You and your guest can call into your show up to 15 minutes prior to air time for any last minute issue discussion and to make sure you can hear your guest and they can hear you. When you set up your call you can and should set it up to open with everyone muted. Obviously you want to un-mute your guest as soon as they are seen on your control panel to have entered the call. Anyone that joins the call will join muted. You can un-mute them and re-mute them as their questions come up in the question cue when you start taking questions after you interview your guest.
Do not start recording the show until just before you start your show introduction.
Here is a basic format for a talk show where you would be interviewing a guest and later opening the call for questions from your caller / participants:
o Do you introduction to your show introducing yourself. . .
Welcome your listeners and chat participants to. . .
(State the name of your show and what it is about) example:
This is (Your Name) and I want to welcome our callers and chatters to the (Name of your talk show) where we discuss all things (The subject of your show). We will be interviewing (Name of your guest / expert), of (Their company or website) regarding (what your guest is an expert on). The interview will last approximately XX minutes and then we will take questions.
o Next do a formal introduction of your interviewee - a sentence or two about their background, accomplishments and their business (Or whatever you and your guest have decided).
o Welcome your guest basically - Example: Hello (Guest name), I am so glad to have you on (Name of your show).
o Start out your interview by asking things like how your guest got involved with their area of expertise, how long they have been working in their area of expertise etc. Be sure to mention any books or training courses the guest has authored.
o Move on to your interview segment by asking the questions you worked out with your guest during your pre-interview call. Your interview of your guest / expert should not run over 30 minutes but if it does, do not worry about it.
o Make sure before you end your personal interview of your guest that you plug their product or website or what ever it is they are promoting. If you are an affiliate, you want to have set up a re-direct page on your domain that goes to your affiliate page on your guest's product site.
o You will have your Teleprompter open on the left side of you computer screen and the TalkShoe Control Panel open on the right side of your screen. You can look in the question cue and say the user name with the first question you want to ask your guest.
If it is a chat only participant, you ask their question. If the caller is on the phone, un-mute the caller and say "Hi their (Username) we like to keep things on a first name base here, so who are we speaking with? They will say their name - then you say, "From the producers board it appears you have a question about (Use an abbreviated version of the question or its primary subject)," Would you like to clarify that for us or maybe expand on your question? "
o Then you hand the question over to your guest. Let your guest have enough time to answer the question but if you do have a lot of questions in the cue, systematically cut them short if the answer runs over 3 or 4 minutes, saying "That's great (guests name), we have some more questions we need to fit into the time we have left today. (Use your own judgment on this tactic.) Then mute the last caller, (Do not stop talking - move right into the next question in the cue), saying "And out next question is from (Un-mute the next caller with a question and do the same into that caller and their question.
o After the questions have been answered or you have taken all the questions you have time for, remind your listeners of the product your guest is promoting and any website you are promoting.
o Remind everyone on the call what the name of your show is, when your next show will be aired and who your upcoming guest is and what the topic of discussion will be.
o Do your sign off by saying something like - Well that's it for the (Name of your show) - I want to thank our guest (guest's name) and all of our participants on the show - till next time this is (Your name) , saying (What ever your catchy by line is).
o Stop the recording. Normally your recording will be available to download or listen to via flash media within 24 hours.
o You may want to download your show and upload it again for pod cast listeners. (See resources for free editing software.)
You can format your show any way you want. The above format example is just that; an example.