The Podcast Guest One-Sheet

By Junaid Ahmed

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Most of the time I lose on a guest happens before the recording ever starts.

It's the back-and-forth. The "can you send me your bio." The "what should I call you in the intro." The "do you have a headshot that isn't from 2018." The thread that goes eight emails deep just to get the basics in one place.

A podcast guest one-sheet fixes most of that. One page. Everything you need to book the person, prep for the conversation, and promote it after. No digging.

I've recorded over 700 episodes. I came to this the slow way, by feeling the pain of not having it.

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So what actually goes on a guest one-sheet?

Start with the parts that never change. The name, spelled the way they spell it. The short bio, two or three sentences, the version you'd actually read on air. A photo that looks like them today.

Then the part that makes the booking decision easy: what they can speak to. Not their whole life story. The three or four topics where they have something real to say. This is the section that tells you, in ten seconds, whether they're right for your show.

After that, the proof. Past appearances. A talk they gave. A piece they wrote. A link to the thing they're known for. You're not just confirming they're interesting. You're hearing how they sound when someone hands them a microphone.

And the links. Where to find them. What they want people to do next.

That's the whole page. Bio, topics, proof, photo, links.

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Here's the part most people skip, and it's the part that matters most.

Tell the guest what they'll get.

A one-sheet that only serves you is a form. A one-sheet that also tells the guest what comes out of this (the clips, the link they can share, the audience they'll reach, the assets you'll send afterward) is an invitation. It changes how people say yes.

I learned this from the other side. When someone invites me on their show and tells me up front what I'll walk away with, I show up differently. I promote it. I care.

The promise belongs on the page.

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Now the second version, because there are two one-sheets, not one.

The first is the one you keep about each guest. It lives on your side. It grows over time. When you first hear about someone, you start the page. When you book them, you add the intake answers. After the prep call, you drop in your notes. By the night before the recording, the page is full, and you're not rebuilding context you already had.

That's the one-sheet that makes prep take thirty minutes instead of three hours.

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The second is the one the guest shares about their appearance on your show.

Think about what happens after a good episode. The guest wants to post it. So they go looking. Where's the link. What's the title. Is there a graphic. What's the quote I can pull. They want to promote you, and you've made them do homework to do it.

So hand them the page instead. The episode link. The title. A clip or two. A pull quote. A graphic sized for the places they'll actually post it. A short line they can copy.

When the guest has that in their hands, they share. When they have to assemble it themselves, they mean to, and then they don't.

You're not asking for promotion. You're removing every reason not to.

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Two one-sheets. Same person. Different jobs.

One faces inward, so you can book and prep without starting from zero. One faces outward, so the conversation travels after it's over.

Most shows have neither. The bio is in an email. The topics are in your head. The promo assets get made the day of, if they get made at all. And every guest is a fresh round of digging.

A guest is worth more than one good hour. The one-sheet is how you treat them that way.

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This is one of the things I built PodGlue to handle. Each guest gets a page that fills itself in as you go (intake answers, your notes, the assets you generate after the episode) so the booking one-sheet and the promo one-sheet are both just there when you need them. PodGlue is in beta. If you want to stop rebuilding the same page every episode, you can join at podglue.com/join.

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Junaid Ahmed is the host of Hacks and Hobbies and the founder of PodGlue. He has sent more "can you resend me your bio" emails than any one person should.