This post comes with some exciting news: I was interviewed on a podcast! We discussed crowdfunding, the importance of PR for small businesses and startups, and how to balance being a founder, parent and spouse.
We PR folks are sort of the cobbler’s children: we spend our days promoting other folks’ businesses, and never have time to do it for ourselves, much less doing actual PR for ourselves! So I jumped at the opportunity to speak with Garrett Kusmierz on her kozēkozē podcast.
It was a very friendly conversation with a kind and supportive interviewer, and no need to prepare for “gotcha questions” or ribald repartee. Nevertheless, I took the advice I give to my clients who have landed an interview on a TV or radio show, news spot or podcast: Do your research and go in prepared. Whether or not you’re comfortable being interviewed on camera — media training and experience help with that — knowing your subject, your interviewer, and their style will make it that much easier. This doesn’t need to be an arduous process. To prepare for the interview, I spent some time listening to different episodes of the podcast. From this I was able to get a better grasp of Garrett’s interview style (very conversational), and see the structure of her show, along with a couple questions that she asks each guest. This allowed me to think about and provide thoughtful answers to her questions, and develop a through line to the theme of the podcast — comfort and discomfort. Although I don’t have a ton of personal experience being the interviewee, and was admittedly a little nervous, even with the friendliest of interviewers, feeling prepared for the interview made it much easier to relax, answer questions with ease, and feel comfortable (in spite of the discomfort!) during the interview.
With the podcast’s theme of comfort and discomfort, getting out of my own comfort zone to be interviewed for over an hour and know that people will be listening to my story exactly fit the theme of the show. Doing something new makes us uncomfortable because we don’t know what we’re doing, we don’t know what to expect, and imagine we’re going to fail and look like fools in front of everyone. Personally, every time I have had the opportunity to put myself in an uncomfortable (new) situation, I have never regretted it. I look back on it and realize that discomfort is the learning process, and it has caused me to grow, learn, and become better at my job, better in my personal life, and a more mature and experienced person. Learning to become comfortable with this discomfort is not an easy process, but a necessary one if we strive to succeed.
Listen to the episode here: https://anchor.fm/kozekoze/episodes/297–PR–Crowdfunding–Founder-Life-with-Aaron-Sewall-e1u9am2