A former client once called me after a podcast interview and was clearly unhappy.
The interview had been scheduled for an hour, but it only lasted about twenty minutes.
To him, that meant something had gone wrong, like maybe I had gotten the scheduled length wrong. While it’s true mistakes can happen, I double checked this and that was not the issue.
But it got me to thinking about something that is quite important. One of the mistakes guests can make after an interview is judging the quality of the conversation by the clock.
An interview scheduled for sixty minutes does not necessarily mean the host expects to record for sixty minutes. That block may include setup time, conversation before the recording begins, technical checks, or simply extra room on the calendar.
Sometimes the host gets what they need much sooner than expected, and an hour-long interview turns out to be much shorter. Perhaps the guest is particularly good at giving clear, concise answers. The conversation reaches a natural conclusion, the host realizes they have a strong episode, and continuing simply for the sake of filling time would add nothing.
There are other possibilities too.
Maybe the host has another recording or meeting coming up. Maybe they routinely schedule an hour but produce shorter episodes. Maybe the topic sounded broader when the interview was booked than it turned out to be once the conversation began.
And yes, sometimes there are reasons worth paying attention to.
Perhaps the guest is giving very long answers (I call this holding court) and turning the interview into a presentation rather than a conversation.
Perhaps the guest keeps circling back to the book, program, service, or company and the interview begins to feel promotional.
Sometimes a guest repeatedly says, “In my book…” and hosts often don’t like that. The audience is there to listen to the conversation, not to hear a commercial for the book.
Sometimes answers are so brief that the host has to work too hard to keep things going.
In fact, one of the most important interviewing skills I teach is how to help move the conversation forward. Answer the question, certainly, but give the host somewhere to go next. I call this “teeing up the next question.”
You might introduce a new idea, mention something surprising, or begin a story that naturally gives the host another direction to explore.
A good interview is like a dance. It is something the guest and host build together. Occasionally there is simply very little chemistry. Both people may be perfectly competent and pleasant, but the conversation never quite catches fire.
So what should you do if your hour-long interview ends after twenty minutes?
Don’t immediately decide you failed.
Instead, debrief.
Think about the host’s energy. Were they engaged? Did they ask follow-up questions? Did the conversation flow? Consider your own responses too. Were they too long or too short? Did you repeat yourself? Did you give the host places to take the discussion? And perhaps most importantly, did they wrap warmly and seem pleased with what they had?
Those clues tell you much more than the clock. And an early ending can be useful feedback.
It can also mean absolutely nothing was wrong.
Media Darling Moment: The length of an interview does not tell you whether it was successful. The conversation does.
Pay attention to that.
To your success!
Joanne
P.S. A great interview has a certain energy to it. You can usually feel when it’s there.
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