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>> Dom Goucher: Hi, Dom here. And this week, Pete managed to get an interview with David
Siteman Garland, host of the popular podcast The Rise To The Top. Now, David's show is
aimed at mediapreneurs, people who create online media to help their businesses.
Now, this obviously, is a topic very close to my own heart. It's a great discussion,
covering lots of topics around interviewing people, including tips on getting interviews.
So, get out your notepads and I'll hand you over to Pete.
[Pete's interview with David starts] >> Pete Williams: David, thanks for joining
us today, mate. >> David Siteman Garland: Oh, well, thanks
for having me. And by the way, if my voice sounds weird to anyone who knows my voice,
it's because I have a little bit of a cold. But that's not going to stop us, Pete. It's
not going to stop us. >> Pete: Well, you've been working hard, you
might as well touch on that up front. You've got a workshop coming up, which is very exciting,
mate. >> David: Yeah, we wanted to do something
that was really different and pretty cool, so we're doing an event, an online event called
[The] Talk to the Top, where basically I've reached out to a lot of my good friends in
the online marketing space specifically (but not only) to help people grow the audience
and monetize online. And yeah, it's been a lot of sleepless nights. You know how it is.
>> Pete: Absolutely. >> David: Anytime you take on a big undertaking,
it's going to be a lot of effort. >> Pete: So online launch or online event?
Is it delivered digitally, or is it delivered live, bums on seat?
>> David: Yeah, it is. You could sit at home in your underwear and you tune in online via
webinars. But it's all live. So you tune in, it's a schedule (just like an event would
have a schedule), but you tune in live. But you also get lifetime access to all the
recordings. So if you miss it or you can't attend something, it's not like you miss out
on it. But the presenters are all doing Q&A. So it's going to be a lot of fun.
>> Pete: Awesome. So it's back-to-back over a one day period, is it? Is that the plan?
>> David: Four days. >> Pete: Four days.
>> David: We're going October 29th, the 30th, little break for Halloween over here, and
then the 1st and the 2nd. So it's like a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with about three-ish
sessions a day, 50% on growing your audience online and 50% on what's working now to monetize
online. It's going to be a pretty cool mix. >> Pete: Yeah, I love the idea of it being
like a live event, but over the Web. This sort of stuff is starting to happen at the
moment. This is a different approach, which I'm loving.
>> David: Yeah, a lot of my audience and people that I work with, and clients and customers
and stuff, a lot of the time they're what I call "mediaprenuers." And what I mean by
mediapreneur, in a nutshell, is an entrepreneur that creates media.
But what it really means is a lot of times that I work directly with the people that
are authors, experts, personal brands, coaches; people like that, that are looking to grow
their audience and monetize better online. This just seemed like something that could
really help out and be different. As opposed to just doing another product or
another blank-blank, it's, "How can I tap into one of the biggest assets that I have,
which is relationships with really cool people, to ask them to come on and do this?" It's
going to be something pretty cool. >> Pete: Yeah, I think some really cool stuff
is that you're going to get some great names being able to present without having to worry
about logistic crap that so many people have to do when it comes to live events, which
is to deal with the logistics of people flying in and being there.
It also just gives you a good angle for the actual product, which is the event itself.
That it's something different, there's a story in the whole "it's an online event," as opposed
to a physical "come and sit your bum in a seat for three days" event.
>> David: Right, exactly. And both have their ups and downs, both types of events. But to
me, a busy person who doesn't want to travel in somewhere and get *** by TSA [Transportation
Security Administration] or whatever; just get some create content and also that you
can listen to over and over again, or watch over and over again so you can really apply
it. It's going to be fun. It's been, like any
undertaking, a huge amount of work. That's one of the delusions that people have about-and
I know your audience, Pete, isn't just online marketers or online business, that people
have online and offline businesses. But there's this illusion, I think, that online business
or internet marketing equals very little work. There's this illusion that it's like, "Oh,
it's just those people there. They work like 1.7 hours a week, and they just wander around,
and they just deposit money in their bank accounts." That sounds great, by the way,
but that's not the reality of anything, it's not the reality and the people who are really
successful in this industry put in hours. >> Pete: It's a business.
>> David: And they put in hours. It's a business like anything else, and the people that are
looking for that sort of magic button thing are usually the people who struggle with it.
>> Pete: Yeah, couldn't agree more. That's something I preach all the time. So, let me
ask you one more question about this project that you're working on and then we'll get
into the meat of what I want to pick your brain about on the show today. And the question
is: what's been the surprise for you out of putting on this online event?
What's the one thing you didn't think about that's taken up more time, that was easier
than you thought, has been well-received than you expected? What's been the one surprise
from this for you? >> David: Fantastic question, by the way.
>> Pete: Put you on the spot, too. >> David: Yeah. No, I love it. I love questions
like that. I've got two, so I'm going to cheat. I'm going to cheat. Because one is more of
a negative and I don't like to be a negative person, so I'm going to go on a positive,
too. The negative was, because it's an online event, you can't use online processors like
ClickBank (which I love) that deliver digital goods.
So I had to basically get all my own credit card stuff together for the first time and
that was the world's most pain in the butt of all time. I'm an expert on it now, if you
have any questions. However, making sure that your shopping cart
and all that stuff is set up properly, it's attached to a merchant account, all these
things that look so simple to the end-user are a little tricky. So for me, that was more
of a time-consumer than I thought it was going to be.
Now I'm glad that it's done, and now I'm like such a nerd I'll go to other people's sites,
I'll be like, "Ooh, nice checkout page. I like that." On a positive note, is that the
response to the event-we've had different deadlines where there's been sort of price
increases for tickets. >> Pete: Yeah, smart. It's a great way to
encourage response by building scarcity and response and things like that, the urgency.
>> David: Right. And I had a feeling it would work well, "feeling," if you will. I was nervous
because when you get out of the gate with anything like this, you're going to promote
it up front and you're going to get a fair amount of sales. Because I have a big community
and they're ready for this, so there's a fair amount of sales up front.
The problem was that sort of middle ground between the front and the end of the first
promotion we did. I was getting a little nervous because we weren't getting some sales, but
it was more 'trickling in,' if you will. Then, once we really ramped up promotions and we
were like, "by the way, here comes a price increase," it was like through-the-roof.
>> Pete: I think the biggest takeaway from that for listeners would be, no matter what
business you're doing in, it's so important-everyone preaches this, but so many people don't do
it. Build scarcity, build urgency by doing things like takeaway selling. "This price
is going up in three days if you don't act now," and that sort of stuff. And people can
do this in any business. >> David: Oh, I agree, and I think it's one
of the most important aspects of marketing. And when I first heard about it way back in
the day when I was learning back in the day, I always thought it sounded like a little
scammy or a little sketchy, "Oh, scarcity, that sounds weird."
But then you realize that it is a crucial marketing aspect because people sit on their
butt. And I think about it-I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I know things that I bought
because I was like, "Oh my God, it's going away," or "Oh my God, it's going to price-increase,"
or "Oh my God, there's only five left," whatever it is.
And I know stuff that I have not bought that was probably equally as good but there was
no compelling reason to buy right now or in a certain period of time. I was like, "I'll
get back to it," which never happens. >> Pete: Yeah, you need that deadline. This
is, again, something that I find really intriguing talking to a lot of people, and it's probably
not quite so relevant to what you've been doing directly, but a number of my businesses
that I own are in the B2B [business-to-business] space.
People start thinking that people in the B2B space are completely different when they're
in the office than when they're at home watching the infomercials or reading the e-mails about
your event. And people still react the same. On our proposals, even in the B2B space, we
have deadlines. "This bonus offer is going away on this date."
And it does get response. We have people e-mailing going, "Oh, look, I can't get the manager's
approval until Monday. I notice that the actual free headset is going away on Friday. Can
you extend that to Monday for me?" It does work, even in the B2B space. So, if you've
got proposals out there or you're doing e-mails, make sure you put deadlines on your offers.
>> David: Let me ask, by the way, how do you handle those when someone says, "Can you extend
the deadline?" >> Pete: We put them on hold and we go, "Let
me put you on hold," so they put the person on hold. Wait for 30 seconds, maybe ask someone
in the office, make sure it's okay, and then come back and say, "Look, I've got approval
for that," >> David: Nice, I like it.
>> Pete: It's not yes, straightaway. I think Dan Kennedy calls it salesman. oh, I've forgotten
the word. It's basically showmanship, for want of a better term. It's not just saying
'yes' right away. Make them feel like they have to earn this, "I had to pull some strings,"
"I had to get approval for it," "Yeah, we can do it for you on Monday."
It's not just a simple, "Yes, we can do it." You've got to have that 'salesman choreography'
[sales choreography] is the term that Dan Kennedy uses, which I love.
>> David: I agree, I agree. >> Pete: Let's move onto the core of this,
because I started that off in a completely random way to what you were expecting. You
mentioned you've got a big community. Now, to probably set the context right, do you
want to explain a bit about The Rise To The Top and how it came to be? What it is, how
big the community is, and give a bit of credibility to yourself as well?
>> David: Yeah. So, The Rise To The Top, in a nutshell, is a community. It's a resource
and it's a Web show for what I call mediapreneurs. We talked about what that is before, but really,
my community is a lot of personal brands and experts and people like that that are looking
to really dominate online. That's what it's all about. I create Web shows and videos that
now have been downloaded, let's see, six million times.
>> Pete: That's awesome. >> David: In about 120 countries. I create
a lot of content to help people out. That's the first and foremost thing that I do. We
have about 250,000 people or so that come in and download, and consume the content on
a monthly basis as part of the The Rise To The Top.
We've built up a good community there. Also, what I do is I am, on the other hand, sort
of a teacher where I share information with people. I'll put it together under products
and stuff like that, and my main one is where I teach people to do their own interview-based
Web show. Because that was the number one question that
came to me for four-plus years. I started The Rise To The Top in 2008. Long convoluted
story on how it started, but in a nutshell, I took my Bar Mitzvah money and started a
local TV show in St. Lewis, Missouri, focused around entrepreneurship.
>> Pete: Very cool. >> David: Since then, it's changed and it's
evolved to what it is now. But it's always been really about bringing on people to share
their experience (on one hand) mixed with actionable tips and how-to's on the other
hand. It's been a fun thing and it's been something that's led to a lot of cool stuff
like a book deal, and it's gone from there. >> Pete: Awesome, man, awesome. Consulting
work with Google, is that right? Or at least a tour of their offices?
>> David: I did, a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was consulting work. It's funny, this is
why I'm such a big proponent of essentially putting yourself out there online. What happens
is if you're out there doing good stuff and cool stuff, and you're out there and you really
care and you put a lot of time and effort into it, good stuff starts kicking back at
you. That's what happened to me, actually. I don't
know when it was, like a year and a half ago, something like that. Google called up and
they said, "Hey, we've got a new program that we're working on for entrepreneurship, small
business. We'd love to fly you out, we'd love to pay you for the day, do a little bit of
on-camera work and do some brainstorming session. It'll be you, and Chris Brogan and Anita Campbell
from Small Business Trends, and a couple of other people. I'm like, "Uh, yeah. What, do
I pay? Do you pay? Who's paying, here?" >> Pete: Yeah, exactly. "How do I get there?"
>> David: Right, exactly. And so what happens is it took some blood, sweat and tears to
get to that point. But we're definitely in this very interesting age now where anyone
can create a media platform online, and that can lead to all kinds of interesting things.
>> Pete: I think one of the big things that you spoke about there was the expert status
that you get. You indirectly spoke about that. And this is, I think, the reason I wanted
to get you on the show and chat about this. I've got some questions later about how to
find guests and how to do the interview, and probably the same sort of questions you have
been asked for four years. But what's the experience you've seen from
people you've taught or even yourself that not only-fundamentally, it's the expert status
and the positioning you get from being that go-to guy in the space when you're asking
questions and interviewing other key people? >> David: Yeah, I call it credibility by association.
Let's just put it this way: when I started on Day One, I didn't really have any credibility
in the space. I was just a guy who was like into it. I wasn't like, "Oh, here's all the
money I've made," or "Here's all the stuff I did."
My credibility was essentially built through interviewing other people. Because what happens
is when you associate yourself with these people, even if it's for a quick interview,
even if it's a 10-minute interview, basically, they're saying, "Oh look, there's David and
he's interviewing Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin. He's probably not a serial killer." Something
like that. What happens is there's the old saying, 'you become more who you're around,'
but it's also how you're perceived. >> Pete: Exactly.
>> David: So building credibility, which is one brick at a time, there's a million ways
to go about it. There's a billion ways to go about it, but for me, my biggest way of
doing it was by getting around credible people, learning and applying that to my own businesses.
And then that started building stuff over time, and that really was my approach to it.
>> Pete: The really cool thing about this is, most people when they hear about doing
interviews they think, "I've got to start a podcast or a Web TV show," like you've done
at The Rise To The Top. They sort of think, "Hang on, I'm a real-world business owner."
Or maybe, "I'm in a niche market doing information marketing. Have a podcast or do an interview
show, that's an extra thing I have to do." But to give you a grounded example of how
one of my clients has started to use interviews to grow his offline business; Michael was
in the golf real estate management business. It was golf estates and those sorts of places.
Trump does this. You've got the golf course, and on the golf course there's all this housing
estate. He manages all that sort of stuff. What I advised him to do as a way to build
up his credibility in that industry, because in his space, a lot of it is very much built
of pictures and tenders; the developer of the golf estate will be looking for someone
to come in and do the management of the resort and the real estate once it's been developed.
So it's not a transactional type business where you're selling 50 items a day. It's
one big contract. It's very much about him positioning himself over time as the expert
in that space. So when he goes to do a tender, people are already aware of who he is and
he's been pre-sold, almost, as an expert and a leader.
What he's been doing is he's been interviewing managers of golf estates, managers of golf
clubs from all around the world and putting them on his website, and then e-mailing certain
things of that to potential future clients. He'd go to, I think it's the Wentworth Golf
Club, a really famous golf club in the U.K. He was able to get in touch with the manager
of that golf estate and talk about the history of the golf estate, and the troubles they
have, and how they deal with those issues, and how they deal with all of that good stuff
as an interview. Not only did he now be able to get free consulting
from a hugely successful business in his space, but he then took that recording, put that
on his site, made him look like an expert, and then even e-mailed certain segments of
those interviews to prospective developers who he may work with in the future.
"There's a development going on and it'll be finished in 18 months time," and he grabbed
the part of the interview that talks about the issues of the actual physical development
and how you need to think about certain things during the development.
He sent that to a prospect and said, "Hey Joe, I know you're a couple of years away
from having the development finished. Here's an interview with a guy from Wentworth Golf
Club. There's a couple of things in there at the seven-minute mark that might be helpful
for you." It wasn't like pitching business, he wasn't
trying to get the guy to give him the contract. He's adding value to him by saying, "Here's
an interview that might help you," and he's automatically positioned by association with
Wentworth Golf Club management, which is just huge.
>> David: Yeah, it's a great example. There's many reasons to do interviews. And the one
that you just hit on, especially for people if they have an offline business; if relationships
with key people in your industry are an important part of your business, there's almost no better
excuse than to have an interview-based Web show to reach out to someone. That's one of
the best things, I say, is that a show is an unbelievable excuse and a handshake. So
if I reached out, like in the example. >> David: Let's just say he's trying to meet
this guy, and Phil's some big golf dude that he wants to know. As opposed to reaching out
to Phil and just trying to pitch him on something and saying, "Hey Phil, I know you've got this
new golf course that you're looking to promote and get the word out about.
I'd love to talk to you about how you designed it, and how you went about it. I'd love to
have you on my show to talk about that." You're flipping the mentality from someone that could
be defensive, that you want something from them. Instead, you're starting a relationship
by offering something. And I think that there's huge value to doing that, regardless of what
type of business you're in. >> Pete: Absolutely right. And this is the
really cool thing, and something that I know you teach that you could definitely talk about
later on, about how easy it is to technically do these interviews. Because again, people
probably think, "Oh my God, an interview, to do a half-hour interview with Phil," whoever
Phil is, "is going to take me like days and days and thousands of dollars to set up."
But realistically, it's a couple of e-mails. If you follow a good template and process
(which I know you have) and then literally, it's just jumping on Skype and calling that
person. They don't have to have Skype even. You can
just literally call their phone, their cell phone on Skype, record the Skype conversation,
and you've pretty much got the interview done and dusted.
>> David: Yeah. There's a lot of different ways that you could go. GoToMeeting, there's
easy software out there. And for me, it all depends on what type of business you're in.
I'm a fan of video, not only for interviews, but just in general as well. That's another
skill that I'm such a huge fan of. But yeah, a lot of people get hung up on the
tech stuff. My thing on that is that I have some easy suggestions for people. I'm not
really a person who's a tech geek or anything close to a tech geek at all, and it's taken
trial and error. But it's really not that bad for doing that. I don't want that to hold
people back, let's just put it that way. >> Pete: Exactly, I couldn't agree more. Michael
just literally called the guy on Skype in the UK, the software recorded the interview,
and it was basically done. It was very, very simple. So let's talk about approaching these
people. If you want to approach this Phil gentleman, or you're even in internet marketing,
info space and you potentially want a joint venture with someone down the path.
As you said, going to them early on and just building that relationship by giving value
first, i.e., a platform that that person can get their message out on via an interview
with you. How do you go about finding these people and
even approaching these people? It's a two-part question, but what's your experience with
that? I know you've done it hundreds and hundreds of times now with all your guests.
>> David: Yeah. Everything's a little bit different, but here's a few things. Number
one is when you're reaching out to someone, timing is everything in life in general, and
it's the same with doing an interview. Anyone's that's like a busy person (everyone's busy,
so everyone's a busy person), what I have noticed is one of the key things is timing
it around something big that they have going on.
If they have a book release, a new product, a new service, a new anything; it becomes
a perfect time to interview someone, as opposed to just randomly because you want to interview
them. And what I've noticed is if you look at The Tonight Show or anything like that,
the guest comes on, they talk about something random.
They could be talking about dating or they could be talking about God-knows-what. And
at the end, they plug the movie. It's the same as the case for doing interviews online
or in person, or wherever you want to do them. You can reach out to someone because they
have a new book or something like that, and then talk about a different subject on the
interview that ties into it. It doesn't have to be a direct subject that's
just like exactly what you want to do. So the first principle is the principle of timing.
The second principle is, and this one is very, very important; this might get slightly complicated,
but you have to have a strong brand presence online.
What I mean by that is not a huge viewership, but I'm telling you right now that branding
makes all the difference when it comes down to people saying 'yes' or 'no,' especially
if you don't know them. Because what's the first thing that happens when you ask for
an interview, what do you think the first thing someone does?
>> Pete: They're going to Google and check you out.
>> David: Right, right. Or they're going to go right to your website, directly. Some form
or fashion, either Google or they're going to go right to your website. And if your website
looks like crap, and it's a template and you can't find anything on there of any interest,
it says to me that this is amateur hour. For me, it's worth spending a little bit of
extra time and a little bit of extra money on developing a strong brand. I teach my students
who want to create their shows all strategies to create a strong foundation and get as specific
as they possibly can so they're not out there just throwing darts at the world when you
start to interview people. I get people to say, "These are the exact
types of people I want to interview, here's why, and here's my brand. This is what we
stand for, this is what I want people to look when they come to the site. You can see me
on there because people want to associate with a host."
All these things come to it because one of the biggest mistakes I see is when, before
people reach out to guests, they haven't spent enough time on their foundation of really
establishing something that someone wants to say 'yes' to. Because I'm telling you right
now, if your site looks pretty and looks cool, a guest will say 'yes' even if it's just you,
mom and the cat that are watching. >> Pete: Yep, exactly right.
>> David: Third thing real quick, is brevity in reaching out and not being a slimeball.
What I mean by that is when reaching out, let's say it's e-mail, phone, however you're
going to reach out to people; e-mail is my preferred, also Facebook is a good way, too,
but not being the guy who goes in there and writes War and Peace.
Like, "Here's my life bio" and all that kind of stuff. When that happens, you're going
to get a 'no' anyway, because "Oh my God, can you imagine the questions this person
is going to ask me if this is the first e-mail he sent me?"
So, keeping it very, very short, simply and to the point in the e-mail is something very
critical. I like to butter them up a little bit and say, "Hey, this is why I like you.
Basically, I have a show on blank-blank. I'd love to promote your new blank, and I'd love
to talk to you about blank. If that sounds great, let me know. We can set it up via Skype."
That's it. >> Pete: So be short, to the point, benefit-driven.
>> David: Five senses. That's one of the mistakes. This is the biggest nightmare, not to do as
well. I had this happen again the other day; I won't name names; but making it easy for
your guest to say 'yes,' and not having a list of criteria or making it complicated.
You're throwing them a party, you're not giving them work.
>> Pete: Nice, that's a very cool saying. >> David: Yeah. You're throwing them a party,
you're not giving them work. Let me give you an example of something that happened the
other day. I will not name it because it's happened to me and it sucks. Someone asked
me, first of all, they were very not-specific about what they wanted. They were like, "Oh,
can you help us out with something?" What does that mean? Then they finally asked
for an interview. Okay, I'll come on and do an interview. They then asked me to write
my own questions and answers for the interview. Own questions and answers for the interview,
and promised to send an e-mail blast out about it and a variety of other promotional things
as well. How do you think that made me feel? >> Pete: Well, it's just like, "Am I doing
all the work? What's to go with that?" >> David: They gave me a job, not a party.
And for me, the simpler you can make it for someone, "We're going to go on Skype, that's
it. If you need a little outline beforehand, great. If you don't, great," keeping things
very simple. You do the work, you come up with the questions,
and you develop that stuff. That's part of what you do as a host. Not giving it where
you're asking someone to write and answer their own questions, because you just gave
them a job. So that's another piece of advice. >> Pete: Let me ask you this, then: if it's
my responsibility as a host, which I agree, it absolutely should be, to come up with the
questions and the context of the interview; well, two-part question, firstly, what's your
strategy and process of coming up with the questions?
>> David: I've changed over time, for the better. When I started and as I script a lot
of things out, I would almost script out every question. I would write down questions I had
thought about, anything that pops in my head, brainstorm. Anything that I wanted to do.
And then I realized that that was a bit limiting, and here's why.
When you do this (and you know this, Pete), when you script out everything beforehand,
you end up thinking about your next question and not listening to the guest. Just think
about it; "All I'm thinking about right now is how I'm going to ask Pete about his haircut.
" I don't care what you're saying, that's what
happens when you script too many things out. So what I like to do is create notes about
topics that I want to cover in an interview. And what I've noticed is when I'm personally
curious about it, that's going to be the good interview.
And when I'm not personally curious about it, it's not going to be a great interview.
Let me give you an example, I'm still big into product launches, online products, and
had my friend Lewis Howes come on the show, talked about doing his like, $500,000 launch.
>> Pete: We're working out a time to get Lewis on the show here, actually, to talk about
LinkedIn at some point soon, which is very exciting.
>> David: Great guy, he'll be great for the show. I said, "Lewis, I'd love to have you
come on," and my questioning for that was everything that I wanted to know about product
launches, personally. I wanted to know, how did he come up with it?
How much did he pay beforehand? All these questions that came up, and I really did it
for "me," if you will. What ended up happening was, I think it was one of our Top 10 interviews
of all time. Why? Because people started coming and the response
being, "David, you asked exact questions that I had. That's what I would've asked. Oh my
God, great questions." I said to people, "You know, I wasn't even thinking about you."
>> Pete: You were just one of them. >> David: I'm laughing about it, but the approach
that I take and this is what you have to keep in mind as someone who wants to do an interview;
if you're listening to this and you're saying, "God, I want to give this a shot." The more
selfish you are with the questions, the better the interview is going to be.
And I know that sounds ridiculous and counterintuitive. "Always think about your community and always
think about that stuff," if you're leading a community of golf people or whatever they
are, they're going to want to know the same stuff that you do. That's my number one thing
there. >> Pete: I cut you off then. I was going to
then ask you the question, which was the second part, you were leading onto there perfectly.
What do you do (or have you experienced this) where people are trying to shove the questions
down your throat? They not necessarily have a publicist controlling
the whole thing or whether at least they've maybe done a publicity course and are aware
that if they get an interview they should try and pre-script questions to make it easier
for the interviewer. What's your experience with that? Have you had much?
>> David: I have, and I don't like it. Any time I'm working with PR people, some of them
are very lovely people; but I like to go for an authentic conversation, and you like to
go for an authentic conversation. And I feel like anyone who wants to do an interview that
is listening to this who wants to give this a shot, you want to go for authentic conversation.
That can get dampered when you have that pre-set script, if you will. I've never really had
someone say, "Ask me this," per se. It would be pretty audacious, but I'd appreciate that.
I would laugh and then definitely not ask it. I have had people request questions beforehand
for sure. I get that and I understand why. What I do, as opposed to sending very, very
specific questions, I'll just send an outline-ish of things that I want to cover just to give
them a scope of what they want to talk about. But I think the bigger the celebrity or the
bigger the person is that you're trying to interview, the more used to they are to the
scripted questions. >> Pete: Well, they have to be, because I
guess they're so conscious of their brand. But the downside that I see is that they're
used to cookie-cutter interviews. The catch is that if you're trying to build a long-term
audience, you're better off asking unique, personal, conversational-type questions.
Because it's going to be a different interview than they would've got by listening to that
person being interviewed by somebody else. You want to make your content that you create,
that you're involved with, unique. And the only way to do that is ask unique questions.
>> David: Yeah, and that is a fabulous point. I absolutely agree on that. The way to get
cookie-cutter interviews is to ask cookie-cutter questions.
>> Pete: Exactly. I want to give as a suggestion out there to people, which is left of field
but something that I did prepare that I wanted to suggest to people is that if you're in
an industry where you have wholesale or manufacture relationships, this is about getting guests.
It's a tip about getting guests that I think people don't really think about and don't
do enough, and that is lean on your wholesalers or your manufacturers. What I mean by that
is, let's say for example, you're in a retail space or even in an online space. In retail,
hypothetically, you have a bike store. In the online world, I have a number of e-commerce
sites through my companies and one of them is in the headset or headphone space. Now,
one of our manufacturers of products we do is GN Jabra, which is one of the largest manufacturers
of headphones and headsets around the globe, and they sponsor a number of professional
athletes. So I could easily create a podcast interview
series for my headset website, pieces of plastic, based on leaning on our suppliers and our
manufacturer to get me the guests, to get me access to some of these celebrities that
they sponsor. Maybe if we sold Beats headsets, for example, on our site, I could try to push
on the manufacturer to get me an interview with Lady Gaga or Dr. Dre.
They already have a relationship in place with those people. I think this is something
that businesses don't do enough, whether you're in the e-commerce space, in the retail space,
in any industry. And that's just not about leaning on them to get interviews, but just
pushing back and getting your wholesalers to be partners (and we talk about that quite
a bit in other episodes). But I think that's a great way that you can
get interviews with some really high-powered people, by looking at who your suppliers,
who your manufacturers, who your other key stakeholders are that you deal with, can pull
strings for you, rather than going direct. Get them to pull some strings.
>> David: Yeah, and also the lesson there, too, for people who are in less sexy industries,
for lack of a better term. If you sell something, whatever it is, look at who you're trying
to target with these interviews, meaning from an audience perspective. And think about what
they want, and whether talking about your product is going to be the wrong play.
Let me give you an example of what I mean, because that was a jargon-full there. So,
there's a company called Reactor Watch, these cool sports watches and they have a lot of
professional athletes that endorse them. They're working on developing some show concepts and
I said to them, "Listen, I know what you guys are thinking.
You're going to do a show about watches." Because I know, I know them well. "You're
going to do a show about watches, and it's going to be fine, but no one's going to care
because your community is not the passionate watch lover."
>> Pete: No. They buy a watch, and then move on and check it twice a day.
>> David: Right. What you are going after is the athlete people. People that love sports.
People that love action sports. That's like their niche. So what do you interviews have
to be with? Well, they have to be with the action sports people. You guys are sponsoring
these athletes, just get them on the show. Have the skateboarder guy and have the extreme
skiing guy, and make it a show that's about interviews with these cool extreme athletes.
Maybe there's an angle, a different angle. Maybe it's about their personal lives. However,
then you basically sponsor your own show and that's how you get the business return on
it. That's the advice that I gave them. So I'm
using that example to get the wheels spinning for people that are like, "Who would I interview?
What would it be on?" Think about what your customers or clients are into. That's what
you interview on. >> Pete: Exactly. It's not about the boring,
technical stuff. It's about the actual enjoyment, the lifestyle stuff that comes along with
using the products and services. >> David: Right. Like if they had, let's say,
a watch that was for the watch lover. It was all about people that sleep with their watches
under their pillows or something like that. That would be a whole different type of content
than when it's basically people that are into extreme sports that just happen to wear a
watch. And that's how you have to look at those things into pretty good detail.
>> Pete: Couldn't agree more. So I guess your show The Rise To The Top, you're saying you've
got some products off the back of that and things like that. I know one of them is a
course about interviewing. Do you want to talk a bit about that as well?
>> David: Yeah, and also I'd love to get some people to check out the free version of it
as well, which I know you'll have a special link for them, Pete. But basically what happened
was over four years and 300-plus shows and about 10 zillion hours at the least, to people
asking questions and wanting to know, how do I do this?
How do I get these great guests? How do I conduct a non-boring interview? What technology
do I need to use that's not going to make it stressful? How do I market and promote
these interviews so that people watch them? All these questions came in and I took about
a year, believe it or not, to develop the course.
And I say 'the course' because it really is the course on teaching people how to do their
own interview-based Web show, whether you want to do audio or video. It's called Create
Awesome Interviews. And Pete, you're going to have a link, I think, that you're going
to kick to people. >> Pete: Yeah, it'll be in the show notes
at PreneurMedia.tv, where all the show notes for all of the episodes of the podcasts are;
the transcripts, the downloads. So as always, we'll put some links there to your website,
your blog, and the course as well. >> David: Okay. So here's what people are
going to get; I'm going to tell them exactly what they're going to get when they're go
check this out. If you go to Pete's link, first and foremost you're going to get a free
course from me. You're going to get a three-part free course.
We're going to go through some of the major benefits of doing an online interview show.
We're going to go through some of-and this one, Pete, very, very important-the rookie
mistakes that I've made, everyone makes, and how to avoid them. Then we're going to go
through the tool and technologies that you need to get this started very, very simple.
>> Pete: Awesome. >> David: I have literally hundreds and hundreds
of graduates that have their own shows. I think we've had something like-I can't remember
the number, but we're getting close to 1000 new episodes produced from my students.
>> Pete: Very, very cool. >> David: A lot of people have developed shows
in all kinds of niches from NASCAR to healthy living. So you're going to get the free course.
Then at the end of it, you can go off and take that information and go rock on with
it, or you're going to have a limited time opportunity to jump in and take the main course.
If you do that, Pete's going to get a little delicious commission as well so check that
out. Again, I try to cater to people who really want to do this. This isn't like a flash in
the pan thing, this isn't like something that you press a button and Google drops off money
or something. It's something that's very cool. It takes
a little bit of time and work, but this is something that I would've crawled over fire
to get my hands on because I had to do it through all kinds of expensive trial and error,
and hours and hours and hours of time, so I'm hoping people check it out.
>> Pete: Very, very cool. So let me ask you one final question that is a question that
people get interesting reaction to, so I'll throw it out to you as well. What's the one
or two questions I haven't asked you during this conversation that I should've?
>> David: Oh man, that's hard. What would I have asked me? I would've asked whether
it is better or if I have a preference on whether you should do audio only or video
shows. And by the way, I'm just thinking off the top of your head here. Meaning, your interview
was quite good, Pete! >> Pete: [Laughs] So what's the answer to
that question? >> David: I prefer video. I prefer video.
I like them both, but my three quick reasons on video-by the way, and just to give you
the context here, video is more of a pain in the butt. No way around it. No way around
it, I'll tell you right now. Video's more of a pain in the butt. But is the pain in
the butt worth it? I would say yes for really three reasons. Number one is you can't see
what I'm doing right now. I'm sticking [unintelligible] the microphone
but you can't see it. And the reason is because we're in audio. And audio's great. It's great
for the imagination, it taps into a lot of senses. But if you want to hit all the senses
including body language, sight, feel, everything but smell on the internet, video allows you
to do that. Number two is that if you do create video,
you'll then have audio as well. You just export it. You create an audio file, you're off to
the races. So every version of my show, I have video and audio, and that goes to more
places. And that's always a good thing, spreading the tentacles wide, if you will.
And the third thing is while Pete and I have really good rapport in this conversation just
because we get along well, sometimes when you don't know someone very well or you barely
know them, or they're a little quiet or something like that, being able to see someone changes
the dynamic. Meaning, just being able to see your guest
a little bit. Think about a phone call versus seeing someone in person. It's a little bit
different. I prefer it because I can see if someone is glazing over and falling asleep
at their desk. I can get that face-to-face rapport that you can't quite get with audio.
So when people come to me, I'm not anti-audio shows, I'm very pro audio-shows; I'm pro every
type of show. But if someone's like, "Video looks like a little pain in the butt. Should
I do it?" I often do say yes. >> Pete: Well, let me ask you this, because
the first reaction that a lot of people probably get to that thought of doing video is, "I've
got to get my hair done right, every day." But more importantly, does that reduce the
amount of potential guests you can have because people don't feel like they don't want to
be on video or they don't know themselves, as a guest, how to do video, to get on the
other side of the camera? >> David: Yeah, that's a great question. I
think it definitely depends on the niche. That's an absolute great point, Pete, for
sure. But here's my way around it: if you have, let's say, an industry where audio's
your only option at end of the day, I would do that, and then find another way that I
can incorporate videos into the business. Because video is critical, right? We can all
agree with that. >> Pete: Absolutely. It just comes down to
shooting for the moon. And if you miss, you land in the stars. So you shoot for video
with these guests. And if they can't do video, you go, "Alright, let's just do an audio interview."
>> David: Yup, I agree, I agree. >> Pete: I think, too if you want to get a
bit, I'll use the word 'tricky,' it's probably not the ideal word because it probably has
negative connotations with it; but if you give someone an option of video and that's
your first option and they say no, you can easily counter with an audio interview. But
if you go directly with an audio interview and they say no, what can you counter with?
A written interview? >> David: A text interview. The least likely
that anyone is going to say yes to, a text interview, because that's a job.
>> Pete: Exactly. From a salesmanship perspective, you ask for what you want. So if they do say
no to that, you can still come up with something that is a compromise. And if you frame it
right and the context is right when you go back to them, then they're going to feel more
obligated to say yes to that because they said no to the first thing. And people don't
like saying no continually if there's value there.
>> David: Right. I agree. >> Pete: Awesome, man. That's the average
podcast length that we do here on PreneurCast, mate. Thank you for pushing through the illness
and sticking through. The voice held up. Mate, really appreciate your time!
>> David: Alright, thanks Pete. Pleasure having on. I hope it helped everyone out and I'm
going to go drain tea like it's my business. >> Pete: Awesome, man. Talk to you soon.
>> David: See ya.