"Nobody's ever asked me that!"

This isn't necessarily a compliment to your interviewing ability ...

"Nobody's ever asked me that!"

Is this comment from guests a compliment to your interviewing skills? Not necessarily. 

As a podcast host, your mission isn't to uncover deep, dark secrets or go off on tangents unrelated to your show – your job is to create helpful episodes for your listeners. 

People listen to your podcast to feel something. They want to laugh, cry, or think. And that usually means asking questions that have been discussed before.

Instead of asking something totally groundbreaking, get creative with how you approach familiar subjects. Show the human side of your guests and avoid letting them "play the tape," repeating the same stories and jokes they've told countless times before. 

But know that sometimes, even if you’re great, you can still end up with “the same interview” as everybody else.

It’s not you, it’s them. But fortunately, this can be fixed with a good edit.

I once interviewed a guy who was fantastic on stage but had only one presentation in his repertoire. When we went off-topic in the studio, he floundered. So I let him stick to his script, going back later to edit the tape he gave me into something that would work for my audience.

That’s the great thing about podcasting – our ability to edit gives us a lot of power to create something helpful (and unique) for listeners, even with well-worn topics. So if you want something helpful and unique, that’s where to focus your energy.