How to Prepare for a Webinar or Interview

Every great conversation looks effortless – but behind every easy chat is a host who’s done their homework. With a fair few under our belt, we’ve learned a lot about how to prepare for a webinar / interview.

We’re not saying we’ve got it totally nailed (we’ve had our fair share of tech wobbles and overenthusiastic intros), but we have learned a thing or two along the way. We thought we’d share some of that, and so:

Table of Contents

• How to Prepare for a Webinar / Interview: The Homework
• Make it easy for them
• Topic
• Active listening & Pacing
• Top tips
• A final note

How to Prepare for a Webinar / Interview: The Homework

• Where possible, see how the guest has interviewed before. What fires them up, what the topics you need to avoid
• What is their background? LinkedIn, online articles etc – get your stalking on and try and understand who they are and what they like. You might find you both have the same dog or like the same sport. This will instantly make a deeper connection and build trust
• What is their current agenda or recent success? They might have a new book to sell or product launch. You can ask if it is ok to mention that as a value exchange.
• Mentioning and celebrating previous achievements is also a really nice thing to do, so understand what got them to where they are today

Make it easy for them

• Give them the heads up on what topics you’ll cover but not necessarily the exact questions. This can lead to a stiff unnatural conversation, you need room to flow
• Explain who the audience is and what the purpose of the podcast/interview is
• Have a pre-amble. Either meet them before the day to chat through what the session will be on or at least 20mins before you go live to help them get to know you
  • At this point you should be ready and not looking flustered with tech etc in order to keep them calm
  • Explain step by step what is about to happen so there are no surprises
    • EG. “I’m going to go live in 8 minutes, you don’t need to do anything. After the video has played, I am going to say XYZ and after I talk about our sponsor I will introduce you and the conversation starts there. I’ll also handle the Q&A so you don’t need to worry about keeping your eye on it….”
• The calmer you are, the calmer they’ll be – which is really the secret of how to prepare for a webinar / interview that feels effortless.

Topic

• Have a purpose to the topic you’re discussing and ensure your questions are ones your audience would be keen to know the answer to. That’s a big part of how to prepare for a webinar / interview that keeps everyone engaged
  • You don’t want to just drift through the interview without an underlying structure
    • You can start by telling the audience some of the areas you’ll cover so people know where you are in the interview as well as the guest. “I’ll start with topic ‘A’, we’ll then understand more about how ‘B’ and to close out we can chat about ‘C’ then take some questions from the audience”
    • The guest, the audience and the interviewer all benefit from knowing where this chat is going and why it is happening
• Drawing out stories from the guest is good as that will help the audience put into context the theory they talk about

Active listening & Pacing

• When listening to the answers of your guest it is great if you can make a natural link to your next question (see structure above). But if the next question is too much of a contrast, don’t just ask it, because it tells everyone you’re not listening.
  • If you need to change the topic, then acknowledge the answer, make a connection with something you’ve seen or heard that is similar and then make it clear that you want to switch lanes and take the conversation in a different direction
• Things will come up you weren’t expecting. The art here is thinking what you can do with the information they’re giving you
  • Could their comment lead to something you know about their background and help uncover an interesting story that you know but the audience doesn’t?
  • Some guests might do unexacting things like start selling themselves or rambling. Think about how you can gently move the conversation back on track
• Don’t be frightened to follow a natural flow of conversation if it is good and useful
• Don’t be frightened to abandon a topic if you feel the guest is not giving you what you want, which leads on to….
• Have more questions that you need. If you have way more than you need ready, then you have a back up if the answers are very short or if the topics aren’t working you can switch
  • Also don’t worry if you don’t hit the allotted time. If the conversation was great and you have 10 minutes left, it is ok to finish early. It isn’t so cool to run over time. Respect the time of your audience and your guest.
  • If there is unfinished business, you can ask people to connect with the audience, or ask the guest for a follow up session

Top tips

• When you’re having fun, enjoying yourself your audience will and your guest will
• Tech almost always fails at some point. Remember this isn’t the end of the world
• Don’t apologise at the start of your event, own the room
• Don’t ask if everyone can hear you, they’ll let you know if they can’t
• Showing confidence builds confidence in your audience and guest alike
• Build the muscle. Don’t expect to be great at the start, just like any public speaking, interviewing is a skill and takes time to build the muscle. It is also one that atrophies, so keep doing it to stay good at it

A final note

Good interviews aren’t about ego, polish, or performance. They’re about care.

Care for your guest – so they feel calm enough to share honestly.

Care for your audience – so they learn something useful.

And care for yourself – so you can show up, present, and enjoy it too.

Preparation isn’t about control, it’s about creating safety. Once that’s in place, great conversation happens naturally – and that’s really the heart of how to prepare for a webinar interview that feels like a chat between friends 🙂