Podcast interview questions

Good podcast interviews sound like conversations, but they are built on preparation. Below are 121 podcast questions sorted by what they do in an episode, followed by advice on researching a guest, ordering questions and the follow-ups that turn a decent answer into a great one.

Warm-up questions

Easy, personal openers that get a guest talking and relaxed. Use one or two, not all of them.

1. What did your morning look like today?
2. How would you describe what you do to a ten-year-old?
3. What were you obsessed with as a kid?
4. What’s something you changed your mind about recently?
5. What’s on your desk right now, and what does it say about you?
6. Where are you recording from, and what can you see from there?
7. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?
8. What’s a small thing that made your week better?
9. How do people usually get your job wrong when they describe it?
10. If we met at a party, what would you want to talk about?

Origin story questions

How the guest got here. Push past the polished version with follow-ups.

1. When did you first realize this was what you wanted to do?
2. What did you do before this, and what did it teach you?
3. Who opened a door for you early on?
4. What was the first real break, and how did it happen?
5. What almost made you quit?
6. What’s the part of your story that usually gets left out?
7. What did you get wrong in your first year?
8. What did your family think when you started?
9. Which decision looks smart now but felt risky at the time?
10. If you started again today, what would you do differently?
11. What was the moment it stopped feeling like a hobby or a job and started feeling like yours?
12. What did you have to unlearn?

Expertise and how-to questions

For teaching episodes. Ask for steps, examples and numbers listeners can use.

1. What’s the most common mistake beginners make in your field?
2. Walk us through how you’d approach this from scratch, step by step.
3. What does “good” look like? How do you know you’ve got it right?
4. What’s a rule of thumb you use that you wish more people knew?
5. Which tools or resources do you actually use every week?
6. What’s overrated in your field? What’s underrated?
7. Can you give us a specific example from your own work?
8. What would you tell someone with no budget and one hour a week?
9. How do you explain this to clients or students who are new to it?
10. What’s a myth about this topic you’d like to retire?
11. What questions do you get asked most, and which one is the wrong question?
12. What’s the first thing a listener could try after this episode?
13. How has the field changed in the last five years?
14. What do the best people in your field do that others don’t?
15. Where do people get stuck after the beginner stage?

Storytelling questions

Ask for scenes, not summaries: a place, a time, what was said.

1. Take me back to that day. Where were you, and what happened first?
2. What did it look, sound or feel like in the room?
3. What was going through your head right then?
4. Who else was there, and how did they react?
5. What happened next?
6. When did you realize how big a deal it was?
7. What did you tell people at the time, and what was actually true?
8. What’s a detail from that moment you’ve never forgotten?
9. If you could go back and talk to yourself that day, what would you say?
10. How do you tell this story differently now than you did then?

Deeper and reflective questions

Save these for the second half, once trust is built. Always let a guest pass.

1. What’s something you believe that most people in your field don’t?
2. What has success cost you?
3. What do you still find hard?
4. When do you feel most like yourself?
5. What’s a failure you’re grateful for?
6. What are you afraid people misunderstand about you?
7. How do you deal with criticism?
8. What does a good day look like for you now, compared with ten years ago?
9. What are you proudest of that nobody sees?
10. What question do you wish interviewers asked you?
11. What would you like to be remembered for?
12. What’s a belief you held strongly that you’ve let go of?

Business and career questions

For founders, freelancers and leaders. Ask for real numbers when guests are comfortable.

1. How did you find your first ten customers?
2. What does a typical week actually look like?
3. What was the hardest hire or the hardest goodbye?
4. How do you decide what not to do?
5. What’s a metric you watch that most people ignore?
6. What did you spend money on early that was a waste?
7. What would you do with an extra hour every day?
8. How do you price your work, and how has that changed?
9. What’s the best advice you ignored, and the worst advice you followed?
10. How do you stay ahead without burning out?
11. What does your industry look like in five years?
12. What would you tell someone about to quit their job to do this?

Opinion and debate questions

Good for panels and co-host shows. Ask both sides; be fair to absent views.

1. What’s your most unpopular opinion about this topic?
2. Make the strongest case for the side you disagree with.
3. Where do you think the conventional wisdom is wrong?
4. What would change your mind?
5. What’s the question everyone argues about that doesn’t really matter?
6. Who do you think gets this right, and why?
7. What’s a trend you think will fade?
8. If you were in charge for a year, what would you change first?
9. What do critics of your view get right?
10. Which prediction from five years ago aged worst?

Rapid-fire questions

A fun recurring segment near the end. Short answers only.

1. Morning or night?
2. Book that changed your mind?
3. Best purchase under $50?
4. An app you couldn’t live without?
5. Favourite podcast that isn’t this one?
6. Coffee or tea?
7. A skill you’d love to learn?
8. Your go-to comfort meal?
9. Best piece of advice in five words?
10. A place you’d move to tomorrow?
11. Most-used emoji?
12. What are you looking forward to this month?

Questions for listener and community episodes

For Q&A episodes, call-ins and community guests.

1. What made you start listening to the show?
2. What question would you ask our next guest?
3. What’s a topic you wish we covered?
4. What have you tried since hearing an episode, and how did it go?
5. Where do you listen: commute, chores, gym?
6. What would you tell a new listener about the show?
7. Who in your life should hear this episode?
8. What’s a local story we should know about?

Closing questions

End warmly and give the guest a chance to point listeners somewhere.

1. What’s one thing you want listeners to remember from today?
2. What are you working on next?
3. Who should I talk to next, and why?
4. Where can people find you and your work?
5. Is there anything I didn’t ask that I should have?
6. What’s a question you’d like to leave our listeners with?
7. What’s the best way for listeners to support what you do?
8. If someone wants to start where you started, what’s their first step?

Questions to answer on a solo episode

No guest? Interview yourself, or answer listener questions.

1. Why did I start this show, and has the reason changed?
2. What’s the biggest lesson from my last year in this field?
3. What do I wish I’d known when I started?
4. What is everyone getting wrong about this right now?
5. What’s a mistake I made recently, and what did it teach me?
6. What would I do with a beginner’s budget today?
7. Which listener question keeps coming up, and what’s my full answer?
8. What am I curious about this month?
9. What changed my mind this year?
10. What’s my process, step by step?
11. What would I tell myself on day one?
12. What’s next for the show?

Follow-up questions that work every time

Keep these in your head rather than on the page. They work after almost any answer:

• “What do you mean by that?”
• “Can you give me an example?”
• “What happened next?”
• “Why do you think that is?”
• “How did that feel at the time?”
• “What would you say to someone who disagrees?”
• And silence. Wait two seconds after an answer; guests often fill the gap with the most interesting thing they say.

How to prepare for a podcast interview

1. Research the guest. Read or listen to two or three recent interviews they’ve given. Note the stories they always tell, so you can ask about something new.
2. Decide what listeners should leave with. One sentence. Every question should move towards it.
3. Write a running order: one or two warm-ups, the origin story briefly, the core of the episode, one deeper question, a closing question.
4. Send the guest the topics, not the exact questions. They can prepare examples without sounding rehearsed. Use the interview script template to plan it.
5. Agree what’s off limits before you record, and tell the guest they can ask for something to be cut.
6. Test the setup ten minutes early, especially for remote interviews.

Tips for asking questions well

• Ask one question at a time. Double-barrelled questions get half an answer.
• Prefer open questions (“how”, “what”, “tell me about”) over yes/no questions.
• Keep your questions short. If your question is longer than 20 seconds, the episode is about you.
• Use the guest’s own words when you follow up: “You said it ‘nearly broke you’. What did?”
• Don’t agree out loud constantly. Nod instead; “mm-hmm” over every sentence is hard to edit out.
• Note timestamps of great moments as you go. They become clips and show-notes timestamps.

Next, plan your setup: choose a recording location.