WEBVTT

so you've written the perfect script for your podcast and you're pressing record

you're reading and you just you sound like you're reading news anchors use a teleprompter all the

time and they sound really natural when they read maybe that's just some kind of you know

what the heck is going on kind of moment for you. Figuring out how to deliver your podcast script

into the mic or onto a camera is one of the hurdles for sounding like an expert about something

or representing your company while also sounding human and not like someone just reading a book or

the essay or the newsletter that they just wrote. And sounding human is a great way to stand out

these days with all of the generative AI out there. So you've done the work, you've written

the script, but your delivery isn't what you want it to be. So I'm going to tell you about four

different techniques that you can use to fix that kind of flat delivery that you might be worried

about in your episode. And this is going to range from reading a full script to just reading some

notes to something that's in between those things. And these are the things that I actually

use or I've used in the past for my own solo podcasting.

Welcome to the Podcast Performance Lab. I'm your host, Jen deHaan. And in this show,

we take the most effective tools from unscripted improvised performance and

behavioral psychology and apply those things directly to your video and audio content.

so you're on your own you're in your bedroom or your office or wherever you're filming or recording

your podcast so you need to coach yourself by recording and then watching back the playback

while you're probably editing your podcast episode and then you need to make those changes

you need to make plans for those changes or you need to make plans to get feedback on what the

output is like, and all of that is good stuff. But a good performance, it starts with the way

that you form your script and the overall structure of the show and the method that you actually use

to read that script. And the goal here is really just to reference a script in real time as you're

recording the episode itself. And the techniques in this episode are going to help you do that

hopefully fairly efficiently. And before I get to the very first method, I need to talk about some

of the trade-offs that you're going to experience. And that's because choosing the right technique

for your own solo show out of the four that I'm about to talk about, it depends on understanding

what you're balancing. And that's so you can make the best decision for you. You want to consider

your delivery because you're considering that sort of perception of your audience and how natural

your voice comes across like. Like you want people to actually feel that you are just speaking off

the cuff entirely. You're saying all of this stuff entirely from memory, sharing information with

them like you're an expert, the expert that you really are, or a friend, depending on what you

want to achieve with your show. Now, how much you're reading versus performing, that will be

off and you're trading off how many errors you make and then you're trading off how much time

you need to edit in the post-production process. It can affect the cognitive load that you carry,

having to think about what words you're going to say, which words you're actually going to use

specifically, or how to handle your energy. Do you amp things up or calm it down? And all of this

is that trade-off because it's how natural your audience thinks that you're speaking, how natural

it is to you and to them. Well, mostly to them. And like, say the more errors that you make or

the more rambling or repetitions added, all of that is the more editing that you're going to

have to do. And all of that is time and money. Time is money. So it's money. So method one,

The first thing that you can do is, it's a pretty safe entry point, actually.

This method involves looking down at your script.

You absorb one sentence or one idea at a time,

and then you look up at your camera or your microphone,

and you deliver that sentence from your short-term memory.

So you don't have the paper in front of you at that point when you read,

And then you're just going to repeat this thing over and over again.

And this can help with like a really natural conversational feel

because you're not actively reading the text.

You're doing that right before you record the bit.

And you're chopping out all those parts of you looking down and reading your notes.

You chop all that out of the recording.

But of course, this method is extremely slow.

And depending on how often you reference your notes,

You can also possibly lose that flow of a natural paragraph or passage of text.

And it can also be quite challenging to edit together these sorts of videos seamlessly or

make them sound really good. Like you might notice a lot of people, for example, on TikTok doing this

sort of thing. You keep seeing them going off to the side and pressing the button. And the fact that

you notice that might not be what you want for a long form YouTube video or something for your

business. And this wave recording, it also puts a really high load on your working memory, and that

can be tiring. And then if it's tiring, you could end up with more errors or not the energy that you

want in your piece. So this is really best for very short videos or short content, short podcasts,

marketing, reels, that kind of thing. So the next method is one where you're just kind of scan

reading your show. Now this one requires a prompter if you're doing a video podcast or it requires

very strategic positioning of your script versus the camera so you are actually reading the script

kind of like that news anchor while you're recording your episode. So your eyes are always

scanning a couple words ahead of what your mouth is saying and you're actively processing the next

phrase while you're speaking the current one. Now the benefit of this one is it's extremely

efficient, especially if you're doing a video podcast with a teleprompter. It's really easy

if you're doing an audio only podcast because you don't have to worry about what your eyes are doing

versus the camera at all. You're just reading your text, scanning it ahead while you are on the

microphone. But this is going to take practice. It can be easy doing this method to kind of sound

low energy or robotic until you're comfortable reading this way because this is a skill that

you're learning. So while you're learning it and you have that high cognitive load,

you might end up sounding pretty robotic. But with practice, those reps, this method of reading and

performing becomes just second nature and you aren't even going to notice yourself doing it

scanning ahead once you get used to this. While you're practicing, you might want to muck around

with different text size settings and how you format whatever you're reading. Just see what

makes it easier and analyze your eye movements if you're making a video podcast so you can kind of

minimize the look of actually reading while you're scanning the text.

Now the next method is referencing cues that you make for yourself. This is often kind of the next

step after doing the news anchor style read, although it's a very optional next step. You don't

even have to stop doing that scan reading, but this one uses the script formatting from another

episode which i'll link in the show notes but essentially in that episode you're putting some

words in boldface or italics or notes in square brackets and using ample spacing to make those

words really easy to read quickly while you're just scanning what you're referencing so your eyes are

only glancing at the script or the teleprompter to find this like next reference cue in the text

that you've put there in bold face.

And this might be like a highlighted word,

the phrase or a short phrase on its own line

that you're just scanning

and then you're talking about it

in your own words on the spot.

You probably already remember it

with like the right emotion or cadence or delivery

because you know what that reference cue means to you.

So then you just talk about it based off that phrase.

The brain, your brain will just naturally fill in

the rest of it for you

because you generally already know what you want to say, because this is your script.

So your notes around that reference cue can be as detailed or as sparse as you need or want them to be.

So why this works is that it combines that naturalness from the first technique of just memorizing the whole sentence

to the efficiency of just reading your script or your notes.

So this one works really well for long form episodes.

And I'll generally do a couple read throughs of all my episodes that I write.

And the second read is often a lot better because I've already kind of gone through

and I don't have to reference my notes much at all

because you already probably know the script so well from planning and researching the episode itself.

So the second read through or scan through, if you're just using sparse notes,

it kind of just cleans up your natural wording off of those references.

And you'll figure out the best way to say it because you've just said it a few minutes ago.

So it's probably more efficient.

You can improvise better off those notes that you've made.

So the science behind this one is that you're just using those cue words or retrieval cues

for something that's called anchoring in the science or anchor words, they're also called.

And I'll put some notes in the description about this if you want to read more about this concept.

And the next method, method four, is just reference and then improvise.

Now this is another method that I use or sometimes add it on to the previous technique that I just discussed.

And this is where you just give yourself permission to improvise at certain points in your script or your structure for your episode.

For example, if you think of a new point that you want to make right on the spot,

you're going through your episode, you just add it right there.

But what you're practicing right now is getting reps in

of just keeping those improvised sections short and efficient.

This is to keep those guardrails in place for not just rambling.

You'll probably find yourself doing this to a certain extent anyways,

naturally just putting your own guardrails on the more comfortable that you get in front of the

camera and also knowing that it's so much more editing work in the post-production if you don't

do this so that pain is helping put those guardrails on and to practice this start with things that you

know really well and practice seeing them in the most efficient tight way that you can and if you

think you didn't get it right, just pause and then do that section again, like a second take,

and keep the section that you like the most. And you'll find that as you practice that more and

more, you'll get better at wording in general, reducing those filler words and so on. And soon

enough, you're not going to need a second or a third take at all, hopefully. And this last method

is probably the most natural sounding way that you could speak in an episode, like those surprise

stories or those natural tangents to just make your episode human. That's the kind of thing that we do

in real life. And anything that doesn't fit, or if you do end up rambling, that just gets cut out

in the edit, so it doesn't impact your episode at all. But some of the best parts of my episodes

generally come from those improvised moments. And this is ideal for long form episodes. You get that

little break in there, perhaps you make it unique, you make that episode you. So which form should you

use? What I find in general is the right form to pick for a show really depends on the day,

your energy, what's going on, and how much your brain tends to retain scripts or notes that you're

using at that point in time. It depends a lot on your own brain and how you remember things and

your confidence. But what if your brand's voice is just more spontaneous than all of this? Or like,

What if a full script just kind of feels like a trap, like it's holding you and you don't have that freedom?

Well, there's a useful professional business solution for that as well.

And in the next episode, I'm going to show you how to form those bullet points to work with that professional workflow, but give you that flexibility.

So I'll be back for that in the next episode.

Make sure you're subscribed and bye for now.

You have been listening to the Podcast Performance Lab.

This show is created, written, hosted, edited, and produced by Jen deHaan.

You can also find the video version of this episode on YouTube

and contact information on Stereo Forest.

Find the links for both of those things in the show notes.

Thanks for listening.