Interview Your Heroes

Intentions:

1. When doing interviews, don’t just have conversations, but get life-long guidance from your interviews.
2. When you share your interviews, it should help build your reputation.
3. I want you to be able to monetize, because it can help you do better work.

(example, Andrew’s interview with Seth Godin: “All great leaders start with ideas, then explain and evangelize and expand. Are you doing that?”. “No, I’m waiting for larger audience.”)

The power of doing interviews

Derek Capo, moved to China for opportunities. Problem was, he got there and was stuck, even considered suicide. But he discovered Mixergy, and found both that others had these lows, and also learned how to use the information to turn things around.

That’s what I want from you: to do interviews so that you can change people’s lives.

How to get successful people to spend an hour with you

Look for moments where they are in sharing mode.

Motivated Moments

Sam Wyly, fortune 400 list. Andrew knew him, but couldn’t get an interview.
Someone else got the interview. Why? He had just published a book.

He was in a “motivated moment”.

• Published a book
• launched a business
• business struggling
• need google hit

Authors - think creatively

Use Barnes & Noble “Coming Soon” list.

e.g. “The Oatmeal” has a book coming out on running. But you can interview him ab0ut anything relevant (he’s an artist, bootstrapper, donator to tesla, runner, etc etc).

Look for publisher, contact them. They want to help you get interviews.

How to get anyone to open up to you

Get someone great, but end up asking boring questions? Or worse, “Didn’t you notice we were fighting?”. Here’s how to collect techniques that work.

Documented Process

Keep track of what works, and what doesn’t. Example: “Go insultingly low”.
Someone was being very modest, and all signs pointed to she’s not going to reveal revenue. “I heard you were hitting a million in sales soon.” “What? We’re doing 20x that!”

She turned out to not mind sharing, just didn’t want to seem immodest.

Processes Work in Private

e.g. “Do a 5K race” to Andrew, who is an avid multi-marathoner.

How to use “the one” technique to make anyone interesting

Stick to specific single instances.

Get Guests to Tell Stories

Recall “Made to Stick”.

“Where did you get your ideas? When did you start your business?” These elicit fact responses.

People don’t want facts, they want one story that worked.

Use the power of “One”

“Do you have AN example of that?”
“Tell me about the day about when you (quit your job, sold your company)”
“Tell me about your first customer.”
“Tell me about the time you knew the job wasn’t right for you.”

(note, most of these are statements, not questions. It helps you be a leader)
Also, it transmits confidence.

How to publish interviews quickly

This is not trivial. The guy that got Sam Wyly’s interview, ended up disappearing because it took him 10hrs to publish an interview.

The mindset is important: keep it simple, you don’t need to do any editing.

Interview processing steps

1. Find your guest on Skype.
2. Call recorder starts, and stops, all automatically.
3. Bring the separate video/audio captures into any video editing software.
4. Can take less than 5 minutes (timed).

• Screenflow
• Camtasia

How to get massive traffic to any site you create

“Will you help me promote it?”

Get them to share

One thing after the interview is done, and the interviewee posted across their (often vast) platforms.

Just ask. Respectfully.

“Would you mind helping to promote the interview?”
I’ve never had a guest say, “No, how dare you?”

Make it easy for them

John Corcoran:
“Here are three ways you can tweet about this.”

How to get profits from interviews

This section is a little sparse, because I had to attend to my son for a few minutes.

Method 1: The “I Hate Sales”

Use affiliates to market for you. One tip, URLs are often ugly, so use a “Redirection Plugin”

Method 2: Product Co-Creation

“Apply to attend” allows you to find out what people want.

Resources

Publisher contact list

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rtx09Qzwm87sd_YMQBJGYvfcbdJQOdffQ4Z9eQEPToM/edit#gid=0

Notes by Jared Schutz
TallEnough2Succeed@gmail.com

Wow, Great addition Tallenough!

Thank you Adriano! I appreciate you starting this and figured since it was so helpful, I might as well contribute as well.

Quick notes:

Narrow down topic -> Broad with name

Charge from Beginning

- practice sales page
- practice asking for money

Sponsors

• FreshBooks
• Grasshopper
  • They send out automatic invoices and deal with
    customer acquasitions

Post Intervew Followup Process

• Reassure guests on their performance

• “Well send you an email informing you when it goes live”

   - in the above email, ask if they will also help 
    promote the interview 

  • form Great Relationships w People
  • maintain friendships
  • have lunches, dinner when in town

Mic Tips

• Cardioid setting required - reduces outside audio noise
• get a boom for mic, so it can be seen on camera
  • power position
  • demonstrates subtle message of value

NEVER ASK THIS

• anything sex related (publicly)
  • ie. Andrew Fashion?
• open game in private, will help open up

RESEARCH THE HECK OUT OF THE PERSON YOU’RE INTERVIEWING/ THEIR BUSINESS

Notes by Adriano

Questions/Quick Tips

Unsorted tips, questions etc:

• Start asking them for help with something simple “How do you pronounce your name?” for example. This puts you on the same page.
• One interview technique by another interviewer: short or one-word questions can be used to get others to open up.
• Mic recommendation: “cardioid”? to not pick up sounds outside of the cone. Blue Yeti, RODE PODCASTER USB MIC
• Steve Young: I am going to apply Mixergy format to something very specific: mobile apps.
• Plug into ethernet, not wifi
• Don’t think about the medium (podcast? video? text?), think about the message.
• Use Trello to organize your processes.
• Go over what you’ll be talking about (even for 5 minutes). Use “the one” technique. Draw out summaries, “keep that for later”
• Do you prepare questions in advance?
  “No, I have a general idea of where I want to go with the interview.”
• Focusing on niche: go narrow with your topic, but broad with your name.
• How to get first interview: “leverage someone else’s audience.”
• After interview, nurse the relationship with the guest. Tell them what’s going to happen, tell them how they did.
• It’s not just about the interview, it’s about the relationships. People will come out to help. (Andrew iPhone in Argentina story, Jeremy in Chicago, dinner then basketball. He is now a friend, and a helpful expert)
• Schedule your interview before you’re ready.
• Write down your intro. Tell your guest what your first question is, or give them a simple question to answer.
• Wistia, Libysn, Audacity, Screenflow, Camtasia, Levelator, Pamela (products mentioned)
• ckyildiz: Watch this video to help you ask for money as a creator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
• Do post-mortems on your videos, to see when/why they opened up (or not).
• Camera is not limiting factor for video, it’s all about lighting. Don’t shoot with backlight (from a window, say). Lit from front, stay far enough from wall to not have a shadow.

Document Discussion

If anyone joining this can add a few notes to “How to get profits” section, please help out (I missed that part)

(arrows to move, Enter to edit)

http://interviewyourheroes.com/live-webinar?inf_contact_key=1ed934f6e685d675a1e9c1547d26b7570b98eb3fae9696bba4ad69c448cc0972

I’ve realized that the entire webinar can still be viewed from the begining