When getting experts for my audio interviews, what I would do is think about my PR expert guy. My PR expert guy doesn’t sell information products. He has a basic Web site about his PR services, he doesn’t have a huge list but he’s like a promotional broker. So even when I was first starting out and I didn’t have many interviews, I had a few interviews.
Now, it’s easier for me because I have a lot of proof. When someone goes to my Web site they see all of these interviews. I mean it’s really easy now because I’ve got all these interviews behind me.
But I didn’t always have all these interviews. I mean I had to get that first interview, second and third interview. So you have to position yourself kind of like the PR expert.
Why do people hire PR experts? Because they want media, they want air time, they want promotion, they want clients, and they want advertising. An interview for them is free advertising.
Let’s say I was able to talk to someone on the phone and they heard the passion in my voice and tell them “I’m planning on interviewing them, Bob Blye, Clayton Makepeace, Joe Vitalie, John Carlton and Ted Nicholas. You guys are my dream interviews and you’re going to be in the book and I’m going to interview you and the transcripts are going to be in the book and I plan on getting this up on Amazon, I’m going to build a Web site, I’m going to do joint ventures, I’m going to promote this like you wouldn’t believe. You know that the interview is only going to take about an hour of your time. Would you consider doing an interview with me?”
I think they would be crazy not to just because what do you have to lose? As long as people who are in your market are going to be reading that book, you can’t lose.
It’s the same thing, that example, you are publishing a book with top experts on this subject, it won’t be out until next fall. Think about all the books and publishers that compile interviews when they approach these experts, they are just selling potential. There is no guarantee that the book is even going to sell. As a matter of fact, 90% of them don’t sell. Most books out there, interview compilation books fail. So there are a whole lot of people who have given interviews for books that probably didn’t get that much media from it but you never know.
So you sell your potential. You can approach someone and tell them that you’re doing a story on an expert in the marketing field. It will be promoted worldwide on the Internet. Are you open to participating? Why wouldn’t you? Especially someone paying a PR expert; that is pretty telling. They need more customers, they want more exposure.
See the problem in our marketing world is distribution. How do you get your message distributed out there? There are so many people out there and everyone wants more distribution and that’s what you approaching someone to do an interview represents. It represents potential distribution and with the Internet, once it’s up on the Internet you never know who is going to pick up on it.
So there are no guarantees, you know we’re all business people, they understand it may go well, it may not. All they have to do is trade an hour’s worth of their time and give you the rights to promote it. It’s a win-win situation. So position yourself that way and just be willing to ask and you should not have a problem.