishing, and we didn't take a break. We have seen, in the weeks where we have taken breaks over the summer or the holidays, we see a slight dip in listenership. And so, really, we just moved from every two weeks to every week. We publish an episode because people want the content, and we want to be there for them. So that was another reason I think we could build audiences that we were in. They subscribed, and we were in the top of their podcast feed consistently. We didn't take a hiatus.

Criteria for sourcing guests for Think Fast, Talk Smart
15:32: It's really important that the person isn't coming on just to promote their coaching business. For example, we get a lot of pitches from people who are communication coaches, executive coaches, and it's a way to get their name out there and their brand. It's really important to us that there's still an academic element or there's an element of track record leadership.

Helping people, a core value of the show

50:22: First and foremost is helping people. That's our main mission and our main goal. And that's honestly why we've made a lot of the choices that we have. We want to grow as much as we can. For example, we've found a lot of people are using the show to learn English. So, we are doing a lot of English language learning to help that segment of our audience. That isn't necessarily something that we have experience in or something that aligns with the business school, but it's to help. Our listeners—that's really our main goal.

Show Links:

• Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast | Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast on X
• Ep. 88, Best of: Leading From Home: How to Create the Right Environment for Communication
• Matt Abrahams c/o Stanford Graduate School of Business - Newsletter
• Matt Abrahams | LinkedIn
• Matt Abrahams

Guest Profile:

• LinkedIn Jenny Luna
• Jennifer Luna - Stanford